"I'll go take a look." Old Mrs. Qiao stood up anxiously, and as soon as she reached the entrance of the courtyard, she saw four people coming towards her.
"You're finally back. If anything happens again, you're not allowed to go out this late anymore." Old Mrs. Qiao's heart was finally at ease, and she scolded him.
"Grandma, if we don't go out this time, we'll miss out on so many benefits." Qiao Lian'er smiled, put down her basket, and lifted it to reveal a field of white mushrooms.
Large clusters, exuding the unique and rich aroma of termite mushrooms.
The Qiao family was very surprised. Where did they get this from?
Now it was Dayong's turn to explain what had happened.
The Qiao family members were all delighted and thrilled; it was such a great feeling.
The mushrooms that the Song family painstakingly searched for ended up in their hands, and the Song family's efforts were in vain, causing them physical suffering.
“I was thinking today that they also went up the mountain to look for mushrooms, but they don’t know how to process them. How are they going to sell them?” said Mrs. Feng.
"Luckily, Lian'er is smart, otherwise we would have ended up like the Song family. We're a big family with many thugs, and we wouldn't stand a chance," said Qiao Lao Er.
People in the village and town all kept this kind of thing very secret, avoiding it like the plague.
Every year, mushrooms on the mountain claim people's lives. Even those who survive eating poisonous mushrooms suffer severe aftereffects, such as mental confusion, dementia, or paralysis.
Some people only turn to mushrooms when they are so hungry that they have no other choice, and in that case, it all comes down to luck.
"Everyone's here, let's eat. We didn't eat lunch, and everyone's starving," Old Man Qiao said with a smile.
Seeing that the adults were waiting for them, the little ones, Qiao Lian'er felt a warmth in her heart.
This is the Qiao family: the younger generation respects the elders, and the elders are considerate of the younger generation.
If we're hungry, we're all hungry together; if we have food, we're all eating together.
The dishes had gotten cold, so Madam Lü reheated another one.
Everyone was secretly pleased to have gained an extra fifty catties of matsutake mushrooms, which came from the Song family.
Mmm, the food tonight smells especially delicious.
After the meal, everyone weighed the mushrooms. The ones the Qiao family found only weighed 32 jin, but when they added the 51 jin the Song family found, the total was 83 jin. If all of them were pressed, 27 jin of oil could be extracted.
Then they washed, cut, and squeezed the mushrooms, working up a flurry of activity.
Qiao Lian'er handed over the forty taels of silver she had earned that morning to Old Lady Qiao. Forty taels weighed several kilograms, and the box was heavy in her hands. Old Lady Qiao looked at the box, and in the lamplight, the silver gleamed so brightly that it hurt her old eyes.
Grandma Qiao was a little stunned. After a while, she murmured, "This family has never seen so much silver before."
Hunting a big tiger could fetch a little over sixty taels of silver, but the Qiao family had never had such an opportunity. Big tigers are alert, fast, and have strong animalistic instincts, making them difficult to catch by human power.
That one time, they hunted a half-grown animal and were given thirty taels of silver, which was the most silver the Qiao family had ever received.
So, it took Old Lady Qiao quite a while to adjust to the price of forty taels.
Old Qiao glanced at it, then sat down at the door to smoke his pipe, calming his excitement in the slowly rising smoke.
"Go inside and take a look," he said to the people busy in the yard.
Today we earned forty taels of silver! Everyone was getting excited. The old man gave the order, and everyone followed one after another into the main room. They looked at the items, touched them, and praised them. They felt full of energy and had high hopes.
They even suspected they were dreaming, and pinched each other to confirm it was real.
Happiness comes so easily.
At this rate, will we still be afraid of not being able to build a house? Will we still be afraid of not being able to accumulate wealth?
In the darkness of night, Song Ruier knelt in the courtyard, her face swollen and red. Her stomach was growling with hunger, and she was in pain from being whipped and kicked.
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