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“If Wang Jinhe comes to the capital, it will bring trouble for me.” She couldn’t allow Wang Jinhe to reach the capital; it would be a very tricky situation for her if she did.
Seeing Gu Xiruo so concerned for the first time, Xie Yang was somewhat surprised. “Are you afraid of Wang Jinhe coming to the capital? But you might be disappointed. She will definitely come back; she and Su Yu’s son are returning to update the family records.”
“In that case, I’ll make sure to ready a place to bury her before that happens,” Gu Xiruo said maliciously.
“You want to take her life through a sickness, and even with things like this, what else can you do?” Xie Yang really couldn’t understand why someone like her, a village woman, should be feared.
Taking a deep breath, Gu Xiruo spoke, “I’ll handle this myself. You don’t need to ask more.”
Gu Xiruo’s words made Xie Yang sneer, “If it weren’t for wanting to make Su Yu suffer, I wouldn’t be cooperating with you.”
Hearing this, Gu Xiruo mocked, “People don’t like you, and you haven’t let it go?”
“My affairs are none of your concern, Gu Xiruo. Manage your own business,” he said, standing up and leaving.
Gu Xiruo sneered. If it weren’t for the fact that their enemies were the same, why would she ever cooperate with the foolish Xie Yang?
However, having a grandfather who served in two dynasties and an unfavored imperial concubine aunt, there was nothing to be proud of.
Wang Jinhe really didn’t sit well with her.
It seemed like she had to find a way to keep Wang Jinhe there.
While Gu Xiruo was plotting against Wang Jinhe, Wang Jinhe had already started picking watermelons in the village with her people.
The first to be picked was from the Xie Kui family.
Wang Jinhe cut open a watermelon, tasted it, and then handed a piece to Su Yu and Yuan Bao. “Try the taste, and then we’ll set the price.”
After tasting, Su Yu and Yuan Bao were somewhat surprised. Although these watermelons were not as good as those from Wang Jinhe’s side, they were much better compared to ordinary watermelons.
Su Yu looked at Yuan Bao, who considered for a moment before saying, “Thirty cents per kilogram.”
Xie Kui and Rong Shi were both pleasantly surprised. They had initially thought that twenty cents per kilogram would be good enough.
“I’ll go pick melons. Yuan Bao, you lead the people behind to carry them.”
“Yes.”
Wang Jinhe selected ripe melons in the field, while Yuan Bao and his team carried baskets and weighed them. The people who came to see were dumbfounded when they heard the price of thirty wen per kilogram.
A single melon was worth at least three hundred cents. The village head’s family had planted several acres of melons. How much money would they make?
Thinking about it, even those who didn’t plant melons couldn’t help but feel a bit jealous.
Xie Kui didn’t care much about that; he was busy in the melon field from start to finish.
Rong Shi, while weighing with Yuan Bao, would go to check and confirm the weight of each scale.
This time, the Xie Kui family picked four hundred watermelons, totaling four thousand two hundred catties.
Just this time, the Xie Kui family earned over one hundred taels of silver. The onlookers who didn’t plant melons had envy in their eyes.
As for the money, Xie Kui was holding a significant amount for the first time.
Others who had bought fifty melon seedlings from Wang Jinhe, though envious, were also content.
Even though they didn’t plant as many, and the prices were relatively lower by a few cents, they could still earn a considerable amount.
If only they could buy more melon seedlings next year.
In the following days, Wang Jinhe and her team continued to harvest melons in the village. Everyone received varying amounts, ranging from a few catties to over a hundred catties.
As for those who had only planted fifty seedlings, their prices were five wen lower than others, yet they could still sell for twenty-five cents per kilogram.
This was something they wouldn’t have dared to dream about in the past.
For a while, the people who planted melons in Xie Kui’s village were in high spirits. To express gratitude to Wang Jinhe, those who bought melon seedlings gave her eggs, old hens, or preserved vegetables.
Wang Jinhe couldn’t refuse and had to accept these items.
Looking at these gifts, Wang Jinhe felt a bit overwhelmed. Their family already had an abundance of eggs, and now they were receiving even more.
“So many gifts.” The people in the family were now accustomed to eating healthily, and they had little interest in these items.
“No problem, just soak them in Lingquan water before eating.”
“That works too.”
“What are your plans for next year?” Su Yu looked at Wang Jinhe and asked.
Having tasted the sweetness this year, the villagers would undoubtedly want to plant more.
Sending gifts today was probably to build good relationships with Wang Jinhe so that they could buy more melon seedlings next year.
“It doesn’t matter. The more they plant, the more we’ll earn,” Wang Jinhe said indifferently.
There was a hint of amusement in Su Yu’s eyes. What she said was true.
Despite the villagers making good money, they were earning even more, doubling or even tripling their profits.
“Aren’t you worried they’ll sell the melons to others?” Su Yu raised an eyebrow and asked Wang Jinhe.
“What’s there to worry about? Only the melon seedlings cultivated with Lingquan water by me will have this unique taste. Even if they collect the seeds, it won’t help,” Wang Jinhe said without reservation.
Whether during the seed soaking process or the seedling cultivation period, she used diluted Lingquan water, which changed the taste of the watermelons.
If they had such thoughts, she wouldn’t stop them. After all, everyone had their own goals. However, afterward, she wouldn’t provide them with melon seedlings, nor would she buy watermelons from them.
If they wanted to do that, she had no objections. The loss wouldn’t be hers.
Su Yu smiled, looking at Wang Jinhe’s indifferent appearance, and said with a touch of irony, “It seems I worried for nothing.”
“It was unnecessary.”
Xie Kui and the others had followed Wang Jinhe to plant vegetables so many times. Did they ever think about cultivating seedlings on their own? Not at all.
They had planted some vegetables using the same method, but compared to the seeds Wang Jinhe provided, the difference was too significant.
The seeds given by Wang Jinhe grew quickly, were free of pests, and had a crisp texture. Their self-planted vegetables couldn’t compare at all.
After trying once, they never planted vegetables using their own seeds again.
Eating vegetables grown from the seeds Wang Jinhe provided, then eating those grown from other seeds, felt like eating wild vegetables, and the taste was really poor.
And all of this, Wang Jinhe was unaware of.
As the watermelon harvest began, the rice in the fields turned increasingly yellow.
One morning, Wang Jinhe went to the rice field, picked a rice stalk, bit it open, and still saw some rice milk inside. Wang Jinhe calculated the time and went home to find Yuan Xu and Yuan Lin.
“Yuan Xu, go to the county town and tell the magistrate that we can harvest the rice in about ten days.”
“Yes, madam.”
Su Yu glanced at Xiao Bao and Xiao Zhi, who were in a horse-stance, and walked over to Wang Jinhe. “Checking on the rice?”
“Yes, just going to see when we can harvest. There’s still a bit of rice milk left, and it should be gone in about ten days.” Wang Jinhe nodded. Once the yield was available, they would also go to the capital.
“I tried it with vegetable seeds before. The seeds watered with diluted Lingquan water grow much better than ordinary seeds,” Wang Jinhe added.