Chapter 50: Sold for 1,144.8 Yuan Today! This is Making Real Money!

Xie Cheng recognized him at a glance as Santou, the village chief’s grandson.

Santou was raised plump and fair. Seeing Xie Zhao look over, he grinned. “Second Brother Xie! My granddad told me to bring the mule over!”

Xie Cheng walked out to take a look, and his eyes lit up.

Oh!

What a fine mule!

Its hooves were thick and strong, its body sleek, and a rope was looped around its gray-and-white head. It huffed and puffed, its white breath quickly dispersing in the cold air.

Seeing strangers, the mule snorted twice and stamped its hooves.

“Give it to me.”

Xie Cheng took the rope from Santou and led the mule inside. Then, he and Xie Youzhen secured the ropes to the cart and harnessed it to the mule’s back.

However, when Xie Cheng climbed up to drive the cart, the mule reared its hooves high and refused to take a single step forward.

“Big Brother Xie, my granddad said this mule is stubborn. It takes an old hand to drive it!”

Santou said with a grin.

Xie Youzhen finished his smoke and tapped his pipe. “Let me!”

He climbed onto the cart with steady movements, raised a long whip, and cracked it in the air.

Crack!

The sharp crack of the whip instantly quieted the mule.

“Giddy up! Let’s go!”

Xie Youzhen shouted.

Right after that, the beast that had been so unruly in Xie Cheng’s hands actually walked out the gate obediently!

Xie Cheng rubbed his nose and snorted.

Xie Zhao chuckled and pulled him along to catch up.

“The older, the wiser!^[1]“

*

Hudong County.

When Zhao Wuyi saw the cart piled high with river snails, his eyes nearly popped out of his head!

“Good heavens! My boy, where did you get so many river snails?”

Xie Zhao grinned and shrugged. “What? You’re not buying them?”

“How could I not? I wish you’d bring this many every single day!”

Zhao Wuyi rubbed his hands together and quickly called out to the two men behind him, “Weigh them! Keep the record straight, don’t make any mistakes!”

One of them quickly responded.

Xie Zhao, Xie Cheng, and Xie Youzhen helped lift the river snails down.

Over six hundred catties of snails, still in their vats and wooden buckets, were lined up in front of Zhao Wuyi.

Fortunately, he had brought a platform scale. Working together, they hoisted the vats of river snails onto it. After weighing the total, they weighed the empty vats and buckets separately to subtract their weight.

In the end, they got the net weight of the river snails.

“Six hundred and sixty catties! That’s a lot!”

Zhao Wuyi quickly calculated the total.

“That’s seven hundred and twenty-six yuan in total!”

He clicked his tongue in amazement, then turned around to take a black briefcase from the accountant.

Inside were neat stacks of Da Tuanjie bills, bundled in tens. He handed Xie Zhao seven bundles and gave him an extra twenty-six yuan.

Seeing the crisp, neatly bundled Da Tuanjie bills, Xie Zhao and Xie Youzhen’s eyes went wide!

Xie Youzhen shakily pulled out his pipe to smoke, but his hands were trembling too much to even pack the tobacco.

“Dad, let me.”

Xie Cheng said in a low voice.

But his hands were shaking too.

Seven hundred and twenty-six.

The net profit had to be nearly four hundred yuan!

Four hundred yuan!

In the past, this was a number they wouldn’t have dared to dream of!

On many nights in the past, he would return from the mines shaking with exhaustion, only to be haunted by thoughts of the mining accidents that happened every now and then.

He had been afraid, terrified, wanting nothing more than to abandon everything and run back home.

But he couldn’t.

On his shoulders rested their home, his younger brother’s tuition, and the expenses of the entire family.

He was the eldest brother, the eldest son, and that was a responsibility he could not shirk.

But now, the family was making money.

Not just a yuan or two, nor a few dozen.

But hundreds!

Hundreds of yuan, enough to support the family for years!

This meant he wouldn’t have to go down into the mines anymore.

He could finally sleep in peace.

Whew!

Xie Cheng let out a long breath. He finally struck a match and lit Xie Youzhen’s pipe, then squatted down beside him, a faint smile gracing the corners of his mouth.

With the river snails sold, the cart still held two buckets of fish and the wild boar.

Its black bristles and long tusks drew many curious stares as they traveled down the road.

“Let’s take the fish and the wild boar straight to the State-Owned Restaurant today,” Xie Zhao said. “The folks back home must be waiting for us to return and pay them for the river snails. If we try to sell the fish elsewhere, it’ll take too much time.”

Xie Youzhen and Xie Cheng had no objections.

The three of them led the mule and headed toward the State-Owned Restaurant.

It was already ten o’clock by then.

Lunchtime was fast approaching.

The kitchen of the Hudong County State-Owned Restaurant was already bustling.

Xie Zhao familiarly offered them cigarettes and called Helper Huang and Li Mingcheng over. The two of them had assumed Xie Zhao was just delivering fish, but when they saw the wild boar on the cart, their eyes widened in unison!

“What’s this? A wild boar?”

Helper Huang took a few steps forward, reached out to flip the frozen-stiff wild boar, and clicked his tongue.

“You actually managed to get one of these! Impressive!”

Li Mingcheng was also very surprised.

He had indeed mentioned to Xie Zhao before that they were buying wild game, but he hadn’t expected the young man to deliver one just a day later!

And such a large wild boar at that!

Xie Zhao said with a smile, “A hunter in the mountains caught it and brought it to the market to sell. I heard our State-Owned Restaurant was buying, so I brought it over to earn a little handling fee.”

“Uncle Huang, what do you think? Can you take it? If not, I’ll just take it back to him!”

Xie Cheng and Xie Youzhen were taken aback.

Although they didn’t know why Xie Zhao said that, they tacitly remained silent.

Helper Huang stroked his chin and asked, “How much does he want per catty?”

“He said it took a lot of effort to catch this wild boar, and he even broke two animal traps. He wants two yuan and twenty cents a catty, sold whole!”

“Two twenty?”

Helper Huang frowned immediately.

He shook his head. “That’s too expensive. If it were just the meat, maybe, but with the hide and organs included, two twenty won’t do!”

Xie Zhao looked slightly disappointed.

He sighed, pondering the matter right in front of Helper Huang. Finally, he gritted his teeth, looking as though he had made a difficult decision.

“How about this? I’ll cut my labor fee in half to cover the difference and charge you two yuan a jin. That way, I won’t have made the trip for nothing. What do you think?”

Tch!

Helper Huang raised an eyebrow.

This kid.

He knew how things worked!

“Haha! Since you put it that way, how could I refuse?”

Helper Huang turned to Li Mingcheng and said lazily, “Hurry up and bring out the platform scale! Weigh it quickly so we can get back to help. We have quite a few reservations today!”

Li Mingcheng hurried back to the kitchen and brought out a heavy contraption.

Once the scale was set down, the men worked together to lift the wild boar onto it.

“One hundred and seventy-five jin!”

Li Mingcheng called out the number.

Xie Cheng was taken aback. Just as he was about to speak, Xie Zhao shot him a look.

He immediately fell silent.

“That makes three hundred and fifty yuan!”

Helper Huang laughed and had Li Mingcheng weigh the fish too, so they could settle the entire bill.

“The fish is forty-three jin, so that’s sixty-eight yuan and eight mao!”

Li Mingcheng quickly calculated on his notepad and came up with the answer. “Altogether, it’s four hundred and eighteen yuan and eight mao!”

They clearly had good connections and deep pockets. Before long, the four hundred and eighteen yuan and eight mao was handed over to Xie Zhao.

The thick stack of cash in his hand made his heart race.

Xie Zhao, however, calmly tucked it into the cloth bag he had brought. He then thanked Helper Huang and offered him another cigarette.

This time, he also handed one to Li Mingcheng.