"Guodong is awake. Go back to sleep. He probably stayed up late again last night!" At ten o'clock in the morning, Ye Cuihua and Zhang Zhengrong returned from Ye Cuihua's family. Zhang Guodong, still half asleep, opened the door once.

Zhang Guodong stayed up very late last night, too excited, counting sheep. Zhang Zhengrong and Ye Cuihua had just returned from having breakfast at their relatives' house.

I originally went there to see if I could find a job, but the cleaning staff at my aunt's hospital were all full, so the trip was a waste. I was very worried on the way back.

To be fair, the two families have a good relationship, but unfortunately, neither of them is wealthy. Coming from the countryside to the big city, they can only do what they can. In comparison, my aunt's sons and daughters are doing quite well; some of them even drive cars.

When the two elders returned, they brought Zhang Guodong two fried dough sticks and a bowl of tofu pudding, which were his favorite breakfasts.

"Guodong, get up first and eat this fried dough stick and tofu pudding while it's hot. It's really cold outside, and it's starting to snow!" Ye Cuihua put the fried dough stick and tofu pudding in a bowl and urged Zhang Guodong to get up and eat breakfast.

"Oh, it's snowing?" I checked the weather forecast yesterday and it said it would snow, and it really did snow last night! Looking out the window, the world was a blanket of white. "Mom, what time did you get home?"

Upon waking, Zhang Guodong couldn't fall back asleep. The air conditioning had instantly sobered him up. He paused for a moment, then looked at Ye Cuihua bustling about, his eyes reddening, but he quickly turned away.

Zhang Zhengrong studies 3D lottery newspapers and magazines. Although he never wins the lottery, it still gives him a sense of hope. Now that the weather is cold, it's inconvenient to find work.

Zhang Guodong knew that his parents were actually very anxious. After all, they were struggling to make ends meet and often had to rely on their elder brother and younger brother for financial support.

The three people were crammed into a 20-square-meter single room, which looked very crowded. The only valuable piece of furniture was probably a small color TV that cost two hundred yuan.

Ye Cuihua was a little worried and inadvertently revealed, "Eight o'clock. Sigh, the hospital where your aunt works isn't hiring right now. It's annoying to stay there, so I came over after breakfast!"

Zhang Zhengrong frowned, but pretended not to hear.

Upon hearing this, Zhang Guodong felt extremely uneasy, but he quickly cheered up. He glanced at his chest and saw the nine-tiered pagoda mark was still there. He thought to himself, "Mom and Dad, don't worry, your son has succeeded this time! I'll be making money soon!"

After having breakfast and washing his face, Zhang Guodong quickly went out.

Ye Cuihua assumed her son had gone out to look for work and gave him a few words of advice. Several days had passed, and he still hadn't found a suitable job, so she took out another thirty yuan and gave it to Zhang Guodong.

Zhang Guodong didn't say anything and took it.

He only had thirty yuan on him, and his most urgent task was to buy some vegetable seeds to experiment with in Taoyuan. Thirty yuan was far too little.

With sixty yuan in his pocket, Zhang Guodong felt an immense weight in his hand. Whether he could achieve his goal depended on this one move!

With Zhang Guodong gone, Ye Cuihua and Zhang Zhengrong began to worry. It was snowing outside, and the Lunar New Year was just two months away. However, their savings amounted to only about four hundred yuan, and they feared they would have to spend their eldest son's money again for the holiday.

Every year during the Spring Festival, even if Zhang Guodong's elder brother Zhang Guoliang couldn't come back for the holiday due to work, he would still send over a thousand yuan. If he did come back for the holiday, the round trip would cost two or three thousand yuan.

"How about we ask Ye Lao Er's gang for help and see if there's any work to do?" Zhang Zhengrong finally said after a long while.

Ye Cuihua was extremely unwilling.

That's his cousin from his maternal family, also in Xi'an. I heard he runs a huge business selling jujubes, a local specialty, and his assets are over a million yuan. He drives a car worth tens of thousands of yuan. But he's not a good person. If you borrow some money, he'll probably be nagging you to pay it back tomorrow.

"You have several brothers, why can't you help them at all? You're always troubling my family, are you happy about that?" Ye Cuihua said irritably.

Ye Cuihua had many complaints about the Zhang brothers; there were three or four brothers, but none of them were reliable. Both the Zhang and Ye families came from rural backgrounds, and their children and relatives were scattered all over the place, with the largest concentration in Xi'an.

When Ye Cuihua started talking about the past, Zhang Zhengrong fell silent.

Zhang Guodong was unaware of these complaints; he was searching for a seed shop. Places specializing in various vegetable seeds were rare. There was a small vegetable market in the village, but Zhang Guodong hadn't found one after searching around.

Someone in the market pointed and said to look at the district's vegetable wholesale market; they should be able to find it there.

Left with no other choice, Zhang Guodong took a bus to the district's vegetable wholesale market.

This market is the largest in the district, offering a complete range of vegetables, including common vegetable seeds. However, it's mostly wholesale; retail is rare.

After finally finding a grain and oil shop, the owner leisurely watched TV, showing little enthusiasm for customers and no intention of getting up.

"Boss, do you have any vegetable seeds here?" Zhang Guodong asked, raising his voice as he entered the shop and saw the shop owner looking on with great interest.

The shop owner glanced at Zhang Guodong coldly, remaining seated and leaning back in his chair, and said indifferently, "Yes, what kind of seeds do you want?"

"Tomatoes, bell peppers, and Chinese cabbage!" Zhang Guodong didn't care about the price; the important thing was to buy the seeds and test whether these could be grown in Taoyuan. He walked around the market and chose only these three to plant and see.

The shop owner skillfully pulled out more than a dozen bags from the shelf, all of different varieties, and asked, "How many of each do you want?"

Zhang Guodong was embarrassed. Upon closer inspection, he realized that these three types of vegetable seeds were actually divided into many varieties, such as No. 1 and No. 2. They were all improved varieties. Some had high yields but took a long time to mature, while others had average yields but could be planted in a shorter time. They all had different characteristics.

"What are the prices?" After looking at the items, Zhang Guodong asked about the prices before even mentioning how much he wanted. The shop owner was probably the only one running the business, and he was incredibly arrogant. If he didn't want much, the owner probably wouldn't give him a friendly look.

"One bag of No. 1 West is 15 yuan, No. 2 is the same. One bag of No. 1 big peppers is 20 yuan, No. 2 is 18 yuan, No. 3 is 25 yuan. One bag of No. 1 Chinese cabbage is 16 yuan, No. 2 is 15 yuan!" the shop owner introduced impatiently.

Zhang Guodong cursed inwardly. Sixty yuan, after deducting bus fare, could only buy two or three bags of seeds. It was damn expensive!

After picking out three bags, I calculated that it was forty-eight yuan, leaving me with only eleven yuan.

"Only three bags?" The shop owner was taken aback and frowned.

"These three bags it is. If the varieties are good, I'll buy more later!" Zhang Guodong was putting on a brave face. He grabbed the seeds, paid, and quickly left, so as not to embarrass the shop owner. He had come all this way and only bought one bag of each, which was indeed not worth the effort.

However, business people these days no longer treat customers like royalty. They're unhappy if you buy too little, but happy if you buy too much, and it's more expensive that way.

After leaving the vegetable wholesale market, Zhang Guodong went straight home.

Zhang Zhengrong and Ye Cuihua were both there, looking at their son with surprise as he returned with an excited expression. Ye Cuihua couldn't help but ask, "Guodong, did you find a job? What's making you so happy?"

Zhang Guodong chuckled twice and said, "Not yet, but soon!"

Ye Cuihua was overjoyed to hear that her son was about to find a job, but Zhang Zhengrong wasn't so easily fooled. "He hasn't found one yet, how can you say it'll be soon?"

However, he didn't think too much about it. It was freezing cold outside, with snow falling, and he wouldn't be able to do anything outside without any resources. He had never been very capable in his life, but his son was his only hope.

Zhang Guodong wandered around for a bit after returning, then quickly looked for a place to enter Taoyuan. However, there was no convenient place upstairs; it was all occupied. The only option was to go to the upstairs restroom, which was rather unlucky, but there was no other way, and he couldn't let anyone know about this.

Upon entering Taoyuan, Zhang Guodong eagerly followed the instructions on the bag, drawing shallow furrows on the purplish-black soil. The soil was very loose, so he sparsely scattered the seeds and then gently covered them. In a short while, he had planted three kinds of vegetables on each of the two plots, but only half of the seeds had been planted. Then he sprinkled water from the pond on top.

These two plots of land held all of Zhang Guodong's hopes, and his feelings were extremely complicated and uneasy.

What if it fails? Or what if what's grown here is no different from what's grown outside? Zhang Guodong felt a sense of unease.

Touching the ten yuan in his pocket, Zhang Guodong knew he had no choice.

Thinking back to when a local introduced Zhang Guodong to a potential partner, but it didn't work out. It's not that Zhang Guodong was unwilling or insecure, but the person who introduced him to the family would have given up after seeing his family background. People are so realistic these days; without money, you can't be romantic.

Zhang Guodong is an extremely ordinary person with few ambitions, but he still needs to be rich.

Having spent quite a while in Peach Blossom Spring, Zhang Guodong quickly left, washed his face and hands, and took a stroll outside. He noticed that the snow had started falling again, and it seemed to be getting heavier. Sure enough, the weather forecast was very accurate; there would be rain and snow here for the next week. This heavy snowfall had cut off the roads from the south to the north. It was foreseeable that vegetable prices would probably rise again.

At noon, Ye Cuihua was in a good mood and, unusually, went out to buy a chicken to stew. Although the family was poor, even extremely poor, they often treated themselves to a treat.

Zhang Zhengrong was easygoing by nature, and since everyone was in a good mood today, he started drinking a little wine: "This kind of wine is meant to be drunk when you're in a good mood, but it's not fun to drink alone, you have to drink with more people! Son, have a drink with Dad!"

Zhang Guodong readily agreed. Although this wine was just ordinary bulk wine, costing three yuan a bottle, drinking depended on one's mood. As long as one was happy, even the cheapest wine could taste good.

“Dad, okay, I’ll have a drink with you. I’ll buy you Moutai in a while!” Zhang Guodong said earnestly.

"Haha, then I'll wait!" Zhang Zhengrong took a full sip, enough for one ounce. In his opinion, drinking Moutai, the national liquor, was indeed a luxury. He would never be willing to drink such an expensive liquor normally.

Ye Cuihua kept putting chicken on Zhang Zhengrong's and his son Zhang Guodong's plates. Watching the father and son talking, she chimed in, "That wine must be very expensive, right?"

Zhang Guodong said, "It's not expensive!"

"Dad, I have something to tell you. What do you think about me selling vegetables?" After a moment's thought, Zhang Guodong asked this question, carefully observing the expressions on his parents' faces.

Sure enough, upon hearing this, the two elders' expressions darkened and became somewhat somber.

Ye Cuihua was anxious. Her son was a college graduate; how could he go to sell vegetables? They just couldn't wrap their heads around that idea.

“No way! Selling vegetables won’t do. How much money can you make? Don’t you see how hard you work and sometimes you even lose money?” Ye Cuihua’s eyes reddened as she spoke.

Zhang Zhengrong didn't rush to object, but paused for a moment before saying, "What are you thinking? Selling vegetables is hard work, and it's not guaranteed to make money—"

Zhang Guodong was thrilled; the fact that his father hadn't directly objected meant there was hope.

“Nowadays, city dwellers love to eat organic vegetables, so I’m planning to get into that. If I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it differently from everyone else!” Zhang Guodong explained.

Zhang Guodong didn't have many ideas about starting a business selling vegetables. With Taoyuan around, if things went as planned, he would have more advantages than others and would basically be guaranteed to make a profit. But he couldn't explain it in detail.