Since it opened last year, the e-commerce center has achieved more than 800,000 yuan in sales volumes.

Zhao has been amazed by the positive changes in Yanta since he returned.

"Now there are many wide roads across the village and flowers are in full bloom. It's really beautiful," he says.

He has joined the "rural CEO program", in which the local authority has set up a talent cultivation fund and encourages villagers who know both the city and the village to become leaders that can find ways to connect the two.

Zhao has proposed to retain the original look of Yanta and tap into the potential of local culture to build a modern village.

In August, Zhao began managing a coffee shop inaugurated by the local cooperative, which has become a hit among travelers to the village.

During the National Day holiday last year, Zhao took the initiative to stage a music festival where he invited student bands from nearby colleges to perform.

It managed to pack in urban visitors.

"Every alley is filled with flowers, resembling a garden right outside each resident's home," says Zhao Gang, director of the village committee.

"Different flowers emerge during the four seasons, which has greatly improved local living environment," he adds.

Most locals now take into account the possible business opportunities when they are building houses or renovating the old ones, Zhao Gang says.

Yanta will continue to work with institutes of higher learning in the future and strive to evolve into a facility for college students to conduct practical studies.

"It will offer intellectual support for rural vitalization while helping to raise the quality of life for the villagers," Zhao Gang says.

Yanta is one of the villages in Kunming that the local authority is planning to vitalize by introducing talent from universities and through the "rural CEO program".

At the moment, six villages in Kunming have been named a rural vitalization model through cooperation between Kunming and China Agricultural University.

For Zhao Quankang, the cafe is just the beginning of what he has in mind for Yanta.

He has planned to develop a "maze" in the corn fields, a playground for family travelers among the rapeseed flowers and homestays near the rice paddies.

The idea is to develop a rural vitalization model integrating businesses, the rural cooperative and households in the village.

"Coming back to work in the village is a bold decision, and I'll do my best in the future to live up to expectations of my fellow countrymen," he says.

Contact the writers at yangfeiyue@chinadaily.com.cn