Chapter 8: Chapter 8 The First Point of Contact — Where the Sun Returns

As soon as she got home, Miên pulled the dusty laptop out of her backpack. Thanks to her grandmother's wifi network that was just installed last week, she immediately started doing the work she knows best.

She placed the laptop on the rickety wooden table in the middle of the porch, where the yellow filament light fell on the keyboard. Her fingers glided over the keys with a familiar rhythm that she had forgotten for the past month, only this time, there was no impatient sigh from department head Hà standing behind her supervising, no unreasonable deadline weighing down on her shoulders. Only the sound of crickets chirping in the garden and the sound of clicking keys blend together into a separate song of the highland night.

Within just two hours, a Facebook Fanpage named "Wood Farm - Fragrance of the Highlands" was established.

Miên designed a minimalist logo in the shape of a tree sprouting from the palm of his hand. The page interface is covered with cool green and warm brown of mother earth.

With sneaky photos of Hoàng Phong's bare back sweating profusely hoeing the soil at dawn, the scene of his rough hands cradling a cherry tomato root, and especially the close-up photo of "a bunch of vegetables with holes in them", Miên began writing the first lines of content.

Unlike the sensational and cliché advertisements at agencies (advertising companies) in the city, this time Miên writes with her most honest experiences and emotions.

*"Are you afraid that a bunch of vegetables will be bitten by worms?

*At Mộc Farm, we're proud of those holes. Because it is a testament to a living ecosystem. A place where earthworms are free to plow, where ladybugs are welcomed to catch aphids, and where vegetable plants must strive to fight nature on their own to survive, instead of being surrounded by a shiny but toxic layer of chemicals.*

*Our vegetables are not perfect in appearance. It is rough, mottled, and probably smaller than vegetables at the market. But when you put it on the table, you are nourishing your family with the most original purity of Mother Earth.*

*Mộc Farm does not sell vegetables. We offer peace of mind."*

Attached to the article is a call for pre-orders for the next harvest in the next three days. Miên posted the article on her personal page, sharing it in "Green Living" and "Love Clean Food" groups in the city where she is a familiar member.

Hoàng Phong stood with his back against the door frame, looking at the little girl typing frantically. Her eyes glowed with a strange magic power. For the first time, Phong saw the power of what is called "Marketing". It doesn't cost a single drop of sweat, but it reaches thousands of people with just a click of the mouse.

He stood silently looking for a long time, feeling both strange and admiring at the same time. During three long months alone renovating the abandoned garden, he became accustomed to proving its value with his calloused hands and meticulous scientific measurements. But the girl sitting in front of him right now is proving something completely different: sometimes, true value needs someone who knows how to tell it in a language that the hearts of the people of the city can touch.

"Do you think anyone will buy these things online? Transporting fresh vegetables from the highlands to the city is a difficult problem," Phong said.

"It's difficult but not impossible," Miên turned around in her chair, smiling confidently. "You pack the vegetables in banana leaves instead of plastic bags for me. Find a bus company that runs the night route to the city. Vegetables are cut in the evening, sent to the car at night, and the next morning the customer will receive them as fresh as if they were just picked from the garden." Phong nodded thoughtfully. In his mind, he began calculating the storage temperature and optimal transportation time so that the vegetables would not wither. He is naturally a person of numbers and processes, but this time, he chose to trust the intuition of the city girl sitting in front of him, even though he himself had never tested a similar sales model.

That night, Miên didn't sleep. She stays awake to answer every comment and every message that flows to the fanpage. Her article, with a rare sincerity, touched the "pain" of city housewives who are always afraid of dirty food.

Every few minutes, her phone vibrated with new comment notifications. Some people asked about the packaging process, some people were curious about the story behind the photo of the muddy engineer, some people frankly shared their obsession with the chemical-laced vegetable scandals they had read in the newspaper. Miên answered each person individually, meticulously and sincerely, as if she were chatting with old friends she hadn't seen for a long time, not running a sales campaign.

After just one night, the article received more than 2,000 shares.

The next morning, Miên, with dark eyes but a radiant face, slammed the paper with the order list printed on the breakfast table.

"Engineer, eat breakfast quickly! We have 150 orders to cut and pack this afternoon. All the vegetables out there aren't enough to sell!" Miên shouted.

Phong picked up the paper, his deep eyes opened wide in surprise. 150 orders. The price per kilogram of vegetables is three times more expensive than the price at the rural market that he sold yesterday. The customer has paid 100% in advance.

He looked up at Miên. The morning sunlight streamed through the window, dancing on her messy hair.

"Can you really do it?" Phong muttered softly.

"I told you, never underestimate Marketing people," Miên raised her chin arrogantly and gave a thumbs up. "And never give up your value just because of a few criticisms on the market."

Phong smiled slightly, the most radiant and sincere smile ever. His heart seemed to be rekindled by the passionate fire of this city girl.

That afternoon, the whole garden was bustling. Miên rolled up his pants and waded into Phong's side garden to cut vegetables. She carefully arranged each bunch of vegetables on banana leaves, using bamboo strips to tie them instead of rubber bands. Phong meticulously checked each package and placed it in cartons lined with newspaper. The two of them coordinated smoothly, occasionally teasing each other with familiar sarcasm.

At one point, Miên's loose grip on tying the bamboo strips caused a bunch of vegetables to fall out in the middle of the aisle. She frantically picked them back up while Phong stood next to him with his arms crossed, pretending to be serious and said "The packaging staff is not up to standard, salary will be deducted" causing Miên to throw a handful of banana leaves at him in retaliation. The two laughed loudly, their laughter echoed throughout the garden in the late afternoon, erasing all the fatigue of a long, busy day.

Grandmother sat on the porch, chewing betel, looking at two figures, one tall and one short, busy in the garden, her mouth curled into a gentle smile. Occasionally, she would secretly squint her eyes to follow Phong's eyes every time he glanced at Miên, then gently shook her head with a smile, as if she had seen through something that both children still did not dare to admit to themselves.

Before the last box was loaded onto the car, Phong suddenly thrust a small piece of paper into Miên's hand. "Write something here, stick it in the first box. Customers put their trust in us, they deserve a nice thank you, not just a bunch of vegetables."

Miên was stunned for a moment by this unexpected proposal, then smiled, picked up the pen and neatly wrote a few short lines: "Thank you for believing in a small garden on the plateau. We promise to always be honest with every bed of land we plant." She folded the piece of paper carefully and placed it among the green vegetables still lingering in the afternoon dew.

Mộc Farm's first shipment boarded the bus at night. Miên stood and watched the passenger car's taillights disappear into the night, with an indescribable feeling of both nervousness and satisfaction rising in her heart. This is not simply a shipment, but the first evidence that the road she and Phong are on, although bumpy, can still lead to a bright destination.

Standing next to her in the dim darkness of the bus stop lights, Phong spoke softly, his voice carrying a nuance that Miên had never heard before: "Thank you. For the past three months, I thought I just needed to do the technical part well and that would be enough. If the soil is good, the tree will speak for itself. But it turns out that good soil is not enough, there must be someone who knows how to let the whole world listen to its voice."

Miên turned to look at him, their eyes met for a brief moment under the yellow light of the bus station. There was something invisible that had silently changed between them since that night, although neither of them dared to name it.

It's not just bunches of vegetables. That is the first touch point connecting the barren plateau with the vast world out there. And it is also the first point of contact, drawing two seemingly opposite souls closer together.