Chapter 447 Chapter 449: A Wasted Trip
There are more than 110 households in the Funiu Brigade. If we assume that each household delivers 40 kilograms of goods a day, a lot of money would be spent in a day.
The capital of 5,000 yuan plus the deposit of 500 yuan were all spent in less than two days.
Li Qiuyue thought about this and asked again without waiting for her answer: "There are more goods, can they be dried?"
Yang Chunyan: "Today we have both stoves lit up. My sister-in-law said that it is just like working in the oven today. We will be able to produce a new batch tomorrow morning at the latest!
Once the first batch of truffles is produced and we earn some money, we can start to turn around.”
"Well! Let's wash these out quickly." Li Qiuyue and Luo Haili sent the truffles to the backyard and handed them over to Zhang Xiuxiang who was leading people to wash them.
Da He's wife Jiang Yu looked at the truffles in the basket and said, "We harvested some at noon. It looks like we'll have to work overtime tonight once everyone in the village comes down the mountain!"
Zhang Xiuxiang nodded, "Yes! Everyone is on the mountain in the morning, and there are the most people in the afternoon."
Zhou Huaian drove a tractor carrying coal into the yard. This was the second truckload of coal today. He felt that burning the coal at twenty yuan per tractor was much more convenient than going into the mountains to chop wood.
The most important thing is to keep warm, so as to avoid getting up several times a night.
The tractor slowly drove into the backyard, and the old man in front of the stove stood up with a smile, "This tractor has shiny carbon, much better than the car we had on."
Zhou Huaian also thought that the coal this time was good. "It was just delivered, and the price is the same as the one brought back before. I will make a few more trips to bring back more."
"Fortunately, the cattle shed is still empty. Even if we bring back ten more carts, there will be enough space." The old man said as he pulled open the carriage board, picked up a sledge and began to unload the coal.
Zhou's father also came over from the front yard to help.
"Then I'll bring back ten more trucks." Zhou Huaian took a sip of water and said to Yang Chunyan, "When I came back, I saw that bastard Xiong Laoyao. He was as wilted as a vegetable hit by frost."
Yang Chunyan thought about Cai Ermei's business grabbing and asked, "Did you see it on the asphalt road?"
Zhou Huaian nodded, "Yeah! It looks like he came back from Ning'an. I think that bastard might think that the truffles we collected were to be sold in the city."
Yang Chunyan felt that since the youngest Xiong had gone to Ning'an to inquire about the news, he would most likely go to Deshengtang to inquire. "I'll ask Doctor Xiao Wang tomorrow and we'll know."
"Hmm!" Zhou Huaian glanced at the people who were busy washing truffles over there, "Someone brought truffles again?"
"Yes! My sister-in-law and the others have brought the food and vegetables. We will eat together at noon. I gave one of the pig's trotters you bought to mom so that she can make soup for Sister Yumei. The rest are all in the casserole. If we are not busy at noon, we can have hot pot."
"Great! We'll have dinner when Yiding and the others come back." Zhou Huaian wiped his hands and went to unload the coal with a sledgehammer.
…
The youngest Xiong pushed his bicycle into the yard listlessly. Xiong Dahai felt disappointed when he saw his look.
Zhou Sufang stepped forward and asked, "Youngest, have you found someone to collect the truffles?"
The Xiongs also looked at him. "How is it? How much is it per pound in the city?"
The youngest bear shook his head and said, "No one wants it, I..."
The comrades in the city said that they had never seen the boss who collected truffles, and promised to keep an eye on him and bring him news if there was any.
After leaving his comrade's house, he walked around the street again and asked a few vendors selling dried mushrooms, but he didn't hear of any boss coming to collect truffles.
He thought that Zhou's truffles should be from Deshengtang, so he went to Deshengtang to inquire about the news, and his family also said that they had confiscated them...
"Alas!" Zhou Sufang sighed, "It was a wasted trip."
After hearing this, the couple also became depressed, "Old man, look, all the people in the village have gone up the mountain. It will be too late if we don't go now."
Xiong Dahai gritted his teeth and glanced at the two of them coldly, "What if you go? Zhou Laoyao, that bastard, is not a reasonable person. Even if you dig it up and send it to him, he won't accept it."
Xiong Da's wife was dissatisfied and said, "Those things were done by the second brother. We didn't offend him. How do you know they won't accept it?"
"Stupid pig, isn't your last name Xiong?" Xiong Dahai shouted angrily after hearing this. "Look at the Zhou family. The brothers there are so united. How about you?"
He recalled the situation when he brought his kids to ask the Zhou family for compensation. Zhou Dasong took out all the money for repairing the house from the division of the family to compensate his family, and his brothers didn't say a word. If it were his family, they would probably have been beaten into pigs' heads.
It’s all because Zhou Sufang, as a mother, doesn’t know how to educate her children and has spoiled these good kids.
"What bad luck!" The eldest bear's wife glanced at the youngest bear, "We can't catch up with good things, and we have to do all the dirty work! The house of the third and youngest bears is taken care of by the two of us all day long. Are we going to move in after the new house is built?"
Xiong Dahai was so angry that his face turned blue. "If you don't want to do it, get out of here! Get out!"
"I'm not wrong. I can't even see the third brother every day. It's just me and the eldest brother working hard on the construction site."
The youngest Xiong couldn't sit still any longer, "Sister-in-law, you don't have to say so much. If you want, I'll stay at home with my mom and my husband, and you can move out and live in the new house."
After hearing this, Xiong Da and his wife were a little tempted, but then they thought about the old couple's private money. If the youngest child stayed at home, wouldn't all the money be his...
Xiong Dahai sneered, "What's wrong? Didn't you hear what the youngest said? Do you think you're at a disadvantage by trading your old house for a new one?"
Xiong Da and his wife looked at each other and said with a wry smile, "We are the eldest and should live in the old house. We just felt uncomfortable and complained a little. We didn't mean to compete with the youngest for the house."
Xiong Dahai glanced at the two of them and thought to himself: It would be a lie to say that I didn't want to snatch the house from the youngest brother. The truth is that I'm worried about how much private money we two old guys have saved up to give to the youngest brother!
When the youngest Xiong heard what the two said, he curled his lips and said nothing more, and went straight back to his room.
However, Xiong Da and his wife wanted to sneak out early after dinner and take their kids to the mountains to dig truffles to sell.
*****
When Zhou Huairong and his friends got home, the pig's trotters had already been stewed.
Yang Chunyan cut some pork belly and potatoes, sister-in-law Zhao Huifang washed some pea tips, flowers, vegetables, and bean sprouts sent by Zhou's mother. They set up two tables and started eating as lively as they did in the old house before.
The happiest people were the children, who crowded around a low square table and chattered non-stop.
Zhou Huairong took a sip of wine and said, "Youngest, there are too many people digging truffles in the mountains. Let's go to the forest farm to dig truffles this afternoon."
Zhou Huaian thought for a moment, "There are so many people digging truffles in the mountains. If you all leave, we will definitely be too busy. There is another thing we forgot. After today, some people from the nearby Guanyin Fangtian brigades may send truffles to sell. More and more people will leave in the future."
After hearing this, Yang Chunyan felt that the saying "pregnancy will make women stupid for three years" was true. She even informed Yang Xiaoxue herself, but she never expected that other villagers would also send truffles to sell after knowing about it.
"If you don't need to sort them, you can just empty the baskets and weigh them and leave, that's fine. But if we have to sort them and pick out the ones that are rotten or have a lot of worm holes, we simply can't handle it with so many people."
"Also, the collected truffles must be cleaned and sent to the baking room as soon as possible. It will be a waste if they are spoiled. Also, Brother Huang said last time that there are more and more scoundrels in the county town. We are worried about Huai'an going into the city alone if you leave."
Father Zhou said, "Chunyan is right. The news of our truffle collection will spread tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. People from several nearby villages will definitely send truffles. If you all leave, it will be inconvenient to rely on others."
Zhou Yiding looked at Zhou Huairong and the others after hearing this and said, "Then let's not go up the mountain today. Let's wait for those who went up the mountain in the afternoon to come back and see how many people actually went. Then we can make plans."
Zhou Huairong nodded, "Okay, we'll stay here and finish the first few days before leaving."
After dinner, everyone took a nap to get enough rest for the peak of purchasing in the afternoon.
The sky gradually darkened and people from the village walked down the mountain in an endless stream.
When you meet someone you know, they no longer ask if you have eaten them. Instead, they ask how many truffles you have dug at home and whether you have many high-quality ones.
Those who had a big harvest were smiling happily, while those who had a small harvest were not so happy, but they thought that they had nothing to do at home and didn’t earn a penny, so even though it was less, it was still money, right!
Maybe I'll be lucky tomorrow and find a big nest, and if I dig out all the big stuff, I'll get rich.
The villagers who came down the mountain all walked towards Yang Chunyan's house. More and more people came into the yard, and soon it was filled with people and backpacks.
Zhou's mother, mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, Zhou Huaishan, Zhou Huaijun, and Zhou Sanshen and her daughter-in-law who came to sell truffles were all on the steps helping to grade the truffles.
This one said, "Zhou Laoyao, please weigh me quickly. I'm starving."
The one urged, "Zhou Laoyao, it's freezing cold, hurry up!"
Zhou Huaian shouted to the villagers who were crowding in, "Everyone, please don't crowd. Line up and follow the order!"
After hearing this, Li Guangming said, "Okay, everyone line up and come one by one."
With someone taking the lead, everyone stopped crowding towards the steps and lined up in order of arrival.
Zhou Huairong and Zhou Yiding helped to put the selected truffles into bamboo baskets and weigh them. Li Qiuyue and Luo Haili, one at the table scale and the other at the beam scale, kept weighing and counting loudly.
"Lin family, first-class 11 jin, second-class 19 jin, third-class 28 jin..."
Zhou Huaian kept the accounts and did the calculations while Yang Chunyan made the payments. The couple worked in perfect harmony and did everything very quickly.
Both of them were glad that they had exchanged a few hundred yuan in change two days ago, otherwise they would have been in trouble today.
The yard was noisy, just like the day when the government collected grain, but it was completely different from the uneasy atmosphere when paying the grain.
The villagers waiting to be weighed looked relaxed and happy, and those who were close to each other gathered together to exchange their experiences. The villagers who got paid after being weighed happily left with the money.
Those who hadn't weighed the goods pulled him aside curiously, "Have you weighed them? How much did you get?"
He proudly raised the money in his hand and said, "An Yi, I sold more than 40 today!"
"You're so lucky! I definitely don't have as much as you!"
“I’m lucky!”
"I had bad luck today. I dug out a few pieces from different places, but found few good quality large pieces and many inferior small pieces. Fortunately, I brought back the small pieces and sold them for a few more pieces."
A person nearby twitched his lips in pain after hearing this, "Oh no! The small items that my family dug up had to be carried back down the mountain. Third brother, go back and help me shout that they must not be eaten by pigs."
The man called Lao San responded readily: "I'll go back and talk to your family for you."
(End of this chapter)
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com