Chapter 70
Facing the pitch-black sun, Chu Jiujiu and others headed towards the mountains.
It was 4:20 in the morning and the dogs were still asleep. The entire Qingzhu Village was silent, with only a few villagers who had gotten up early coming out to get water. In the silent village, apart from the birds singing, there was an occasional violent cough, followed by a clear rustling sound. After two or three seconds of silence, the man returned to the house and slammed the door, startling the old hen in the yard. She cackled and cursed, and the old hen shook her wings, shrank her neck, and went back to sleep.
Even chickens can take a nap in their coop, but Wen Xiuwei can't. She feels that life is so cruel.
…
Chu Shao and Han Shengyi were used to waking up early. Even if Chu Jiujiu didn't wake them, they would still be up by five at the latest. The occasional four in the morning was nothing to them. Therefore, apart from a few complaints when they first woke up, they became very energetic and even looked forward to the day's harvest with Chu Jiujiu. However, Wen Xiuwei was different. At her uncle's house, she would get up after six, and at Xujiawan, she would get up at seven. Chu Jiujiu had changed her biological clock without any regard, making her walk heavy, especially in the dark, which made her even more sleepy.
I didn't eat breakfast in the morning, and there were only cucumber vines in the yard, and no juicy cucumbers yet. Chu Jiujiu planned to go to the mountain and eat whatever she saw. Halfway, Chu Shao saw a bunch of jasmine flowers that had bloomed early on the side of the road. This kind of jasmine was different from the most common white potted plants in modern times. The colors of the flowers were mostly pink and purple, and some were even blue. Although they were all called jasmine, they looked very different.
This jasmine is edible, and its nectar is very sweet. Locals enjoy collecting the nectar and making a soup to drink, which helps to reduce internal heat. The flowers are supposed to bloom in May, and then all the old ladies and young wives scoured the mountains and plains, but found no surviving flowers. They were lucky to have caught the first batch of flowers to bloom; otherwise, they would have been outclassed by the experienced women.
Taking Chu Jiujiu's small basket, Chu Shao moved quickly. Soon the jasmine bush was bare. He handed the basket to Chu Jiujiu and Wen Xiuwei. Chu Jiujiu started to eat the nectar as if she was familiar with it, while Wen Xiuwei looked at it for a while before tentatively putting the nectar into her mouth.
The temperature was low in the early morning, and you had to wear a long-sleeved coat if you wanted to go up the mountain. The nectar was sweet, the dew was cold, and the mountain breeze was particularly refreshing. Wen Xiuwei finally woke up from her nap and was no longer sleepy. She looked at the shadowy mountains in the distance and became excited.
This was not her first time to go up the mountain to pick mushrooms, but because the environment and people around her had changed, her mood also changed greatly.
In the past, she picked mushrooms to complete her tasks and to integrate into the circle of educated youth, but now, she does it to gain experience, for Chu Jiujiu, and to have more fresh dishes for her family.
Home.
That’s right, Wen Xiuwei was thinking about home.
It's so strange. She lives in the Chu family. No one here is her relative, but she always unconsciously regards this place as her own home. She now takes the initiative to do all the things that she would only do because others force or tell her to do them. Moreover, she feels very happy.
Wen Xiuwei couldn't understand what her mentality was, but she didn't want to understand it. Life was hard, and she finally had something that made her feel passionate and happy. She didn't want to think too much. Her mother said that people who think too much will not be happy. Focusing on the present and enjoying the moment is what she should do.
——
As soon as they reached the top of the mountain, the sky in the distance changed color. After dawn, the green mountains covered by thick fog revealed their original appearance. From the foot of the mountain all the way up, they still took the road that Chu Shao was familiar with. Chu Jiujiu picked up mushrooms on the ground while reciting in her heart.
Shiitake mushrooms, shiitake mushrooms, shiitake mushrooms, white mushrooms, blue-headed mushrooms, shiitake mushrooms, shiitake mushrooms, shiitake mushrooms...
Chu Jiujiu: “…”
The yield on the mountain near Qingzhu Village is obviously higher than that on Xujiawan. Of course, it may also be that they came too early. The mushrooms have grown well, but no one comes to the mountain. It’s almost like they have booked the whole place, so they feel that mushrooms are everywhere.
When going out, Wen Xiuwei was not very willing, but when she got to the mountain, she was more enthusiastic than anyone else. Soon, her basket was full. She poured all the mushrooms in the basket into the backpack behind Chu Shao. Wen Xiuwei continued to work hard. Chu Jiujiu felt that her state was a little familiar. She tilted her head and thought about it. She remembered her mother shopping in the shopping mall.
It cannot be said that they are very similar, only that they are exactly the same.
…
In contrast, Chu Jiujiu was not so happy. Wen Xiuwei was halfway through picking the flowers when she squatted next to her and asked, "What's wrong? Why do you look so unhappy?"
Chu Jiujiu curled her lips and before she could say anything, Chu Shao beside her answered for her: "There are too many mushrooms, she's going to lose her temper."
Chu Jiujiu: “…I didn’t!”
She didn't say it in a bad mood, but her voice was already rising. Wen Xiuwei laughed out loud. She moved closer to Chu Jiujiu and said softly, "It's okay. I won't let you eat it all. I'll make it into mushroom sauce and sell it at the supply and marketing cooperative in town."
Hearing that it could be sold, Chu Jiujiu's ears twitched. She turned her head and asked, "How much can it be sold for?"
Wen Xiuwei had sold it once and was already experienced. "I can sell half a pound for 30 cents. My family has a secret recipe for making mushroom sauce, which is delicious. But I don't have much oil and meat to put in it, so the taste is compromised."
After she finished speaking, she looked at the baskets behind Han Shengyi and Chu Shao and thought, "I should be able to pick up seven or eight pounds today. If I make sauce, there will be at least ten pounds, which can be sold for three yuan. I'll give it all to you, okay?"
Wen Xiuwei smiled at Chu Jiujiu. The monthly allowance for educated youth was less than three yuan. She did this just to make Chu Jiujiu happy. However, Chu Jiujiu rolled her eyes after hearing this. "It doesn't have much oil and water, but it can still be sold for thirty cents. Thirty cents for half a pound. Didn't you just pour it into a big bottle and bring it over? The packaging is not good enough. The supply and marketing cooperative will definitely lower the price. Let's buy bottles in advance and buy more of that low-quality oil. It's not rapeseed oil, it's called cottonseed oil. You said you want to add meat, right? Then go buy some more meat. Yes, you must buy meat. The price of things with meat will be much higher."
As she spoke, Chu Jiujiu stood up, her eyes sparkling. "There's oil and meat, and each bottle is divided by weight. Don't sell them by half a catty. Put two taels in each bottle. A tin bottle costs six cents, and two cents of cottonseed oil is less than two cents. As for meat, put two to three cents in a bottle, and there are mushrooms. This is free, there is no cost. If you add it all up, a bottle of mushroom sauce only costs about ten cents, but we can sell it for fifty cents!"
Wen Xiuwei was stunned. She looked up at Chu Jiujiu, who looked incredibly shrewd, almost holding an abacus. Chu Shao was also stunned. He had never seen her do math so quickly, but today, when it came to making money, her mind was really working at full speed.
Han Shengyi came over and thought for a moment. He shook his head and said, "Fifty cents for pickles is too expensive. The supply and marketing cooperatives buy them so they can sell them. They charge a higher price when they sell them, but no one will spend seventy or eighty cents on a bottle of pickles."
Chu Jiujiu: "Don't forget, there's a lot of meat and oil in it. And Wen Zhiqing said that it tastes especially good when made with her recipe. If you add more salt and it's salty enough, you can eat it with rice. Two taels of mushroom sauce will last for a long time. It's a bit expensive, but it can be stored for a long time and can be eaten for many meals. As long as people try it, it will open up the market."
When he heard her say that, Han Shengyi knew she had an idea. "Who do you want to try it?"
Chu Jiujiu chuckled wickedly, "Last time, Section Chief Feng's wife helped us, and I still haven't thanked her. So I'll give her this mushroom sauce. If they say it's delicious, we can tell the salesperson when we go to the supply and marketing cooperative to sell it. Even Chief Engineer Chai said it was good!"
Chu Shao: "They helped you, but you still want to take advantage of them."
Chu Jiujiu: "I'm not lying. If he said it wasn't tasty, I wouldn't have told the salesperson that. Besides, let's give him some for free. Four bottles, that's more than a kilogram. Chief Engineer Chai is so busy every day and has no time to eat. This kind of pickles should be perfect for him."
It felt like what she said made sense, but Chu Shao still decided to buy some valuable things in addition to the pickles. After all, she had done them a big favor. After thinking it over, Chu Shao nodded, and seeing that he agreed, the three of them turned their heads and looked at Wen Xiuwei, who was still squatting on the ground.
Wen Xiuwei: "...Why are you all looking at me?"
Chu Jiujiu squatted down again, looking at her with bright eyes, "Wen Zhiqing, we're all relying on you. Your recipe must be amazing, right?"
Her eyes were full of stars, but Wen Xiuwei felt a lot of pressure under her gaze. It was just selling mushroom sauce to earn some pocket money, but why did Chu Jiujiu make such a plan for it, as if their products would be sold nationwide tomorrow.
She was originally very confident in her recipe, after all, it was taught to her by her grandmother, but now, she was a little confused.
"The recipe is fine, but my cooking skills..."
Upon hearing this, Chu Jiujiu immediately shook her hand enthusiastically, "Of course there's no problem! If it really doesn't work, you can always ask Chu Shao to do it. His cooking is just as good as yours!"
Chu Shao: “…”
Thank you, it seems we are all your tools.
Chu Jiujiu happily put her arm around Wen Xiuwei and counted on her fingers as they walked. "After giving away one of the ten kilograms, there are nine kilograms left. One kilogram is five ounces. Two kilograms can make five bottles. Each bottle is fifty cents. After deducting the cost, it's forty cents. In the end, we can make a net profit of...nine yuan."
Looking at her fingers, Chu Jiujiu was stunned. She turned her head and looked at Wen Xiuwei, "Nine yuan, Wen Zhiqing, are you going to give me all of these?"
Wen Xiuwei: “…”
Where do you get the confidence from that you can earn nine dollars just by doing a random calculation?
What if she doesn’t do it well and can’t sell it?
Wen Xiuwei fell silent, and Chu Shao dispelled her fantasy, "You wish! I'll give it all to you. You can use it all to buy pineapples."
Chu Jiujiu: “…”
"I've only bought pineapples three times, and I haven't eaten them once!"
Chu Shaocai didn't care what she said. After thinking for a while, he said what he thought was a kind move: "If it can really be sold, half will go to Wen Zhiqing, one-fifth to me, one-fifth to Han Shengyi, and the remaining tenth will be given to you."
Chu Jiujiu was shocked, "This is too little!"
Chu Shao looked down at her. "Wen Zhiqing provided the recipe and made the sauce herself. Han Shengyi and I found most of these mushrooms. Look in your basket. How many mushrooms are there?"
Chu Jiujiu looked down and saw only a thin layer. After seeing the mushrooms, she was disgusted and ignored them unless they looked good.
At that time, she didn't think that she could sell them for money. If she knew that she could sell them for money, she would definitely pick them all and put them all in her basket.
Unable to bargain with Chu Shao any further, Chu Jiujiu lowered her head and retorted softly, "This idea was mine..."
Chu Shao was unmoved. It was not that he was stingy, but that Chu Jiujiu had just learned to spend money. When he took her to the supply and marketing cooperative before, she didn't want anything, but now, she wanted everything she saw. She wanted to buy a new chaise mirror, and she still wanted to buy one of the new patterns on the enamel pot. Even though there were already several at home, the three of them could not use them all.
Chu Shao felt that this was not a good idea. Chu Jiujiu could not have too much money in her hands. Giving her two or three yuan was already the maximum. She was a child and did not have many places to spend money.
He was very determined, but his comrades were not supportive. Seeing Chu Jiujiu's lost expression, Wen Xiuwei felt distressed. She walked to Chu Jiujiu and whispered to her, "It's okay, I'll give you half of mine."
Han Shengyi also said, "I'll give you all I have. I occasionally help out at the commune now, and everyone there pays me. I'm not short of money anymore."
Wen Xiuwei's half, plus all of Han Shengyi's, was clearly not yet in sight, but Chu Jiujiu instantly felt a sense of accomplishment, having defeated the board of directors and become the largest shareholder. While the three of them were affectionate and harmonious over there, Chu Shao here looked unhappy.
Looking at them grimly, after holding back for a long time, Chu Shao finally uttered a harsh word, "Just spoil her!"
…
After sunrise, the mountain gradually became more crowded. Chu Jiujiu made a special trip to the spot where she'd picked Ganoderma and Tremella last year. Sadly, nothing was growing there this year. Grandma Han had told her that Ganoderma growth is random, and the Ganoderma she'd picked hadn't released spores, so naturally, there wouldn't be any offspring. But she still wanted to try her luck, and when she found none, she was a little disappointed, but didn't take it seriously.
After all, she knew that just because you have bad luck once doesn't mean you can have it a second time.
Thanks to the mushroom sauce project, Chu Jiujiu no longer ignored those mushrooms that seemed to her to have a strange taste. The four of them chatted casually as they picked mushrooms. By ten o'clock, everyone was tired, and their backpacks were full. Mushrooms are light, but two one-meter-high backpacks filled to the brim were quite heavy. It was still early, so they found a sunny spot, dumped all the mushrooms they had picked on the ground, and sorted them by category.
All the shiitake mushrooms went into Chu Shao's backpack, while the more delicious ones, like white and chicken leg mushrooms, went into Han Shengyi's. As for the more rare mushrooms, like green-headed and ruyi mushrooms, they went into Chu Jiujiu's small basket to be taken back and given to Grandma Han. Wen Xiuwei's basket was a bit bigger, filled with the goodies they'd found in the mountains today: fruit, wormwood, and even a pheasant feather that Chu Jiujiu found particularly beautiful.
A chicken feather cannot be made into a feather duster, but Chu Jiujiu said that she wanted to use it as a feather pen.
No one else knew what a quill was, but Wen Xiuwei knew, and she was a little curious, "Jiujiu, how did you know about quills?"
Chu Jiujiu pulled out a piece of flowering weed. She walked aside and used it to sweep towards every tree around her. Her attention was focused on the trees, so she casually replied, "I learned it from Harry Potter."
Wen Xiuwei was shocked: "Jiujiu, do you know foreigners?"
Chu Jiujiu's movement of sweeping the tree paused: "..."
Harry Potter was released in 1997, and there were movies in the early 21st century. If nothing unexpected happened, they would all be able to live safely until that year...
Adults' memories are neither good nor bad. They can't remember what they ate yesterday, but they can remember a particular evening after school decades ago. Chu Jiujiu froze for a long moment, her body as if paused. Her few seconds of silence were suspicious enough, but when she turned around, she scratched her head, trying to hide the truth. "What Harry Potter? I don't recognize foreigners. Maybe I've seen him in a book somewhere, but I can't remember where."
Wen Xiuwei frowned, Chu Shao touched his nose, looked at the tree in silence, and Han Shengyi expressed the doubts in everyone's mind: "You forgot? Don't you remember everything?"
Chu Jiujiu: “…”
Yes, I will never forget anything.
So I will remember for the rest of my life what you did to me today!
…
Looking at Chu Jiujiu's guilty expression, Wen Xiuwei was silent for a moment and withdrew her gaze. She said nothing and just passed over the topic.
On the way down the mountain, by coincidence, they saw the Guo siblings again. Guo Youtian was holding a trap for catching mountain rabbits, while Guo Youmian was carrying a basket. Behind them was a younger boy who had nothing to bring with him as he followed his siblings up the mountain. Seeing Chu Jiujiu and her group, Guo Youtian wanted to ignore them. He snorted and just as he was about to turn around, he saw Wen Xiuwei out of the corner of his eye.
Guo Youtian turned his head back and saw Wen Xiuwei's appearance. He was stunned for two seconds, and then he felt uncomfortable all over. "You, you are the new Wen Zhiqing?"
He didn't need to ask this question. Wen Xiuwei's name was well-known. He could tell whether the other person was Wen Zhiqing by looking at her face.
It’s so beautiful, there’s no other one like it in the whole town.
Wen Xiuwei had never seen him before, so she smiled at him and said, "I am. Are you a child from the village?"
When Guo Youtian saw her smile, his neck suddenly changed color, from bottom to top, and even his face turned red.
"My name is Guo Youtian, and my father is Director Guo of the Engineering Management Office."
Normally, when Guo Youtian introduces himself, he won't mention Guo Heizi, unless someone provokes him, then he will bring up his father. Guo Youmian behind him looked at him in surprise. This was the first time she saw her elder brother show such a reaction.
Wen Xiuwei wasn't surprised. When the men saw her, five of them stared at her, three blushed and dared not speak, one would be scared away, and the last one would show no reaction at all. She smiled at Guo Youtian again and made a move to continue her descent. Chu Jiujiu followed beside her, but her eyes were fixed on Guo Youtian.
Guo Youtian's heart was filled with emotion. He wanted to take another look at Wen Xiuwei, but he suddenly met Chu Jiujiu's eyes.
Seeing Chu Jiujiu's hostile gaze, Guo Youtian was stunned.
What's going on? Wasn't she unwilling to pay attention to him before? Why is she looking at him like this now, as if he had offended her?
Seeing him looking at her, Chu Jiujiu didn't hide her anger at all. She glared at Guo Youtian fiercely until she couldn't turn her head anymore. Then she took a deep breath and said to him in a heavy voice: "Humph!!!"
Guo Youtian: “…”
Why do these actions look so familiar?
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