In just one morning, a group of children had picked almost all the wild fruit in the back mountain. Now the children were talking about how to pick fruit from the other village in the afternoon. Of course, there were only a few in the village, but if that was not enough, they could go to the neighboring villages, which also had wild fruit trees, but no one was picking them.
However, Su Wan did not want to pick the wild fruits in this village or the neighboring village. No one wanted these wild fruits right now, but when they saw that they could make money from wild fruits, they would hate Su Wan for picking all the wild fruits in the village. What’s worse, some of them might even come to cause trouble.
Su Wan didn’t want to get into trouble. She was not worried that others would be able to easily get the wild fruits and steal her business in the future. After all, the wild fruits were easy to get, but the method to remove the bitterness and astringency of the wild fruits was not easy to find.
So, after working for the morning, Su Wan paid the remaining five cents to the children. The children originally thought that they would have to work for a whole day to get the remaining five cents, after all, they had agreed to work for a full day. Unexpectedly, Su Wan gave them all the remaining five cents after only working for a morning.
A few boys sighed: “Oh, how come it’s finished so quickly? This job is fun and profitable.”
Indeed, a large group of children finished the work while chatting and laughing, and picking baskets full of red wild fruits gave people a sense of accomplishment.
Another boy said, “Sister Su Wan, if you need such work in the future, please come to us.”
Su Wan smiled and agreed. These kids were all hard-working and good kids. If she had work again in the future, she would definitely look for them.
The children dispersed, and Su Wan went back to make a simple meal and sent it to Shen Lin.
When Su Wan arrived at the threshing ground, she was stunned by the scene before him.
In Shen Lin’s threshing ground, the children who had helped Su Wan pick wild fruits in the morning were helping Shen Lin rub corn in the barn.
Shen Lin was cleaning the corn and putting it into a bag.
It turned out that Shen Yaya was looking for those children in the threshing ground in the morning. Those children were all sensible and good children. They were all helping their family to rub corn in the threshing ground. When the adults at home heard that they were asking the children to pick wild fruits to earn money, they let the children go.
There is no money to be made from rubbing corn, and these parents all know that they can earn ten cents by picking wild fruits for a day. However, at noon, they saw the children all came back and got ten cents. Some adults asked the children to rub corn for Shen Lin’s family after lunch. It was agreed that one day was one day, and they couldn’t take a day’s pay without working for a day.
In fact, ever since Shen Lin brought Su Wan back from Qingyun County, in the eyes of the people in Qingshi Village, Su Wan and Shen Lin are a family, whether they are siblings or husband and wife in the future, in short, they are a family. Working for Shen Lin is also working for Su Wan.
From this, it seems that the children that Shen Yaya found were indeed well taught by the adults at home.
Shen Lin has received help from Su Wan many times these days, and he can no longer refuse or say thank you. If he refuses any more, it will seem petty. Shen Lin has made up his mind that in the future, he must do his best to earn money, whether it is working or doing small business, as long as he can earn money, he will do it. Although working and doing small business will be looked down upon by people in the village, only by doing so can he have the power to repay Su Wan and protect Su Wan, and to let his mother and sister live a good life.
So now he couldn’t worry about not being able to repay the favor. Shen Lin knew that those children came to rub corn because of Su Wan, so he let them do the work openly.
There were several other children who picked wild fruits for Su Wan in the morning. When they saw the other children going to rub corn for Shen Lin, their parents asked them to go as well or they went on their own initiative.
Now the whole grain field knew that Su Wan had hired a few children to pick wild fruits. When they saw Su Wan coming, some villagers made sarcastic remarks, saying that she had spent all her money lavishly and was planning to rely on wild fruits to survive the winter.
The nosy villagers also started talking one after another, saying that Su Wan did not know how to live. She chose to hire an ox cart to do the work that she could do herself, and hired children to pick the fruits that she could pick herself.
Shen Lin always had help these days, and he worked very quickly. The villagers who had been jealous of Shen Lin were displeased with him, and now they were even making sarcastic remarks, saying, “Shen Lin, you must have brought back a fool. Sigh, if you and Su Wan get married in the future, you will have another little fool.”
Those families whose children were hired by Su Wan to pick wild fruits spoke up for her: “Miss Su Wan is very smart. She must have a reason for picking wild fruits.”
The nosy villagers laughed and said, “What else could it be? The reason is that they have spent all their money. They are planning to survive the winter by eating wild fruits.”
Su Wan did not explain. No matter what you do, it is inevitable to be misunderstood and not understood. You can’t just refute and explain them one by one.
It just so happened that the people who said these things were all gossipy women. Shen Lin had no way to solve the problem with his fists. However, Shen Lin gave them a stern look and the women shut up. But they still muttered a few words: “If you don’t know how to live, then don’t live. It’s really ridiculous that you don’t allow people to talk about it.”
After saying that, several people moved further away from Shen lin and Su Wan .
The children were still working enthusiastically, chatting and laughing as they worked. Their hands were very quick, and they rubbed the corn kernels off one by one quickly.
Although they are not as good as adults at carrying corn, some of them can even do rubbing corn, which requires skill, faster than adults.
Su Wan brought the meal to Shen Lin, and on the way back she put one or two layers of corn kernels into the lunch box. After returning home, Su Wan put oil and sugar into the pot, and when the oil was hot, she put in the corn. Then she covered the pot and added firewood. After a while, she heard crackling sounds in the pot, and the corn popped into popcorn. Su Wan put the popcorn into a cloth bag and asked Shen Yaya to take it to the threshing ground to share with the children.
Su Wan did not ask them to work in the afternoon, but they reflexively went to help Shen Lin with the work. From this we can see that they are all good kids, and we can be more generous to such people.
Shen Yaya took popcorn and distributed it to the children who were working for Shen Lin in the threshing ground, and the children worked even harder.
Su Wan took out a basin of wild fruits from the Shen family’s warehouse, removed the cores of the fruits, washed them thoroughly, then fetched a few buckets of clear well water, added salt to the water, and soaked the wild fruits in it.
Then wait until there is not much water left with wild fruits, then boil the wild fruits and apples together and let them cool. Finally, Su Wan uses sugar and water to make syrup, takes out the sticks bought from the market that day, puts the wild fruits on them one by one, coats them with a layer of syrup, and lets them cool. In this way, a crystal clear candied haws is ready.
Su Wan tasted one and it still had a sour taste. The original owner’s method of removing the sourness was to soak it in salt water and cook it with apples. It seemed that Su Wan’s proportions were not right.
Su Wan tried several more times and finally mastered the correct proportions, making candied haws that were not sour at all. In the book, the Wang family said that the candied haws made with wild fruit were not as good as those made with hawthorn. Now Su Wan really tasted it and found that the candied haws made with wild fruit were not worse than those made with hawthorn.
It can be seen that it was because the Wang family looked down on the original owner that they said that the things the original owner made were not good.
Su Wan made candied haws made from wild wild fruits. The wild fruits were also bright red in color, even redder than hawthorns, and the taste was no worse than that made from hawthorns. It was just that the size was smaller than normal candied haws.
( Something similar to the below images)
Su Wan had just made some for experimentation, and from this, She had mastered the correct method and could make large quantities using the same proportions.
After Shen Yaya came back, she tasted the candied haws made by Su Wan and exclaimed: “Sister Su Wan, wild fruit is always bitter and astringent. How did you make it taste like candied haws?”
Su Wan did not intend to hide it from Shen Yaya. She told Shen Yaya the production method in detail and did not be perfunctory just because Shen Yaya was a child.
The experiment was successful, and Su Wan began to officially make large quantities of candied haws. Su Wan found a basket from the warehouse and soaked all the fruits in salt water. When the sun set, Shen Lin had just returned from work in the field, and Su Wan was removing the wild fruits out of the salt water.
Seeing this, Shen Lin hurried forward to help Su Wan remove. Shen Lin asked Su Wan to stand aside and just direct him. Su Wan did not insist. Shen Lin has always been a responsible person.
Whenever Wang Luosheng saw her working, he always felt it was natural and would never have the slightest thought of going forward to help her, no matter how heavy the work she was doing.
Su Wan didn’t intend to hide the method of making candied haws with wild fruit from Shen Lin, so she simply told Shen Lin the method and asked him to do it. She started cooking in front of another pot.
Shen Lin’s family was wealthy before and had two stoves and two pots.
Only then did Shen Lin realize that Su Wan wanted to make all the wild fruits into candied haws. When she was cooking the wild fruits and apples together, Shen Lin went to the warehouse and saw that the floor was full of wild fruits. Shen Yaya told Shen Lin that Sister Su Wan had picked almost all the wild fruits from the back mountain, but did not pick those from the village.
Shen Lin guessed Su Wan’s thoughts clearly. Su Wan did not pick the wild fruits in the village because she was afraid that the people in the village would cause trouble after she earned money. The back mountain had no owner, and the wild fruits in the back mountain naturally had no owner either, so there would definitely be no trouble.
At the same time, Shen Lin was also amazed at Su Wan’s intelligence. The candied haws made from hawthorn sold in the market cost three cents each, and the cost of production was about one cent. However, the cost of making candied haws from wild fruit was even less than half a cent. In this way, the price could be lowered, and a lot of them would surely be sold.
Shen Lin guessed Su Wan’s thoughts clearly at once, and then he felt a little inferior to her. Su Wan was a girl, but she had so many ways to make money in her mind, while he was a man, but he could not shoulder the burden of supporting the family, making his family live in poverty.
Su Wan was sitting on the stove on the other side, stewing some whole grain pancakes on top, while talking to Shen Lin.
Su Wan said that making and selling candied haws were too troublesome, and asked if Shen Lin could help her after he was done.
Shen Lin was worried about how he would not be able to repay Su Wan for all the work and money he had spent for his family, so he readily agreed. After three or four days, when he had finished rubbing the corn and put it away, the job of making and selling candied haws would be his, and Su Wan would just have to collect the money.
In fact, for the people of Qingshi Village, it is not shameful to go out and do big business, but it is different to go out and do small business. If someone does small business, he will be looked down upon.
Selling candied haws is a small business among businesses, and it will definitely be discussed and ridiculed by the villagers.
But Shen Lin didn’t care about this. He was a man and it was nothing for him to be talked about or laughed at. But Su Wan was a girl and she couldn’t be talked about or laughed at.
Shen Lin told Su Wan that he would be responsible for making and selling the candied haws from now on. This wild fruit is durable and can be kept even for a whole winter, so Su Wan didn’t need to rush out to sell it in the next few days and could start selling it after he harvested the corn.
Su Wan could also understand Shen Lin’s thoughts. He didn’t want Su Wan to show up in public to sell candied haws and be talked about by others. Su Wan said that this batch of candied haws would not be good if it was left for a few days to sell. It would be better for him and Shen Yaya to go sell some tomorrow, and then Shen Lin would sell the rest after he harvested the corn.
Shen Lin knew that the newly made candied haws would not last long, so he suggested that he put aside the work tomorrow and sell this batch of candied haws for Su Wan first.
Su Wan did not refuse.
Shen Lin made 150 candied haws in one night, each one was bright red and crystal clear.
Shen Lin made two straw bundles for sticking candied haws so that he could stick all the candied haws on them.
The next day, Shen Lin did not go to work, but went to Qingyun County early in the morning carrying two straw baskets filled with candied haws.
Many villagers saw Shen Lin carrying two large straw bundles of candied haws. The surface of the candied haws was covered with syrup. Although the syrup was quite hard, it could not be piled together, and could not be covered with something, otherwise it would ruin the appearance. Therefore, Shen Lin could not hide the fact that he went out to sell candied haws.
Shen Lin and Su Wan had already discussed it last night. The candied haws made with hawthorns cost three cents each, but the candied haws made with wild fruit could be sold for two cents each, or even two for three cents. Even if they were sold; two for three cents, they could still make a little more than one cent for each one. One hundred and fifty candied haws made with wild fruit could be sold for atleast one hundred and fifty cents if everything went well, which was a considerable amount of money.
It was Shen San’s good brother Zhang Ergou who happened to see Shen Lin carrying two big bunches of candied haws. When Zhang Ergou saw Shen Lin carrying the candied haws, he immediately covered his stomach and laughed: “Hahaha, Shen Lin, are you going to sell candied haws? You hired an ox cart and hired children to rub corn. You have no money to live, right? You are going to sell candied haws, hahaha.”
“You are a grown man, but you are selling candied haws. It’s really shameful.”
Wang Luosheng had just gone out to go to school and saw Shen Lin carrying two bundles of candied haws. Wang Luosheng looked at Shen Lin with contempt. Shen Lin used to be the son of the richest family in Qingshi Village and the best student. But now, he had fallen to the point of selling candied haws.
Several people on the road saw Wang Luosheng’s contemptuous eyes and started talking about Shen Lin and Wang Luosheng. Wang Luosheng had a bright future in study, but Shen Lin started selling candied haws. Everyone knew that selling such snacks did not make much money, and they did not sell well. Candied haws would go bad after one day. If they could not be sold on the first day, they would lose money if they were kept until the next day.
Shen Lin turned a deaf ear to him and pretended not to hear. He walked forward with big bunches of candied haws on his shoulder.
T/N : HELLO GUYS, I WILL BE LITTLE LATE WITH POSTING THE UPDATES AS I USED TO POST THROUGH MY MOBLIE PHONE BUT UNFORTUANTELY IT BROKE DOWN AND I AM THINKING IF I SHOULD REPAIR IT (AS MONEY IS TIGHT) OR TRY TO BUY A CHEAP NEW ONE. BUT DONT WORRY CHAPTERS WILL COME EACH WEEK, 4-5 CHAPTER’S, AS I WILL DO IT FROM MY FRIENDS LAPTOP.
SO LETS HOPE FOR THE BEST <3
THANK YOU & ENJOY READING !!!
