Chapter 71: A Little Bit Adds to a Lot

The four words "a little adds up to a lot" are really practical.

The price of tea leaves is not expensive, only 0.2 yuan per pound, and 100 pounds of tea leaves are only 20 yuan. For someone like her who has thousands of yuan in savings, it is really not a lot of money. But who would have thought that "there is strength in numbers"? If it is distributed to each household with an average of 2 to 3 pounds per person, and a family of three with a minimum of 6 pounds, then there are only more than 30 households, and they can pick nearly 200 pounds of tea leaves for her in a day.

The average amount is not much. A family of six pounds can earn 1.2 yuan a day, and the average person can earn 0.4 yuan a day, but it adds up to a lot.

As Tang Garden requires money to be invested, it also takes out a lot of money.

But she couldn't go back on her word. You know, she not only promised to collect tea during the tea season, but she would also buy old tea at the price of one cent per pound after the season. Old tea is cheap, but at that time, you don't have to distinguish each tea leaf clearly. When picking tea leaves, you can just grab a handful, and the quantity will definitely not be small.

If I had known this earlier, I wouldn't have promised it so quickly.

Tang Yuan scratched his head helplessly. After collecting today's tea and putting the money he paid into the bag, he immediately returned to the game space, glanced at the tea in the wooden house, and thought about how to make RMB next.

She has suffered a lot since she started wearing the vest, but she is always in a dilemma.

She either lacks RMB or HKD, and she always feels like she is taking money from one pocket to put in another. When she spent more than NT$6,000 on a Rolex some time ago, she was thinking that she would never spend money like that again. Now this batch of tea can make her rich in Hong Kong, enough to buy several Rolexes. She hopes that another boss who wants to buy a Rolex will come and make her another NT$1,000 so that she will no longer have the problem of lacking money in this wave of tea acquisitions.

But she also knew that one thousand dollars was not a small amount of money. Nowadays, people who were willing to spend one thousand dollars to buy a Rolex valued that amount as highly as delicacies from the mountains and sea.

She works in a machinery factory and earns 15 yuan a month. Even if she can save 7 or 8 yuan every month, that's at most 100 yuan a year. It will take her ten years to save 1,000 yuan. Even if she doesn't eat or drink and saves all her money, it will take her more than five years to save 1,000 yuan.

With such a huge difficulty in saving money, ordinary people are certainly not willing to spend money on a dispensable accessory like a watch.

…

"What are you thinking about?"

"I'm not thinking about anything," Tang Yuan came back to his senses and looked at what his second aunt was knitting. "It's almost done."

"It's almost done. Sorry to have kept you waiting." Second Aunt said quickly, speeding up her movements.

"It's okay. I'm not in a hurry. I'm not in a big trouble at first," Tang Yuan said, turning back to see the waste piled in the corner. "Is that a sickle? Or a hoe?"

"They are farm tools anyway. They are only brought to me for sale when they are really unusable. It is not easy for farmers to buy farm tools," Shen Wenyu was also moving his hands. "But farm tools are indispensable. Without them, work will not be smooth. By the way, bring me another pack of milk powder in two days. A relative of mine needs it."

Tang Yuan retracted his gaze and nodded: "Milk powder is quite expensive, your relatives are willing to spend money."

"Well, what can we do? For the sake of the child, we have to spend more money. Isn't that what we earn money for? It's good that you can help take care of the child. If you weren't here, they wouldn't have anywhere to buy anything even if they had money," Shen Wenyu hooked the clothes in her hand, "These days, everything is hard to find. It's hard for us to find things in the city, and it's even harder to find things in the village. Having money is not enough, we also need tickets. How many tickets can the villagers get? The village only gives out a few during festivals."

"Xiaofang, please get me a piece of cloth. The weather is getting hot. I can't wear this cotton jacket anymore. I need to wear something thinner. It's just right for me to make an extra piece of clothing for myself," said the second aunt, crocheting the last bit of wool. "Okay, I'm done."

All the things were placed in a clean cloth bag. After Tang Yuan finished counting, he put down the cloth bag he had brought with him and left with this bag.

After settling the bill, Tang Yuan asked her, "What kind does Second Aunt want?"

Second Aunt told her what kind of fabric she needed and paid a deposit in advance.

Tang Yuan spread his hands and looked at the money in his hand. The thoughts that had been circling in his mind since just now began to condense.

"A little adds up to a lot", buying and selling are both included. The villagers pick tea leaves to earn money, so they definitely have the need to shop. Although she cannot satisfy all of them, as long as she can help satisfy some of them, they will naturally be willing to pay again.

In this way, wouldn't she spend less money every month?

Just like her transactions here, although she has to give a lot of money to Shen Wenyu and Second Aunt every month, through the needs of the two and the needs of the people around them, now she only needs to pay 20 to 30 yuan here every month, and the remaining 50 to 60 yuan will come back to her through shopping.

Even if she goes out shopping, she still has to spend money, but she has a lot of Hong Kong dollars now, and she can make more money in this way, and spend the Hong Kong dollars as she pleases.

It is not easy for the villagers to purchase some things. They want to buy things but have no tickets and have to beg their grandfather for money. If she can help them meet this need, it would be mutually beneficial. Moreover, both parties are grasshoppers tied to the same rope. They will definitely be happy to help her hide the fact that she is selling things.

Thinking of this, she brought a bunch of woolen products back to the game space, immediately took out a pen and paper, and started writing a price list.

Strictly speaking, this is a price list that allows the villagers to know the price of the goods and decide whether to spend money to buy them from her. The deal can only be done if they take the initiative.

As long as she could make some money from this, she wouldn't have to worry too much about being short of money in the future.

After writing the quotation, she did not deliver it directly to them. Instead, when she was putting away the tea leaves one night, she threw the quotation on the ground in front of the shed, stepped on it a few times, and then covered it with a thin layer of fine sand to make it look like it was accidentally lost.

Considering the situation in the village, she did not write too much about food, only pork and bacon. The rest were mostly things that required industrial coupons, including cloth, watches, clocks, radios, etc., and then there were hard-to-buy things, such as milk powder, cigarettes, and some farm tools.

There is only one copy of this price list, and even Shen Wenyu and Aunt Cao don't have it. Both parties told her what they needed, so it would not be a good idea to leave the quotation list behind.

Although there were many things written on the quotation, she felt that the people below probably only wanted one thing the most, and that was... cloth.

Sure enough, the next day after the quotation was lost, the cleaned quotation was put back in the shed, along with a bag containing another note and the quotation. The owner of the bag wanted a piece of material and put two dollars in the bag.

The cloth is 40 cents a foot, and two dollars can buy five feet of cloth.

Tang Yuan did not take out the material immediately. Instead, he put a stone on the bag and pressed the quotation under the stone.

…

“Did you take it away?”

"No, but there should be a possibility. It is obvious that someone has moved it, and that person also left the list behind."

"That should be possible. The man must have been very capable to take away so much tea leaves. The village chief was very brave. He bought the tea leaves immediately. It was only two yuan. He just put it in his bag and was not afraid at all."

"What are you afraid of? We are all family members. We won't take it away. Others won't go to the mountain either. Besides, the village chief's family has a lot of strong laborers. They have picked a lot of tea leaves recently. They are also short of cloth, but they don't have tickets. If we can buy it this time, we won't have to find ways to borrow tickets in the future."

"Yes, even the village chief can't borrow one, let alone us. If I can buy one, I would also like to buy one. The clothes at home are all torn and can't be repaired. In order to pick tea leaves during this period, we took out all the tattered sheets at home so that the whole family can wear clothes."

"You guys picked a lot during this time, so you should be able to buy a few pieces of fabric."

"One dollar is enough. The extra money is needed to buy food and daily necessities."

…

"Here he comes, the village chief is coming down!"

"Is the village chief holding something in his hand? Oh, that's cloth, it's really cloth!"

A group of people rushed over and said, "Village chief, did you get the cloth?"

"Did you really get it? Let me see. Let me see."

The village chief smiled and opened the fabric for everyone to see: "I told you not to worry. That person will definitely keep his word. He spent so much money on our tea before and he didn't owe us any money. He will definitely be able to do it this time. I also plan to buy some fabric. If you want some, you can buy some together."

"This material is really good. I want to buy a piece too. My family is in need of material."

"My family is in need of some too. A few days ago, my relative went to the city to buy some fabric. He finally managed to collect some fabric coupons and owed a lot of favors to others. Here, you can buy fabric by just spending money. I want to buy a piece."

"Yes, my relative's child is getting married, but he can't get enough cloth coupons. I'll ask someone to bring a piece of cloth for my relative. With the cloth, the child can get married in a decent manner."

"That's great! How did such a good thing happen to our village? I asked around in other villages and there's no such thing. Now, not only can we make money by selling tea, but we can also buy fabrics with just money. Life is so comfortable."

"I don't know if that person will come back in the future. We grow more than just tea leaves here. We also grow other things. If we can have them all year round, we won't have to worry about the future."

"We don't have anything *special* here, it's all very common."

"Tea is common, but people really need it, and maybe they want something else too."

"What about coffee? Coffee is similar to tea."

"Does anyone want this?"

"Stop arguing, stop arguing. When we finish picking the tea leaves, we'll make a list like that guy, list what we have here, and see what he needs. If he wants it, we'll go pick it together. In half a month, every household will have to send someone to farm the land. We can't forget our work. We have to earn work points."

“I haven’t earned money from picking tea leaves yet.”

"Can tea leaves be eaten as food? If you earn money but don't have a ticket, can you buy food?"

"I'll tell you when the time comes. Village chief, please help me write. I want to buy some cloth."

"I want it, too."

"And me!"