The rice in the shopping mall is so cheap! On the contrary, the mushrooms that grow all over the mountains are ridiculously expensive, but they can't exchange too much rice for them.
Rice costs nine coins per pound, and fresh mushrooms cost ten or twenty coins. If they were to exchange ten or twenty pounds of rice, it would be too conspicuous!
Shui Qing's original intention was to exchange more mushrooms for more rice. Mushrooms and water chestnuts are both highly seasonal foods, and they are not available after the season.
The water chestnut has already gone off the market, and the termite mushroom and bamboo fungus will be gone by the end of October at the latest. At that time, the villagers of Shanshui Village will not be able to earn money through hard work.
Of course, she couldn't earn it anymore.
So, taking advantage of the rain and the abundance of mushrooms, the more mushrooms the villagers of Shanshui Village collect, the more she earns. And it's a good thing that the villagers become wealthier after exchanging them for rice.
A large gap can arouse envy, but since everyone is roughly the same, they will only think about working harder to make their lives better.
"Look, open bamboo mushrooms can be exchanged for three pounds of rice, unopened ones for four pounds of rice, and skirt mushrooms for four pounds as well. How about that?"
Fan Jin thought that this was more than in the prefectural city, but fortunately it was only double, which was not too exaggerated.
Moreover, even six- or seven-year-old children can pick mushrooms, and families with many members in the village can earn more in a day than they do when peeling water chestnuts.
Shanshui Village was, after all, the place where he was born and raised, and he had a special feeling for it. Within his means, he hoped that the people of Shanshui Village would live better and better lives—excluding those with bad character.
He replied, "Okay, now that it's raining, the mushrooms will start to sprout up around midnight, and we can start picking them early tomorrow morning."
Shui Qing looked out the window at the slanting wind and drizzle, the thatched house was dimly lit. "Let's start building a house after the mushroom season is over."
Who says the South isn't cold? Although Shanshui Village is in the South, when she asked, the people around her, including those in the town, didn't know what the sea was.
It seems to be quite a distance from the sea, and both the Hu and Fan families eat spicy food. She had previously subtly inquired about the dishes cooked by the older women in the village, and most of them contained chili peppers.
Shui Qing speculated that Guangning Prefecture was located in the south, but it should be the south that is close to Hunan and other places. It was not on the coast, had a rainy and humid climate, was prone to flooding in summer, and had a winter that was not as cold and snowy as the north, but was still bone-chillingly cold.
A brick and tile house that is warm in winter and cool in summer is just right.
Fan Jin nodded. They had already sold two batches of writing brushes and now had seventy or eighty taels of silver in their hands. After the mushroom season ended and November came, they would have some silver left over after building the courtyard house.
A house is a big deal; it's where people spend the most time each day. From high-ranking officials to ordinary citizens, everyone wants to own a house.
They will do their best to build their houses bigger and better.
He was an ordinary person in the mortal world, and naturally no exception.
After the two reached an agreement on the amount of rice to be exchanged for mushrooms and the timeframe for building the house, the room fell silent for a moment.
Fan Jin frowned slightly, recalling what he had heard in the village, his tone filled with worry: "I heard that Hei Zi is staying at my elder brother's house."
Shui Qing was genuinely shocked this time.
She knew her mother-in-law's family's ways all too well. Putting aside the food, their shrewish and mean-spirited nature was something else entirely. How could Hei Zi possibly tolerate it?!
Why was he able to tolerate it?
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