Chapter 701 Chapter 706: I am also a millionaire
That afternoon, Yang Chunyan sent away the last villager who sold truffles, and she and Luo Haili cleaned the shed. Jiang Yu and the others also packed up and went back for dinner.
Yang Chunyan was carrying a vegetable basket and was about to go to the vegetable patch to pick some garlic sprouts to stir-fry with salt and meat. As soon as she arrived at the edge of the vegetable patch, she saw Xu Hongbing, Li Wu, Zhou Huaigang and Xu Erchun pushing a chicken cart towards them.
She grabbed a handful of plump garlic sprouts and walked quickly into the yard, "Sister Haili, the forestry workers are back, hurry out to collect the harvest."
"Here we are!" Luo Haili carried Xiao Jiuer out, put him on the mat next to the small table, and moved out the scale.
Yang Chunyan brought out the garlic sprouts to Zhou's mother, and then Xu Hongbing and a few others arrived. They were all dark and thin, and all the meat they had gained during the slack season had been lost.
It is easy to be thin these days, but it is really difficult to be fat. Whether in a town or a county, everyone on the street has a standard thin figure.
Young and old, most of them look positive. Compared with people thirty or forty years later, they just wear worse clothes and eat less variety of food, but their mental outlook is no worse than that of people back then.
Xu Hongbing and his companions put down the chicken bus, took off their shoulder straps, sat on the handlebars, and wiped the sweat from their faces and necks. "We are so tired, but we are finally here."
Yang Chunyan saw the two large bamboo baskets on the chicken bus, both of which were filled to the brim. She asked curiously, "Last time, only Brother Li and Huai Gang came. Why are there so many more goods this time?"
The chicken bus that Li Wu and Zhou Huaigang pushed had large bamboo baskets on the front and sides of the bus, which looked to weigh at least 600 to 700 kilograms. Xu Hongbing and Xu Erchun weighed at least 500 kilograms.
Zhou Huaigang said happily: "Uncle Daqing took us to find a new nest in the southwest. He originally thought that the place had been burned by a forest fire, and the new Yunnan pine and Armand pine had only grown for eleven or twelve years, so the truffles underneath should not have grown yet. Who knew that we would have a big harvest yesterday."
Xu Erchun took over the conversation, "Uncle Daqing said that the wildfire may have only burned the trees on the ground, but the fungi underground were not destroyed, so they grew again."
"There are still several hundred kilograms left on the mountain!" Xu Hongbing pointed at the bamboo basket behind him with a beaming face, "Chunyan, we also dug up four or five hundred kilograms of white truffles this time, more than ten kilograms of special grade, the majority of which are first and second grade. There are only a few dozen kilograms of third and last grade. It's terrible!"
Yang Chunyan was happy for them after hearing this, "Really? Then you can make a lot of money this time!" The purchase price of special grade white truffles was set this year at four yuan per catty, first grade at two yuan, second grade at one yuan, third grade at seventy cents, and the last grade at fifty cents per catty.
Xu Erchun and Li Wu lifted a basket and said, "Weigh it quickly, and go home and have a good sleep after that."
Xu Hongbing smiled and said, "That's right. We set out before daybreak. I can fall asleep even while standing now."
"Sister Hai Li, you are responsible for the weighing, and we will do the sifting!" Zhou Huaigang and Xu Hongbing stepped forward, each holding a bamboo sieve, and started working efficiently.
Luo Haili weighed and counted, "Special grade white truffles 21 jin, first grade 126 jin, second grade 158, third grade ..."
After the white truffles were weighed, they started to weigh the black truffles. The special black truffles they sent this time weighed 135 kilograms, with first-class 662 kilograms and second-class 705 kilograms...
"Special white truffles are 84 yuan, first-class 252 yuan, second-class 158 yuan, 494 yuan..." Yang Chunyan counted the bills and said to the others, "You guys did really well this time. We made a total of 2,513.6 yuan."
Xu Hongbing smiled so hard that his mouth couldn't close. "Not bad, I earned more than 2,000 in three days, so each of us can get 300."
Zhou Huaigang happily came to the account book and asked, "Sister-in-law, how much of the money we saved with you is left?"
"Let me do the math!" Yang Chunyan opened the account book and started to calculate on an abacus. "Including this time, you have come back eight times in total, and sold more than 10,000 yuan in total. So far, each of you can get more than 1,000 yuan."
From the opening of the market in early November of the lunar calendar to the twenty-sixth day of the twelfth lunar month, which is nearly two months, each person can get more than one thousand yuan. The harvest at the forest farm is still better than that at the foot of the mountain.
Xu Hongbing's eyes widened in surprise, "That's a lot! We are also millionaires!"
Xu Erchun patted him on the shoulder and said, "What's the point of being a millionaire in partnership? Let's strive to be a millionaire individually next year!"
"That's right!" Xu Hongbing replied with a smile.
Li Wu counted on his fingers, "Today is the 26th. We will go up the mountain tomorrow. We can dig for another day on the 28th. Add what Uncle Daqing and Mina have dug in the past two days, plus what we have dug on the mountain, we should be able to dig more than a thousand kilograms."
Zhou Huaigang said with a smile: "Brother Li, don't count it. There are a lot of good things in that forest. Don't worry, more than a thousand kilograms is a piece of cake!"
"I hope we can dig up more white truffles this time and sell them for another two thousand. Each of the seven of us can get fifteen or sixteen thousand. We can still work for more than a month after the Chinese New Year. There will be less goods after the Chinese New Year, so even if we count less, we can still get five or six hundred!"
The more Xu Hongbing calculated, the more excited he became. He slapped his thigh and grinned, "Oh my god! We can earn more than 2,000 this season!"
Li Wu grinned and said, "Old Xu, your mother and your wife also make a lot of money digging truffles at home!"
"Old Xu!" Xu Erchun patted him and said with a smile, "Your family should build a brick house next year, right?"
"No, no!" Xu Hongbing shook his head. "Why spend that money? Mud walls and thatched roofs are fine."
This year is really good! I made 500-600 yuan in two months following Zhou Laoyao, and I made more than 3,000 yuan from selling red mushrooms. Add what I made last year and the money I made from selling fat pigs, chickens and ducks at home, and if I work for another season next year, I will also be a millionaire!
I'll go back and discuss with Xiaofang. We'll rebuild the brick house after the second child is born next year. Zhou Laosan's brick house was fined 500 yuan, and my thatched house was fined two or three hundred yuan, which is enough!
If that doesn’t work, just let them tear down the house, so I don’t have to hire someone to demolish it!
After hearing this, Xu Erchun laughed and said, "What's so good about a thatched house? You have to replace it every two or three years. Otherwise, it will leak big and small when the rainy season comes!"
Zhou Huaigang also laughed and teased him, "Old Xu, are you planning to put the money in a jar and bury it, so you can dig it out and count it for fun when you have nothing to do?"
Xu Hongbing: "Harsh! Money nowadays is printed on paper. Do you think that the old dollars and copper coins will not rot no matter how long they are buried in the ground?"
Li Wu knew what he was up to, so he happily put the bamboo basket away and patted him, "Let's go, go home, eat, and take a nap!"
"Okay!" Xu Hongbing and his friends pushed the chicken bus, "Chunyan, let's go!"
“Go slowly!” Yang Chunyan walked a few steps forward, then turned around and saw Xiao Jiuer standing up by the wall, still shouting “Mom~Mom…”
"Oh! My dear baby!" Hearing her son's clear cry, she went forward with great joy and hugged him, "Jiu'er, be good, call me mom again!"
"Mom, Mom..." Xiao Jiuer hugged her neck and called out repeatedly.
Zhou's mother came out of the house and came over happily after hearing this. "My little one is so smart. Come on, call grandma!"
Xiao Jiuer looked at her mouth, "Milk-milk..."
"Hey!" Zhou's mother happily took it and kissed him, "This time you shouted it the clearest."
"Today he called me mom clearly!" Yang Chunyan was so happy that she couldn't express it in words. After living for two lifetimes, she finally had her own child. She could hear the child calling her mom clearly.
"Come on, let's go into the house and call your grandparents, so they can have fun too!" Mother Zhou happily carried the child into the yard.
Yang Chunyan picked up the scale and entered the yard, only to see two old men surrounding the child, using windmills and rattles to tease him to call them "Grandpa" and "Grandpa".
"Dudu, dudu..." Little Jiuer showed a few tiny teeth to the old man, stretched out his hand like lightning and grabbed the windmill, and the red colored paper was snatched down by him.
"Little rascal!" The old man gently pulled his ear and said, "I'll cover it up for you, otherwise there will be nothing to watch."
This windmill was made for him by his old man using bamboo strips, red and yellow paper. When the little guy saw the windmill turning, he liked to grab it with his hands.
Yang Chunyan put the scale in the warehouse and took out a piece of red paper and pasted it on the wall outside.
There are three days left until New Year's Eve. Several purchasing points have begun to notify the villagers who come to sell truffles that they will stop working on the 29th day of the twelfth lunar month this year and continue working on the eighth day of the first lunar month next year.
The supply of goods from the villages near Funiusi Village is getting less and less. When the market is good, we can collect two to three thousand kilograms a day, but when the market is not good, we can only collect more than one thousand kilograms a day.
Among several purchasing points, the supply from Baicaopao, Bailingshan and Huashi has not decreased much, while the supply from Tonglin and Sanchalu has begun to gradually decrease. The two points combined still have a daily volume of about 5,000 to 6,000 kilograms, which is much better than Funiu.
"Chunyan, it's time for dinner!" Zhou's mother shouted from the steps.
"Coming!" Yang Chunyan responded, stacked up the bamboo sieves and put them on the table before entering the yard.
On the dining table there was a bowl of milky white bone and radish soup with a handful of chopped green onions sprinkled on it, which looked appetizing.
Zhou's mother put the cold spinach and salt-fried meat on the table and said, "I chopped up a dragon bone and stewed it with radish. The radish stewed with salted bones tastes better than white radish."
She pickled the bones and dragon bones of several big fat pigs with salt and put them in jars. She would take out one when she wanted to eat it. She felt that the pickled bones were salty and fragrant, and tasted better than the soup made from fresh bones.
"It smells delicious!" Luo Haili said with a smile as she brought out the dipping sauce.
Yang Chunyan tasted a piece of radish and found it sweet and refreshing. "This year's white radish tastes good. I'll save some seeds to plant next year."
Zhou's mother smiled and nodded, "The radishes I saved for seeds have all bloomed, and I also planted some spring evergreens on one side of the field."
Yang Chunyan put the bowl full of rice on the table. "It's getting warmer day by day since the beginning of spring. I see that the peas and broad beans in the field have begun to form pods."
"Yes, I always feel that the past two years have passed so quickly." Mother Zhou picked up Xiao Jiuer's small wooden bowl, scooped some carrot soup and a piece of carrot into it, mashed the radish with a spoon, and fed it to Xiao Jiuer who was sitting in the sedan chair.
After the child started eating meat, he would be given some when stewing soup. The old man and Zhou's father heard Yang Chunyan say that eating fish was good, so they caught fish from the pond outside every two days and stewed tofu and fish soup.
(End of this chapter)
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