Weicheng Town is under the administration of Guiyang City, capital of China's southwestern Guizhou Province. The area has nearly 30,000 residents, some of whom live in villages scattered around the mountains.

　　貴陽市衛城鎮是一個小鎮。幾個村子散落在鎮子附近的山中，整個地區住著兩三萬人。

　　Wang Hua is a staff member at the branch post office in Weicheng. There are about 300 letters and parcels for him to deliver on a daily basis. Usually he carries the 40 kg mailbag on the motorcycle and tramps over the mountains. "Some of the parcels are fresh fruits from the folks' children, which could go bad very quickly,” Wang said. “The parcels also include emergency medicines, ID cards people need urgently for their business."

　　王華是衛城鎮郵政支局的工作人員，每天要送兩三百個郵件。平時，他把七八十斤的郵包挎在摩托車上，翻山越嶺挨家挨戶地送?！坝械氖呛⒆有⒕锤改傅男迈r水果，不能久放；有的是網購的急用藥品；有的是郵遞到老家辦急事用的身份證、戶口本。”

　　Wang begins work at 8 a.m. He has to walk about 100 km per day to cover all the villages, and finishes at about 6 p.m. It takes longer when the weather is bad. Knowing that the parcels are eagerly expected, Wang take good care of them as if they were of his own. "The job is about earning people's trust." he said.

　　早八點，王華就出發了。要走完所有的村子，一天大概得走一百公里，直到下午五六點才能送完。有時候，遇到刮風下雨，就更耗時間。不過，想到大家都在盼著快遞快點到，王華依然像保護自己的東西一樣保護著包裹和信件：“我送快遞其實送的就是一份安心。”

　　He takes the same route three times a week and he is quite familiar with the villagers, whom he often runs into and has brief chats with.

　　這樣的路途，王華每周要走三次。因而，他和村民們混得很熟。一路上，都能碰到和他拉家常的人。

　　In January of this year, Wang's duties changed a lot. A pilot drone delivery project was launched at the branch post office where he works.

　　今年1月起，王華的郵遞之路便有了極大的改變。因為，他所在的郵局成為使用無人機向邊遠山區投送郵件的試點。

　　The course of the drone is set by a R&D company in Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province. Wang is in charge of the takeoff procedure. In the morning, he lays a blue and red blanket on the ground. It's a positioning device for takeoff and landing. Then he mounts the packages under the belly of the drone and checks the battery before he sets it off by scanning the QR code on the machine.

　　無人機的航線由位于杭州的研發公司設定好，王華負責具體的起飛操作。早上，他將一塊紅藍相間的毯子鋪在地上。這是無人機起飛和降落的定位毯。隨后，王華把無人機機腹下方的郵包裝載好，檢查電池情況，用手機app掃碼讓無人機起飛。

　　A fully charged drone can fly for 30 minutes carrying the cargo of 5 kg, enough for it to reach the nearby villages. There's a relay person in every village who guides the drone with another blanket, gets the mail and replaces the battery. In this way, the parcels are delivered across the town with efficiency.

　　充滿電的無人機大約能載著5公斤郵件飛行30分鐘，這足夠到達附近的村莊。每個村莊有自己的接收員。同樣利用定位毯輔助，他們在無人機降落后負責取郵件并更換電池。就這樣，無人機和操作員們用接力的方式，將郵件送到周邊的所有村莊。

　　While it took a day to deliver the mails, the drone can do it within an hour.

　　從前，需要一天才能完成的投遞，現在用無人機，一個小時就能完成。

　　"Once, an old lady in Lianhua Village had her daughter buy her some emergency medicine on line. It would've taken me 3 hours on a motorcycle to deliver it. But with the drone, it took less than 20 minutes," said Wang.

　　“有一次，蓮花村有個老太太，讓她女兒在網上買了藥。她又急用。如果我用摩托車給她送過去，就要三個多小時。用無人機十幾分鐘就送過去了?！蓖跞A說。

　　Many villagers had never seen a drone before. "At first, people were astonished. They gathered in our place just to watch how it works." Some of them asked about the timetable and went to watch several times.

　　很多村民都是第一次見到無人機?！皠傞_始的時候，老百姓都覺得很稀奇，都到我們平臺上來看熱鬧。”有的人甚至專門詢問無人機起飛的時間，來看了好幾次。

　　Now that the drone delivery is well accepted, only the heavy parcels are delivered using motorcycles. The R&D company collects data of the drone's performance in the town in the hope that the service could be introduced to more remote villages.

　　現在，村民已經很習慣用無人機送快遞，只有大件還在用摩托車送。根據無人機在鎮上的表現，研發公司也在加緊研究，希望能把無人機送貨普及到更多人力難以到達的邊遠山村。

　　"No matter what tools I use to deliver, I'm always closely connected with the villagers," says Wang. Technology may change many things, but the principle of a postman to deliver fast and reliably will always be the same.

　　“不管用哪種方式送快遞，我和老百姓的感情還是和從前一樣?！蓖跞A說。為了快，為了安心，郵遞員的宗旨也未曾隨科技改變。