Chapter 13 Just Mind Your Own Business

After that, I hurried to take the bus to my fourth uncle's house. I don't know how many bamboo shoots my fourth aunt had broken from yesterday to today.

After getting off the car and walking along the path for half an hour, Hua Xiali arrived at his fourth uncle's house. Seeing that the door was open, Hua Xiali walked in directly. He saw his fourth aunt sorting bamboo shoots in the yard. Hua Xiali was so surprised, "Fourth aunt, you have picked so many bamboo shoots? You are amazing, aren't you?"

My fourth aunt smiled sheepishly, "It's too hard to peel the bamboo shoots, and it takes too long to peel them. Can I not peel them?"

Hua Xiali nodded, "Of course you can. If you don't shell the bamboo shoots, it's only one cent per pound. As long as Fourth Aunt is willing, it's fine."

"Then it's one cent per pound!" Fourth aunt said readily, mainly because peeling the bamboo shoots took too much time. She could break off several pounds of bamboo shoots from peeling one pound of bamboo shoots.

"Okay, let's go out and pick bamboo shoots together now!" Picking bamboo shoots can make people feel better. As you pick them, you can forget all the unhappy things.

Fourth aunt also brought a basket for Hua Xiali, and then the two of them went up the mountain together to pick bamboo shoots. They would leave the small bamboo forest next to her house alone and pick those that were farther away first.

"Fourth aunt, the villagers don't know about you picking bamboo shoots, right?" Hua Xiali asked while picking bamboo shoots when they arrived at the bamboo forest on the mountain.

My fourth aunt shook her head, "Am I that stupid? I won't tell anyone if I'm not sure whether I can make money. If I can make money, I will wait until my family has made enough money. Besides, bamboo shoots grow here and they won't run away. If everyone doesn't break them, what does it have to do with me?"

"Yes, we are ordinary people and cannot control other people's affairs. We just need to take care of our own affairs." Hua Xiali agreed with his fourth aunt's point of view.

They have just started to break bamboo shoots and don't know whether they can make money from them. If they tell everyone about this now, and everyone rushes over to break bamboo shoots, and then can't sell them and make any money, will everyone blame them?

Even if they can make money, will people be grateful to them?

I'm afraid not. On the contrary, they would think that they spoke too late and that they have already made a lot of money quietly. So, as a human being, you just need to take care of yourself.

Hua Xiali and her fourth aunt picked bamboo shoots and hurried back home whenever a basket was full. They ran back and forth like this until dusk fell, and then they carried the last basket of bamboo shoots back home.

Afterwards, the two of them weighed the bamboo shoots that Fourth Aunt had picked in the past two days. Hua Xiali had never expected that Fourth Aunt had picked more than 600 kilograms of bamboo shoots in these two days.

Bamboo shoots with shells were sold at one cent per pound, and more than six hundred pounds was more than six yuan. Hua Xiali first gave six yuan to her fourth aunt. Her fourth aunt was very happy and counted the six yuan several times. She had never thought that something that no one touched on the mountain could actually be sold for money.

If she could earn a little more every day, would her income be comparable to those city dwellers?

After his fourth uncle and his wife fell asleep, Hua Xiali added a little more spiritual spring water into the water tank, and then went to the mountain with a flashlight to pick bamboo shoots.

There was a hilltop not far from my fourth uncle's house, and it only took about ten minutes to walk there. Without my fourth aunt by her side, she broke off the bamboo shoots and put them directly into the Lingquan space.

After working overtime for two hours, Hua Xiali went back to her fourth uncle's house to rest. The next morning, before she had a good night's sleep, she was awakened by screams. Hua Xiali quickly got dressed and got up, and came to the yard, and asked worriedly, "Fourth uncle, fourth aunt, what happened?"

"The bamboo shoots are missing! My bamboo shoots are missing." Fourth aunt-in-law said anxiously. She had already received the money, but the bamboo shoots were missing. How could she explain this to others?

Hua Xiali burst out laughing and said hastily, "Fourth aunt, don't be nervous. The bamboo shoots are not gone. The owner of the pig farm came and took them away at night. You were all asleep at that time, so I didn't call you."

"Is that so?" Fourth Aunt-in-law still couldn't believe it.

"Fourth aunt, how could I lie to you?" Hua Xiali spread his hands helplessly, with an expression that said 'there's nothing I can do if you don't believe me'.

My fourth uncle asked anxiously, "Xia Li, can you really make money from these bamboo shoots?"

"Didn't Fourth Aunt get the money yesterday? If Fourth Uncle doesn't believe it, he can ask Fourth Aunt!" Hua Xiali raised his head proudly and smiled complacently.

Fourth Uncle came up to Hua Xiali and asked quietly, "Xiali, can I also help pick bamboo shoots?"

"Of course you can!" Hua Xiali nodded, "But you two have to break up quietly and don't tell too many people."

Huo Beixi lent her 1,500 yuan, and she gave 800 yuan to her eldest sister for tuition and living expenses, leaving 700 yuan. In addition, she had to spend money on purchasing tools, packing boxes, etc., which means that the cost of purchasing bamboo shoots can only be controlled at around 500 yuan, which is enough to purchase about 50,000 kilograms of bamboo shoots.

If there are too many people picking bamboo shoots, she won’t have that much money!

My fourth uncle and his wife can break about 1,000 kilograms of bamboo shoots together a day, so it will take about 50 days to break 50,000 kilograms of bamboo shoots. The bamboo shoots would have grown into bamboos by then, so we can add two more people to help.

So Hua Xiali whispered to his fourth uncle, "Fourth uncle, you can ask your second and third uncles to send one person each to help you pick bamboo shoots."

Why not call it uncle's house? That's because my uncle bought a house in the town and they rarely live in the mountains now.

Moreover, she did not have much money and could not purchase bamboo shoots in large quantities. The most important thing was that she had not started the bamboo shoot business yet. If the sales were not good, she would not be able to make money from bamboo shoots for the time being. She could only store the bamboo shoots in the Lingquan space and sell them when they were valuable.

Everything was still unknown, so she didn't dare to do too much. If she lost a few hundred dollars, it was just a loss. She could always make it up from other sources.

After breakfast, the three of them went up the mountain together to pick bamboo shoots. Picking them in the bamboo forest made it less likely for the villagers to see them. If they were still seen by others, they would just say they were picking bamboo shoots to feed the pigs.

Families who raise pigs will naturally come over to pick bamboo shoots without them having to call out.

At lunch, Hua Xiali said, "Fourth Uncle, Fourth Aunt, Qiuli is going home tonight, so I will be back in the afternoon. I will come back in two days. You can just leave the bamboo shoots you picked at home and wait for me to pay you."

Hua Qiuli is a second-year junior high school student this year. She has to attend morning reading classes before dawn, and it is already late at night when she finishes her self-study classes. It is impossible for her to catch up if she lives at home, so she lives in school and only goes home on weekends.