Chapter 126 Have you ever grown mushrooms before?

When Lin Chuntao mentioned dividing the money, Lin Chunxing and Lin Duo'er, apart from Lin Chunhe, looked bewildered. The two sisters thought that Lin Chuntao was already married, and they assumed that she was going to divide the family property.

"Sister, why do we have to split the money? Are you going to separate from us?" Lin Duo'er couldn't keep it to herself and blurted out the question. Lin Chuntao frowned upon hearing this and looked at her as if she were a fool. "Splitting the money? I'm just giving each of you some pocket money because the family is making money."

"Then we'll just ask you for it when we need it."

Lin Chuntao: "..."

"What if I'm not home? Wouldn't it be better to have some money on hand?"

Lin Duo'er grinned. It would be good to have the money, but what if she lost it? That would be such a waste. Anyway, she would just tell Lin Chuntao when she needed the money, and she would give it to them.

Lin Chunxing didn't care if it wasn't for the sake of dividing the family property; she would follow Lin Chuntao's arrangements.

Lin Chuntao looked at them and said, "I did a quick calculation today. Our sauce earned forty strings of cash last month, and our soup noodles and braised eggs earned more than ten strings of cash. If business is good in the future, we can earn even more, and we sisters will have money in the future."

"Chunxing makes the rice noodle soup, and although I make the sauce, Chunhe takes care of many things on a daily basis. Duo'er is a little bit small, but she doesn't let anyone worry about cutting pig feed, feeding the pigs and chickens. Everyone has contributed to making money, so I said I would give you some money every month. You can keep it and buy whatever you want, or you can save it if you want."

As soon as Lin Chuntao finished speaking, the sisters were all beaming with excitement, as if they had only just learned that their family was making money.

Seeing them like this, Lin Chuntao asked, "Tell me, how much pocket money do you want each month?"

Hearing this, the sisters looked at each other, and finally all looked at Pei Ying.

Pei Ying smiled and said, "I won't take any pocket money. You can figure it out yourselves."

Lin Chuntao replied, "Yes, just say as much as you want, and I'll take a look."

Lin Chunxing pondered for a moment before looking at Lin Chuntao and speaking.

"Sister, is five hundred coins alright?"

Lin Chuntao nodded. "Okay, what about you two?"

Lin Chunhe: "Then I'll be the same as my second sister."

Lin Duo'er: "Me too."

Lin Chuntao originally planned to give one string of cash, but Lin Chunxing made a smaller request, asking for only five hundred coins.

"Don't you want more?" Lin Chuntao asked.

Lin Chunhe said, "That's a lot. It's not good to keep too much money in our room. We'll ask my sister for more when we run out."

Lin Chuntao nodded, and after agreeing, she went to get the money and counted it: five hundred coins per person.

Lin Chunhe held the half string of cash, feeling a little strange. Her sister had led them to a good life, with houses to live in, food to eat, meat to eat, new clothes and new cloth shoes. They even had leather boots made. This was already very good. She never thought that her sister would give them 500 cash a month as pocket money.

Holding the money, Lin Duo'er asked Lin Chuntao with a grin, "Sister, can we buy anything with this money?"

Lin Chuntao said, "Yes, either way is fine."

Hearing this, Lin Chunxing knew she wanted to buy something, so she asked with a smile, "Duo'er, what do you want to buy?"

Lin Duo'er's eyes darted around, and finally she looked at Lin Chuntao and said, "I want to buy a hair accessory, the bright red one."

Lin Chuntao knew she was talking about hair flowers. They were sold at the market. Some skilled craftsmen made those flowers, fake ones, but they could be worn on the head. Lin Chuntao couldn't imagine how ridiculous it would look on a child like Lin Duo'er, but children's preferences were different from adults', so she let her be.

Lin Chunxing always had some money on hand because she was making rice noodle soup, which she could spend directly. However, she was quite frugal. Lin Chuntao, on the other hand, spent money much more lavishly. Often, Lin Chuntao would buy and cook whatever Lin Chunxing wanted or ate, so it seemed like she didn't want anything anymore.

The money was divided among the sisters, and Lin Chuntao also took a share, which she put in the drawer of her bedside table, along with the wages Pei Ying had brought back.

Pei Ying spent most of her wages on meat. Lin Chuntao would sometimes remember to add some, and sometimes she was too busy to pay. They were all family, so it didn't matter whose money was spent.

Lin Chuntao used to think that Pei Ying had traveled all the way to Yizhou alone, without any relatives or friends, and it would be a bit inappropriate to spend all his money. But now it didn't matter. Those 560 silver notes were more than enough for food and clothing.

Pei Ying noticed Lin Chuntao's actions and turned to her, saying, "Let's go to the city in a few days. If there's a suitable shop, we'll buy one and have Chunxing move the noodle soup stall there."

Lin Chuntao raised her eyebrows slightly, and Pei Ying said, "I asked Brother Zhang and the others, and it seems that a shop only costs sixty or seventy taels."

Lin Chuntao laughed and said, "Sure, I'll count the money these next few days."

Pei Ying said, "Just take the silver notes to exchange for them, and then use them to pay."

Lin Chuntao wanted to say that it was given to him by the Pei family, but she felt that it wouldn't be good to say it out loud. Pei Ying could tell what she was thinking just by looking at her like this. Earlier, he felt that Lin Chuntao was trying to distance herself from him by keeping her money separate, and that they were each their own, which made him a little sad.

As time went on, he came to understand her personality and realized that she might also be thinking of him.

"Although the money was given to me by them, isn't the shop ours after we buy it?"

After Pei Ying finished speaking, Lin Chuntao smiled helplessly.

Having spent so much time together, Pei Ying has treated his younger sisters like an older brother, and Lin Chuntao is quite happy that they get along well. However, she always feels that her younger sisters are her own, and raising them is her responsibility, not Pei Ying's.

After thinking for a moment, Lin Chuntao agreed: "Okay, then we'll keep an eye out for it in the near future."

The next day, just as dawn broke, the system announced the presence of milk cap mushrooms. Lin Chuntao carried a basket into the mountains and picked half a basket of milk cap mushrooms. After daybreak, Lin Chuntao wandered out of the mountains and picked a few green-headed mushrooms and pine needle mushrooms. Her basket was not yet full, so Lin Chuntao carried it to the county town.

On the way there, the system suddenly became a bit talkative, and it told Lin Chuntao that there were fewer mushrooms in the mountains recently.

Lin Chuntao laughed and said, "It's only because the weather is good that we can still find some mushrooms. Otherwise, it's already winter, and we definitely wouldn't be able to find any."

The system sighed and asked Lin Chuntao, "Host, have you ever grown mushrooms before?"

Hearing this, Lin Chuntao smiled silently. She had never grown mushrooms on a large scale, only bought mushroom spawn for shiitake and oyster mushrooms on a certain orange app. That didn't count as growing them, did it?

"No, what's wrong?" Lin Chuntao asked in return.

System: "I just wanted to ask if the host is interested in growing fungi."

Lin Chuntao raised an eyebrow slightly. "It seems a bit troublesome."

System: "It won't be too troublesome. If you're planning to grow shiitake mushrooms, I can guide you to cut down trees. Now is the perfect time to cut down trees, and you can plant them next year."

Lin Chuntao had also watched videos on traditional shiitake mushroom cultivation, and she felt that producing a batch of mushrooms was not easy and would be somewhat slow.

Growing oyster mushrooms is faster, but it requires processing sawdust, wheat bran, and corn cobs, among other things. Without a grinder, it will be very strenuous for her. She's already busy making sauces, and growing mushrooms is also keeping her busy. She'll have to wait and see.

"I'll wait until after the autumn harvest. I'm afraid the weather might suddenly get cold, and I haven't even harvested my corn yet, while everyone in the village has almost finished planting buckwheat."

As Lin Chuntao finished speaking, the system said, "Host, if you grow mushrooms, you'll have mushrooms to sell all year round, and each mushroom will earn you points. You can then exchange those points for other items. You won't have to go into the mountains in the middle of the night anymore, which will make things much easier for you."

Lin Chuntao smiled and said, "By then, I won't need to go into the mountains anymore, but I'll still have to get up in the middle of the night to pick mushrooms."

After being exposed by Lin Chuntao, the system laughed awkwardly twice. Lin Chuntao said, "Let me think about it."

She opened the control panel, went to the seed section, looked at the radish seeds, exchanged ten catties, and then exchanged fifty catties of buckwheat seeds, fifty catties of soybean seeds, thirty catties of chili seeds, and thirty catties of green vegetable seeds. After exchanging the seeds, Lin Chuntao went to the recipe section to exchange for two recipes.

Seeing that she had redeemed so many seeds, the system said quietly, "Host, there's something I forgot to tell you. I remember Number Five said that once we reach a certain number of points, we can turn on the weather forecast."

Lin Chuntao's eyes widened. "The weather forecast? Really?"

"Are you just making this up to fool me into thinking you're growing mushrooms?"

System: "What I said is absolutely true, it's just that I don't remember how many points I had."

Lin Chuntao: "I don't believe you can't remember something so important."

System: "Actually, it's not my fault. I'm a sign-in system, and I need a host who can go out and is also diligent. I haven't met a host as reliable as you in a long time, so I didn't pay any attention to it."

Ever since Qin Suyun told her that this place was part of a book's setting, Lin Chuntao now listens to the system talk as if she's chatting with a fellow villager. This always sparks Lin Chuntao's curiosity, so she asks the system to tell her more, and it keeps talking all the way here.

However, the problem still lies with this system. Several hosts were selected, but none of them were able to complete the mission. The young master who was seriously ill in bed, the female protagonist who was forced into love and imprisoned, the palace maid who was getting old in the deep palace, etc. After listening to its complaints, Lin Chuntao felt that the most ridiculous thing was that it was bound to a newborn child. However, that child later became unable to walk and could not get out at all.

System: "Master, when I met you, you wanted to go into the mountains to pick mushrooms in the middle of the night. My heart sank."

"But luckily you're poor and hardworking, so you still went."

Lin Chuntao: "Hmm...you can shut up now."

It's not my fault that I dressed up as a poor peasant girl.

They joked and laughed all the way to the county town. Lin Chuntao went to the cloth shop to buy two bolts of cloth, returned the earthenware pot to the mutton shop, and cut five catties of meat. Today, she brought the earthenware pot from home with her.

Seeing that she had bought mutton twice yesterday and again today, Feng Guan joked, "Shopkeeper Lin, have you struck it rich?"

Lin Chuntao laughed and said, "There's no such thing as getting rich. We're just barely making ends meet. When things were tough before, our relatives kindly helped us. Now that we're just getting by, we should buy something and go over to thank them."

Feng Guan nodded upon hearing this, "That's true, we should thank you."

As he was slicing the mutton, Lin Chuntao was about to put it into her basket when he noticed the mushrooms inside and exclaimed, "Oh my, what time is it? You can still find mushrooms? Are you going to take them to sell? How many pounds can you sell to us?"

Lin Chuntao said, "There's no way to find any more. I went into the mountains today and only found this much. I won't sell it; I'll keep it for myself."

Remembering that Feng Guan and the others had given her lamb offal, Lin Chuntao smiled and said to He Guizhu, "Sister, bring me a bamboo basket, I'll get you some."

As soon as Lin Chuntao finished speaking, He Guizhu smiled and went to get a bamboo basket. Lin Chuntao grabbed about three catties for her. He Guizhu wanted to give her money, but Lin Chuntao smiled and said, "No need, no need, it's just a little bit, just to try something new."

The two of them politely declined each other's offer for a long time, but Lin Chuntao didn't accept any money. She propped up the basket with thin bamboo sticks, put the earthenware pot inside, and didn't press down the mushrooms underneath.

After buying the items, Lin Chuntao didn't linger in the county town. She told Lin Chunxing and went back.

She was going to visit her uncle's house. The cloth and mutton were for them. She wanted to see her uncle and aunt and check on how the chili seedlings she had cultivated last time were doing.