Set yourself a small goal, such as...
Earn 10,000 a day!
Before hibernating, the family should have saved at least 150,000 yuan.
If catching rabbits hadn't delayed the deer hunt, and if we had a donkey, our daily harvest would definitely be at least twice as much as it is now.
But no rush, take your time.
Lin Mo also wanted to earn more money before the pine nuts went out of season, so he originally thought that asking two childhood friends to help him would be enough.
If you want to earn more money now, you have to make at least two trips every day yourself.
The pine cones in that grove of dwarf pines were dwindling rapidly, so all we could do now was to pluck them as much as we could from the grove.
Only next year can we search for other dwarf pine forests.
As my two childhood friends and I carried our loads deeper into the mountains, we encountered a large group of villagers who came to collect pine cones.
Those guys, they were all so hardworking they could practically fly, with a basket on their backs, a basket in front of them, and a carrying pole on each of their shoulders.
Five bulging hemp sacks hung from each end of a carrying pole.
They really acted like they were picking up money off the ground.
They didn't even bother to chat with the villagers around them; they were just busy picking and stuffing things.
Lin Gangtie also brought his youngest son in to pick up the loads. His son, Lin Changliang, was only 14 years old and still quite young, but he managed to carry a carrying pole. The little guy carried five sacks in total.
"Can we add another bag? They said there won't be any left to pick after October." Lin Changliang was almost crushed by the weight, but his father, Lin Gangtie, still wanted to try hanging another bag on.
"I...I can do it..." Lin Changliang gritted his teeth, accepting this heavy weight of fatherly love.
The village chief's distant relative, Wu Renyi, also came with his entire family of four. His youngest son, who was only 10 years old, was squatting there, picking things up with all his might.
The eldest daughter looked to be about sixteen or seventeen, but she was already carrying a load on her shoulders.
Lin Mo still remembered that Wu Renyi had previously borrowed four rabbits from the village chief on credit using an IOU.
"Xiao Mo, are you off hunting rabbits again?" Wu Renyi chuckled and greeted Lin Mo when he saw him.
In the past, who in the village liked Lin Mo?
Now, thanks to the pretext of distributing rabbits, quite a few people have noticed him and are giving him a smile.
"Well, we need to go deeper into the mountains to catch rabbits. If we find anything good in the future, we'll share it with the village."
Upon hearing this, Wu Renyi's eyes lit up, and he repeatedly said, "Great! Great!"
Amidst the lively conversation, Lin Mo was actually searching for Su Xiaoxiao, or at the very least, checking to see if Su's great-uncle had come over.
They looked for a long time but couldn't find any. For some reason, none of the three members of the Su family followed the trend and came to pick pine cones.
Never mind, I'll ask again when I see them tomorrow when I'm sorting the rabbits.
I went back and forth with my two childhood friends to pick pine cones twice, and it got dark early.
When they returned to the Lin family home for the last time before dark, they smelled an enticing aroma as soon as they entered the courtyard.
Whether by coincidence or not, Qingsong and Awang's parents were both in the yard, staring intently into the kitchen.
It turned out that my mother was making rabbit meat jelly, and they came to learn how.
"This... to make ten catties of rabbit meat jelly, you have to add a catty of peanut oil and half a catty of pork skin yourself?"
"Peanut oil isn't cheap; it costs two yuan per pound, and pork skin costs forty cents."
"Ten pounds sell for eight yuan. After deducting these two items, it's only five yuan and sixty cents left."
Miao Shouzhen's pain wasn't about the two yuan for oil, but about the grain coupons he had to use to buy it.
Grain coupons were limited; each household could only have 30 jin of grain coupons per month, and 5 jin of grain coupons could be used to buy one jin of oil.
Half a pound of pigskin is equivalent to another pound of grain coupons.
Even if you don't buy grain each month, those thirty catties of grain coupons are only enough to buy the oil and pig skin needed for fifty catties of aspic.
I can afford the money, but I can't afford the ticket.
"There's no other way," came the old woman's voice from the kitchen.
"Rabbit meat doesn't have much gelatin or fat. Without these two things, it won't become aspic. No matter how you stew it, it will still be watery."
Miao Shouzhen and Miao Fenfa each brought a rabbit over to make aspic for Aunt Lin.
Aunt Lin made it, and they learned from her. They agreed that after the aspic was made, they would save half for Aunt Lin as payment.
Before cooking, this sounded like a pretty good deal.
Actually, it's not cost-effective at all. If you make 20 jin of aspic from two rabbits, you'll have to lose 2 jin of peanut oil and 1 jin of pork skin.
However, Aunt Lin wasn't one to hold grudges, so she didn't tell them beforehand.
Seeing his two uncles starting to look worried, Lin Mo's mind raced.
A solution was quickly devised:
"Mother, you can add less oil. Only put one pound of oil in for every thirty pounds of jin. And you can use fish skin instead of pig skin for the glue."
"We've made an appointment with the village chief to take the whole village fishing in the Nenjiang River around noon tomorrow."
"When it comes to glue, fish skin is much richer than pig skin."
"Huh? Fishing?" If Lin Mo hadn't mentioned it, the two uncles would have almost forgotten about eating fish last time.
Just mentioning it makes my mouth water.
"Yes, we can fish! We've done it before!" Miao Fenfa exclaimed excitedly.
"If we knew how to catch fish, we probably would have already gone to catch fish to eat!"
"Yes," Lin Mo said with a smile.
"I'll be able to learn how to catch fish tomorrow."
Fishing is a skill, and opportunities to learn it are rare. Miao Fenfa and Miao Shouzhen immediately stopped looking worried and their faces were full of happy smiles.
"Then let's go to the team early tomorrow and wait there!"
Give Qingsong and Awang their share of the money, forty yuan each.
Then settle the bill for Ah Jun's family.
This family is quite something, probably because they knew that pine nuts were about to be out of season, so they unleashed their potential today.
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