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Chapter 14: ä»ŁèŽ­ Purchasing (on behalf of others)
Translator: LittleYen
When the meal was almost done, Zhong Ziqi went to Wang Cuihua’s vegetable garden to pick some cucumbers, coincidentally he met Wang Cuihua, who said sarcastically when he saw Zhong Ziqi, “Yo, Qi Ge’er ah! Aren’t you making money? You still need to eat my family’s vegetables, go buy it yourself ah! ”
Zhong Ziqi didn’t expect the public opinion to spread quite quickly, he glanced at Wang Cuihua, said calmly and slowly, “When we split up the family, we agreed that I could eat the vegetables from this vegetable garden until our family’s vegetables came down.”
“Have you planted it? You didn’t even plant it. How come you still have to eat my family’s vegetable garden ah?” Wang Cuihua said, crossing his arms. He didn’t like the fact that this person was still living a good life even though he had split up his family.
“If you have a problem with that, go talk to the village chief, I don’t have time to spend with you here.” Zhong Ziqi gave him a disdainful glance, he really didn’t have time to grow vegetables now. Moreover, he didn’t have money to buy seeds for growing vegetables. When the business was stable enough, he would plan the chores of the family.
After picking the vegetables, Zhong Ziqi left in a hurry. He was still hearing what Wang Cuihua was saying about hooking up with a man and being shameless. He was angry and thought, those who say bad things about him behind his back, if they are capable, don’t just blame it on his head.
When he got home, Zhong Ziqi said nothing, cut the cucumber he had picked, put salt, sesame oil, vinegar, coriander and sugar to make a small cold dish. The roast pork with mushrooms in the pot was also just about ready to be cooked, and he brought it to the hall table one by one.
“It smells good.” Zhao Ning twitched his nose and ran to the kitchen to help.The food was brought to the table and they started to eat.
Zhao Ning and Zhao Sheng let go of their bellies, gulping down the food, their mouths slurring, “Yummy!”
Zhong Ziqi smiled, he originally wanted to make spicy meat slices because all of them are capable of eating spicy food. The last spicy meat slices were not enough for them to eat, but the spicy meat slices, really too irritating for the throat, although Zhao Sheng and Zhao Ning were fine, but if Zhao Zhengan eats the spicy food, he will certainly get throat inflammation, so he simply makes other dishes.
Zhao Zheng’an had been hungry for a long time, so even though his throat was sore, he followed suit and ate in big bites.
Zhong Ziqi kept an eye on him so when he saw him frowning, he went over to him, asked, “Is your throat sore? Eat slowly! There’s more in the kitchen, don’t fight over the food with them.”
Zhao Zheng’an slowed down obediently, but his brow was still furrowed.
After eating, Zhao Ning and Zhao Sheng rested for a while before they had to go back, Zhong Ziqi put Zhao Zheng’an to bed and got up, “I’ll go back with you guys. Didn’t your family grow a lot of vegetables this year? I’ll talk to Zhao Amu about buying vegetables.”
“Oh, okay!” Zhao Ning didn’t know much about such things as business so he didn’t ask too many questions.
At Zhao Ning’s house, when Zhao Amu saw the three of them coming back, he was hurriedly saying, “I was just about to go to your place to have a look, since you guys are back, how was the business?”
Zhong Ziqi smiled, Zhao Ning could not hide anything, then he chatted with Zhao Amu about this morning’s situation, “
We couldn’t even sit at our stall, we sat next door. When we were going to leave, there were still so many people waiting.”
Zhao Amu was very happy to hear this, but soon his face became solemn: “Qi Ge’er ah, earning money is good, but that’s not what I want to talk to you about. When you came back, did you tell someone about your business?”
After Zhong Ziqi heard Zhao Anmu say this,already knowing in his heart: “Yes, I couldn’t hide it so I told them, Zhao Amu, someone in the village said something, right?”
Zhao Amu sighed before he said with some concern, “Of course, Many people are now saying that you are — anyway, no matter how bad it is, how to say it, hey, you do not need to care too much about it!It’s all jealousy,small-minded people who spread the gossip, they can’t see anyone being happy.” After a pause, Zhao Amu added: “But you have to be careful too! Too many rumours, it’s always bad, not to mention that you’re making money now, what if people plan something bad.”
Zhong Ziqi thought about it, there were many people with bad intentions, he had to take precautions, not to mention that they lived in such a remote place, it was not convenient to call out to someone if something happened, after Zhao Amu reminded him, he thought about how unsafe his house was: “Zhao Amu, I want to raise the wall of my house, can you help me find two persons?”
Zhao Amu said, “That’s right, your wall is too short, in case someone enters, he can climb over the wall.That’s fine! I’ll take care of it for you.”
“Well, Zhao Amu, does anyone in our village have a dog? I’d like two bigger ones, to guard the house.”
Zhao Amu thought for a moment and shook his head: “Not many people in the village have dogs, but there is a big family in my mother’s house there that have a few, I’ll ask them for you.”
“In fact, I came here today because I want to discuss something with Zhao Amu.” Zhong Ziqi rubbed his nose with some embarrassment, he was really bothering people too much, he was overwhelmed.
“What is it? You tell me!”
“It’s like this, I need a lot of cucumbers and persimmons every day now, so I’d like to buy some from you.”
“Okay, I have plenty in my vegetable garden, I can’t even eat all of it, but it’s not enough to buy the vegetables from mine alone, isn’t it?” Zhao Amu said.
“I don’t care what the price is, I’ll settle the bill for you after its delivered every day, how about that?” Zhong Ziqi had the market price all figured out, the benefits of this as long as Zhao Amu was not stupid he would calculate clearly. He didn’t mind giving some small advantages to others, he had to ask people to do him a favour, so he couldn’t do it for nothing. He didn’t want to owe people favors, either. It’s trouble!
Zhao Amu was stunned at his words, followed by silence, as his eyes twinkled, he was a shrewd man therefore he could think of the twists and turns of the situation in a flash.The price of vegetables at the market is only three wen, and it don’t always sell.The vegetables are ripe at this time of the year, so apart from the rich and big family, ordinary people don’t buy it, so he could offer a slightly lower price for the vegetables in the village,since there are so many vegetables that people can’t eat, it even rot in the fields. Nevertheless, he would be happy to earn money without having to go out, the surplus would be earned by him. He didn’t say anything nonsense,asked straight away, “How many catties do you need for a day?”
Zhong Ziqi stretched out his palm: “Zhao Amu buy for me fifty pounds first! Thirty pounds of cucumbers, twenty pounds of persimmons, I’ll bring all to the dock tomorrow, depending on the situation, but I’m sure it won’t be much less than that. so you will send me fifty pounds every day, more for the cucumbers and less for the persimmons.”
“That’s fine, I’ll go and get it for you now.” Zhao Amu immediately couldn’t sit tight after heard that he needed so much supply. He wanted to see if he could pick so many from his own garden, such a good deal,of course he had to go to his own family first.
Zhong Ziqi reached out his hand to stop him and smiled, he said,”Zhao Amu is still an impetuous person. Here’s the thing, Zhao Amu,the people you buy from, go to the ones with better character first. If you can’t, you can go to the neighbouring villages.”
Zhao Amu laughed, how could he not know what Zhong Ziqi’s idea was,to push the god of wealth away from those people who have a bad mouth so: “Okay, listen to you! You really have a lot of bad ideas.”
When the job was done, Zhong Ziqi had to go home.But before he left, he told both Zhao Ning and Zhao Sheng that tomorrow, at the same time, they would go to his place for breakfast.
After Zhong Ziqi had left, Zhao Ning and Zhao Sheng went to help Zhao Amu pick the vegetables.
“Amu, today Ziqi gave me and my brother fifteen wens each.” Zhao Ning happily bragged that this was the first money he had ever earned. So it meant a lot to him!
Zhao Amu, who had been around for a long time, knew that the money was too much and asked with a frown, “Why is it so much? How much does Ziqi earn in a day? At the beginning when he said he would give ten wen I thought it was already too much.”
“Today, Ziqi earned two hundred and seventy yuan ne! There are so many people coming to eat that it’s almost hard to keep up with the orders.” Zhao Ning continued to chat excitedly again, telling Zhao Amu the details of the day.
Zhao Amu obviously didn’t expect that he would make so much money either, so it was no wonder he wanted so many vegetables at once. Qi Ge’er, this child was really like his father, even his amu was a clever one, so how could their child be a fool? He wonders if the Zhong and Zhao families will regret when they find out that they had (previously) done things so heartlessly.
“Qi Ge’er is a person with great prospects,so since he is willing to take you guys with him, you should follow him well.”
Zhao Amu, a little unconscious, said with a serious expression, he didn’t feel that by letting his family’s man to follow a young ger is inappropriate. He was a good judge of people, at the moment, he only felt that the current Qi Ge’er was really extraordinary.
Zhao Ning and Zhao Sheng, of course, would not argue with this, and they were happy to follow Zhong Ziqi, especially since Zhao Sheng only felt that farming at home was not as interesting as doing business. He had no idea that what he was thinking at the moment, would change his thoughts so much in the future.
After coming back home here, Zhong Ziqi went into the bedroom, looked at Zhao Zheng’an, he found him sleeping soundly, no sign of waking up. Therein he tiptoed to the corner, put the backpacker basket on his back, went out of the door, locked the gate and headed for the hills.
He was going to dig up some more bamboo shoots, he hadn’t made many sour bamboo shoots last time. It would run out in a day or two.Since Zhong Ziqi had a good memory,by having gone into the mountains last time, he had memorised which places he could go and which he could not, so he could go again alone without any problems.
There are a lot of bamboo shoots on the mountain.This stuff was heavy, too. Only half of the basket was filled, but it was a lot of work for Zhong Ziqi to carry. Apart from finding bamboo shoots, there were also some black fungus, which is also delicious if added into cold noodles.
But the black agaric was not very easy to find, unlike mushrooms which are easy to find and grow everywhere. After finding some, Zhong Ziqi did not want to go any further. By lucky coincidence, there were many fruit trees all around so he picked up a pile of hickorys,pears, apples, and a few more.He went down the hill in a hurry.He was afraid that if Zhao Zheng’an woke up, he wouldn’t be able to find him and be anxious.At this time, Zhong Ziqi was completely unaware that he was gradually unable to let go of Zhao Zheng’an. He was becoming more and more comfortable with his role as a nanny, a father and also as a wife.
Pic ?: Hickory
When he got home and opened the door, he didn’t hear any unusual movements, so Zhong Ziqi was relieved to see that Zhao Zheng’an was still asleep, he knew that he was really exhausted so he didn’t wake him up either.He sat by himself in the courtyard, peeling and cutting the bamboo shoots one by one into small strips, fried it in water, sealed it up and put it in the corner.
In the bamboo basket, there was only fruit, black fungus and mushrooms left, so Zhong Ziqi put the mushrooms on the dustpan in the courtyard and soaked the fungus in water to put it aside. Looking at the remaining fruit, Zhong Ziqi planned to make some canned fruit and bring it with him tomorrow, so that when Zhao Zheng’an and the others got thirsty, they could drink some to moisten their throats.
The canned fruit is very simple to make. He has made it before. He is a strange person, even that person also said that he likes to eat a light meal (snack) , roadside stalls, such unhygienic and unhealthy food, but ‘luxury foodstuff from distant locations(ć±±çæ”·ć‘ł)’ he didn’t like eating it.
[ć±±çæ”·ć‘ł: Refers to all kinds of seafood / All kinds of precious foods from the mountains and the sea / Refers to rich dishes/ exotic delicacies]
When Zhong Ziqi heard that, he just laughed. He felt that only the food from the roadside stalls had the taste of food.’The exotic delicacies’ was just like ‘a cow chewing on tree peony’ for him. So he can cook a lot of weird and odd collections of food, but he would retreat if it was a high class dish. It’s not that he doesn’t know how to do it, but he’s not good at it.
Translator ?: Oh can’t wait for Zhong ZiQi to realized his own feeling and attachment to Zhao Zheng’an.