The Family Had Split, Why Should I Care if They Go Broke? - Chapter 25

Xu Zhichun quietly explained the reason behind it, and Zeng Xiaoyan and the others all smiled, saying, “Congratulations!”

Xu Zhichun said, “So today’s lunch is on me. Don’t be polite.”

Seeing this, the three of them didn’t insist and gladly accepted.

“Thanks to Sister-in-law Zhichun, from now on we can often have noodles with meat sauce!”

“Yes, this good fortune is yours as well. We’re happy for you, and we’ll happily benefit from it too.”

“Mm!”

One scoop of meat sauce costs three wen; each person added two scoops, totaling six wen. A bowl of meat broth noodles was five wen, so each person’s lunch came to eleven wen.

Except for Zeng Xiaoyan, none of them had ever eaten such a luxurious bowl of noodles, and they finished it all with a mix of delight and guilty pleasure.

Indeed, noodles with two scoops of meat sauce tasted even better!

Liang Mingliang wiped his mouth. He and his wife now had some private savings, and in a few days, they planned to take some time to stroll through town and buy whatever they fancied.

Back home, they divided the earnings. Today, they had made even more—3,560 wen in total.

The three women were still happy, though slightly numb from handling so much money. When they received 700 wen, their hands still trembled a little.

So much money…

“Let’s go, let’s go! Let’s hurry to dig up konjac and pick lantern fruits.”

“Mm!”

Xu Zhichun smiled. “Don’t rush. Let’s first set some rules. Konjac tofu is easy—we have plenty of wild plants on the mountain, and it grows year-round, so there’s no shortage. But the lantern fruits… the seeds from last year are nearly all falling by now. If one or two storms hit, we could lose them. The new lantern fruits won’t start appearing until the end of May. Without them, we can’t make our jelly desserts.”

“The Lotus Restaurant needs thirty jin a day. If we miss this, we’d lose a lot of money—that would be such a shame!”

Xu Zhichun had quietly been taking lots of ingredients from the harbor warehouse. Every day, for making jelly and konjac powder, at least a third of the materials came from the warehouse. Jelly required even more added ingredients.

But to continuously supply the Lotus Restaurant, the quantity of stone flower seeds simply wasn’t enough. If the supply was too small, there wasn’t even enough to mix in.

It was another kind of saying: Even the cleverest housewife can’t cook without rice.

Zeng Xiaoyan and Aunt Zhu’er looked at each other. Right—this was a serious problem. Just the jelly sales to the Lotus Restaurant brought in 1,500 wen a day.

They had to earn that money.

“Sister-in-law Zhichun, tell us your good idea quickly. We’ll follow your lead.”

“Yes, yes.”

Xu Zhichun smiled. “How about this: we announce in the village that we’ll buy lantern fruits from everyone. We’ll pay four wen per jin, but the outer husks must be removed—we only want the seeds, and they have to be clean, no grass or dirt mixed in. How does that sound?”

“That sounds good. The villagers will surely be happy, and we can collect more early.”

“Yes, exactly. Otherwise, we couldn’t keep up. Like Zhichun said, if one or two storms knocked all the fruit down, it would be such a waste.”

Four wen per jin sounds decent, but the seeds are tiny, and one fruit only has a small pinch. Gathering a full jin isn’t easy. Essentially, it’s tedious work—but at this season, the rice seedlings are planted, the peanuts and beans are mostly in, and there’s not much else to do. Might as well earn what we can.

Besides, there are the children.

The kids already loved going up the mountain; now they could earn a little money at the same time—a perfect win-win.

Xu Zhichun smiled. “Then it’s settled. We should have the chief make the announcement.”

Zeng Xiaoyan nodded, smiling. “Don’t worry, Sister-in-law Zhichun. My father will surely agree.”

Xu Zhichun smiled. “This way, we can take it a bit easier, rest when we have time, or do some housework.”

Zeng Xiaoyan didn’t mind—she didn’t have housework anyway. Aunt Zhu’er nodded with feeling warmth and smiled, “That’s true.”

Xu Zhichun continued, “I earned fifty taels today from selling the recipe. I want to buy the mountain plot behind my yard, as well as the land we’ve been digging konjac on. The konjac plot will continue growing konjac for future harvests. The yard’s back plot I want to cultivate for other crops.”

Zeng Xiaoyan didn’t quite understand all this, but Sister-in-law Zhichun always had a reason for what she did. She smiled, “You’re thinking long-term, planning for the future.”

Xu Zhichun smiled. Of course, konjac would be planted. As for the yard’s back plot, potatoes and sweet potatoes would be planted soon.

Aunt Zhu’er hesitated, then advised, “Zhichun, wasteland isn’t valuable, but if you cultivate it, you’ll have to pay taxes next year—is it really worth it?”

“No worries. The tax on dry land isn’t much. I figure if we enrich the soil, it’ll be profitable. If you want, you can buy some too.”

Zeng Xiaoyan, “I don’t care about these things at home. I’ll go talk to my parents about them.”

Aunt Zhu’er smiled. “My family has saved some money, too. We’ve been waiting in case someone sells farmland, we want to add a few acres. Dry land, I’m not keen on. But if it’s for konjac—”

Xu Zhichun quickly smiled. “I take most of the profits from this business. Don’t worry about it—I’ll buy the land myself.”

Aunt Zhu’er’s family only had a little over an acre of rice paddies, not enough food for the year. They relied on Qi Tian’s skill at furniture-making to save money. Life was okay, but rural families were obsessed with acquiring good farmland. If money were available, who wouldn’t want more acres?

However, each village had limited paddy land, and most cultivable areas were already claimed. Rice paddies were a family’s foundation. Unless a family was hopelessly wasteful or desperate, no one would sell them easily.

So buying paddy fields wasn’t like buying wasteland—you couldn’t just pay, you had to wait until someone sold.

Buying paddies in a neighboring village was even harder. The locals had first rights; only if no one bought could outsiders get a chance.

Xu Zhichun said nothing—she’ll wait and see what happens when the potatoes and sweet potatoes are released.

After the three discussed, Xu Zhichun went with Zeng Xiaoyan and Liang Mingliang to the Liang family, while Aunt Zhu’er went home to rest, planning to join later to dig konjac and pick lantern fruits.

There were still enough lantern fruits for tomorrow, and a big basket of cleaned konjac under Xu Zhichun’s back porch—plenty to avoid any delay.

It was just after lunch, and Chief Liang was also at home.

When Xu Zhichun mentioned picking lantern fruits, Chief Liang brightened and nodded repeatedly. “Good, good! The mountains are full of these fruits—I never thought we could sell them one day. Four wen per jin is not bad. Are you sure you want to do this? I’ll announce it to the villagers so everyone can earn some money.”