Lu Lin and Chen Xiaomi went out for a walk. Yucang County is close to the sea, so the humidity is very high and the wind carries a fishy smell. The scenery is completely different from that of Shaxian County.
Most of the villagers in Yucang County make a living by fishing. The area is populous but land is scarce, and the fishermen generally own relatively little land.
Lu Lin saw many boats moored by the lake.
Many fishermen do not have houses and live on their boats, where they marry and have children. Due to the harsh living conditions, the probability of fishermen's children dying young is very high.
Many fishermen dream of settling down on land.
Lu Lin went to the seafood market and saw baskets of hairy crabs.
Lu Lin stood by the roadside, staring wide-eyed at the lively crabs.
"The crabs here are only two for one coin!" It's really strange that crabs are cheaper than steamed buns.
"Maybe it's because there's not much meat. The steamed buns are much more filling," Chen Xiaomi said. "This crab looks quite big, but it's mostly shell; it looks nice but isn't very useful."
Lu Lin: "..." So what if there's no meat? This is the kind of food we're going for!
In this past life, there were never enough hairy crabs to go around, and a crab costing ten or so yuan was considered cheap.
A gift box of crabs, with about ten in a box, could easily sell for several hundred yuan.
I've heard that lobsters and crabs are a plague abroad, and foreigners consider them a major enemy, but this is simply impossible in China.
"These crabs are delicious, and they're so cheap!" Lu Lin said.
Chen Xiaomi thought for a moment and said, "The people here don't lack this kind of food!"
Lu Lin thought about it and agreed. It was said that back in his grandfather's time, there were many crabs in the lake. You could easily catch a lot of crabs by fishing. At that time, crabs weren't very common, and people didn't take them seriously.
However, later, crabs became popular, and all the crabs in this rural lake were poisoned to death. After that, the pollution became more and more serious, and basically nothing could be raised in this lake.
Later on, with more wolves than meat, the price of crabs kept rising.
"If we take it to a more distant place to sell, we should be able to get a better price," Lu Lin said.
Chen Xiaomi shook her head and said, "The road is not easy to travel!"
Lu Lin thought to himself: That's so true! Fish and shrimp are the easiest to die. In my previous life, we had freezers, ice packs, and all sorts of preservation methods. Plus, with faster transportation by truck, it was no problem to deliver them all over the country. But here, we don't have so many methods. It won't be easy to sell our products elsewhere.
Lu Lin suddenly thought of a joke and subconsciously laughed.
Chen Xiaomi looked at Lu Lin with some confusion and asked, "What did you think of?"
Lu Lin thought for a moment and said, "I just thought of a joke. A teacher asked his students about the preciousness of life. One student replied, 'Live fish costs ten coins a pound, dead fish costs three coins a pound, live shrimp costs thirty coins a pound, dead shrimp costs ten coins a pound, live crab costs sixty coins a pound, and dead crab has to be thrown away. Therefore, life is precious and needs to be cherished.'"
Lu Lin adapted the joke he heard into a modern version, but unfortunately, Chen Xiaomi looked completely bewildered, clearly failing to grasp the essence of the joke.
“Live crabs aren’t worth that much money, how could they be sixty coins a catty?” Chen Xiaomi shook her head and said.
Lu Lin: "..."
At the seafood market, people were selling fish, and the price was very cheap; you could buy a big fish for just five or six coins.
Lu Lin also saw buckets of clams. Clams aren't worth much, and many fishermen sell them as an add-on; if you buy a fish, you get a basket of clams for free.
Lu Lin glanced at Chen Xiaomi and said, "Let's buy a basket of hairy crabs to take home."
Chen Xiaomi nodded and said, "I'm glad you like it."
Lu Lin bought a large basket of crabs and then saw lobsters that were 30 centimeters long. Surprisingly, such large lobsters were only three coins each. Lu Lin bought ten in one go. Seeing Lu Lin's generosity, the shopkeeper even gave him a few more crabs as a gift.
Lu Lin missed the taste of spicy stir-fried clams, so he bought another basket of clams.
Lu Lin saw the squid and bought it. He also saw the seaweed and bought that too. The prices of seafood in Yucang County were so cheap that Lu Lin felt like a mouse that had fallen into a rice jar.
Lu Lin was in a daze on his way back to the county government office. Resources! Yucang County is rich in resources, but they have not yet been developed.
Chen Xiaomi looked at the basket of crabs in the servant's hand and said with some concern, "If we buy so many at once, we can't eat them all and will have to throw them away."
Lu Lin blinked, thinking to himself: Did I really buy too much?
Yuanbao and Chongchong looked at the crabs crawling around on the ground and asked, "Dad, shall we eat this tonight?"
Lu Lin nodded and said, "Yes!"
Yuanbao looked at the crab and said, "These two kinds of insects look really strange!"
Lu Lin squinted, thinking to himself: "Insects! My son really doesn't know what's good for him! Such big crabs and crayfish, and he calls them insects."
In my past life, buying all this stuff would have cost thousands of coins, but here it only costs a few dozen coins—it's dirt cheap! So cheap!
Lu Lin looked at the elderly man beside him, frowned, and said, "Dad, are there pearls inside this seashell?"
"There shouldn't be any pearls."
Yuanbao said with some disappointment, "If there are no pearls, what's the point of buying it?"
Lu Lin pursed his lips and said, "There are no pearls here, but there is meat, which we can eat!"
Yuanbao pried open a clam and was immediately disappointed. "There's so little meat, even though the shell is so big."
Lu Lin: "..." You really don't know what's good for you! Don't you know that the best things come in small packages?
Lu Lin waved his hand and said, "You two go have fun, just come back for dinner later."
Yunniang walked up to Lu Lin and asked, "My lord, what should we do with these crabs?"
Yunniang was also Lu Lin's head chef, and she greatly admired Lu Lin's ingenious methods of cooking ingredients.
Although the ingredients Lu Lin bought looked a bit strange, Yunniang was still very confident.
Lu Lin nodded and said, "Let's kill all these crabs first, make a crab rice cake, and then make a crab porridge."
Lu Lin thought to himself: In his previous life, the seafood congee in the restaurant was very expensive. A pot of crab congee, which only contained one large, cut-open crab, would cost more than a hundred yuan. It was really extravagant! Now that crabs are as cheap as cabbage, he must eat as much as he can to make a profit.
Seeing the light in Lu Lin's eyes, Yunniang asked with some concern, "My lord, are you alright?"
Lu Lin waved his hand and said, "It's nothing." He was just a little excited because he thought of something good.
Lu Lin told Yunniang the recipes for stir-fried rice cakes with crab and spicy stir-fried clams, and Yunniang left with the crabs.
As night fell, the feast that Lu Lin had been waiting for was finally served.
"Dad, this porridge is delicious!" Chongchong hugged his little bowl and ate it with slurping noises.
Lu Lin snorted and said, "Now you know it's delicious, right?" This ignorant brat, he even said he was being unreasonable before, complaining that he gave him worms. "Delicious, right? Be careful not to swallow the crab shell."
"Mmm," Chongchong mumbled a vague reply.
The crab congee was incredibly delicious; after eating it, I felt a warm glow in my chest.
Chongchong stretched out his chopsticks and picked up clams to eat. The clams were soaked in sauce, which was both fresh and chewy. He ate one and wanted to eat another. He just couldn't stop eating.
Chen Xiaomi tasted each dish. The crab stir-fried with rice cakes had a delicious flavor after being soaked in the sauce.
Crabs are also delicious. Although there isn't much meat, gnawing on them has a unique flavor.
Yuanbao grabbed a crab and devoured it with gusto, his face covered in sauce. "Dad, this is delicious!"
Looking at Yuanbao's expression, Lu Lin said helplessly, "Eat slowly, no one's going to take it from you."
Yuanbao blinked and said, "I understand."
After dinner, the two younger children seemed to develop a great interest in seafood and ran to the kitchen to look at the seafood that hadn't been cooked yet.
Lu Lin sat in the yard to digest his food. He hadn't eaten seafood in a long time and accidentally ate too much.
Chen Xiaomi walked up to Lu Lin and said, "Are you thinking of opening another shop?"
Lu Lin nodded and said, "That's the idea."
There are so many good things here, but it's clear that the people here haven't yet grasped the many ways to eat seafood. He's here to save these ignorant people, and Lu Lin is full of confidence in his future development in Yucang County.
Lu Lin said with some regret, "It's a pity that Xiaomai isn't here. Xiao Cai, I haven't finished dealing with the things I'm doing yet."
Chen Xiaomi glanced at Lu Lin and said, "You! All you know how to do is get Xiao Cai and Xiao Mai to do the work for you."
When Lu Lin first entered the house, he ordered two of the younger ones to raise chickens and ducks. Later, he even ordered Xiao Cai to organize the kids to pick wild berries for jam. After that, things got out of hand, and he ordered Xiao Mai to be the manager.
Lu Lin crossed his arms and said helplessly, "What can I do? I have a lot of secret formulas, but I can only feel at ease using my own people!"
Chen Xiaomi pursed her lips. It was indeed true. Many of Lu Lin's things were very precious. Even just a little bit of them would be enough to benefit people greatly. Some things really couldn't be completely entrusted to outsiders.
Take roasted whole lamb for example. It's just a dish, but it caught the emperor's eye! It was even designated as a national dish. If he had taught it to someone else, who knows who would have claimed the credit?
Although Xiaocai and Xiaomai were being bossed around by Lu Lin, the benefits were obvious.
Xiaomai has already married and moved to Kyoto. Chen Xiaomi spent eight hundred taels of silver to buy two shops for Xiaomai in Kyoto. By renting out the shops, she should be able to make ends meet.
Xiao Cai's net worth has increased several times over the past few years, making him a well-known big boss in Shaxian County.
Because Xiao Cai was so successful in his business, many merchants regarded him as an idol.
Lu Lin clapped his hands, then suddenly had a flash of inspiration. "We can't count on Xiao Cai and Xiao Mai for now. It seems we should start training our son as soon as possible. When Xiao Mai was the same age as Yuan Bao, he could already do a lot of work. Since Yuan Bao has no interest in studying, we should let him learn to run a shop."
Chen Xiaomi: "You!" Back then, there was no other way, things are different now. But it's good to have a skill. Although Yuanbao is a hermaphrodite, Chen Xiaomi still hopes her son can stand on his own two feet.
"Yuanbao is already quite good at arithmetic." However, he still lacks practical experience and is still a bit too young. He's okay at feeding chickens, but he's too young to manage a shop.
"Let's hire some more people," Chen Xiaomi said.
Lu Lin nodded and said, "That's fine, we can buy two more servants."
"Where's Yuanbao?" Lu Lin asked Chen Xiaomi.
"He went out to play." Yucang County is located by the sea, and there are many landscapes that Yuanbao has never seen before. A couple of days ago, his family ate hairy crabs, and Yuanbao was very interested in the local specialties. He must have gone out to find ingredients.
Lu Lin nodded. There were many strange-looking seafoods on the beach. The fishermen here should be used to all kinds of seafood. However, for Yuanbao, who was new to the area, it must be quite a novelty.
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