From the moment Zhang Daniu discovered the first half-red hot pot chili pepper, all forty-nine greenhouses entered the harvest season simultaneously. The scene inside the greenhouses changed dramatically every day, and in just three to five days, the entire greenhouse was a sea of red.
Because the hot pot contains extremely rich capsaicin, when picking it, you not only have to wear masks, gloves and other equipment, but also make sure that all of your skin is covered by air.
On the first day of picking, most people didn't take this warning to heart, hastily putting on long sleeves and trousers before entering the greenhouse to pick fruit. Less than half an hour later, they came out with snot and tears streaming down their faces.
Having learned from this experience, during the next two days of harvesting, everyone wrapped themselves up tightly in layers of clothing, so tightly that even bees couldn't find a place to bite. This allowed them to successfully harvest all the ripe Sichuan peppers in the greenhouse.
In early January, right in the middle of winter, the weak sun in the sky was not enough to dry these very moist scallion peppers. After three days of drying, the moisture content dropped from 100% to 99%.
However, Xu An had anticipated this situation and ordered a dryer and a chili crusher in advance. The dryer arrived late on the fourth day after the harvest of the chili peppers at Xu's Food Processing Plant in Hezibao, and was successfully installed and tested at 10 p.m. that night.
The news that Xu's Food Processing Plant was providing drying services and had officially begun acquiring Shuan Shuan La spread throughout Hezibao that very night.
The next morning at five o'clock, a full three hours before the factory opened, a long line had already formed outside. Groups of three to five people were carrying, carrying, or lifting large bags of urea.
"Hey, Da Niu, you're first in line! You didn't just come and queue up after hearing the news, did you?"
"No way, I'm only half an hour earlier than you," Zhang Daniu sniffed hard, breathing on his frozen hands as he explained haltingly, "There are so many chilies in the room, I can't sleep soundly, so I came early."
"Oh," the man's mind wasn't on that. After hearing Zhang Daniu's explanation, his gaze fell on the seven or eight urea bags in front of Zhang Daniu, and he feigned surprise, saying, "Da Niu, this is incredible! You collected seven or eight bags in the first batch, that must be seven or eight hundred pounds!"
"Hey, I'm the first batch to grow a lot, there aren't many left after that." Zhang Daniu tried his best to be modest, but the corners of his mouth that he couldn't stop turning up revealed his inner joy.
"Come on, everyone was trained by Professor Wei, who doesn't know who!" The man spat at Da Niu, then sighed, "After today, Da Niu, you've finally made it!"
"It's hard to say, it's hard to say."
Although he spoke uncertainly, Zhang Daniu's eyes were full of hope.
Last night, after picking the last fully red chili pepper in the greenhouse, Zhang Daniu stayed at home and used an old 30-jin scale passed down from his grandfather or great-grandfather's generation. He weighed all the harvested ghost peppers from 8 p.m. until 2 a.m., and the total weight was 768 jin!
Ghost peppers have a high water content; it takes ten pounds of wet peppers to produce one pound of dried peppers. These 768 pounds of wet peppers can be dried into 76.8 pounds of dried peppers!
One pound of dried chili peppers costs 62 yuan, so 76.8 pounds would cost 4,761.6 yuan!
This is just the first harvest!
According to Professor Wei's estimate, these ghost peppers will grow into three to four more batches before the Spring Festival, and the harvest will not be completely finished until the end of January!
One harvest can earn you almost 5,000 yuan, and you can harvest five or six more. Even if the last two or three harvests yield less and less, you can still steadily surpass the 500-jin mark. 500 jin is 31,000 yuan!
In just four months, they earned the money that would normally take three or four years to earn!
In other words, once the New Year is over and all the ghost peppers in the greenhouse are harvested, the family will be able to pay off all their past debts!
Once the next batch of ghost peppers matures, around May or June, we'll be able to pay back the money we borrowed from the government! Then our family will be debt-free!
After planting another batch, we can tear down and rebuild our house, creating a large, comfortable house that's warm in winter and cool in summer. We won't have to worry about rainy days anymore.
Just as Zhang Daniu was lost in thought, Xu Heping, Li Sixin, and others rushed to the factory gate. When they saw the long, neat line of people at the gate, they were immediately furious.
"Didn't I say yesterday that we wouldn't open until 8 a.m. today?! Didn't I tell you not to come so early?! What are you all doing?! What kind of weather is this? Are you all crazy?"
Xu Heping cursed under his breath, but his hands moved swiftly and quickly opened the factory gate and turned on all the lights and heaters inside.
The people queuing at the entrance, carrying, lifting, and pushing, all rushed into the factory, filling the fairly spacious workshop to capacity.
"Zhang Daniu, 765 jin, one in ten, record 76.5 jin. Next!"
"Li Xiufen, 632 jin, record 63.2 jin, next one!"
"Li Guilan, 710 jin"
“.”
After Xu Heping weighed the items and Li Sixin registered them, everyone took the receipts they had just received and exchanged them for the corresponding cash from two clan uncles in Xujia Village.
From the moment I saw the first chili pepper that was half red, I kept imagining this scene in my mind.
But when this scene actually became a reality, Zhang Daniu still couldn't hold back. His eyes instantly turned red, and tears welled up, one after another falling onto the stack of red banknotes in his hand, as red as chili peppers.
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