Chapter 31 Resigning to Go Home and Farm (8)
Bai Ye waited by the river but did not see Li Jianjun. At 1:30 a.m., he went to the foot of the mountain at the end of Lijia Village, where there was a large area of greenhouse planting.
He had never been there before.
Firstly, the location is too remote, completely isolated from any other household in the village; aside from cats and dogs wandering around, no one would go there. Secondly, it's in the opposite direction from my vegetable garden, and after working hard every day, I'm exhausted and all I want to do is go home and relax.
Bai Ye, holding a flashlight, walked along the path he vaguely remembered, and it took him more than ten minutes to arrive.
Looking up, one sees rows of white greenhouses rising and falling, a vast expanse of white, like the only ray of light in the darkness.
Bai Ye counted them and couldn't help but click his tongue in amazement. How many acres of land had his second uncle contracted? There must be at least thirty greenhouses, right?
"Woof woof!"
A dog's bark startled him from his thoughts, and Bai Ye called out into the night, "Second Uncle? Second Uncle?"
“I’m here,” Li Jianjun’s voice came from one of the greenhouses.
Bai Ye followed the sound, lifted the tarpaulin, and saw several figures moving about.
Upon closer inspection, wow, my eldest uncle and his wife, and my second uncle and his wife, were all there.
"Uncle, what are you doing here?" Bai Ye walked over.
Li Jianye didn't even look up, silently continuing his work. It was his aunt who spoke up, "The second son grows too many vegetables. They're too late to harvest them in time. We help out with some work every year."
He paused, then added, "The second brother is a good person; he paid the bill, so he didn't help for nothing. But your eldest uncle isn't too happy about it."
"What nonsense are you spouting, family?" Li Jianye snorted, then turned around and called out, "Xiao Fan, you've come at the right time. Go over there and help your second uncle pick out some vegetables."
Bai Ye hummed in agreement and continued along the ditch, carrying baskets of vegetables out of the greenhouse.
Compared to my own simple and small amount of vegetables, my second uncle's family has a large quantity and a wide variety of vegetables.
As Bai Ye picked and counted, she realized that she had planted almost all the vegetables that were in season, and they were all ready to be harvested.
"Bitter."
"If it's not crispy and not sweet, it's not tasty."
"They're all dead, they're dying."
Bai Ye turned around when he heard the sound, only to find that the vegetable ghosts had followed him here at some point and were now lying next to baskets of vegetables, pointing and gesturing.
That expression screamed utter disgust.
Bai Ye turned his head and saw that no one else had noticed, so he breathed a sigh of relief.
Then, pretending to pass by casually, he whispered, "Don't cause trouble. These are all my second uncle's hard work. Growing vegetables is not easy."
"Disgusting." That was the honest assessment of one of the dishes.
Bai Ye sighed helplessly, "Compared to you, perhaps."
Who can compare to these vegetable monsters? Pesticides are forbidden, fertilizers must be organic, they need to drink their fill of water every day, and if they're even a little thirsty, they'll climb up the greenhouse and whine and howl. They might even crawl back home in the middle of the night, lie by his bedside, and cry about how they're in a bad mood and want to listen to symphonies...
It took Bai Ye more than half a month to get used to the "midnight terrors," and then she numbly got up to go to the vegetable garden to take care of these little darlings.
In just a few months, I was even more physically and mentally exhausted than if I had been working like a beast of burden in the city.
After that, washing and packing the vegetables took another hour.
Only when all the baskets were loaded onto the vehicle, and Bai Ye sat in the passenger seat as the tricycle sped into the deeper darkness, did he truly experience the life of a vegetable farmer: the night was cool and still, and he felt utterly alone.
At 3:20 a.m., Bai Ye and Li Jianjun arrived at the county town wholesale market.
I thought I had arrived early, but there was already a long queue at the gate. Countless vegetable farmers were eagerly waiting, just waiting for the big iron gate to open so they could carry baskets of vegetables and rush in.
"The locations aren't fixed. The closer to the exit, the more people will fight for them, as it's convenient for vegetable vendors to transport their produce. Be quick-witted in a bit; young people need to be fast-moving to run to the very back and grab a good spot," Li Jianjun whispered to him.
Bai Ye was still lost in thought, stunned by the scene of people crowding together with vegetables.
Upon hearing his second uncle speak, he could only nod blankly.
At 3:30, with a creak, the large iron gate opened.
Bai Ye used the same energy he had when he ran a 1,000-meter dash, "charging" through a group of middle-aged people, and with his youth and agility, managed to grab a decent stall.
Then they pulled a cart, transported baskets of vegetables over, and lined them up in a row.
Another half hour or so passed, and vegetable vendors began to appear one after another.
They also pulled carts, with old-fashioned black backpacks slung across their shoulders, looking around at each stall, asking about prices, and comparing prices.
Li Jianjun has a regular customer base. These people know the way around and come here. They ask about today's vegetable prices and then start carrying baskets of vegetables.
"Would you like to see the lettuce my nephew grew? It's so fresh and juicy!" Li Jianjun promoted Baiye's lettuce while carrying it.
Bai Ye stepped forward at the right moment, picked out a head of lettuce, broke off a leaf and handed it over, "Pesticide-free organic vegetables, especially sweet and delicious, brother, would you like to try some?"
The vegetable vendor took it, popped it into his mouth, and after a couple of bites, his eyes lit up. "How much is this vegetable?"
Bai Ye turned his head and asked his second uncle.
Li Jianjun coughed lightly and quoted a price that was twice as high as his own vegetable prices.
The vegetable vendor across the street immediately waved his hand, "Too expensive, I can't sell them."
"These are organic vegetables, all-natural and pollution-free, truly organic." Bai Ye found it hard to believe.
The vegetable vendor scoffed, "I just rent a stall in the market to sell some vegetables. Most of my customers are old men and women. Who knows anything about organic or not? They just ask which one is the cheapest."
As he spoke, he pointed in a direction and said, “Young man, if you want to sell organic vegetables, you have to go to big cities. People in the city care about health, while we country folk just need to eat our fill.”
Finally, to avoid waste, Baiye sold her two baskets of lettuce at the price of regular lettuce.
A group of vegetable ghosts sat on small carts, waving enthusiastically to Bai Ye and saying goodbye happily.
"I'm sorry." Bai Ye said goodbye and apologized, regretting that he couldn't get a good price.
The Lettuce Creatures: "Our mission is to be a crisp, sweet, and delicious lettuce."
As for who eats it? It doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter how much price it is given.
"This is the label you humans have given us. We are just vegetables," the older lettuce said to Bai Ye before leaving.
Bai Ye chuckled. Indeed, the quality and price of vegetables are determined by humans themselves.
As a type of vegetable, they only pursue their own taste.
They don't care about the value derived from taste.
But Bai Ye is a vegetable grower, and pursuing maximum value is instinctive for him as a job.
To this end, he took advantage of his free time to visit several larger supermarkets in the county town, but because he had no connections, he was so busy that even his own parents didn't recognize him.
Finally, under the strange encouragement, I reluctantly spent 200 ghost coins to buy a "Good Luck Blessing Card," which finally opened the door to a large supermarket.
From then on, all the organic vegetables I grew finally found a suitable sales channel.
When Li Jianjun heard that his nephew had delivered vegetables to a premium supermarket, he was filled with envy.
But while I admire you, I'm not jealous. "Of course, anyone who has tasted your vegetables knows they're not the same as ordinary vegetables, especially your lettuce, which is so sweet even when eaten raw. I've never grown vegetables that taste like that before."
"I have to thank my second uncle for his help. I was completely clueless about the situation before that."
Li Jianjun waved his hand, "It's all thanks to you. We all know how much effort you put into growing truly organic vegetables."
Looking back at the greenhouse, Bai Ye saw that the second and third batches of vegetables were growing wildly. These vegetables were very demanding, but once their needs were met, they truly grew sweeter and sweeter!
Moreover, when he is happy and enthusiastic, the dishes taste even more delicious and sweet.
For a hardworking vegetable grower, producing vegetables like these is probably the only thing that brings them joy.
Each batch of vegetables was carefully harvested, and Bai Ye bought an electric tricycle to deliver the freshest vegetables to the supermarket every day.
Those vegetable enthusiasts were more excited than anyone else. As soon as they entered the supermarket, they ran around everywhere, especially in the vegetable section, where pointing fingers was a common practice.
The white night was simply unbearable to watch; their chattering skills were getting better and better.
Thankfully, no one else can see these strange occurrences.
Summer has arrived.
Bai Ye has a new private business opportunity; he's going to start helping with rice planting.
In Lijia Village, rice seedlings are planted in a centralized manner. Once the seedlings have grown, they are pulled up in bundles by the roots and transported to the paddy fields, where they are planted one by one.
Although Bai Ye grew up in the countryside, he had never grown rice.
First, his family had little land at the time, and it was scattered, with no large, contiguous paddy fields, making it unsuitable for farming. Second, there wasn't enough labor in the family; his parents worked away from home, and his grandparents were in poor health and unsuitable for heavy work.
Indeed, rice cultivation, which may seem like a simple agricultural activity, is entirely physical labor from sowing to harvesting.
Especially in Lijia Village, every paddy field has its own ideas, growing haphazardly and in a way that makes harvesters completely powerless.
Harvesting rice by hand requires racing against time, and Bai Ye recalled an old term: "rice harvester."
With a family cultivating over ten acres of rice, relying solely on their own labor is far from sufficient each year. This is when rice harvesters come into being. They travel to various villages and towns, helping their employers quickly transplant or harvest rice within a limited timeframe, working from dawn till dusk, and losing over ten kilograms in just over half a month.
Of course, the compensation is also quite good.
Li Jianjun's family only has two mu of paddy fields, which are simply used to grow rice for their own consumption.
Therefore, with the addition of Bai Ye, a young laborer, it's enough.
The mountaintop has a cool climate, and it's not too hot even in summer. Wearing a straw hat and a stool, he slowly moves through the paddy fields, pulling up bundles of rice seedlings.
Bai Ye found this job quite novel at first, and the more she did it, the more enjoyable it became.
Just as things were getting heated, a faint voice came from behind, "Oh dear, it's sucking blood!"
After the initial shock, they were filled with wonder, exclaiming, "Wow, it's so good to suck blood! I want some too!"
A chill ran down my spine after the White Night.
What's with this weirdness? Trying to suck my blood in broad daylight?
The rice seedlings at my feet shook twice, bent over on their own initiative, and then straightened up again.
A rice stalk leaf poked Bai Ye's hand as a greeting, "Human, your blood seems worthless, want to share some with me?"
Bai Ye immediately withdrew his hand and looked at his client: Sure enough, no client is normal.
However, "No, I only take on side jobs and earn hard-earned money without any extra expenses."
"But you've already bled."
"ah?"
"A slippery thing is sucking your blood. It's not worth it to suck your blood. Let me suck it. I'm all grown up and mature now. I'll give you a five-star review."
Bai Ye subconsciously stood up and raised his right foot, only to see a yellowish-green, slimy worm clinging to his lower leg and frantically sucking at it.
Leeches!
My God, there was no mention of such disgusting creatures in the water!
"There are several on the left as well."
Daoyang said with regret and envy, "So much blood, what a waste..."
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