Changing attitudes

One of the biggest changes is that young people in Sichuan now seem to have a different attitude toward leaving their hometowns.

In 2016, two years after graduating from a university in Chengdu, Sichuan's capital, He Xin applied for a civil service job in his hometown in a county in Yibin.

"I owned a new media studio in Yibin for two years, but it did not work out," he said.

"I knew local civil servants could earn a decent salary and they were able to practice what they preached, so I applied for a low-level position because of the fierce competition at the higher levels."

He was quickly dispatched to work in a village situated on the same hill as Zhang Yunying's home.

Nowadays, if Zhang Yunying leaves her keys at the store, it only takes 40 minutes for her to make a return journey by car to pick them up.

He Xin drives along the same road to the village where he works.

The journey only takes an hour, and it is difficult for him to understand the changes sealed roads have made to local residents' lives.

"I have heard from the senior staff that in days gone by almost no young university graduates wanted to work in the villages because they did not want to settle down on the mountain," He said.

Poor infrastructure had long impeded social and economic development, while growing urbanization resulted in declining populations in China's rural areas.

Now, working at the grassroots is a good option for people who want to avoid the fierce competition in big cities, according to He.

After the government decided to deepen rural development, more and more resources were poured into the antipoverty battle in the countryside, while reducing the cost and time of accessing job opportunities and social services became a priority.

From 2013 to 2017, the central government spent 400 billion yuan ($61 billion) on building and upgrading rural roads, and now about 99 percent of the villages located on plateaus, deserts or grassland have access to roads.