Chapter 31 Selling Strawberries at the Market
After making sure that Brother Snake couldn't get in, Xia Wu pulled the curtains tight, curled up Bugs Bunny in her arms, and held him warmly like a little sun. She covered him with the quilt, and soon Xia Wu fell asleep.
Early in the morning, she opened the curtains and saw that the snake had left.
Xia Wu just treated this matter as a minor episode and didn't take it to heart.
A little after six o'clock, Yang Mingyue and her brother arrived. Xia Wu had just gotten up, and they had already worked in the strawberry field for a while and picked back several baskets of strawberries.
Seeing Xia Wu coming out, the brother and sister knew how to greet her and called out in unison, "Sister."
Xia Wu: "Have you eaten?"
"We came here after having dinner at home," Yang Mingyue pursed her lips and smiled subtly, revealing two rabbit teeth.
"Would you like some more?"
This morning, Liu Guizhen baked egg pancakes. She chopped up green onions grown at home and mixed them with the batter. She then fried them in hot oil until both sides were golden and crispy. The fragrance of green onions was so tempting that it smelled so good.
Yang Mingyuan couldn't help swallowing, and then he was hit on the arm by his sister.
The siblings' grandmother is old and has rheumatism. In rainy and cold weather, her already deformed joints become even more painful, making it difficult for her to even get out of bed.
Yang Mingyue lives in the town's middle school from Monday to Friday, and she does the laundry and cooking when she goes home on Saturdays and Sundays.
When she is not at home, Yang Mingyuan does not eat breakfast. He eats lunch at the village snack bar and eats whatever Grandma Yang cooks when he comes back in the evening. When Grandma Yang is unable to get out of bed, he has to cook for her.
"What did you have for breakfast?"
"Bean porridge and white eggs." Yang Mingyuan answered honestly, his eyes still lingering on the egg pancake that Liu Guizhen had just brought out.
"Sit down and eat something. How can you work if you don't have a full stomach?"
Xia Wu invited the brother and sister to sit down and eat.
Since returning, Xia Wu has been drinking the buffalo milk sent by Fourth Master Yang.
A distant relative is not as good as a close neighbor. In return, Liu Guizhen usually cooked meals and made pancakes at home. As long as it was suitable for the elderly, she would ask Xia Wu to send a portion over.
They are from the same village, and even though they don't visit each other often, Liu Guizhen couldn't bear to see the two children in such a state.
The half-grown children have eaten their father out of money. Yang Mingyuan didn't know how long it had been since he had eaten good food. He ate seven or eight pancakes in a row, and wiped his mouth with satisfaction after finishing them. "It's as delicious as my mom's!"
It makes people feel sad.
"If it's delicious, come back tomorrow and I'll make it for you."
"Can I still come tomorrow? I have to go to school."
"What time does school start?"
"The teacher told us to be at school at 7:40."
"Can you get up?"
"I can get up."
"If you can get up, come early, work if you can, and have a full breakfast."
Yang Mingyuan was very happy, "Okay, then I will come here every day from now on!"
Yang Mingyue was a little envious of her younger brother. If she didn't go to school in town, she could come here to work every day to earn some money, and then she could buy pain-relieving plaster for her grandmother.
After dinner, Xia Wu took them to the strawberry field to start working. Yang Hongwen also joined the strawberry picking army, but he had a bit of obsessive-compulsive disorder. He had to follow a fixed process when picking strawberries. If the process was slightly wrong, he would not be able to pick strawberries. Therefore, his speed was very slow, far slower than Yang Mingyue and her brother.
Xia Wu first went to the WeChat store backend to check the orders. There were not so many orders today, only about 40 orders. Some of them were ordered yesterday and placed again today, but with different addresses and consignees.
She first printed out the orders, found the foam boxes, and then started picking strawberries together.
Although there were not so many orders, Xia Wu still picked all the ripe strawberries and immediately shipped them to his group friends. There were at least dozens of kilograms of strawberries left. Xia Wu planned to go to the town in the afternoon to see if he could sell them offline.
She also plans to shoot a video about this to quickly make the strawberries famous, as she still has two acres of strawberries waiting for people to buy them.
Yang Mingyue and Yang Mingyuan didn't do as much work as they did yesterday, so Xia Wu didn't pay them much. As the saying goes, "No pain, no gain." It's not like she asked them to work just because she felt sorry for them.
So in the morning, Yang Mingyue only received 30 yuan in salary, and Yang Mingyuan received 15.
"Sister, I'm going to school this afternoon. Can I still come to help when I come back next week?" Yang Mingyue asked embarrassedly.
"Sure, as long as I'm short of people, come if you can help."
Xia Wu accepted everyone who came to him. There was not enough manpower at home, and the two children were quite capable.
"Hey, what time in the afternoon is the peak time for you to return to school?"
"About four or five o'clock, sister, what's wrong?"
"I'm planning to take some strawberries to town to sell this afternoon," Xia Wu thought. There's a lot of traffic at the school gate, so the strawberries shouldn't be a problem. "You can take my car with you."
Yang Mingyue blushed and agreed happily.
After the express was packed, Xia Wu rode his bike to the town to deliver it, and then came back to charge the tricycle.
Seeing her cheeks flushed from the cold, Yang Guojun began to think about welding a shed for the tricycle. He immediately started to assemble some ready-made items at home.
Xia Wu took his brother to the mountain to water the fruit trees and picked a lot of dates.
At around three o'clock, Yang Guojun finally finished modifying the tricycle. He welded a baffle on the front and installed a shed on the back so that the express packages would not fall out and people would feel warm sitting inside.
Xia Wu took her brother with her and asked him to start filming. She wanted to shoot a video today of selling pesticide-free strawberries grown by herself in the town to see how much she could earn in the end.
When they arrived at Yang Mingyue's house, Xia Wu had just called out twice when Yang Mingyuan ran out of the house, wiping his nose and saying, "My sister will be out soon."
"Okay, no rush, let her take her time."
After a while, Yang Mingyue ran out breathlessly, holding two steaming hot buns in her hands: "Sister, Brother Xiaowen, do you want some buns? I just steamed them."
"You steamed the buns yourself?" Xia Wu's eyes almost popped out. Yang Mingyue was only thirteen years old.
When she was thirteen... Never mind, she's in her twenties now and she doesn't even know how to cook.
Yang Mingyue smiled shyly, "I steam buns every Sunday so that grandma and Mingyuan can heat them up and eat them at home."
"Who taught you that?"
"I learned how to make it from my phone. I failed the first time and was afraid of getting scolded by my grandma, so Mingyuan and I ate it all. Every time I tried it again, it worked."
Xia Wu took the steaming buns and asked her to get in the car. "You're really good, you're amazing."
"hey-hey."
Yang Mingyue was very happy to be praised. "Sister, I will go to school later and advertise for you so that all the classmates can come and buy your strawberries."
"Are strawberries delicious?"
"It's delicious! No wonder Mingyuan stole it. But I've already beaten him. If he dares to steal again, I'll beat him again."
"Can you control Yang Mingyuan?"
"He doesn't listen to anyone but me."
As the car drove away, Yang Mingyue waved to her brother who was standing at the door looking out, "Go inside and do your homework!"
The next second, Yang Mingyuan ran back to the house like a frightened rabbit.
This is definitely bloodline suppression.
The way Yang Mingyue and her brother get along is inexplicably heartbreaking. The precocious sister is forced to take on the responsibilities of a parent and take care of her brother who is only a few years younger than her.
"But he probably won't steal anymore. I'll give him 20 yuan and tell him to buy some snacks when he's hungry. When he comes back next week, I'll buy him some instant noodles. Once he's full, he won't steal anymore."
Maybe it was because there were no adults around, but Yang Mingyue dared to speak.
Xia Wu: "Is he not full?"
"Sister, don't look at how thin he is. He might have eaten a lot. I just steamed buns and he ate six in one go!"
The buns were stuffed with radish and shrimp and tasted good. Xia Wu ate them while riding her bike. She could only eat two buns the size of her palm at most. It seemed that Yang Mingyuan was quite a eater.
Yang Mingyue chattered about things at home and school all the way and soon arrived in town.
Go to the intersection in the town and turn right to reach the town’s No. 1 Middle School. There are students in school uniforms walking to school on the road.
"Sister, I'll get off here."
"What's wrong?"
"Go sell strawberries at the school gate later, and I'll be your escort," Yang Mingyue jumped out of the car and ran away with her schoolbag on her back.
Leaving Xia Wu behind: "..."
She thought this girl was rather introverted, but she didn't expect she had another face.
The flow of people in the town is much greater than that in the village. It is not yet the peak time for students to return to school, but there are already people setting up stalls selling snacks on the street leading to the school.
The variety of barbecued skewers, hot milk treasures and bamboo tube rice dumplings are dazzling to look at.
The shops on both sides of the road are also doing good business. The milk tea shops, jewelry stores, and bookstores are crowded with students.
The Feng Shui location at the school gate had been occupied, so Xia Wu had to settle for the next best thing. He parked the tricycle at the intersection, asked Yang Hongwen to get off, took out the wooden table used for dining at home, spread it out, and then took out the strawberries and scales and placed them on the table.
Put out a card with words written on it long ago: Freshly picked strawberries from the orchard, 15 yuan per pound, welcome to try.
Strawberries are not common in places like theirs during this season, so passersby can't help but look at them. The first thing they see is Xia Wu.
Xia Wu is really beautiful, with fair skin, wearing a knitted hat, and delicate and orderly features on her palm-sized face. Just looking at her face, people would ignore the clothes she is wearing.
Yang Guojun was afraid that Xia Wu would get cold on the road, so he took out his ancestral green military coat and asked her to wear it. It was oppressive, but also really warm.
Yang Hongwen stood next to her and took pictures. Maybe it was because of the scene that the people in the town stayed away, or maybe they thought the strawberries were too expensive, but Xia Wu stood in the wind for five or six minutes, and not even one person came to try them.
Fortunately, Yang Mingyue quickly brought her classmates to rescue her.
"Wow! There's a place selling strawberries over there. I love strawberries the most!"
The little girl spoke very loudly, and brought three or four female classmates with her. The children came over chattering and headed straight for Xia Wu's stall like a little whirlwind.
"Sister, can I try your strawberries?"
Yang Mingyue winked at Xia Wu.
Xia Wu smiled, "Of course you can. How can you tell if it tastes good if you don't try it? You're welcome to try it. If it's not sweet, you don't have to pay!"
"Then I'll try it too!"
Several little girls took one each, but Yang Mingyue didn't. She looked at her classmates expectantly, and stared at one of the girls and asked, "Bai Xue, is it delicious?"
The girl named Bai Xue did not have fair skin and was a little arrogant. She raised her chin modestly, trying to make herself look like a unique little goose.
"That's it. It's not as good as the durian my dad bought me. Have you ever eaten durian? It's so expensive!"
"No, I haven't eaten it before. I haven't even eaten strawberries much," Yang Mingyue said with a smile. "If you don't like it, I'll buy some to eat. I heard that eating strawberries can whiten your skin."
The other little girls looked at each other and smiled: "Then let's buy some too."
Xia Wu watched the fun from the side, enjoying it very much.
"Who said I won't buy it? I want two kilograms!"
Zheng Baixue pulled out her wallet from her pink jacket, pulled out three ten-yuan bills, and waved them in front of Xia Wu. "Don't weigh them less, my dad is an urban management officer!"
Xia Wu couldn't help laughing. She took the money and found a plastic bag to put the strawberries in. Finally, she showed her the scale and said, "Thirty yuan for two kilograms, that's definitely enough. Take it, little sister."
"Hmm," the girl took the plastic bag with her orchid finger raised, and suddenly asked Xia Wu, "What skin care products do you use? They're quite whitening."
"I don't use any skin care products. Maybe it's because I eat too many strawberries, so my skin is naturally white." Xia Wu followed Yang Mingyue's words.
"Is this true?"
"It should be true, right?"
"Then I'll try it. If it really makes me whiter, I'll buy your strawberries next time."
The little girl was a little obsessed with beauty and had a rather arrogant attitude, but in Xia Wu's eyes, these little tricks were not enough for the circle she had been in before, and she only thought they were a little cute.
"Sister, can I have ten dollars?"
"all right."
The other children probably didn't have much pocket money, only ten yuan each, so Xia Wu weighed out some more for them.
Yang Mingyue followed them back empty-handed. She refused to eat the food offered by other classmates. Xia Wu thought about it and decided not to call her.
The children set a good example for her, and more and more people came to try the food, ask the price, and after tasting it, they praised it highly and would buy some.
When parents come to send their children to boarding school for five days, they must buy some fruits. One child said he wanted to eat strawberries, but the parents were afraid that the strawberries would not last, so after tasting one, they still bought it for the child.
As more and more students returned to school, Xia Wu's stall was packed with people.
After Yang Mingyue brought her classmates back to class, the taste of strawberries quickly conquered everyone else, and then she brought other classmates to find Xia Wu.
In less than an hour, all the more than 80 kilograms of strawberries that Xia Wu brought to the town were sold out.
"No more, no more people waiting in line."
"It's gone so soon? Ah..."
The students cried out in disappointment, "Damn it, I only tasted one!"
"Sister, when will the strawberries be available for sale?"
"Sister, will you come next week?"
A bunch of middle school students surrounded Xia Wu and kept yelling. Xia Wu quickly said, "You must come next week. If you haven't bought anything, come early next week."
"All right……"
Homecoming Day is the time when these boarding students are the richest, and only today are they willing to spend a small portion of their living expenses to buy themselves expensive strawberries.
Unfortunately, there are too few strawberries, not enough to buy.
In fact, Xia Wu still had about a pound of strawberries left. Seeing a familiar face in the crowd, she quickly called out to the person:
"Classmate, do you know Yang Mingyue?"
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