A young girl stepped out from the crowd facing off. She had a refined and elegant demeanor and delicate features.

His tone was icy: "Do you intend to settle in Xiao Family Village?"

Jiang Zhiguang was completely baffled by this seemingly unrelated question.

“I think you’ve got it wrong. We’re here to buy fruit, not to settle down.” Liang Jianming didn’t mind answering the beautiful young woman’s question in a normal tone.

Bai Lu also gave a normal sneer: "The villagers have all said they won't sell anymore, and you still won't leave. What else is this but settling down?"

"Are you going to stay in Anzhai on the grassland and camp out to celebrate the New Year?"

Liang Jianming: "..."

Jiang Zhiguang sneered: "Who wants to stay in this shabby mountain village any longer? Don't use not selling as an excuse. We've already seen through your little trick of trying to raise the price. The price we're offering is already the highest in the market. If you don't believe me, go outside and see for yourself."

"How much would this substandard fruit fetch on the market? Would it be worth as much as the five cents we're offering?"

"We are willing to waste time waiting to receive the goods because of the friendly cooperation we have had in previous years. If you want to raise prices on the spot, you should give up on that idea as soon as possible!"

“Besides us, no one else in the entire South City will come to Xiaojia Village to buy your rotten fruits.”

Bai Lu sneered calmly, "Buy low, sell high, and make a hundredfold profit?"

Jiang Zhiguang was startled and had to re-examine the formidable young woman before him. He saw that she had a cold expression and was wise and clear-headed, unlike those ignorant mountain brutes.

So he stopped beating around the bush and said, "This is not something you should be concerned about, nor is it something you can interfere with. Fruit that does not meet the standards can only be priced like this in Nanshi."

It turns out that these are the five major buyers who monopolize the Nanshi fruit market, and their people are also inside the trading company.

Bai Lu knew that talking to these people would be useless and would only expose the plan prematurely, so getting rid of them was the key.

Whether our fruit meets market standards or is up to the market regulators to supervise. What does it have to do with you? You have no say in this.

"It's your business if you think the price is too high, and it's our business if we think the price is too low and refuse to sell."

Xiao Guofu rarely saw Bai Lu speak so frankly, so he figured that this group of buyers must be different from the group that forcibly took over the sand last time, and they were not easy to deal with.

He decisively echoed, "We said we're not selling, and that means we're not selling. You can leave now."

Seeing this, the villagers echoed in unison, "We won't go up the mountain to pick fruit, so give up on that idea!"

"Five cents isn't even enough to cover the labor cost. Who would be so bored as to climb up and down like that!"

"Buy from whomever you want, our fruit won't be sold cheaply!"

"If you want to leave, then leave. We're not going to serve you anymore!"

Although Xiaojia Village has many mountains and trees, with overlapping peaks, not every mountain is covered with fruit trees.

Back in the days of the production team, we planted fir and pine trees... There was no collective planning for planting fruit trees, and most of the fruit trees on the mountain were wild and scattered.

Later, during the land reform, the mountains were distributed to the villagers, and the fruit trees were transplanted according to the situation.

They didn't cut down any of the other big trees on the mountain, so they picked the fruit here and there, which was time-consuming and laborious.

Some of the mountain peaks are steep, and the paths are winding and full of loose rocks, so there is a risk of landslides if you are not careful.

Five cents is considered "selling" labor cheaply.

The villagers used to be so poor they couldn't even afford to eat, and they didn't know anything about the fruit market outside. So they worked themselves to the bone picking fruit, earning just enough for a bag of salt.

Now that Bai Lu and Xiao Cheng's roasted chestnut business has taken off, bosses come to the village every few days to buy chestnuts, and their lives are not so hard anymore.

That way, we won't have to sell labor at a low price anymore.

Jiang Zhiguang and his team, having made a wasted trip, were unhappy: "Don't be ungrateful! Have you ever seen anyone else come here besides us to buy fruit every year?"

"Hurry up and pick the fruit! Sell it to us, and use the money to buy food. Don't let the fruit rot on the trees, or everyone will suffer."

“These days, fruit is hard to sell, and besides, it’s not like only your Xiao Family Village has fruit. If you don’t come up the mountain to pick fruit soon, we’ll go and buy it elsewhere first, and then you’ll regret it…”

"ah!!!"

"What the hell is that?!"

Before Liang Jianming could finish speaking, a large, black, smelly blob of goo fell down in front of him.

When he couldn't stand the stench any longer and looked up, a cow was passing by him from the side, its rear end right in front of his face.

"puff--"

Another lump of cow dung landed, and it even caused diarrhea!

The fumes knocked Liang Jianming unconscious.

A seven or eight-year-old shepherd boy, dressed in coarse linen clothes, leisurely walked through the middle of the battlefield, leading his ox.

"Pfft—smack!"

"Plop—plop—plop—" Brother Niu sprang along, excitedly whipping his tail.

A pile of runny excrement, a precious gift, was thrown precisely onto Jiang Zhiguang and the others' hands, faces, and bodies.

They even left out the tents.

Luck level is off the charts!

"vomit--"

A group of grown men vomited violently and ran to jump into the river. On the way, they began frantically shaking their limbs, trying to shake off the cow dung, but the cow dung was too runny and stuck to them the more they shook.

Liang Jianming was also dragged away by the driver who was with him.

Bai Lu, Xiao Guofu, and the others watched as the ten figures "favored" by Brother Niu jumped into the river and scrubbed themselves from head to toe with all their might.

I took a long time to get up after washing.

He probably wasn't quite clean yet, still covered in wet clothes, and ran back to the truck without stopping.

They drove off quickly.

The area where the two sides were facing off was quite wide, about several tens of meters, and the smell still drifted over on the wind.

My dear reader, there's more to this chapter! Please click the next page to continue reading—even more exciting content awaits!