"Brother He, are you out digging wild vegetables again?"
After Xu He finished planting the seedlings in the field early in the morning, he did not turn back to go home, but went straight to the other end of the mountain. He had a hollow gourd hanging diagonally around his waist. When the weather got hot, Zhang Fangyuan bought two gourds from the city. He used one gourd to hold water when he dug wild vegetables, and he filled the other with water and took it to the city.
When the villagers saw him packing like this, they knew he was going to pick wild vegetables.
"Um."
"Is wild vegetables selling well recently?"
Xu He said: "There are many farmers near Siyang City who sell wild vegetables. I can't raise the price, so I just exchange them for candle money."
"It's a good thing to have some income."
Xu He chatted briefly with others and then walked away.
The husband who was digging the fields was talking to a villager from another field, "I think all the mountains in and outside our village have to be dug up by He Geer. The other day I said I would pick some ferns to make a cold dish at home, but when I went to the mountain cave where few people go, I saw that all the ferns had been picked."
"Well, those two are obsessed with money. There are only two of us in the family now, what are they doing with all that money?"
"They have a horse-drawn carriage and can go in and out of the city easily, so how could they not want to make money? They take the wild vegetables they dig to the city to sell the next day, and bring back the ones they can't sell to dry or pickle. The other day I went to the butcher's house to borrow a hoe, and you didn't see that there were several pickle jars in his kitchen, and there were ferns, spring bamboo shoots, and black fungus drying in the yard. Xu He even gave me a handful of dried black fungus."
"Don't mention it. I didn't pay much attention to her before. Xu He is quite capable. On the contrary, I didn't see her sister busy at all."
"Who knows?"
After April, the forests are visibly getting greener. Xu Hejue can only dig spring vegetables twice. Once the weather gets hot and summer comes, all the wild vegetables on the hillside will grow old and no new ones will grow. However, this kind of livelihood relying on the mountains and fields is not a long-term livelihood, and it is great to be able to give farmers a chance to catch their breath.
Fortunately, their village is far from the city, otherwise there would be many villagers digging wild vegetables to sell, and he would not be able to pick all the fresh ones and select wild vegetables at random by himself. Nowadays, only the villagers in this village would dig some to take back and eat. Although there are people fighting for it, it is definitely not as fierce as those villagers near the city.
The next day, he went to the city with Zhang Fangyuan to set up a stall, bringing fresh wild vegetables and black fungus grown from long pieces of tung trees at home.
"Mushrooms grow very well after the rain. Look, the mushrooms growing on the tung tree at home are enough to fill a basket."
Xu He held the basket and showed off the soft fungus to Zhang Fangyuan.
At first they did grow sporadically, but not much. When they were ripe, Xu He picked them and dried them. This was the first time they grew so many that they could be sold.
Zhang Fangyuan swung the reins and said sourly, "I took some effort to carry the tree back, but I never got to eat the fungus it grew. Those people in the city who are willing to spend money have better food than me."
Xu He was helpless: "There are still some small ones on the tree that I haven't picked yet. When they are bigger, I will pick them and make you some shredded black fungus and pork, okay?"
Zhang Fangyuan smiled now: "Okay. I sold a quarter of the livestock I bought to the Chen family, so we can sell all the meat today. The Chen family also asked me to bring some things back. I'll come to you when I've sold all the meat, and we'll go buy some together."
He is a businessman, but he is not good at bargaining with others. It all depends on Xu He. He will try to save as much as possible. In fact, this was just a polite remark. The real problem was that he had no money at all to buy things.
His wife was embarrassed to manage his money at first, and was worried that he would not have enough to spend every day. In the morning, if he went out alone, even if she prepared lunch, she would give him an extra half a dollar to put in his pocket for emergencies, as if she was afraid that he would lose face if he ran out of money.
As time went on, the two of them cuddled in bed, and Xu He said that he was too lazy to count the half a liang of money he received every day, and it was tiring for him to carry it around, so he simply changed the half a liang of money to twenty wen. Listen, is this a legitimate reason? But lying on the bed, Zhang Fangyuan naturally complied with his request and agreed.
After a few days, the two of them were snuggling in bed again. Xu He said that he had more than twenty cents left over from the previous gift, and he had already formed a habit of saving. In order to test whether he had really formed a good habit, they would reduce the twenty cents to ten cents to see if it worked. If it really didn't work, they would increase the amount back to ten cents. This time what she said was quite nice, but whether it sounded nice or not was secondary. What mattered was that it was in bed, so he agreed again.
Thus, he spent half a month happily, and he didn't know how many words he promised Xu He in bed...Now he didn't give him a penny anymore. If he needed anything, he had to buy it with the money from selling meat, and then come back to report.
The young man said that he had not thought it through before. He thought it was a good idea to use the money from selling meat to pay for urgent expenses. Anyway, every piece of meat sold earns at least 10 or 20 cents, so there is always money in hand.
Zhang Fangyuan had a good idea. He bought oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar and other things in advance, and reported it to Xu He when he got back. Xu He didn't say much, but he would check the market price carefully. He would never dare to falsely report the price to make a profit. He knew everything. He knew the difference between the soy sauces of the two soy sauce shops in the east and west of the city. How could he not know the prices of the things in the shops? He could not be fooled at all.
The day before yesterday, he used the money from selling meat to buy two taels of wine. When he went back that day, He Ge'er found out when he counted the bill. He questioned him and refused to let him sleep in the house unless he told the truth.
Once that little face fell and she got angry, she wouldn't say a word to him for three days.
By now, he was penniless, just like the person at the post station. The coins he paid to enter the station were just temporary deposits in his pocket, which he would eventually have to put at the final destination.
Zhang Fangyuan couldn't help but sigh. Although it was like boiling a frog in warm water, he was used to abusing money. It would be a lie to say that he didn't feel uncomfortable when he was restricted for a while. But he was the one who asked others to manage his money. Could he get it back?
"Okay, I'll wait for you in Xishi."
Zhang Fangyuan came back to his senses and nodded. He could find where Xu He sold vegetables. Driving the horse-drawn carriage, he did not take anyone to the meat market, but went directly to Xishikou to help him move the things down, and then went to the meat market to set up a stall himself.
Nowadays, the couple sets up their own stalls, and their life is quite harmonious.
"Was the one driving the carriage just now the coachman or your husband?"
Xu He carried the vegetables to the stall he usually set up, and a woman who arrived early asked him with a smile.
"He's my husband." Xu He did not hide it.
"That's so nice of you to even send you here."
Xu He smiled. The stall owner who greeted him seemed to want to say something else, but after thinking about it, he shut up. Xu He felt a little strange, but didn't ask any further questions.
As soon as the stall opened, regular customers came to buy vegetables. A basket of fresh wood ear mushrooms immediately attracted residents from the city. Mushrooms are rarely sold and it is not easy to come across them, not to mention that they are freshly grown after the rain. I took it home and fried the meat with cold salad, it was very fresh and crispy.
Knowing that it would sell well, Xu He raised the price a bit. This wild delicacy is not cheaper than pork. The buyers picked out a handful or two to take home as a fresh treat. Even though the purchases were small, there were many people buying, and the baskets were empty in less than half an hour.
More than three pounds of fungus, twenty cents per pound, sold individually for more than sixty cents.
If another person wants it, he will sell it at a lower price and sell all the remaining ones.
The corners of Xu He's mouth curled up. The scarce things in the market could indeed sell very well. It was a pity that like winter bamboo shoots, it was impossible to sell them continuously. But it was precisely because of this that he got an unexpected surprise.
He thought that with so much money he could buy cloth to make clothes for Zhang Fangyuan.
Before he could concentrate on his thoughts, his basket was suddenly kicked away by someone, and the remaining wood ears fell to the ground.
When he looked up, he saw two men with rat-like faces and rat-like eyes standing in front of his stall with their hands behind their backs and their legs shaking. They looked around as if they were chewing something in their mouths.
Before Xu He could open his mouth, the man kicked over his backpack, and several bundles of spring buds inside rolled out. They were stepped on and rotted on the ground.
"Who told you to set up a stall here?"
Xu He was furious. The sudden change caught him off guard. He knew that the two men were here to cause trouble, so he couldn't be kind in his tone: "Everyone here is setting up stalls, can't we set up some?"
"You may be young, but you have a bad temper. Others can set up their stalls here, but you can't." The man stretched out his hand and poked Xu He's shoulder word by word, looking like a gangster.
"Why!"
The man kicked the basket again, his face full of flesh: "What other reasons do I have to dislike you?"
When they saw people causing trouble nearby, no one stepped forward to persuade them to stop. They were all from small farming families and did not dare to step forward to show off. Instead, they quietly moved their stalls away.
Xu He guessed that he was blocking someone else's financial path, and now someone came to cause trouble. He suddenly thought of the stall owner who had said he would find someone to help him.
Sure enough, the young man suddenly came in from the market with his hands folded, looking like he was enjoying a good show. He looked Xu He up and down and said, "Oh, you sold a lot today, didn't you? Tsk tsk, look at the vegetables all over the floor, you better clean it up later, otherwise the officials in charge of the market will see this mess and evict you from setting up stalls, don't ruin everyone."
Xu He's chest was rising and falling quickly. Although he had been bullied in the village, he had never encountered such unreasonable people in the city. He said, "It's just right that the government officials are here to sue you for causing trouble without reason!"
"Oh, you still want to sue us. We haven't dealt with you properly yet, but you are still so fierce."
The two men laughed obscenely and wanted to go forward and drag Xu He away.
Xu He didn't expect the chaos in the city to be so terrible. He subconsciously wanted to run, but he turned around and ran away, but he crashed into a wall of people with a bang.
Zhang Fangyuan rubbed his chest and said, "It hurts."
He reached out and steadied Xu He's waist, holding him to his side like a protective cub.
Xu He let out a breath without even noticing it. It was fine just now, but for some reason, when he saw Zhang Fangyuan, he suddenly felt aggrieved. He raised his eyes and looked at him pitifully, and his eyes turned red uncontrollably.
Zhang Fangyuan felt as if he had been punched in the heart, and he immediately cursed: "Who the hell is so blind to bully my wife!"
When the two men saw the person coming, their faces immediately turned pale as if they were frozen, and they became stiff and expressionless. They instinctively wanted to hide behind him and almost stepped on the young man who was causing trouble behind them.
"What are you doing? The three of us can't beat those two? Brother Gou, didn't you say you would make the decision for me?"
The man ignored the boy's twisting and pushed him aside, forcing out a smile that was uglier than crying.
"Zhang...Brother Zhang..."
"Brother Zhang? You kicked my wife's stall, and now you have the nerve to call me brother? Are you sick?"
Zhang Fangyuan stopped laughing, and suddenly his expression became stern. The two men were so scared that their legs went limp. "Yes, yes, we are sick. We are both sick."
"If I don't give you a lesson today, it would be a waste of our acquaintance!"
Zhang Fangyuan suddenly grabbed one of the men by the collar, then grabbed another and dragged them straight into the alley. Xu He chased for two steps and was stopped by Zhang Fangyuan. But after a moment, he heard the sounds of fists and kicks and crying coming from the alley.
The young man who was so arrogant just now turned pale with fear. All the people in the market swallowed their saliva. No one dared to step forward when the trouble happened before, and no one dared to speak out now. Hearing the terrifying screams, they all shrank back and looked back at their stalls like quails.
About a quarter of an hour later, two men came out with bruised faces and noses, holding their chests and heads to protect them. They kept apologizing to Xu He, "I'm sorry, sister-in-law. I'm sorry... I'm sorry. It's really that we didn't recognize you. You can just set up a stall here in the future."
Seeing that the two people's attitudes changed so quickly, Xu He lowered his eyes slightly, tilted his head and looked at Zhang Fangyuan beside him for help.
"roll!"
The two men were relieved and quickly grabbed the young man who was looking for trouble and ran away without a trace.
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