Chapter 14: Selling Vegetables Quickly

Last year, when Grandpa was still around, their family planted rice, and right after harvesting the winter wheat, they would plant late rice.

But now the only ones working in the family were Grandma, Mom, and the eldest sister. Planting rice required plowing the fields, repairing the ridges, and most crucially, carrying water to nourish the fields; they simply didn’t have enough labor.

Mom strained to plow three acres by herself, exhausting herself completely, so this year they had to hire an ox to at least turn the soil a little.

In total, they had eleven acres of land: two acres planted with soybeans (for consumption and to use the soybean dregs for fertilizing the fields), bringing down soil fertility. Otherwise, with eleven acres of farmland, where would they get so much fertilizer?

To be somewhat self-serving, over a year or so, they would have to give up three acres of public land, and if they didn’t fertilize those three acres, just relying on the few of them to work the soil wouldn’t yield enough crops to sustain eight acres.

Moreover, they had three acres of rice planted and six acres of sorghum.

The yield of these crops was similar to that of rice, yet their prices were only half as much as rice.

Simply put, their family lacked labor; without labor, they had no money. Without money, how could he attend school?

Yet, even if he couldn’t go to school, he still wanted to take a peek at the local private school, hoping it would provide him an opportunity to show off in front of his grandmother.

If he got an opportunity, he wanted to earn some money to go to school.

Only by studying could he avoid working the fields; only by studying could he leave Daliushu Village. Otherwise, his secret of cross-dressing would remain a ticking time bomb in the village.

He had made up his mind to plead with his grandmother after selling all the vegetables.

“Don’t be ridiculous, you’ve never sold anything before, how would you know how to sell? Come back here! Where do you think you can sell things like this?” the grandmother pretended to scold him.

Despite the stern words, she continued her work, intending to separate the eggs from the vegetables.

Song Liangzuo hugged the grandmother’s arm and began to shake and plead, “Grandma, don’t move for now, let me give it a try. Also, I heard vendors shouting when we arrived. You’re older and it must be tiring for you to shout; let me shout. Even if I don’t sell anything, it’s just a bit of saliva. I won’t wander far, just right in front of the stall. Please, let me try!”

Despite her playful threatening tone, the grandmother couldn’t help but dote over her grandson. She raised her hand and pointed at him mockingly. “If you waste your effort and can’t sell anything, I’ll just drop you off in the mountains on our way back.”

Song Liangzuo grinned widely at her, “Grandma, you love me the most; you wouldn’t leave me behind!”

After he spoke, holding an egg in one hand and a green eggplant in the other, he yelled to the passersby, “Come and see! Fresh eggs and freshly picked vegetables for cheap! This lady over here, look at our eggs—bigger than my hand! And look at the eggplants; they’re almost as big as half my face!”

With a purposeful intent, he stopped a woman with no patches on her clothes, who had a basket hanging from her arm, to introduce his family’s eggs and vegetables.

The woman looked at him, seeing a child around four years old with a tanned skin, bright eyes, and a clean, cheerful face that gleamed innocence. His hands were also clean, fingernails trimmed, and there was no dirt hidden beneath them.

A clean, cheerful child usually brought good fortune.

“Wow, they do look nice!” the woman, wearing a blue cotton top, approached his stall curiously, inspecting the neatly piled vegetables and eggs. She asked, “Are these sold by the pile?”

With his eyes squinting happily, Song Liangzuo replied enthusiastically, “Auntie, they’re sold by count! The biggest eggs here are ten wens for ten; these medium ones are ten for eleven; and the smallest ones are ten for twelve. The large eggplants are one wen for two, and we have seven of the slightly smaller ones for just three wens. These nice cucumbers are four for one wen. Since you’re our first customer, whatever you buy today, my grandmother will let you pick two free items from this pile!”

While speaking, Song Liangzuo pointed at the smaller cucumbers and four eggplants stacked together.

Those smaller and uglier vegetables were reserved for a mix of sale and gift.

“Auntie, these were just picked from the fields by my grandmother this morning; they’re super fresh!” Song Liangzuo exclaimed, proudly highlighting the little spikes on the cucumbers.

As the saying goes, “Without comparison, there’s no harm!”

After he separated all the eggs and vegetables by size, the large ones appeared particularly appealing, making the smaller ones somewhat unremarkable.

In addition, with Song Liangzuo calling out, “Auntie!” on both sides with a big grin, the laughing woman pointed at the large eggs and said, “How many of those do you have? I’ll take them all! And I’ll take all seven of those eggplants too!”

As soon as he heard that the woman wanted to buy half of their eggs, Song Liangzuo couldn’t hide his happiness, “Auntie, there are twenty here, and we checked for cracks—they’re good! Feel free to inspect them, and if you find any broken ones, we’ll give you a refund!”

The woman beamed at his offer, thinking that if she could find one or two broken eggs, she would save a few wens.

However, when she picked up all twenty eggs, she found none were damaged.

Feeling a bit disappointed, she said, “There are none that are broken.”

Song Liangzuo, grinning with mischief, pulled out a smaller egg, showing it to her. “Auntie, this one has a tiny crack. If you don’t mind, I’ll give it to you since you’re our first customer!”

The woman felt delight upon receiving just one egg and couldn’t help but praise Song Liangzuo, “You really know how to do business!”

He laughed shyly in return.

After she finished sorting her eggplant, she picked out two of the larger ones from the four smaller ones nearby, paid twenty-three wens, and left satisfied.

The grandmother stared at Song Liangzuo in amazement, “Clever grandson, how did you come up with this?”

Song Liangzuo, with a serious expression, pointed in the direction they came from. “On our way here, I saw people selling things in piles. I listened closely, and it all became clear to me.”

In reality, Song Liangzuo was over the moon; see, only by interacting with the outside world could he showcase his clever mind.

Though the grandmother was inexperienced in business, she realized that they had earned about two wens more than usual today with what they just sold.

Seeing her grandson outshine her, she sang praises, which further thickened the lens of affection she had for him.

As the sun climbed higher, they had sold out everything: forty-five eggs, eighteen eggplants, twenty-seven cucumbers, and eight bundles of dried vegetables, totaling ninety-seven wens.

The eggs and dried vegetables were the most valuable, each selling for forty wens, while the vegetables were genuinely not worth much.

Of course, every household grew their own vegetables; how could they be expensive?

The grandmother showered praises on her precious grandson, “I thought we’d be lucky to sell around ninety wens; it’s all thanks to my clever grandson that we earned three or four more copper coins.”

For Song Xiaoxiao, selling was a trivial matter; he had seen too many business tactics in his previous life.

However, at that moment, he transformed into a slightly playful child, gazing up at the grandmother with pleading eyes. “Grandma, can you take me for a walk around the street? I promise I won’t buy anything; I just want to look.”

Having sold everything early made the grandmother happy as well, and she reached out to tap him on the head. “Even if you hadn’t said it, I planned to take you to the main street. Since we rarely come to the town, we should buy some lard and make some oil residue salad for you tonight.”

Just the thought of eating meat made Song Liangzuo, who had already started to drool, helplessly swallow, rushing to hug the grandmother’s waist and shout, “You’re the best, Grandma!”

As they left, they left behind a nearby vendor who began sorting her own vegetables. Unfortunately, she only noticed the surface of things and completely overlooked the selling techniques Song Liangzuo had just exhibited.

Today, her vegetables were sold slower than on ordinary days.