To avoid letting people know that the seeds used to make ice jelly are from the pitali fruit, I'll just say it's ice jelly seeds.
Gu Mingqian nodded. Pei Yao's Thunder Fruit Seeds were selling for twenty coins per catty.
Gu Mingqian could accept this price. Considering how well the ice jelly sold, she directly ordered 6,000 jin of ice jelly seeds from Pei Yao.
Pei Yao has been frantically collecting Thunder Fruits in the village these past two days, but she hasn't reached the amount Gu Mingqian wants yet, so she had to ask him to wait a few more days. In the past few days, she has been leading the villagers to collect them in the nearby mountains.
Gu Mingqian had no objection to waiting a few days, since he would be staying here for some time anyway, and the lychee wine wouldn't be ready so quickly.
Therefore, it would be best to have Pei Yao deliver the goods along with the lychee wine.
When Pei Yao left, she gave Gu Mingqian two more pots of mint leaves: "Young Master Gu, this is called mint. The green leafy leaves we added when we made ice jelly before were made with this. It makes the ice jelly cool and refreshing. It's very easy to grow. When you get back, find a place near water and plant it and it will grow like crazy."
Gu Mingqian looked at the two pots of lush green plants. He was about to ask Pei Yao what the mint mentioned in the recipe was when Pei Yao simply gave it to him.
When Pei Yao returned to her stall, Chen Fang and Qiao Hui had already started packing up. Pei Yao went over to help them.
This way we can finish quickly and get home sooner.
After all, she still has to go back and lead the villagers to pick thunderfruit.
Otherwise, she's afraid she won't be able to deliver the goods.
When Pei Yao got home, she weighed all the Pili Fruits that her family had recently harvested. There were about 2,000 catties in total. Including the many un-dried fruits from the villagers, she estimated that there were about 3,000 catties.
However, this is far from enough for the goods that Gu Mingqian needs.
Special times call for special measures, so Pei Yao raised the price for the villagers to buy Thunder Fruit seeds to two coins per pound, which made the villagers extremely happy.
They all agreed to go to the riverbank in a nearby village to pick thunder fruit early the next morning.
Pei Yao, upon hearing this, decided that since she had nothing else to do the next day, they could take her with them when they went up the mountain.
...
When Niu Qingshan returned home in his oxcart after seeing off the Pei family, he saw several uncles from the neighboring village who had watched him grow up.
As soon as Niu Qingshan entered, he greeted them and addressed each of them individually.
The uncles were all taciturn rural men. When they heard Niu Qingshan greet them, they all nodded silently, called him "Big Niu," and said nothing more.
Niu Qingshan pulled his grandfather to a corner, glanced at the several uncles who were busy there, and asked his grandfather in a puzzled voice, "Grandpa, what's going on? Why are these uncles at my house?"
"It's like this, the orders for bamboo cups from Yao's family are increasing, and it's really difficult for our family to keep up. So I asked you uncles to come and help out. We'll give them one coin for every two we make," Uncle Niu explained.
Uncle Niu was a kind man. Pei Yao gave them only one copper coin for each bamboo cup, but he gave the villagers two for one copper coin.
These uncles are all farmers from the village, toiling in the fields from dawn till dusk. They're old and no one wants to hire them for hard labor at the town's docks, so they don't have any income. Now, they can earn a coin for making two bamboo cups at Niu's house. If they're quick, they can make dozens a day and earn a dozen or twenty coins without any problem.
This is already very good for them. They are all people with half their bodies buried in the ground, and they are very happy to still have some income.
Niu Qingshan was very supportive of his grandfather's decision. The old man was getting on in years, and many of the farm jobs were too strenuous for him. Most importantly, he didn't earn much money, and sometimes even his basic needs were a problem.
Nowadays, everyone who comes to Niu's house to make bamboo cups can earn money, and they can also get together to chat while working, giving these elderly people some company.
As night fell, Pei Yao went to bed early, hoping to have the same dream she had the night before.
Things never go as planned. Pei Yao didn't continue the dream last night and instead spent a sleepless night.
Pei Yao has now established a biological clock, going to bed early every night and waking up early in the morning as well.
Pei Yao had just washed her face with well water when several people began to arrive at the door. Pei Yao looked up and saw that the group included people of all ages, but they were all women and children.
They came to invite Pei Yao to pick Thunder Fruit together. Pei Yao had heard Aunt Fang say yesterday that they were going to pick Thunder Fruit together, so she said she wanted to go too.
After all, all the Thunder Fruits in the house combined only amount to half of what Gu Mingqian wanted.
More people mean more strength.
So everyone came to find her today.
"Yao girl, we're just waiting for you." Aunt Fang's back basket was full of burlap sacks and a wood-chopping knife.
The fruit of the Pili Fruit is soft, large, and takes up a lot of space.
So when they recently picked pita fruits in a certain place, they would choose to cut the pita fruits open on the spot with a machete to dig out the seeds, and then put the seeds in a bag to bring back.
This allows you to hold more Pili fruit seeds at once.
Yunniang wanted to go too, but she hadn't finished her chores at home, so she chose to stay home and finish them before going to find them.
Anyway, Aunt Fang went to the same riverbank they went to yesterday, so she could find it.
Pei Yao found a basket, put some burlap sacks in it, and set off with Aunt Fang and the others.
Aunt Fang and the others went to the riverbank of a nearby village. The prickly pear trees along this riverbank were so rampant that they were even more numerous than those in Liangshui Village.
They came here yesterday, and a dozen people spent a whole day picking only a small patch of riverbank.
When Pei Yao and her group first arrived, everyone, young and old, got into the swing of things and started frantically picking the nearby Thunder Fruit seeds.
The Pei family had said that they were buying Thunder Fruit for two coins a pound these past few days, so they all wanted to pick more Thunder Fruit seeds while the price was two coins a pound and exchange them for more money.
The price might not be the same next time.
Pei Yao only carried a basket on her back and a cloth bag; she wasn't strong enough to carry anything else back.
She stood on a relatively high rock and looked into the distance, but she couldn't take in all the thunderfruit trees in the area. She had always heard Aunt Fang say that there were many thunderfruit trees here, and now that she actually saw them, she truly understood what Aunt Fang meant by "many".
Looking out, the entire riverbanks are covered with densely packed prickly pear trees, stretching as far as the eye can see, like a large prickly pear cultivation base.
Pei Yao was delighted to see this. With so many trees, there was no need to worry about the 6,000 catties of Thunder Fruit seeds that Gu Mingqian had ordered.
When the villagers pick the pitaya fruit, they only pick the ripe female fruits. They leave the unripe ones to grow for a while and then pick them when they are ripe.
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