Her childhood experiences instilled a deep gratitude for agriculture and a belief in its potential. However, parents' tiredness led her to question the limits of small-scale farming in China compared to the large-scale operations in the United States.

　　“I want to explore the potentials of poultry farming,“ she said.

　　At the University of California, Davis -- a renowned institution for agricultural and bioscience research -- Ming achieved dual degrees in Managerial Economics and Animal Science during her undergraduate years.

　　The experience of living and working abroad made Ming reassess the potential of agriculture. She began to see it as a highly specialized industry requiring diverse knowledge.

　　Returning to her hometown after graduation in 2012, Ming was struck by what she saw: mottled walls, rusty metal roofs and Leshan's first modern chicken house, barely a year old, still underutilized.

　　JOURNEY HOME

　　Determined to make a change, she resigned from her high-paying job as a senior auditor at Deloitte in Chengdu despite opposition from her family in 2019. Her resolve also inspired her husband, Lei Yu, her colleague at Deloitte and a city man who had never even seen a live chicken before coming to Shawan, to join her in the countryside.

　　The couple took over Ming's family workshop with 2,000 laying hens in a backyard coop, which dated back to 1997.

　　Ming bought the family's first computer. Focusing on utilizing smart devices to manage the chickens through intuitive data monitoring scientifically, Ming and Lei had no social life for the first five years.

　　“We spent day and night at the chicken farm, even eating and sleeping there,“ she recalled.

　　Their sacrifices paid off.