The door to President Yu's office was open, and he was looking at documents.
Li Xiangdong glanced at him twice. President Yu looked alright; if you weren't paying attention, you wouldn't notice the slight gloom on his face.
Li Xiangdong knocked gently on the door. President Yu looked up, saw it was him, and said with a smile, "Come in!"
Li Xiangdong was followed by Luo Yonggang and Bai Yulong, who were a little reserved when they first met the head of the county's supply and marketing cooperative.
Seeing them carrying bamboo baskets, President Yu asked with a smile, "Xiangdong, have you got something good again?"
Li Xiangdong took out a handful of dried wood ear mushrooms, a handful of dried shiitake mushrooms, and a handful of tea tree mushrooms from the basket and placed them on President Yu's desk. "What do you think?"
President Yu rubbed the pieces together in his hands, then picked them up and smelled them. "Good quality! Where did you get them?"
Because they don't produce them locally, the wood ear mushrooms and shiitake mushrooms sold by their supply and marketing cooperative are all sourced from the south, and the prices are very high.
"From western Sichuan, how much do you plan to buy?"
President Yu mentally calculated the sales volume of previous years, "Let's keep twenty catties of each!"
Mountain products are expensive, so the villagers don't buy much on ordinary days, but they sell well during the Lunar New Year.
In Huichuan, the custom for celebrating the Spring Festival is to start making dumplings on New Year's Eve and continue eating them until the fifth day of the Lunar New Year.
There are special customs surrounding the dumplings eaten on the morning of the first day of the Lunar New Year. They cannot be filled with meat; they must be filled with cabbage, symbolizing a peaceful and uneventful year ahead.
This vegetarian cabbage filling isn't just made with cabbage; it also includes scrambled eggs, wood ear mushrooms, daylily buds, dried tofu, fried dough stick crumbs, shiitake mushrooms, glass noodles, and more.
Of course, you can add other things as well, depending on your family's financial situation. However, wood ear mushrooms, shiitake mushrooms, and eggs are essential.
President Yu didn't shortchange Li Xiangdong, offering him a purchase price of one yuan per kilogram. Twenty kilograms of wood ear mushrooms, twenty kilograms of shiitake mushrooms, and twenty kilograms of tea tree mushrooms totaled sixty yuan.
Tea tree mushrooms are a new variety, and President Yu had never seen them before, so he planned to sell them as something new.
After leaving the supply and marketing cooperative, the three of them went to Dongfang City to find Deputy Manager Xie.
Because they were local specialties and mountain products, Deputy Manager Xie didn't require them to have a health production license or other certificates this time. He brought in several people to carefully inspect them for a long time.
After all, eating mushrooms can be fatal if you get sick!
The giant red mushroom was successfully eliminated because of its brightly colored appearance!
Deputy Manager Xie firmly believes that all beautiful mushrooms are poisonous!
No matter how Li Xiangdong and the others explained, he didn't believe them.
In the end, except for 60 jin of large red mushrooms that didn't sell, the other 900 jin of mushrooms and wood ear fungus were all sold, bringing in a total of 932.59 yuan.
After leaving the house, Li Xiangdong turned around and went to find the saleswoman from the supply and marketing cooperative from last time, and bought another 10 bottles of "Three Great Revolutions" Moutai liquor.
"Why is this wine so expensive?"
Luo Yonggang's heart pounded as he watched Li Xiangdong quickly count out the bills.
Li Xiangdong leaned close to his ear and whispered, "Uncle, this wine will sell for over ten thousand yuan a bottle in forty years. Do you want to buy it?"
Over ten thousand?!
How many zeros are there?
Luo Yonggang instinctively wanted to refute, but when he saw Li Xiangdong's serious eyes, he hesitated.
If someone had told him before that wild boars could sell for tens of thousands of yuan, he wouldn't have believed it, but his nephew did it!
Without much thought, Luo Yonggang decided to buy 10 bottles of Moutai, since he had money in hand now.
He also encouraged Bai Yulong to buy some, but Bai Yulong was indifferent and decided to follow the crowd and buy 10 bottles as well.
Li Xiangdong approached the sales clerk and asked like a secret agent making a rendezvous, "Sister, do you still have any special supply tickets for Moutai? We'd like to buy 20 more bottles!"
"What? Another 20 bottles?"
The salesperson was surprised. These country folk were quite wealthy, spending so much money on Moutai liquor. Even city workers wouldn't dare to buy it!
She shook her head regretfully, "I gave you all the tickets I had saved up for months, and now I have no more tickets."
"Does anyone else have any tickets? Can you spare a few for us?" Li Xiangdong was still unwilling to give up.
Finally, the sales clerk whispered among herself with several people for a while before bringing over four tickets. "That's all!"
"Okay! Thank you so much, sister! Please give me four bottles, and I still want the Three Great Revolutions!"
The three walked out of the department store. Luo Yonggang carefully held the two bottles of Moutai in his arms. "Xiangdong, what do we do next?"
Li Xiangdong glanced at the sun, which was still high in the sky, and said, "Let's find a hotel first, and I'll treat you and Uncle Yulong to a big meal!"
The food at home tastes different from that in restaurants.
Luo Yonggang and Bai Yulong originally thought that the welcome feast they had at their third sister's house was the best food in the world, but they didn't expect that the food at the Meilan State-run Grand Hotel was even better!
The sweet and sour pork is crispy and tender, with a sweet and sour flavor. The braised pork slices are crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, savory and delicious. Especially when you drink Lao Xue's wine, you'll burp after just one sip—it's so refreshing!
Luo Yonggang and Bai Yulong weren't good drinkers; they were the type who were weak but had a strong craving for alcohol. Four bottles of Lao Xue (a type of Chinese liquor) were enough to knock them both out.
After paying the bill and getting the two unsteady-walking people to their beds in the hotel, Li Xiangdong was covered in sweat.
Don't let their short stature fool you; they're both quite sturdy. When they're drunk and lose consciousness, their bodies become like a limp, lifeless mass.
Li Xiangdong checked the time and decided to go find Yu Deshui. He wondered how the canning machine and feed grinder he had asked Yu to make last time were coming along!
After packing two jin of large red mushrooms, Li Xiangdong headed straight for Yu Deshui's house.
After a 40-minute bus ride, Li Xiangdong arrived at the residential area of the First Machinery Factory in Dongfang City. Remembering the route he took last time, he went to Yu Deshui's house.
Just then, Yu Deshui's mother was splashing water in the yard. Li Xiangdong shouted loudly from across the flower wall, "Grandma Yu!"
Hearing a familiar voice, Grandma Yu looked outside and exclaimed, "Oh, isn't that Xiang Dong? Come in quickly, come in quickly!"
Li Xiangdong pushed open the door and went inside. "Grandma Yu, is Uncle Yu off work yet?"
Grandma Yu seemed to be in good spirits. She said with a smile, "What kind of task has your Uncle Yu been working on at the factory these past few days? He doesn't come back until the middle of the night every day!"
Although her son was divorced, he was increasingly valued by the factory leaders in his career. She felt greatly gratified; her son had finally done right by his late husband and their ancestors!
Li Xiangdong was a little disappointed; it seemed he wouldn't be able to see Yu Deshui today.
"Come inside quickly, haven't you eaten yet? Have dinner with Grandma!"
Grandma Yu warmly pulled Li Xiangdong into the house.
Li Xiangdong handed the large red mushrooms to Grandma Yu, saying, "Grandma Yu, these are large red mushrooms I brought back from the mountains of western Sichuan. They're great for making soup, so please keep them! I'll come back again later!"
Grandma Yu tried to persuade Li Xiangdong for a long time, but to no avail. Watching his departing figure, she muttered to herself, "What a good boy!"
Li Xiangdong didn't have time to stay for a meal; he took the opportunity to go treasure hunting at the scrap metal recycling station!
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