Chapter 25 Sharing the Burden
Xu Zhichun whispered the reason, and Zeng Xiaoyan and the others smiled and said, "Congratulations!"
Xu Zhichun said, "So, I'll treat you to lunch today. Don't be polite to me."
Seeing this, the three of them stopped being polite.
"Thanks to Sister Zhichun, we can often eat noodles with meat sauce in the future."
"Yes, this kind of fortune is also a blessing for you. We are all happy for you and want to take advantage of it."
"Um!"
A spoonful of meat sauce costs three cents, and two spoonfuls per person costs six cents. A serving of meat soup noodles costs five cents, so this lunch costs eleven cents per person.
Except for Zeng Xiaoyan, they had never eaten such luxurious noodles before. They ate them all with a mixture of joy and heartache.
Sure enough, the noodles taste better with two spoonfuls of meat sauce!
Liang Mingliang wiped his mouth. He and his wife now had quite a bit of pocket money. They would take some time out in the next few days to go shopping and buy whatever they wanted to eat.
When we got home and divided the money, we made more today, a full three thousand five hundred and sixty cents.
The three women were still happy, but also a little numb. However, when they took the 700 coins, their hands still trembled a little.
So much money
"Let's go, let's go dig konjac and pick lantern fruit."
"Um!"
Xu Zhichun smiled and said, "Don't worry, let's discuss a set of rules first. Konjac tofu is easy to make. There's plenty of it growing wild in the mountains. It grows year-round and can be dug up, so there's no shortage. But the kiwano, the seeds that ripened last year are almost all gone by now. I reckon if there's another storm or two, there might be nothing left. New kiwano won't start to appear until the end of May. If there aren't any more kiwano, we won't be able to make ice jelly."
"The Lotus Restaurant wants 30 kilograms a day. I won't be able to earn that much money then. Isn't that a pity?"
Xu Zhichun had already quietly taken a lot of raw materials out of the seaport warehouse. Every day, at least one-third of the raw materials for making ice jelly and konjac flour were taken out from the seaport space for mixing. Ice jelly would be mixed with more.
However, if we want to continuously supply ice jelly to the Lotus Restaurant, the amount of agar-agar seeds is obviously not enough to be supplied continuously. The quantity is really too small, and we can't even mix it in.
This is another example of a good cook being unable to cook without rice.
Zeng Xiaoyan and Aunt Zhu'er looked at each other in bewilderment. "Yes, this is a big problem!" The Lotus Restaurant's ice jelly alone brings in 1,500 wen a day.
This money must be earned.
"Sister-in-law Zhichun, if you have any good ideas, please tell us now. We will all listen to you."
"Yeah yeah."
Xu Zhichun smiled and said, "How about this? Let's spread the word in the village and buy these lantern fruit. We'll charge four cents per pound, but we have to remove the shells. We only want the seeds inside, and they have to be clean, without any grass or dirt mixed in. What do you think?"
"I think this will work. The villagers will definitely be happy with it, and we can harvest more crops sooner rather than later."
"Yeah, that's right. Otherwise, we will definitely be too busy. Just like Zhichun said, it would be a shame if two storms came and knocked down all the fruits."
Four cents a pound might seem like a lot, but agar-agar seeds are so tiny, and there's only a tiny handful inside a fruit, so getting a full pound isn't easy. Frankly, it's a trivial matter, but by this time of year, the rice has been planted, and the peanuts are almost all planted. There's nothing else to do, so why not make as much money as you can?
What's more, there are children.
Children already love to play in the mountains, and now they can make some money at the same time. Isn’t that the best of both worlds?
Xu Zhichun smiled and said, "It's settled then. We'll have to ask the village head to speak about this matter."
Zeng Xiaoyan nodded and smiled: "Don't worry, Sister Zhichun, my father will definitely be happy."
Xu Zhichun smiled and said, "This way we can relax and take some time to rest, or do some housework."
Zeng Xiaoyan didn't feel anything about this. After all, she didn't have to do any housework. Aunt Zhu'er was deeply touched and said with a smile, "That's true."
Xu Zhichun continued, "I made fifty taels from selling my house today. I want to buy a piece of land on the hill behind the yard, as well as the land where we've been digging konjac these days. I want to continue growing konjac on the land where we've been digging, so it'll be more convenient for us to dig in the future. I want to reclaim the land behind the yard and plant something else."
Zeng Xiaoyan didn't quite understand this. Everything Sister Zhichun did made sense, so she smiled and said, "Sister Zhichun thinks long-term. This is planning for the future."
Xu Zhichun smiled and said, "Of course, konjac must be planted. As for the mountain land behind the yard, potatoes and sweet potatoes will be planted soon."
Aunt Zhu'er hesitated for a moment, then couldn't help but advise, "Zhichun, although wasteland isn't worth much, if you reclaim it, you'll have to pay taxes starting next year. Is this worth it?"
"It's okay. The tax on dry land isn't that much. I think if I fertilize the land, I can make some money. If you have ideas, you can buy some."
Zeng Xiaoyan: "I don't care about this at home. I'll go back and talk to my parents."
Aunt Zhuer smiled and said, "My family has saved some money now, and we're waiting to buy a few acres of land in case someone sells it one day. We don't want to use dry land yet. But if we grow konjac..."
Xu Zhichun smiled and said, "I'll make the most of the profit from this business. You don't have to worry about this. I'll just buy the land."
Aunt Zhu'er's family had only a little over an acre of paddy field, which was not enough to feed them. Thanks to Qi Tian's furniture-making skills, they managed to save a lot of money each year and lived a good life. But for rural families, acquiring good farmland was an obsession ingrained in their bones, and who wouldn't want to buy a few more acres if they had money?
However, each village has limited paddy fields, and almost all places that can be reclaimed into paddy fields have already been reclaimed. Paddy fields are the roots of every family, and no family will easily sell their paddy fields unless they are a hopeless prodigal or have no choice but to sell them in dire straits.
Therefore, buying paddy fields is different from buying wasteland to reclaim. It is not enough to just have money, you also have to wait until someone sells it.
It is even more difficult to buy paddy fields from the neighboring village. Only when no one in the village wants to buy them can outsiders get a chance to buy them.
Xu Zhichun didn't say anything. Anyway, let's wait until potatoes and sweet potatoes come out.
After the three of them had discussed it, Xu Zhichun went to Liang's house with Zeng Xiaoyan and Liang Mingliang, while Aunt Zhu'er went home to rest for a while, and then they would go together to dig konjac and pick lantern fruit.
There is still enough kiwano for tomorrow, and there is also a large basket of washed konjac under the eaves of the back porch of Xu Zhichun's house, so there is no need to worry about being late.
It was not long after lunch and Liang Lizheng was also at home.
When Xu Zhichun and the others mentioned the lantern fruit picking, Liang Lizheng also became happy and nodded repeatedly. "Great, great! These lantern fruits are all over the mountain. I never thought that one day they could be sold for money. Four cents a pound is not bad. Are you sure you want them? Then I'll tell the villagers so that everyone can make some money."
(End of this chapter)
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