Zheng Laojiu ordered a thousand quail eggs for them.
He has a special wooden drawer for storing quail eggs, which is a little deeper than a quail egg container. After filling the drawer with quail eggs, the drawer is stacked layer by layer. A thousand quail eggs are only about the size of an ice cream box, which is really easy to transport.
"Won't it spoil if I leave it like this?"
Chu Yu was a cautious person and felt that the quail eggs were placed too close together without any anti-collision measures. The road was bumpy and uneven, and there was bound to be some bumps and knocks.
"Quail eggs are small, so there's less waste than chicken eggs. They line them with straw, and keep the spoiled ones for their own consumption," Zheng Laojiu said nonchalantly.
He was highly skilled and daring, but Chu Yu was new to business and wanted to minimize losses. However, there were no special trays for quail eggs in those days.
She caught a glimpse of the wood chips on the ground out of the corner of her eye, and suddenly an idea struck her.
In her past life, Chu Yu once bought Australian lobster online, and the seller used sawdust, or wood chips, for transportation.
The lobster arrived undamaged. Would it have been better to fill the wooden drawer with sawdust to protect the quail eggs from impact?
Chu Yu shared his thoughts with Zheng Lao Jiu, who was also taken aback. In the countryside, people use straw and dried corncobs as stuffing. He hadn't thought of using sawdust, but it was indeed more practical to break it down into smaller pieces.
“You’re quick-witted, aren’t you?” Zheng Laojiu chuckled. “Uncle doesn’t have much of anything, except for sawdust. Look, there’s a whole pile of it on the ground. Grab as much as you want!”
Before Chu Yu could even lift a finger, Shu Aiguo had already finished the job for her. There was no way he could bear to see his niece suffer; his delicate skin was hardly suited for hard work.
Thinking of this, Shu Aiguo cursed Zhou Jian'an in his heart once again.
Hearing that someone had come to visit, Zheng Laojiu's wife rushed back from the fields. When she arrived at the door with her hoe, she saw the uncle and nephew pushing a cart out.
When Zheng Laojiu got married, Shu Aiguo even came to make a ruckus in the bridal chamber. His wife knew Shu Aiguo, and she laughed and said:
"Who do we have here? You've come, you should at least stay for a couple of drinks."
Seeing the pork and apples out of the corner of her eye, Zheng Laojiu's wife became even more enthusiastic in trying to persuade them to stay. However, it was getting late, and Chu Yu still wanted to take a thousand quail eggs to Deyang City to sell. Shu Aiguo also had to return to Shanguan. It was not a short ride back from here, taking at least five or six hours. The crackdown had not yet started, and the security on the road was not good. They had to get back before dark.
"No need to trouble yourself today. I'll come over next time and have a couple of drinks with Lao Jiu," Shu Aiguo said.
Zheng Laojiu's wife then decided not to keep them any longer.
Chu Yu had been riding her bicycle for too long that day, and her legs were no longer her own. But she had no choice; if she didn't go back, she would have to stay in a guesthouse. Guesthouses required a letter of introduction, and the prices weren't cheap. How could someone running a small business be willing to spend that kind of money?
It was tiring, but I was young, so I would get off and push the bike for a while after riding for a bit, massage my calves, and keep going. When I got hungry, I would buy some pancakes on the way. In the rural areas of 1983, there weren't many other shops, but pancake vendors were quite common.
After traveling at a leisurely pace, Chu Yu arrived in Deyang city at 6 p.m.
Shu Aiguo was a little worried about her, "It's too late, it's not safe for a young woman like you to be out alone."
“It’s okay, Second Uncle. I’ll go to the hospital to find my mom and rent a chair there to sleep on.”
As dusk approached, I rode my bike back to my second uncle's house. I could only sleep for a few hours before having to get up to go to Deyang. Chu Yu's physical strength was far inferior to Shu Aiguo's. I had ridden my bike for too long today, and my legs were so sore they didn't feel like my own. I really couldn't bear the two-hour round trip by bike anymore.
Furthermore, quail eggs are easily damaged during transport, so it's better to stay in Deyang and go back after selling the quail eggs tomorrow.
"Okay, I have to get going, so I won't visit your mother and Chuchu. I'll come over after Chuchu's surgery."
"Okay, Second Uncle."
After saying goodbye to Shu Aiguo, Chu Yu rode her bicycle to the Municipal Hospital. Shu Hui was very excited to see her, "Chu Yu, what brings you here?"
Chu Yu opened the wooden box she was carrying to show Shu Hui and told her about buying quail eggs and quail chicks.
Shu Hui was stunned, feeling as if she were listening to gibberish.
Yesterday, Chu Yu was saying she would sell night-shining sand. How come, in just one day, she has decided to sell quail eggs instead? And not only that, she wants to buy quail chicks and raise quail herself?
And everything has been arranged properly!
This girl is far too capable!
Shu Hui thought that her daughter was not well received in the Zhou family and was often verbally suppressed by Jiang Meifeng. Even if she had ideas, she did not dare to carry them out. Now that she was staying in the Shu family, Shu Aiguo was a tolerant person, so why didn't he let her do whatever she wanted?
Shu Hui attributed her daughter's changes to this point.
"How much did you spend on these quail eggs?"
"Thirty." Since no one was in the ward, Chu Yu said it.
"What!" Shu Hui never expected her daughter to spend thirty yuan on a single transaction. What if she couldn't sell them!
Shu Hui was extremely anxious. She took out the wooden drawers one by one, reached into the sawdust to take out the quail eggs to check them. She checked thirty of them and they were all good, with no cracks in the shells. Only then did she breathe a long sigh of relief.
“I put it under the hospital bed, and the three of us will watch over it together.”
This floor consists of large open rooms, with the largest ward having twenty beds. However, the small room that Chuchu was assigned to, located near the corridor, has only three beds.
Wasn't someone staying there yesterday?
"The old lady in the bed further in has an eye disease. The surgery will cost over five hundred yuan. She has seven sons, but none of them are willing to pay for her treatment. Just now, her eldest son secretly took her away without even completing the discharge procedures, saying he wouldn't get any more treatment at home."
Shu Hui was quite emotional. A mother can raise ten children, but ten children can hardly support one mother. There's really nothing you can do when you encounter an unfilial son.
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