Chapter 72 This Sang family is not simple
Sang Luo and Shen Ning put the mushrooms away, washed their hands, and uncovered the two bowls of dishes on the kitchen table. Only then did they understand what Shen An meant by "cooked".
Maybe it's just ripe...
The two sisters-in-law looked at each other. Sang Luo asked, "Try it?"
Shen Ning nodded.
She took a bowl and filled it with rice. Considering the dishes she saw, she deliberately filled a small amount. Sang Luo scooped a spoonful of boiled bean dregs with a spoon, then placed the spoon against the wall of the bowl and tilted it, deliberately squeezing out most of the soup before putting it into the bowl.
It has to be forced out, it's like... well, 10 parts of water boiled with 4 parts of bean dregs, how much water did Shen An add?
Then look, I put onions and sauce in it, but it just looks special, weird?
The aunt and the sister-in-law scooped up the food and tasted it each...
It’s not that it’s unpalatable, it’s just that it’s not delicious?
Boiled bean dregs may taste better than what Shen An cooks.
There are more than half a plate of cucumbers on the table, um, they are called cucumbers here, which were sent by Old Mrs. Chen this morning. The bean dregs are inedible. The cucumbers look fine except that the color is not very good, the color is a little too dark, and they are a little overcooked and limp, right?
Sang Luo and Shen Ning each picked up a piece of food with chopsticks and put it in their mouths, and then both of them froze.
Sour...
It's not the sourness from adding vinegar, but the sourness from stir-frying with sauce.
Shen Ning frowned: "Next time I will tell my second brother that cucumber is actually quite delicious when eaten raw."
Sang Luo shook her shoulders and tried to hold back her laughter: "Eat, eat. It's rare to eat the food your second brother cooked for us."
In ancient times, men rarely went into the kitchen. Shen An, a little man, was only nine years old, but he could cook. Although the food didn’t taste very good, it was a skill that could be cultivated.
Both of them were very hungry. It was impossible not to be hungry. They usually had three meals a day, and it was already mid-afternoon today. It would be time for dinner if they waited any longer, and they just came back for lunch. How could they not be hungry?
So when Chen An quietly came in from behind to take a look, he found that the rather unpalatable dish he had cooked at noon was actually given face by his sister-in-law and Aning, who had already eaten half of it.
Only a small half, he couldn't even eat that much.
The little guy was very touched and took over the task of washing dishes.
Sang Luo did not refuse and went out with Chen Ning to watch the boys digging the roadbed. After a short rest, the aunt and sister-in-law carefully cleared out two backpacks full of mushrooms. Those sour dates seen in the morning could not be left on the ground. If they were not picked up today, they would probably go bad in two days.
Chen An saw the two men unloading their backpacks, and approached them to ask, "Are we going into the mountains again?"
Shen Ning nodded and whispered, “I saw a lot of sour dates this morning, dropped on the ground. If we don’t pick them up, they will go bad. My sister-in-law and I will go pick them up.”
Shen An really wanted to go, but he had his own things to do today, and his friends were helping his family build a stone road, so he could only nod and say, "Go ahead."
I helped to get the snake repellent powder, took my sister to the yard, and helped to put some on the shoes, socks and leggings. In order to ensure that they would not be blown away by grass leaves, I also stuffed a little into the cloth rope of the leggings.
Sang Luo naturally came by herself, packed up the bag of powder for Shen An, and led Shen Ning out again.
There are fewer people going into the mountains at this time. Occasionally, one or two people coming out of the mountains are seen on the hills near the village. When they see Sang Luo and Shen Ning entering the mountains, they exclaim, "Alie's wife, you are so hardworking."
Sang Luo smiled and replied, "Yes, I haven't grown any vegetables at home yet. I'll go look for some mushrooms while there are some, dry them and save them."
After a few pleasantries, it was over.
They followed the same route they took in the morning and walked deeper into the forest. There were very few mushrooms that were missed, and they could occasionally see one or two clusters. They picked them and put them in Shen Ning's backpack. Until they reached the first jujube tree they saw in the morning, they quickened their pace, with excitement on their faces. They put down the backpacks on their backs, squatted down and started picking mushrooms.
There were mushrooms in Chen Ning's backpack, which could not be smashed, so he put them all into Sang Luo's backpack first. He picked up half of the backpack under a jujube tree, and that was it. As for shaking the tree to get the jujubes, that was not necessary, as there were still some in front. It would be better to wait for them to fall off naturally in a few days.
Walking all the way inside, they picked mushrooms from under the trees they had seen in the morning. Sang Luo's backpack was already 70% full. The mushrooms that had been placed in Shen Ning's backpack were put to use. They were all covered on the sour jujubes, covering them tightly.
Chen Ning's backpack was also half full. He found some mushrooms and wood ears and picked some wild vegetables. He stuffed the basket with the dates and then went back.
Sang Luo felt a little regretful that she had not picked the leaves of the fairy tree yet. Looking at the sky, she hurried back. She had to free up the backpack and go out again before dark to get some fairy tree leaves, which she would need to make fairy tofu in the evening.
I ran twice, fortunately the location of the Fairy Tree was on the outskirts, so I didn't have to run very deep. When I got home, it was the time when everyone was preparing dinner.
Chen An took over the tofu orders from the three families and said to Sang Luo, "Second Aunt Lu brought half a basket of vegetables to our family, and Aunt Shi brought four eggs. She said that Grandma Lu and Second Aunt Shi specially asked them to bring them. Thank you, sister-in-law, for helping them sell the mushrooms to Dongfulou today."
He also gave a general description of the vegetables that the Lu family had given him. Sang Luo heard that some of them could only be kept for one or two days, while others could be kept for several days. She smiled and said, "Then we won't have to worry about food in the next few days."
The only vegetables that can be picked from her backyard now are basil and mint. The vegetables that have been planted are only half-grown and cannot be eaten yet, so the vegetables she eats on weekdays used to be brought back from the county. After she stopped setting up the stall, the three families would give her some from time to time, or when paying for tofu, Sang Luo would ask for some in exchange. Now she has no shortage of vegetables for several days.
Before it got dark, Sang Luo went to make dinner. Chen An and Shen Ning poured the sour dates into a wooden barrel at home, and carefully picked up the mushrooms that had been poured out earlier. As Sang Luo said, the ones with poor quality were kept for their own taste in the evening, and the good ones were picked according to their varieties and put into a backpack. They would give the backpack directly to Qin Fangniang early the next morning and ask her to take it to the county to sell.
The mushroom business lasted only three days. On the second and third days, Qin Fangniang brought back a note for Sang Luo worth two hundred and twelve coins and one hundred and thirty coins respectively.
Later on, even if Mrs. Chen and her friends were familiar with the surrounding area, the people in the village were no worse than them. Everything that should be picked up had been picked up. In the slightly deeper places, Mrs. Chen also led them to sweep through them, relying on the snake repellent powder. But to be honest, they didn't have the courage to make the money from going deeper.
But in three days, those who sold mushrooms less, like Shi Erlang's wife, earned nearly two hundred and seventy coins, while those who had two people in the family like Lu and Sang Luo who could go into the mountains to pick mushrooms earned six hundred coins. For several families, it was no less than a windfall.
In fact, it was only at this time that they realized that not all mushrooms are cheap. Most mushrooms are very cheap, especially in the country markets, where they cannot be sold at a high price because anyone can pick them up in the mountains. But it is different with black fir mushrooms. The price of a pound of black fir mushrooms is almost catching up with the price of meat.
Thinking about the money I earned this time, and then thinking about the edible mushrooms I picked in previous years, regardless of the species, and stewed them in a pot, all for the whole family, I felt so heartbroken. Happiness and pain truly coexist.
However, Sang Luo followed Mrs. Chen and her group to travel around the outer edge and slightly deeper parts of the mountain radiating from the entire village. Not only did she find some magical trees, but she also discovered a lot of sour jujubes and konjacs. She made a lot of sour jujube cakes these days and borrowed two large winnowing baskets from the Chen family, the Shi family, and the Lu family to dry the sour jujube cakes.
Thanks to her hands-on ability, she made two drying racks herself, otherwise her small backyard would not be able to accommodate so many things.
Time passed quickly and it was time for Sang Luo and Shopkeeper Xu to supply vegetarian tripe as agreed. As usual, Qin Fangniang was asked to help carry the goods. On the first day, Sang Luo produced eleven kilograms of the ten kilograms. She borrowed the scale from the Lu family the night before, weighed ten kilograms and packed them separately. The other kilogram naturally became her own food.
In the afternoon, Qin Fangniang brought her a note for 170 cents.
Chen An rolled up the notes very preciously and put them in the broken clay pot at home where he kept copper coins. He counted the money that day. In addition to these four notes, his family had saved a lot from selling tofu recently. Together with the original 1,523 coins, he had saved more than 2,500 copper coins.
Sang Luo looked at the sour jujube cakes that were almost dried and thought it was time to go to the county town.
The next day, she personally delivered the vegetarian tripe.
That day, there were far more women than just her and Qin Fangniang who went to the county town. Chen Youtian and the others had already obtained their permits two days ago, but because of limited money and purchase limits on grain in the county, they had to go to the county town early in the morning every day with the women setting up stalls to queue up to buy grain.
Even Zhou Cunzheng had been following them early in the morning these days, all going to the county to buy grain. It would have to be early. The owner of the grocery store in Sanli Village was either alert or really couldn't get the goods, so recently the store still sold other things but no millet.
Although the grain shops in the county released some grain every day, the amount of grain released was limited and there were many people buying grain, so the shops closed in the morning. They rushed to the county in the dark, but they could never compete with the people who came to buy grain in the county.
It was only in the past few days that Zhou Cunzheng realized clearly that Sangluo's tofu business had grown to a considerable scale. The full cart was filled with the goods that the three companies wanted to sell.
And today, Sang Luo followed them into the county, and Zhou Cunzheng realized that he had underestimated Sang Luo. It turned out that she had made another kind of food and supplied it exclusively to Dongfulou.
Zhoucun didn't react on the surface, but he was sighing in his heart that it was not simple.
This Sang family is not simple.
…
When Shopkeeper Xu saw Sang Luo, he was so happy.
The amount of vegetarian tripe needs to be increased.
The initial target of ten kilograms was indeed a bit conservative. This fresh food is very easy to promote. If it was only ten kilograms, it would be gone for lunch.
"Madam Sang, please deliver 20 kilograms a day. It's just that your stuff is hard to store. Otherwise, our boss has restaurants in other counties and cities, and we can serve them. The orders for tofu and vegetarian tripe are far from this amount."
There is endless regret in his words.
Sang Luo smiled and said, "Twenty kilograms is fine, but if it's more, I can't make it at the moment. This thing is not easy to make."
Raw materials are not inexhaustible.
This is the reason why she dared to sign a six-month exclusive sales contract with Manager Xu if she could produce ten kilograms a day. If she produced more, she would find it difficult to supply.
This is not the soybean that all farmers grow and can be bought with money.
Shopkeeper Xu smiled and said yes.
According to the rules, Sang Luo still asked for the slip. Shopkeeper Xu looked at her from the side and said, "Madam Sang, you should keep some money for your family's expenses. There is no rush to pay back the money. You don't have to take the slip every time."
Sang Luo smiled: "Have you forgotten, Manager Xu? My family has other businesses."
As he spoke, he took out two purses filled with money, and from his sleeve he took out several strings of money and piled them on the counter. He smiled and said to the accountant, "Here are two thousand five hundred coins. Mr. Lao, please count them."
The accountant was stunned for a moment, then nodded and called two waiters to help count the money.
Shopkeeper Xu saw this and shook his head and laughed, "Mrs. Sang is very capable. Even if I don't help, it won't be difficult for Mrs. Sang to pass this test."
"That's impossible. The price of grain has already risen to eighty-eight coins. If it weren't for Shopkeeper Xu, I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to do anything every day. I would have to spend most of the day queuing in front of the grain store."
It’s not close from her place, and if you queue up late you may not be able to buy it.
Just like Chen Youtian and others now, they have to go to the county before dawn every day.
Sang Luo had thought about using Manager Xu's connections to help Chen Youtian and the others buy some food.
But on the one hand, Shopkeeper Xu himself is not the owner of a grain shop, so he also needs to ask for favors in order to buy grain. Helping her is already good enough, but asking him to help the villagers buy grain is a bit too much. After all, they are not familiar with each other, so how can favors withstand such a waste?
Secondly, Zhou Cunzheng was not so bad, as his family had some financial resources. Families like the Chen, Shi, and Lu families were not actually well-off, and could not spend much money to buy food at once. The money they earned from selling tofu, wild vegetables, and mushrooms the day before was used to buy food. Recently, Qin Fangniang and the others had become more active, and they would even bring some vegetables from the vegetable garden to the county to sell every day, so that they could afford to buy one and a half dou of millet for their family every day.
After drinking a cup of tea in Dongfulou and waiting for the accountant to count the money and write the receipt, Sang Luo said goodbye to Manager Xu and left with her basket.
Shopkeeper Xu looked at the jars in the basket and was actually quite curious. What else did Mrs. Sang sell besides vegetarian tripe and tofu?
I just didn't feel comfortable asking.
Sang Luo naturally went to sell her sour jujube cakes. Thanks to the fact that she had followed those old ladies around dozens of mountains, she made a lot of sour jujube cakes this time. Sang Luo picked out four jars today. If she sold them all, she would get at least 800 coins.
She planned to try her luck at two dim sum shops that she hadn't visited last time.
Well-established shops like Yongfengzhai don't sell food made outside, so a small dim sum shop wouldn't be so particular, right?
I'm just afraid that the price will be lowered again and again.
She was weighing this in her mind as she carried her load and walked out, still calculating how much she would have to offer if the other party tried to bargain. Someone behind her called out anxiously, "Young lady, young lady!"
At first, Sang Luo didn't think that she was being addressed, because no one in the county knew her. Those who knew her either called her Alie's wife or Madam Sang. No one would call her "young lady" as if she were a stranger.
So she didn't take it seriously at all, nor did she think that someone was calling her. She continued to carry her load and think about her plan to make money, and kept walking forward.
Until the man caught up with him, panting: "Young lady, the young lady selling crystal jerky, wait a minute!"
After hearing the words "crystal breast", Sang Luo finally connected this young lady with herself and subconsciously stopped and turned to look.
The round-faced woman who was running out of breath, who else could she be but the female manager of Yongfengzhai?
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
