"That depends on whether people are willing to sell."
Liang Guiying first took Boss Zhang to the village office to find Secretary Mo directly.
Hearing that the man had come to buy live pigs, Secretary Mo assumed that Mr. Zhang was a worker at the meat processing plant. He only asked about the price, which was much better than the previous batch. Knowing that Liang Guiying's pigs had already been sold, Secretary Mo immediately broadcast a notice to the villagers to sell their pigs.
Sizhou Village is a small village with fewer than fifty households. Each household raises between three and five head of livestock, and Boss Zhang wanted them all.
Over the next two or three days, Liang Guiying took Boss Zhang to three or four nearby villages and collected a total of seven hundred pigs.
He wasn't worried about not being able to sell them at all.
The pigs from Sizhou Village are selling very well. Boss Zhang's partners used to be able to sell at most two pigs a day, but now they can sell three in the morning alone, and one more in the afternoon. Moreover, the price is one cent higher than other vendors!
They have regained all the market share in the Longxin Village black market, and they have also reaped almost all the benefits from the other black markets.
Having tasted success, Boss Zhang wanted to buy even more pigs.
Liang Guiying advised him, "Boss Zhang, if you keep taking more, your competitors who have been squeezed out these past few days will resort to dirty tricks."
"Also, with so many pigs and such a commotion, do you think the meat processing plant and law enforcement won't know? You'd better stop before they take action; that's a good sign. Otherwise, Boss Zhang could be going to jail."
Mr. Zhang wasn't afraid of going to jail; he had already served four sentences in detention last year alone. What he feared was being sabotaged behind his back, so he listened to Liang Guiying and decided to quit while he was ahead.
Before leaving, he settled all the hard-earned money for Liang Guiying and kept his promise by giving her a 100-yuan red envelope.
Boss Zhang and his team acted swiftly, driving away with the pigs they had collected that day, while Liang Guiying went home on her own.
When she got home, it was evening. Her father-in-law, Old Man Zheng, was chatting with someone at the door. Liang Guiying heard him complaining that he hadn't had any meat to eat for the past few days.
Old Mrs. Zhang next door scoffed, "You sold five pigs! And your pigs are so big, almost 200 jin each. Even at the lowest price of 180 yuan per pig, each pig would be worth 90 yuan. Five pigs would be 450 yuan! 450 yuan, you could eat dragon meat!"
Liang Guiying smiled and said, "We don't have dragon meat, but we can kill a chicken right away. However, if I had known that Dad wanted to eat pork so much, I wouldn't have sold those pigs. I would have slaughtered one every ten days, ensuring that Mom and Dad could eat meat every day... So, tonight, should we have chicken or pork?"
Old Zheng's lips curled into a smile: "I don't have the fortune to eat meat!"
Liang Guiying smiled and went back into the house.
When she returned on her first day, the chicken droppings in the courtyard were still there, dried up, and there had been a lot more added. The living room was also a mess, with books and clothes on the bamboo sofa. The bowls that Liang Guiying had seen before leaving in the morning were still piled on the table.
Several nephews and nieces were playing. When they saw Liang Guiying, they simply called out "Auntie" before going into their rooms or going out to play.
Liang Guiying smiled, said nothing, and began to boil water and kill the chicken.
Since there was no electricity in the village, dinner was eaten early.
Only after Liang Guiying finished cooking did her parents-in-law agree to come into the house.
Seeing the chicken droppings still in the courtyard, Granny Zheng's lips twitched: "This courtyard is so dirty, why don't they sweep it up!"
"Wenqing, Wenjie, Wenyong, Wenpeng, and Wenjie and Wenlan, come out and sweep the floor!" Liang Guiying stood at the kitchen door. "Grandma said you won't eat dinner tonight if you don't sweep the floor clean!"
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