As soon as dawn broke, I started working. Accompanied by the piercing cold wind, I took a deep breath and deftly climbed up to the No. 8 compactor control panel. The new day of dynamic compaction operations in Yanggao Development Zone kicked off amidst the thunderous roar of the earth.

The 32 ton rammer may seem bulky, but it falls vertically in mid air, hiding countless days and nights of precise calculations by engineers. Working in the unique collapsible loess layer of Yanggao, every hammering cannot tolerate any negligence. To me, the 1.8-meter ramming displacement on the level is like an encrypted telegram transmitted from deep within the geological layers, telling the changes in the soil layer and guiding our next steps. This land is about to bear the thousand ton weight of the future industrial park. Once there is a slight mistake, the phenomenon of foundation settlement will occur, and the consequences will be unimaginable.

The weather is hot, and my back has already been soaked in sweat. Feng Shuai waved the signal flag 30 meters away, loudly commanding with his voice, and the level under his feet faithfully recorded the data of the 10th strike. Stop! Reverse! "His shout, mixed with mechanical buzzing, intermittently entered my ears. Even though it is noisy, those instructions are still clear and powerful, guiding every step of the compactor's operation. I made an OK gesture with my hands soaked in oil, and at this moment, all the 6000kN · m energy level tamping points were finally completed. During the lunch break, Li Sheng excitedly took out his phone and recorded a video: "Everyone, look at this compactor! Every time it falls, you can feel the vibration of the earth." This young man hopes to share the construction process online and let the outside world experience the true charm of the "infrastructure maniac".

Feng Jun held the blue engineering drawings in his arms and paced back and forth on the site where the dynamic compaction had just been completed, wearing work safety shoes stained with rammed earth. I and the technician Li Sheng closely followed him. The GPS in Li Sheng's hand glowed silver-white in the afterglow, like a sentry standing by at any moment. "Let's start counting the ramming pits. We have to check them one by one in accordance with the drawings," Feng Jun said. The drawings were densely dotted with red spots marking the positions of the ramming pits. The three of us spread out in a fan shape and squatted on the soft rammed earth, marking each ramming pit we counted. When we counted to the 127th pit and it completely matched the number on the drawings, Li Sheng's tense shoulders relaxed slightly. "Pass the acceptance inspection!" The moment Feng Jun solemnly signed his name on the pit inspection form, Li Sheng and I looked at each other and smiled. The task was accomplished.  

Before finishing work, I check the wear and tear of the steel wire rope as usual. Touching the decoupling rope covered in yellow soil, the photo of the Datong ancient city brick on the wall of the project department involuntarily floated in my mind. Six hundred years ago, the city walls built by our ancestors with their hands still stand tall today; As time passes, the story of construction on this land continues. Now, with the help of modern machinery, we are building new foundations on this ancient land. What has changed is the ever-changing technology, but what remains unchanged is the down-to-earth and persistent determination to face difficulties.

Thinking that the piling team would enter the site at three o'clock tomorrow morning, I instinctively tightened my seatbelt and gazed out at the industrial park where the lights were gradually rising. It's hard to imagine how prosperous this land, soaked in our sweat and expectations, will grow in five years.

We, as a group of people who struggle with the land, are more like ink artists who continue to write new chapters in ancient poems. The machinery in the hand is a pen, and the yellow soil under the feet is paper. The epic of struggle belonging to this era is written day and night. When the sun rises again tomorrow, the roar of new machinery will resound once again, and we will still be here, carving the future with our hands, letting this land shine with the brightest light in our perseverance!

Wang Guowei