Meng Tao drove out of the county town and wandered around for fun.

We drove along the road for over an hour and had no idea where we were, but we saw stretches of flat fields on both sides of the road with lush and green crops growing well. Beyond the fields was a village surrounded by green trees and large stretches of dark green mountains. The scenery was pretty nice.

Continuing forward, it was almost noon and the sunlight was glaring and making him a little sleepy. Meng Tao planned to find a place with few people and shaded by trees to rest for a while, but he saw an ox cart coming out from the bend in front of him. When they passed by, Meng Tao saw two bamboo baskets full of fresh fruits on the ox cart. The fruits were light pink and red, mixed with pure white ones. Each one was as big as a lychee, but definitely not a lychee. They looked more like bayberries.

Thinking of the taste of bayberry, Meng Tao was refreshed. He immediately pulled the car over to the side of the road, opened the door and shouted to the two middle-aged men on the ox cart, "Uncle, how much are the bayberries?"

The ox cart stopped, and the uncle sitting on the left turned around and said, "Girl, these bayberries are not for sale."

Meng Tao walked to the ox cart and looked at the bamboo basket: "Why not sell it?"

"These are our team's products. We cannot sell them privately. We have to take them to the county supply and marketing cooperative, let them look at the goods, give us a price, and decide on a day to buy them. Only then can we pick all the bayberries from the trees and send them over."

“Do you have a lot of bayberries on your team?”

"Yes, our village is called Yangmei Village. Our village has been famous for its bayberries since ancient times. We have more than 20 century-old bayberry trees, and we can harvest thousands of kilograms of bayberries every year."

"Uncle, can't you pick bayberries only when they are completely red? Look, they are pink, and some are even white. You are in a hurry to pick them before they are ripe."

The two middle-aged uncles laughed and said, "Girl, haven't you heard of cotton plum? When it's not ripe, it's green. When it's ripe, it turns white. When it's overripe, it's also light pink. It grows among the green leaves and looks like cotton flowers, so it's called cotton plum. Try it. The flesh is thick and juicy, and it's very sweet. Bayberry can also be used as medicine. According to our local saying, if you eat a few bayberries every year, you won't get sick or have any disasters!"

With permission, Meng Tao picked up a snow-white "cotton plum" and put it in her mouth. It was indeed juicy and sweet. The most rare thing was that the core was very small and could be swallowed directly.

In her previous life, Meng Tao had heard from her grandmother that bayberry seeds had medicinal uses. She wasn't sure what the specific effects were, but they were good for children. Every year at this time, her grandmother would buy her a pound or two of bayberry and let her swallow a few bayberry seeds.

Meng Tao likes to eat bayberry, but she has never heard of "cotton bayberry". It is so fresh, sweet and tastes great. It should be considered a rare variety. Now that she has come across it, she can't let it go.

The uncle was in a hurry to get going, so Meng Tao negotiated with them: "What is the price that the supply and marketing cooperative will give for the unified purchase? Why don't you sell the bayberries to me? I'm a purchaser at the food factory. I can buy all the bayberries in your team and go back to can them. I can even give you a higher price."

When the two uncles heard this, they immediately took it seriously. If they wanted to do a private transaction, they would not dare to do it. However, Meng Tao was a buyer for the food factory and came to purchase the fruits from their production team. That was public to public, which was reasonable and legal.

The three of them drove the ox cart to the roadside under the shade of a tree and began to negotiate, exchanging names with each other. Meng Tao still used the pseudonym "Tao Meng" and was a "purchaser of the state-owned food factory in the provincial capital"; the two uncles were both surnamed Liu, one was the accountant in the production team, Accountant Yang, and the other was Yang Dachet, who was in charge of the ox cart. Their village was called Yangjia Village, also known as Qingxiagou Yangjia Village Brigade, which belonged to Guanshan Commune in Xingyang County.

Accountant Yang said that in previous years, the county supply and marketing cooperative purchased bayberry at a price ranging from 0.10 to 0.15 per catty. The production team could earn several hundred yuan from two to three thousand catties of bayberry.

Meng Tao directly offered 0.20 per kilogram, knowing that it was more than ten miles from their village to the county-level highway, connected by a dirt road, so she said that they did not need to deliver the goods themselves, but only needed to pick the bayberries and put them in bamboo baskets, and Meng Tao would drive a truck into the village to receive them.

Accountant Yang and Driver Yang were even happier when they heard this: they could pay a high price and receive the goods in person, which saved them a lot of trouble and effort. Where else could they find such a good thing? !

He immediately took Meng Tao back to the village to discuss further sales and purchase matters with the team leader. The two baskets of bayberries on the ox cart were originally intended to be sent to the county town to be sent to the people of the county supply and marketing cooperative to "look at the samples and set the price", but they were directly moved to Meng Tao's cart and given to her.

Meng Tao went to Yangjia Village in Qingxiagou, a very remote mountain village with difficult transportation. Meng Tao could only leave the jeep in the commune and follow the two uncles into the village in a ox cart. Fortunately, Accountant Liu did not lie to her. She really saw the century-old bayberry trees, a total of 28 trees, surrounding the entire village. Each tree grew luxuriant branches and leaves, blocking out the sun. The trees were full of bayberries, not only "cotton plums", but also other varieties. The bright red ones were like rosy clouds dotted on the green branches, which was a delight to see.

Accountant Liu said that the sweetest is the "cotton plum". The bright red one is called fire bayberry, which is also sweet but more sour, so they usually only bring the "cotton plum" out for people to taste every year.

This is not a big problem for Meng Tao. Bayberry should be a little sour to be tasty, and after being blessed by her space, the flavor of the fruit will only be even more delicious.

There are also large tracts of peach groves, pear groves and many loquat trees in the village.

The loquats are ripe, and the bunches are golden. Accountant Liu does not recommend Meng Tao to buy them, saying that the fruit looks good and tastes sweet, but the flesh is thin and has many seeds, so it is not worth eating.

Meng Tao thought of loquat paste. What a good raw material it is, and she can pick the leaves for free. Loquat leaves can also be used as medicine.

Meng Tao agreed on the purchase price with the brigade cadres and left a deposit. It was decided that they would come to buy all the bayberries, loquats, and unripe peaches and pears in three days.

When he returned to the county town, it was already past eight o'clock in the evening. Meng Tao first rushed to the small warehouse of the winery to put away the tiger skin, tiger meat, wild boar meat, and soaked tiger bones and tiger tendon wine that Master Gan and Zhang Fu had processed during the day, and then went to Zhang Fu's house.

(End of this chapter)