Chapter 16

In other words, there is only about a month left to make money from mushrooms.

And mushrooms grow abundantly after the rain, so it needs to rain more.

Shuiqing felt a bit worried.

It takes money to unlock other categories, but items like clothes, fabric, and seasonings are not essential for now.

However, as a twenty-eight-year-old woman, she absolutely cannot go without her monthly ‘sanitary napkins.’

She definitely does not want to try using ash!

So she needs to unlock the category that includes her ‘daily necessities.’

And also the ‘medicines’ category.

She remembers that unlocking daily necessities costs only two thousand yuan, but medicines are expensive, requiring a full eight thousand yuan.

Fan Jin did not know about Shuiqing’s worries. He gently explained to his two daughters, “No need to wash them. Tomorrow, Daddy will take them all to sell. Washing them might cause them to shrink and wrinkle.”

Xinghui, upon hearing that the bamboo mushrooms were to be sold, stood up excitedly and asked, “Daddy, are you going to sell them in town or at the big market?”

Daddy copies books in Guangning Prefecture, but Guangning Prefecture is far from Shanshui Village. It takes more than an hour to walk there. The villagers seldom go to town unless they need to buy something valuable.

When they need to buy things, they go to Niutou Town, where there is a big market every five days. At the market, people can barter goods like eggs, chickens, ducks, geese, homemade bamboo baskets, and shoulder poles for the things they need.

Yan Qiu, thinking of the bamboo mushrooms growing all over the mountain, worriedly asked, “Can we sell them? Do city folks like to eat them?”

Shuiqing did not know if the people in this dynasty’s cities liked them, but she knew that in Huaguo, both city and rural folks loved to eat Termitomyces albuminosus and bamboo mushrooms!

That’s why they sell so well in the shopping mall.

Fan Jin shared the reasoning he had discussed with Shuiqing earlier, “Don’t worry. Daddy won’t sell them at the market but to the scholars who buy books at the bookstore.

You know, families that can afford to buy books are well-off. They are willing to pay four wen per jin to buy them.”

Yan Qiu and Xinghui smiled brightly upon hearing that they could sell the mushrooms.

“Great! Black flour is now three wen per jin. Ten jin of mushrooms can buy thirteen jin of black flour. We have almost twenty jin of mushrooms today, right?

That means we can earn twenty-six jin of black flour in one day. We won’t have to worry about going hungry before the winter wheat harvest.”

After eating white flour buns, they found that black flour buns were not tasty at all, but it was still food that would keep them from going hungry.

Besides, eating white flour buns once was good enough. They couldn’t be greedy and expect to eat them every day!

Hearing that they could have black flour to eat, Yan Qiu was also happy and planned the next day’s activities, “I will go pick mushrooms at dawn tomorrow!”

In the past, she disliked rain, thinking it made everything sticky and uncomfortable. Now she wished it would rain every day so she could pick mushrooms.

“I’ll go too. We all will, even little brother. We will pick lots of mushrooms together!”

There were mushrooms all over the bamboo forest, and they couldn’t be picked clean. If they weren’t picked for a day or two, they would become too old to eat.

Fan Jin thought that picking mushrooms was something the children were used to. Compared to busy farming and housework, picking mushrooms was not particularly tiring and gave a sense of accomplishment.

He promised, “After selling the mushrooms tomorrow, Daddy will buy some fatty meat for you to eat.”

Yan Qiu and Xinghui nodded vigorously.

It turned out that when Mom said Daddy would buy pork for them to eat tomorrow, they had already planned to sell mushrooms.

They needed to work harder to pick mushrooms tomorrow so Daddy could sell them in town.

And they must not let anyone in the village, especially their aunt’s family, know about it!

Shuiqing naturally did not mind having more Termitomyces albuminosus and bamboo mushrooms; the more, the better!

She wanted to quickly exchange the mushrooms for money to see how much they could get. She told her two daughters, “You should also wash up and go to bed early.

Pack three buns from the basket for your dad to take to town. Whoever wakes up early tomorrow should cook a pot of millet porridge. The rest can share what’s left.”

Yan Qiu and Xinghui happily agreed and quickly went to tell their three younger brothers about the plan to earn money.

The two children walked away, and under the cool moonlight.

“Dingdong, six jin of Termitomyces albuminosus with open caps, 1002 yuan;

five jin of Termitomyces albuminosus with unopened caps, 935 yuan;

four and a half jin of bamboo mushrooms, 810 yuan;

totaling 2747 yuan.

The money has been credited, please check your balance.”

Shuiqing quickly checked her balance and saw that the four hundred yuan left after buying flour, rice, and eggs had now become 3177 yuan!

Great.

After spending two thousand yuan to unlock daily necessities, there would still be some left.

Feeling a bit relieved, Shuiqing first bought eggs, choosing the cheap large foreign eggs again, spending seven yuan for nine eggs.

Fan Jin watched in awe as the mushrooms on the ground disappeared, and then he saw Shuiqing take out nine large eggs.

He exclaimed quietly, “Shuiqing?”

Shuiqing calmly replied, “I bought them. Later, secretly put them in the chicken coop so Yan Qiu and the others will think our chickens laid them.

We only have six chickens, which can lay at most six eggs a day. That’s not enough for seven people, so we need to add a few more.”

In the next few days, when Fan Jin comes back, he should ‘bring’ three to five hens each day. As the chicken coop gradually fills up, she won’t have to buy eggs secretly anymore.

In the future, they would have free-range chickens that not only provided eggs but also better nutrition.

Fan Jin nodded obediently, then carefully and quickly placed the eggs in the chicken coop.

He returned with a shy smile.

Shuiqing was very pleased with Fan Jin’s proactive nature, thinking he was a man who could get things done!

Shuiqing refocused on the shopping mall, “Let’s see what we can sell in town.”

The money in the mall could only be used to buy items from the mall, and couldn’t be directly converted to copper coins or silver. They needed copper coins and silver for many things.

For example, to pay labor costs for building a house, buy blue bricks and tiles, oxen for plowing, and plows.

Earning fifty-three wen a day from copying books was too slow!

So they needed to convert items from the mall into money.

Fan Jin agreed and then reminded her earnestly, “Don’t buy the best rice and flour, and don’t buy too much. If the soldiers at the gate check, it will be hard to explain.

Also, don’t buy meat. We don’t have pigs, cows, or sheep, and familiar people will easily notice.

It’s better to buy mountain herbs… but I don’t know herbs…”

His voice gradually faded, but he gave Shuiqing an idea.

She hadn’t considered the medicine category—it cost eight thousand yuan to unlock, which was beyond their budget.

She directly looked at the Chinese herbal medicine seeds category.

She remembered that many Chinese herbs could be grown from tubers.

This category only required two thousand yuan to unlock.

“Sanqi, Dendrobium officinale, Angelica, Gastrodia, Paris polyphylla, Millettia, Polygonatum, Fallopia multiflora, Bletilla…

Which of these herbs do we have here?” Shuiqing scrolled to the tubers section and asked Fan Jin.