"Third Uncle, Second Uncle, Aunt Yulan..." Su Dahu grinned and greeted the villagers one by one.
"Since we've been growing a lot of vegetables lately, Hua'er came up with a solution: she started a spicy hot pot business in Qingshui County."
Thinking that he could exchange it for some money to spend.
There are ten mouths to feed in this family, so we have to make expenses!
They drove their oxcarts back and forth to Qingshui County every day. Over time, it became impossible to hide their spicy hot pot business.
Moreover, the few rows of vegetables at home are only enough for one or two days of hot pot. After that, we will have to buy vegetables from Aunt Zhou, Mudfish Girl, and Barley Girl.
Rather than letting the villagers speculate, it's better to just say it openly now.
Upon hearing this, the crowd immediately began to chatter amongst themselves.
"Malatang? What kind of food is that? I've never heard of it before."
"Aren't vegetables usually only one copper coin per pound? Even if you make them into spicy hot pot, they won't sell for much money."
"Are you stupid? Renting the village chief's oxcart every day costs twelve copper coins. If you can't earn much money, why bother going all the way to Qingshui County?"
"That's exactly right! The Su family used to make a lot of money from their snail business, and this spicy hot pot is probably even better than snails, otherwise they wouldn't have given up such a lucrative business so easily..."
Widow Liu stood in the middle of the river, her ears perked up, with a small bucket of snails beside her.
Recently, there have been fewer and fewer snails. Even if the whole family of four works together, they can only collect two buckets a day.
Moreover, each snail is quite small.
No wonder the Su family didn't want to continue making snails. Although snails are naturally occurring creatures, they still need time to breathe before they can reproduce.
If all the snails are collected, they probably won't be able to reproduce next year.
However, if this so-called spicy hot pot can really make money...
The Liu family could totally learn from that.
Anyway, isn't the stir-fried snail meat dish something I figured out myself after buying Lao Su's flavored snails?
However, Qingshui County is quite far away, and it costs several copper coins to go there.
The woman stood in the river, watching the oxcart recede into the distance, her eyes flickering.
The end of the village.
The Su siblings had just stepped onto the narrow path.
A small, dark figure rushed in like a whirlwind.
"Woof woof woof—"
"Moo—"
The little guy's joyful barking startled the old ox so much that it lost its footing.
"Little Black, come here quickly."
Su Hua smiled and reached out to scoop the little guy who was jumping around under the car window into her arms.
In just a few days, Xiao Hei's originally dull fur had turned jet black and shiny, and it had grown quite a bit taller. Its dark eyes shone with a cleverness.
"Hua'er is back?" Su Baishi ran out upon hearing the barking of the dog.
Seeing the little face peeking out of the car window, I finally felt a lot relieved. "Hua'er, come on, get out of the car and have some tea. There's steamed cured fish and braised green beans on the stove, they're still warm!"
After saying that, he glared resentfully at the three brothers on the carriage shaft.
Qingshui County is far away, and it takes at least an hour and a half to go there and back. If it weren't for Su Dahu and the others being unhelpful, Hua'er wouldn't have needed to run around so much!
"Thank you, Mother!" Su Hua got out of the car carrying Xiao Hei, took the tea, and drank it all in one gulp.
She smiled and said, "Don't worry, Mother. We just had noodles and wontons in Qingshui County, so we won't go hungry."
The three Su brothers received a look from their mother, and their lips twitched in unison. They really were adopted! Adopted!
Fortunately, they've gotten used to it over the years.
One by one, they resigned themselves to their fate and parked the oxcarts in the yard.
They then unloaded the stove, baskets, pig offal, and other items from the vehicle.
Qian, Zhao, and Su Dalang helped out from the side, only to find the vegetable baskets empty and the large iron pot devoid of any soup.
He couldn't help but exclaim in surprise, "What? We've sold out of all our mala tang today?"
When she was stringing vegetables in the morning, she was wondering why the 40-odd pounds of vegetables would take up so much space and time to fill several baskets. She thought it would be better to string some first to avoid wasting them.
The three little radishes, Zhao and Su, were also amazed. They had thought the business was not bad, but they did not expect it to be this good.
"Yes, all the mala tang is sold out today!" Su Hua didn't keep them in suspense and directly told Su Dahu and the other two to take out their wallets.
Su Bai and the others gasped as they looked at the bulging purse that was almost bursting.
The three purses were opened at the same time, and a row of copper coins jingled and spilled onto the table, completely covering the wooden table.
"My goodness! This, this, this must be several thousand copper coins!" Madam Qian's phoenix eyes lit up.
He kept swallowing his saliva.
She had known for a long time that her sister-in-law was good at making money, but why was her ability to make money getting better and better each time?
In the past, to sell flavorful snails, one would spend a long time soaking in the river water, searching for snails, and then tapping their tails for a long time before finally making a pot of snails. In the end, the best one could get in Cangwu Town was a big pocket.
About one or two taels of silver.
But nowadays, just skewering some vegetables can earn you three large pockets' worth of money.
The Su family is really about to strike it rich.
Zhao couldn't stop smiling. Her mother-in-law had been worried all morning that Hua'er would be heartbroken if the spicy hot pot didn't sell. Now, seeing all this money, she knew she didn't need to worry about anything.
Su Dalang's three younger brothers stretched out three hands, six big slaps.
Count them one copper coin at a time.
After counting down to a little over half, I was completely bewildered.
Su Hua found it amusing and said crisply, "Today we brought a total of one thousand vegetarian skewers and one thousand meat skewers. After deducting the one hundred and seventy or so skewers that were given away for every five skewers bought, the total income was two thousand seven hundred and thirty coins."
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