Ye Xiaocui rolled her eyes at her daughter, looking at the two snakeskin bags full of bird's nests with disbelief.
"Good heavens! Have you destroyed the swallows' nest?!"
Fu Wan was amused by Ye Xiaocui's words, "Mother, you didn't see that place. It's several times the size of my house. How could we possibly wipe out their stronghold!"
Ye Xiaocui nodded in satisfaction, "We can't do such a despicable thing, especially since our family has been having good luck lately. We can't let doing something despicable drive away our good luck."
After saying that, he said to Fu Wan, "Tomorrow we will go to the Mazu Temple to burn incense and donate some money. Your safe return this time is all thanks to Mazu's blessing."
"I'll take this one!"
Just then, Boss Fu walked in and agreed as soon as he heard this.
"Father and Mother, that's perfect. We'll sort out the bird's nest and take it to town tomorrow so Uncle San can ask if he has any connections."
This stuff doesn't keep well. If it gets damp and moldy when it rains, it'll be a real waste.
"Mom, why don't we go and call Aunt Jiang for help? With so many of us, we might be able to finish cleaning the bird's nest tonight."
Fu Wan is not the type to procrastinate, and Ye Xiaocui agreed when she heard this.
"Okay, I'll go tell your Aunt Jiang right away."
As for others, Fu Liang is already tied to his family, and so is his mother. They share the same fate, and if they get rich, they get rich together.
The fewer people who know about this, the better. It's not that I'm afraid others will get rich, but I'm afraid that if too many people know, the news will spread like wildfire, and the swallows will eventually have nowhere to go.
That was settled. Fu Wan took her clothes to take a shower and wash her hair, while Ye Xiaocui took two small fish to Fu Liang's house.
"Jiang Meizi, Jiang Meizi!"
Jiang Chunlan was mending clothes in her yard when she heard someone calling her, so she quickly went to open the door.
"Sister-in-law, what's wrong?"
Upon seeing Ye Xiaocui carrying fish again, he quickly smiled and invited her in.
"Did A-Wan and Big Brother come back? I told you they were alright, they must have run into some good stuff!"
Ye Xiaocui smiled without saying a word. After carrying the fish into the kitchen and placing it in a basin, she pulled Aunt Jiang aside and whispered to her.
"What, bird's nest!"
Aunt Jiang gasped softly, then immediately covered her mouth.
This might be a tonic like bear paw. Even if country folk haven't eaten pork, they've seen pigs run. That's something only wealthy families could afford.
Fu Wan is really something else; they managed to stumble upon such a wonderful opportunity.
"After dinner tonight, come to my house with Ah Liang. Don't worry, I will definitely treat you well."
Aunt Jiang lightly slapped Ye Xiaocui, "What are you talking about treating us unfairly? Big Brother took A-Liang fishing and made so much money, I should be thanking you!"
Aunt Jiang wasn't greedy, and she knew that if it weren't for Boss Fu taking Fu Liang fishing, her family would probably be too poor to even afford food.
Where it used to be, it was all fish and meat.
Moreover, it was Awan and Boss Fu who discovered the bird's nest this time. They didn't have to tell their family, but now they're asking for help and genuinely trying to boost their own fortunes.
Aunt Jiang felt obligated and readily agreed.
"Okay, okay, I'll come over after dinner."
"Don't tell anyone else about this, or it might cause trouble."
Ye Xiaocui quickly gave instructions, and Jiang Chunlan, not being stupid, quickly assured her, "Don't worry, I know all of this, and there will definitely be no third person besides me and A-Liang who knows."
Ye Xiaocui was relieved and hurried home.
...
After dinner, Fu Laoda and Fu Ming cleaned up the dishes, while Fu Wan and Ye Xiaocui busied themselves wiping the table clean and taking out the bird's nest.
Picking bird's nests is a meticulous task, and Fu Wan's family didn't have many tweezers, so a few people could only pick out the swallow feathers from the nests.
Others would have to process the bird's nests after they were collected. Today, when they were harvesting the bird's nests, Fu Wan and Boss Fu were busy shoveling the bird's nests into snakeskin bags without sorting them out.
So now you see that the bird's nest has a lot of feathers, and it looks dirty.
Fu Liang and Aunt Jiang arrived quickly; just as dusk was falling, there was a knock on the gate of Old Master Fu's house.
It takes more than ten minutes to clean a bird's nest, and that's still not enough to remove all the small feathers. After cleaning five or six, Fu Ming felt soreness in his neck, arms, and even his buttocks.
"This is much more tiring than fishing."
Fu Ming sighed, but Fu Wan didn't even look up. "What do you think? Pick carefully, and I'll give you some of my secret stash later."
Fu Ming got angry when the topic of his secret stash of money came up. That heartless Fu Da Lai Zi stole the few cents he had hidden under the bamboo mat.
Despite his complaints, Fu Ming's hands never stopped moving.
Ye Xiaocui and Aunt Jiang were even more at ease. Both of them were skilled at mending fishing nets and patching clothes at home. Threading a needle was no problem for them.
Picking out feathers from bird's nests is quick and accurate.
After several hours of work, thanks to the help of Fu Liang and Aunt Jiang, the group finally finished selecting the items around 10 p.m.
Aunt Jiang made an appointment with Ye Xiaocui to go to the Mazu Temple to offer incense the next day, and then took Fu Liang home.
Fu Ming only remembered that he hadn't given the note he registered with Fu San to Boss Fu before going to sleep, so he quickly took it out.
Fu Wan picked it up and took a look. Hey, there were 365 catties of ribbonfish, 102 catties and 6 liang of stingray, 58 catties and 8 liang of octopus, and some other miscellaneous fish, which weighed 62 catties and 7 liang.
In addition, the grouper weighed eleven pounds and eight ounces, the tiger grouper weighed eight pounds and six ounces, and the rat grouper weighed three pounds and two ounces in the cage.
Fu Wan then looked at the unit prices next to her: ribbonfish was 65 cents a pound, stingray was one dollar a pound, octopus had dropped to one dollar eighty a pound, tiger grouper was one dollar fifty a pound, and rat grouper was still twenty-five dollars a pound.
After the final calculation, the total came to 538.59. As usual, Fu San rounded it down to 540.
Five hundred and forty yuan! That's no small amount!
Fu Ming had already boasted about it to Fu Liang back when they were at Fu San's purchasing station, and now he was being cheeky again.
"Ah Wan, I'm not kidding, but at this rate, having a tricycle at home is not a dream!"
Fu Laoda slapped him on the back, "Go away, go away! I'm saving this money for you to build houses. Once we've saved up some more money, you can each build one!"
Fu Laoda knew how valuable houses would be in the future. In addition to building houses for his children in Fu Family Village, he also wanted to buy one for Fu Wan in the county so that Fu Ling wouldn't have to travel so far to attend high school there.
Fu Ling, who hasn't started elementary school yet, is currently fast asleep, completely unaware that her maternal grandfather is already planning for the house where she will go to high school.
Fu Wan disagreed, saying, "Father, if we still have money, let's buy another boat!"
"With so many people in our family, we can easily split the profits between two boats, and we'll earn even more in the end!"
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