Zhenniang: The Three of Us (Seventeen)
How much...how much?
Everyone's jaw dropped, and they stood there dumbfounded for a long time before they realized the astonishing number.
Before they could react, the cheers instantly broke through the roof.
Happy Chinese New Year!
According to traditional customs, the 28th day of the twelfth lunar month is the last market day. After today, all industries and businesses will close and people will go home to celebrate the New Year.
According to the proper date, work should not resume until the second day of the second lunar month, when the dragon raises its head.
This is why people prepare for the New Year before the holiday, because they need to stay at home for a whole month without supplies.
But there are always people who want to make more money, so they start work early and can't wait for the right time, which becomes even more rampant after industrialization.
Would Ye Xiqing agree to start work early? She despises people who don't take holidays more than anything in her life.
So Auntie San personally went online and gave the order to wait until the second day of the second lunar month to start work!
Since Auntie San gave the order, everyone naturally obeyed. They made a lot of money and didn't have to work, so they were overjoyed.
Let's work together to prepare for the Chinese New Year!
Hang lanterns, paste door gods, set off firecrackers, and even during the New Year, set off a double bang to let the nearby villages hear the noise and show off!
People in the countryside sometimes secretly make firecrackers and sell them, which is very profitable.
The Zhao family in Zhao Village is a large and wealthy family, so they can't do this kind of shady business and give others leverage against them. But they have bought quite a lot of things.
The new cotton-padded coats were taken out from the bottom of the drawer. The village had actually bought cotton-padded coats for everyone before, but many people were afraid of getting them dirty from working so much that they couldn't bear to wear them.
I'd been holding back for so long, until the Lunar New Year, and finally I was willing to wear it.
In the past, we would stuff our cotton-padded coats with all sorts of random things during the winter of Chinese New Year, but this time the coats are stuffed with solid cotton, so they are incredibly warm.
In order to prepare for the winter, Zhao Zhenniang asked the village's logistics manager to buy coal in advance for every household to use for heating.
With plenty of food and warm clothes, and plenty of energy, adults and children alike come out to play.
It was winter, but there were many people outside.
Huang Qiuju yelled at the village entrance, "Stop playing around, the pig's being slaughtered!"
Upon hearing this, everyone immediately rushed to watch the pig being slaughtered.
The second shop also sells pork, but it gets its pork from the surrounding villages. It's not a proper pork shop, so they didn't think they could sell much and didn't plan to stock up.
Later, the shop became popular and they discovered that pork was legitimate and could be sold. They could sell one pig a day, so they started frequently sourcing pork from surrounding villages.
They raise the animals themselves and eat them themselves; they always feel like they've wasted money if they buy them from others, and they're reluctant to eat them.
If you raise them yourself, isn't that like they fell from the sky?
The large amount of oil residue left over from the oil mill is sold to nearby pig farmers, who can also exchange the oil residue for piglets to raise themselves.
A whole piece of pork was waiting to be eaten. This time, Huang Qiuju didn't use the pork to render oil; she simply cut the meat into large chunks and cooked it in a big pot.
Once the food was served, a large bowl of roasted pork was placed in front of each of the four people. There was nothing else but meat, and the broth in the bowl was all oil.
There was also a stew of pig's blood, pork, pig skin, and dried cabbage on the side, called "pig-killing feast".
Rice cake, steamed buns with red bean paste, and white rice.
Eat! I'll give you all your fill of pork in one meal!
In the past, even if we ate some meat every month, we wouldn't dare to eat like this. But this is truly the New Year. Everyone has a chopstick and heads straight for the meat bowl. In no time, the bowl is empty, and there's not even any left on the children's table.
After finishing the roast pork, we started eating the stewed pork with vegetables. By then, we were a bit tired of the greasy food and started picking at the vegetables.
Dried cabbage tastes even better than fresh cabbage, and it's incredibly delicious with white rice.
After finishing this pork stew, those with big appetites can even show off a steamed bun.
We'll eat this today and dumplings tomorrow!
...
On New Year's Eve, everyone was free, so we each got a portion of dough and made dumplings together.
The finest white flour was kneaded into wrappers, filled with several kinds of fillings, and to add to the festive atmosphere, many lucky coins were also placed inside.
After wrapping the dumplings, I reminded each of them to eat slowly when the dumplings were ready, so they wouldn't break their teeth!
On New Year's Eve, there is a custom of staying up all night. The dumplings are wrapped and then cooked only when the appointed time arrives.
The village bought a foreign-style clock, which makes it very convenient to tell the time.
As soon as midnight arrives and the new year begins, firecrackers are set off like they're free, bidding farewell to the old year and welcoming the new.
The ancestral hall that originally belonged to Uncle Zhao's family was converted into memorial tablets for his third aunt and second sister.
Because the third aunt and the second sister are both goddesses, they are not worshipped by men, so only women come to worship them.
On New Year's Eve, the first bite of dumplings must be enjoyed by the immortals.
Zhao Zhenniang placed the freshly cooked dumplings in front of the ancestral tablet and led all the women in the village in giving thanks to the gods.
"Thank you, Second Immortal, for your kindness to our entire village!"
...
Ye Xiqing didn't have the habit of staying up all night on the 30th, so she logged off early. Even if she hadn't logged off, she wouldn't have been able to eat the offerings.
Fortunately, the rituals in Zhao Family Village are very spiritual. Only the dumpling soup is for the gods. Sprinkling some soup on the ground is considered an offering to the gods.
After the dumplings were used for the sacrificial offering, they were cooked again for the family to eat. The third aunt didn't get any, but the eldest aunt did.
They stayed up very late to welcome the New Year, and everyone was so hungry that their stomachs were practically sticking to their backs. Several large pots of dumplings were finished in no time.
When my second sister logged on the second day, she could only eat the leftover dumplings from the previous day.
There's nothing we can do; those who have to distribute breakfast are just that pitiful.
After being poor for so long, suddenly making a fortune, of course I want to retaliate with extravagant spending.
On the fifteenth day of the lunar month, the village also hired an opera troupe to perform.
The opera is a specialty of Zhao Family Village, a piece titled "Jinlian's Cleverness" personally adapted by veteran artist Ye Xiqing.
It tells the story of Jinlian, an orphan girl, who, when faced with a tyrant who coveted her family's wealth, devised three clever schemes to make the tyrant reap what he sowed.
It's very competitive and very interesting.
Especially the scene where the yellow dog beats up the bully, the desires of the lower class are very primitive, they love to watch this kind of vulgar story, it immediately became a hit among the people.
To ensure that both deities could watch, Zhao Zhenniang specially arranged one show in the morning and one in the afternoon.
After admiring it, Jian Yu'an and the system fell silent: You're going to frame this as a battle achievement, aren't you...?
Ye Xiqing: Hehe~
The festivities continued until the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, when the New Year celebrations finally came to an end. The villagers calmed down from their extreme excitement and began to discuss how to distribute the profits.
Jian Yu'an didn't expect that the villagers would distribute money after the New Year, and he lost the initiative again, with the decision-making power falling into Zhao Zhenniang's hands.
A sum of 1,300 silver dollars may seem like a lot, but after deducting the rent and operating costs for the following year, the amount available for profit sharing is actually quite small, especially when distributed to individuals, where each person can only receive a dozen or so dollars.
A sum of more than ten yuan was an astronomical figure in the past. Ordinary people were just happy to be free of debt by the end of the year, let alone have a surplus of more than ten yuan.
But why is there such a large difference compared to the total profit?
There's no way around it; there are too many people receiving dividends. If all the money went to one capitalist, he could buy a courtyard house in the city right now.
If we develop a village collective economy, then everyone will receive dividends, but the amount each person actually receives will be very small.
After Zhao Zhenniang finished calculating the accounts, she was also shocked.
If her aunt and older sister were here, they could probably handle the situation easily, but the two spirits showed no intention of possessing her, seemingly waiting for her to figure it out herself.
Zhao Zhenniang pondered the account book and finally found a solution: Why don't we stop distributing money this year and pool it to build houses for the villagers?
The group gradually sat up straight.
Yes, giving each person a dozen or so yuan is too stingy. Wouldn't it be better not to give them anything at all?
If we use the combined money to build a house, that's possible! That's possible!
The group approved Zhao Zhenniang's decision again and began to prepare for building houses. After the fifteenth of the month, they sent people to the carpenters and bricklayers in the neighboring village to inquire about prices, preparing to build a large tiled house for each family!
After asking the price, I went home and did the math, and realized it wouldn't be enough to build a house...
Zhao Zhenniang had actually thought of this: if each person received a meager ten or so yuan, the combined amount certainly wouldn't be enough to build a large brick house...
Everyone: ...
What's the point of building mud houses or rebuilding them?
Fortunately, Zhao Zhenniang had also thought of this: "Let's build a workshop first. It's not convenient for each household to make sesame oil like this. If we build a workshop, at least the work will be smoother. For example, for milling, we only need two people to watch over a few donkeys to do the work."
"My third aunt said that my fate is that money won't come in unless it's spent. We should take it one step at a time and eventually earn everything we need!"
Having money doesn't mean you can enjoy it; building workshops is like having a new cotton-padded coat but not wearing it, and instead working in an old one. Although it goes against common sense, it perfectly reflects people's mentality at that time.
People are always willing to endure hardship when they are in trouble, just like wading through water on wet shoes, leaving all the water on the worn-out shoes, waiting to get rid of them one day and get a new pair.
Of course, most importantly, Zhao Zhenniang didn't just make empty promises; they were indeed living better than before, and the food and clothes they had before weren't for nothing.
The villagers trusted her, and upon hearing her say this, they immediately agreed.
So the development strategy for the new year was planned out, and when Jian Yu'an found out, all he could do was breathe in the exhaust fumes.
She actually knew her roommate's personality well enough and tried her best to keep the initiative in her own hands, but her roommate was more adept at finding opportunities than she could have imagined.
She only works half a day, and before she could do anything, she logged off, having no influence on her other roommate at all...
...
As the new year began, people who had been cooped up for a month flocked to the store, some to redeem prizes, others to shop.
Therefore, there is no need to open a shop in advance. What is meant to come will come. If you compete with your peers, the end result will be that you will be exhausted and you will not make much more money.
The store held a customer appreciation event before the Lunar New Year, which included a free soap giveaway.
You can exchange the blank stoppers from the bottle that didn't win the prize for a chance to spin the wheel. Two bottle stoppers will give you one chance to spin the wheel. If you spin the soap, you'll get a free bar of soap.
The soaps didn't hide their origin either; they were made with expired sesame oil, and they were given away while supplies lasted.
This move not only provides new benefits to loyal customers, but also conveys a message to them: we will not sell expired sesame oil; expired oil will be recycled and used to make soap.
Even in this day and age, people still value food safety, and the advertising for sesame oil perfectly meets customers' expectations.
Moreover, activities like spinning wheels, which involve gambling on luck, are highly addictive, and bottle stoppers for sesame oil are quickly becoming a form of small-scale currency.
Not only do genuine customers collect bottle corks for a raffle, but some people even buy bottle corks for a penny each, just to participate in that raffle.
I got hooked on it, and the money I spent even exceeded the value of a bar of soap.
Ordinary people rely on luck when they draw lots, gambling addicts play the extreme, and the ordinary is the true way. Players who don't believe in luck can also sell the bottle corks and make a steady profit.
The involvement of gamblers has taken this roulette game to unprecedented heights.
In the new year, bottle stoppers are being collected everywhere, and newly arrived batches are snapped up instantly.
Seeing this, the villagers realized they were losing out by supplying the Song family with about 200 jin of bulk sesame oil every month. They thought it would be much more profitable to bottle it and sell it!
What used to be a thriving business has now become a burden. Without being taught, Zhao Zhenniang came up with an idea and secretly approached another oil mill to discuss a deal—
From now on, you'll supply oil to the Song family, in my name, and all the money will be yours.
An oil mill that suddenly received a large order: Is this for real?
The small oil mill was overjoyed to receive a big order, and Zhao Zhenniang was also happy that she could focus on producing more sesame oil.
How much will I earn this year?
Time flew by in anticipation, and three years passed in the blink of an eye.
If someone who visited Zhao Family Village three years ago were to come back to Zhao Family Village now, they would probably think they had gone to the wrong place.
The fields are full of lush green corn, sorghum, and millet; the yards are planted with all kinds of vegetables; hens roam freely throughout the village without anyone interfering; and there are rows of neat, large tiled houses.
The workshop is divided into several modules: one for grinding sesame seeds, one for roasting sesame seeds, and one for bottling. They work together efficiently without interfering with each other.
Two years ago, owning a house was just a dream, but this year it has come true.
Not only did they realize their dream of owning a house, the villagers also collectively bought a pedal tricycle.
Having a house means you need something to get around. At first, we thought about buying a bicycle for each household, but we never even dared to dream of owning a car.
But bicycles are expensive these days, costing 128 silver dollars each.
Having built up a business to this point, we definitely need some respectable modes of transportation.
Rickshaws are too tiring. Even if you can afford a bicycle, it's not a good look for the owner to sit on the crossbar or the back seat to conduct business. And if you encounter a bumpy road, you might fall flat on your face.
In total, the group bought a pedal tricycle, with pedals in the front and two covered wheels in the back.
It's not as powerful as a four-wheeled vehicle, but it's less strenuous than a rickshaw pulled by a person, and it's also more presentable. It won't make you look bad when attending important occasions to discuss business, and the three wheels are also stable.
However, bicycles are not yet popular in China, so it took two hundred yuan to finally buy this pedal tricycle.
It cost a bit more money, but the three wheels were novel and presentable. When villagers needed to get around, they could just ask someone to pedal it. It was also convenient to travel with children in tow.
In preparation for the upcoming big event, the villagers specially gave the car a fresh coat of paint, making it shiny and beautiful.
Zhao Zhenniang dressed neatly early in the morning and sat inside the tent. Huang Qiuju's husband also changed into clean clothes and prepared to pedal the cart in front.
After Uncle Zhao was driven away by the villagers, the village head became Granny Wang.
The tax officials who came at first were a little embarrassed, as there was no precedent for a woman to be the head of a department.
The village offered a bundle of silver dollars for tea, and the village head was immediately relieved. With a wave of his hand, the village head's name was changed to Wang Yuexian.
After becoming the head of the household, Granny Wang was busy falsifying accounts for her superiors and couldn't take care of her fortune-telling business. But this time was a little different. She grabbed Zhao Zhenniang's hand and said, "Why don't I go with you?"
Zhao Zhenniang glanced at her godmother.
The three-year mourning period has ended, and it's time to go to the Song family to fulfill the marriage agreement.
She was used to relying on her godmother, her third aunt, and her second sister, so logically, she should also rely on them for her marriage.
But when the time actually came, she had her own ideas.
"It's okay, I can go by myself."
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