Chapter 75 - 76: Money Saved
“I was just making a casual comment,” Tang Zhijun said, dumbstruck by his older brother’s rebuke. He wiped away the sweat on his forehead. Fortunately, he only mentioned it in passing. If he had stated directly that he wanted to add mud to the vegetables, with one pound of vegetable and one pound of mud, he was sure that his older brother would have beaten him to death.
Tang Yuxin looked at this one, then that one, truly clueless as to how her grandparents’ two children could be so different.
Her father had been honest all his life, but her second uncle was incredibly shrewd, more suited to being a businessman.
She now finally understood why the villagers used to say that if her second uncle had been around, her father wouldn’t have been bullied by Sang Zhilan regardless of circumstances.
If being honest meant being destined to be bullied, then she would rather her father was not so honest.
But as the saying goes, ‘It’s easy to change rivers and mountains, but hard to change one’s nature.’ Like right now, Tang Zhinian plucked all the yellow leaves off the coriander, as if afraid of someone else receiving a bad deal.
By evening, they had bundled up at least two hundred pounds of vegetables.
Once the vegetable peddlers got their hands on them, their expressions showed that they were very satisfied with the produce.
They could hardly find a single yellow leaf on them. They weighed a handful and found them to be pure vegetables, very clean, and likely free of any earth clods.
The vendors were satisfied and paid promptly. After weighing, they handed over three hundred yuan directly, saying one hundred yuan was a deposit for tomorrow. They wanted three hundred pounds more.
Tang Zhinian, holding his three hundred yuan, was close to tears. This was the most money he had ever earned. The land usually provided just enough to get by. When could he ever get so much money at once?
The money was too much; they weren’t at home, and it felt unsafe to leave it there.
“Brother, should we deposit it?” Tang Zhijun thought about it and decided it was better to deposit it. If the eight greenhouses of vegetables were sold, it would be at least five thousand yuan. That was a lot of money. Who in the village has ever seen so much money?
“Yes, let’s deposit it.”
Tang Yuxin was also nodding incessantly.
“What do you know?” Tang Zhijun picked up his little niece.
“Our Xinxin is truly the lucky star of our family. Without our little Xinxin, we wouldn’t have been able to grow so much coriander, and we wouldn’t have been able to make so much money.”
He pinched Tang Yuxin’s face, really adoring his little niece. He almost wanted to give her his heart. Fortunately, little Yuxin didn’t go with her mother back then. Otherwise, who knows what kind of temperament Xinxin would have developed?
Tang Zhinian handed the money in his hand to Tang Zhijun, “Alright, you should go deposit the money. I’ll go clean up the vegetables.”
“Okay,” Tang Zhijun handed the child to Tang Zhinian and prepared to deposit the money, hopping onto his tricycle and departing.
Half an hour later, Tang Zhijun came back, now with a passbook instead of cash. Even now, holding the passbook, he found it hard to believe.
They actually had money to deposit.
Of course, there was no time to revel in his feelings now. The customer wanted more vegetables tomorrow — three hundred pounds, and more than three hundred yuan.