The meat was wrapped in cardboard, and Chu Yu specially hung his own meat on the back seat of the car to separate it from the meat he was giving away.
Guanxian is located north of Deyang City, in the opposite direction from Shanguan Village. Since you have to pass through Deyang City to get to Guanxian, this trip is convenient.
The two rode for a full four hours, arriving at Yanshui Village in Guanxian County close to noon. Shu Aiguo was worried that Chu Yu's weak body couldn't handle it, but fortunately, the original owner was young and had been going to bed early and getting up early recently, so her body had recovered well and four hours was nothing.
There were few people on the road at noon, and the sun was blazing. The two walked for a long time before they met an old man carrying water.
Shu Aiguo got out of the car and asked, "Grandpa, do you know how to get to Zheng Laojiu's house?"
The old man glanced at him and said, "Judging from your accent, you're from Zheng Laojiu's hometown, right? His house is in the second-to-last row of the village; just walk along the dam and you'll get there."
Shu Aiguo thanked him, and the uncle and nephew rode all the way to Zheng Laojiu's house.
Old Zheng was sawing wood to make a frame at the door. He was stunned when he saw him, then dropped the saw and exclaimed excitedly, "Old Shu!"
Shu Aiguo chuckled and said, "Ninth Brother, your uncle has come to see you!"
Zheng Laojiu laughed and punched him on the back, "You're still the same old you! You always like to take advantage of me!"
This was the first time Chu Yu had witnessed the friendship between middle-aged men, and it was quite a novel experience. She never expected that her honest and quiet second uncle would have such a lively side. In front of Zheng Lao Jiu, he acted like a child who hadn't grown up and even made jokes.
Sure enough, as the saying goes, a man is a boy until he dies.
After exchanging a few pleasantries, Shu Aiguo finally brought up the purpose of his visit. Zheng Laojiu then learned that Shu Hui had actually gotten divorced. Back when Zheng Laojiu was young and in love, he had a crush on Shu Hui when she was a teenager. Unfortunately, the two were not meant to be, and Zheng Laojiu later married and had children.
When his childhood sweetheart was not doing well, Zheng Laojiu felt a sense of loss and change. It wasn't that he still had feelings for Shu Hui, but rather a kind of adult reflection. When we were young, we were all pretty much the same. Who could have imagined that we would end up in such different circumstances?
Zheng Laojiu looked at Chu Yu. When he returned to his hometown before the New Year, his mother mentioned that Shu Hui's eldest daughter was exceptionally beautiful, and that no one in the surrounding area could compare. Zheng Laojiu wondered how outstanding a country girl could be, but he never expected her to be this beautiful.
"This is Chu Yu?"
Chu Yu greeted him with a smile, "Hello, Uncle Zheng, I'm Chu Yu."
Zheng Laojiu nodded repeatedly while smoking, "Not bad, poised and confident, he's got the makings of a businessman."
After exchanging pleasantries, Shu Aiguo took the meat and apples off the handlebars and casually brought up the matter of the quail.
“The price has gone up a bit recently. The wholesale price of quail eggs is now four cents each. I have a few regular customers here. If you want some, I can give you a maximum of one hundred and fifty a day.”
With a wholesale price of four cents, there's a profit of two or three cents. One hundred and fifty quail eggs only earn a little over four yuan. This doesn't even include labor costs and losses, nor does it take into account the more than five-hour drive from Batou Village.
However, if you can save up to do it once every six or seven days and earn twenty yuan each time, it's worth it.
Zheng Laojiu added, "You're lucky. Summer is the incubation season for quails. You can take some eggs back and incubate them yourselves. The incubation period is seventeen days, and they'll lay eggs in about forty-five days. It takes about two months in total."
Two months is too long. Time is precious to Chu Yu. Seeing her five properties and huge savings from her previous life vanish into thin air, she is eager to get rich in the 1980s.
Business opportunities are everywhere these days, and the market for agricultural products changes every day. Two months from now, the quail craze will be over, and who knows if quail will still be easy to sell?
If everyone sees the market is good and rushes to sell quail, she won't even be able to get a fish tail.
Ultimately, she was selling quail to ride the wave of popularity and make a quick buck. She didn't care about the long-term effects; as long as she made the money, the faster the better.
If we could buy some quail chicks, we could hatch them while they lay eggs, which would be much faster.
Chu Yu had this thought, so she asked:
"Uncle Zheng, do you sell your quail chicks?"
Zheng Laojiu smiled. The quail egg business had always been good, but it hadn't been particularly booming.
In the early 1980s, people were conservative and slow to access information. Quail became very valuable outside, but very few people knew that he raised quail.
The weather was hot, so the people collecting quail eggs were conservative, afraid that the eggs they collected would spoil the next day if they couldn't be sold. They only collected three or four hundred eggs at a time.
In addition, Guanxian is far from Deyang city, and the round trip is prone to damage, which has led to the awkward situation where farmers' market owners have no goods to sell and their goods cannot be sold.
However, he still smiled and said:
"Quail chicks are in high demand. I don't sell to others, but given my relationship with your uncle, I have to sell to him whether I want to or not."
After pondering for a moment, Zheng Laojiu said, "I can give you three hundred quail chicks and three hundred hatchable quail eggs. I charge others at least one hundred and fifty, but I'll only charge you one hundred. You can pay me back when you make money."
Shu Aiguo wasn't surprised; it was normal to buy on credit these days, especially since he and Zheng Laojiu were practically brothers. But Chu Yu didn't think so.
They gave us seedlings and eggs and even let us buy them on credit. People back then were much more humane than people in later generations.
It seems that friendship between men is still quite valuable.
Shu Aiguo asked, "When can you give me the seedlings and the eggs?"
"You need to go back and prepare the wooden frame first, like this, stacked one layer on top of another, five or six layers in total. Come back and pick it up when you're ready."
In his previous life, Chu Yu had seen others raise quails. Quails are small, so they were kept in cages stacked on top of each other, unlike chickens, which require a large chicken farm to be raised free-range and take up a lot of space.
These days, cages are hard to buy, so Zheng Laojiu made his own wooden frame. This frame was obviously an improvement. With electricity coming to Yanshui Village, Zheng Laojiu also made a simple heating device, which looked like it was for keeping the quails warm.
Ultimately, without any information, everything was learned through trial and error. However, since most people in the countryside have raised chickens, raising quails was even easier.
Old Zheng was afraid they wouldn't know how to raise quails, so he took them to the kitchen to see his quail rack.
The gray-feathered quails stood obediently in their perch, huddled together but not making a fuss.
A wooden frame that's just over a meter long can hold over a hundred quails—it's really convenient and doesn't take up much space.
Raising quails is not only easy, but quail eggs are small and expensive. They are easy to raise and easy to sell. What else could they be but golden eggs?
Chu Yu's eyes grew increasingly envious as he looked at the eggs. He had thirty yuan left and wanted to use it to buy some quail eggs from Zheng Laojiu.
"You're lucky. The two old men who bought quail eggs today haven't come to restock. I still have a thousand eggs left. I'll give you three cents each."
They cost three cents each, but could be sold for at least six cents in the market, making a profit of three cents each!
Chu Yu thought she could buy a hundred or two at most, but she didn't expect Zheng Lao Jiu to be so loyal. He must have offended those two customers to help her.
She quickly replied sweetly, "Thank you, Uncle Zheng."
People are never wrong for being sweet-talking, and Zheng Laojiu had a high opinion of Chu Yu in his heart.
Although she had an unreliable father, the girl was beautiful, polite, articulate, and bold. It would be an injustice if a girl like that didn't make something of herself!
I really don't know what that bastard Zhou Jian'an was thinking!
He abandoned his perfectly good wife and daughter to raise someone else's child!
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