Chapter 46: Earning Some Small Money
In no time at all, Fangfang arrived riding the electric tricycle.
Sure enough, Hu Ming had tagged along too.
Many families in the village had bought houses in the town or city for their children’s education. The remaining left-behind children in the village had also seized the summer break to head off to the cities where their parents worked to reunite with their families.
Hu Ming had very few playmates left in the village. He was quite daring and wanted to head into the mountains every single day. If Grandma Hu Ming hadn’t kept him strictly under control, he might have actually scaled the wall of the old house and slipped into the mountains.
“Sister Xiaxia, we’re here!”
The two of them helped Jian Xingxia load the chestnuts onto the tricycle. Hearing that she was going to town to sell them, they both wanted to go along.
Jian Xingxia didn’t dare agree. “Business in town isn’t easy. I’ll be driving around all afternoon, and it’s scorching hot.”
Fangfang thought about it and said, “Then I’ll go find my classmate.”
Hu Ming was envious to the extreme, but since he had no classmates to visit and couldn’t trail behind Jian Xingxia all afternoon, he could only get off in the village regretfully.
Fangfang, on the other hand, had begged Auntie Lu and received permission to go to town to play with her classmate.
With someone riding along on the tricycle, Jian Xingxia drove even slower.
Once they reached the town and she dropped Fangfang off near her classmate’s house, Jian Xingxia turned right around to sell her chestnuts.
She had picked a bad time today. At one or two o’clock in the sweltering afternoon, there was hardly anyone on the streets.
Jian Xingxia headed toward the Children’s Palace, which she had thought of beforehand, but she ended up only selling two bags in total.
There was no helping it; street vending was naturally unstable, highly dependent on the weather and location.
Jian Xingxia felt that in the future, she should either come out in the morning or simply wait until after three in the afternoon, targeting the four-to-seven time slot.
As she wandered all over town, she felt that Jinmen Town was still quite backward compared to many cities. This was likely because Jinmen was entirely surrounded by mountains, making it impossible to build an airport, and the only railway was for freight. Anyone wanting to travel to other provinces or cities had to take a long-distance bus to the city center first to transfer.
The reason Jinmen Town got its name, “Golden Gate,” was also because the endless, rolling mountain ranges encircled the town, leaving only a single broad road that resembled an ancient “fortress gate”—easy to defend and hard to attack.
In the past, guarding these grand mountains meant Jinmen Town truly had no worries about food or drink. It was only now, in this era of rapid development, that Jinmen Town’s geographical location proved a severe disadvantage. The outside world already enjoyed high-speed rail, subways, and airplanes, while Jinmen could only rely on long-distance buses to exit through the sole “Jinmen Avenue.”
However, a slow-developing city had its perks too.
Everywhere was brimming with the flavor of daily life. The buildings were mostly low, consisting of five or six-story residential blocks. The greenery was exceptionally lush, and the air was filled with negative oxygen ions carried over from the surrounding mountains, which was why Jinmen Town was also known as the Town of Longevity.
Jian Xingxia believed this implicitly. Her maternal grandmother had lived to ninety before passing away, and Uncle Lu was already sixty but was still considered a “middle-aged uncle” in the village; compared to Grandma Hu Ming and Old Grandma Hu, he was still quite young.
Jian Xingxia strolled leisurely through the town, setting up her stall near the bus station until past four o’clock, gradually selling about ten or twenty bags of chestnuts.
Fortunately, business picked up once she moved to the residential areas after four.
Still, it wasn’t as good as yesterday. She kept the stall open until nearly six o’clock, and even after Fangfang used her classmate’s phone to give her a call, she had only sold sixty or seventy bags.
Her revenue was 487 yuan.
Jian Xingxia let out a sigh. She was still benefiting from having zero material costs, so this counted as pure profit. If she had to purchase stock to run a stall, a turnover of four hundred-plus yuan would be considered decent if it cleared a hundred yuan in profit.
On her way to pick up Fangfang, Jian Xingxia spotted a large electric tricycle selling various kinds of rice crusts, fried dough twists, millet crisps, walnut cakes, and biscuits, ranging from eight to fourteen yuan.
Jian Xingxia bought a hundred yuan worth of snacks and placed them in the tricycle.
After picking up Fangfang, the two of them munched on a couple of fried twists to tide themselves over, hurrying home to beat the clock.
Fortunately, though Jinmen was remote, the state hadn’t abandoned it. The roads leading back to the village were asphalt and equipped with streetlights. Even inside the mountains, there were concrete roads leading straight into the village.
After dropping Fangfang off at her home, Jian Xingxia went to give Grandma Hu Ming a heads-up as usual. “Grandma Hu Ming, I’m back. I’ll drop the things off at home and come right back to return the tricycle.”
Seeing that it was almost seven o’clock, Grandma Hu Ming hurriedly told her not to bother returning it today. “It’s late at night, so don’t run around. Go back early, tomorrow or the day after is perfectly fine.”
“Alright! I’ll return it tomorrow then. Thank you, Grandma Hu Ming!”
Jian Xingxia was also rather tired. Smiling, she grabbed two catties of walnut cakes and millet crisps, set them down on the stone bench outside Hu Ming’s house, and rode off on the tricycle.
Grandma Hu Ming chased her out carrying the plastic bag. Growing frantic, she even shouted a curse after Jian Xingxia. “You little rascal! Giving me things just for using a vehicle!”
Jian Xingxia had already sped away.
Taking advantage of the remaining twilight before total darkness fell, she hurried over to the big banyan tree to set up the items she had brought back today.
After dinner, the villagers loved to gather under the big banyan tree to enjoy the cool breeze and chat.
Seeing Jian Xingxia arrive, they all asked with smiles, “Xiaxia, did you go to town again today? What did you buy? Are these for sale too?”
“Mhm!” Jian Xingxia replied, beaming.
She never looked down on “small money.” The fact that she could earn a few yuan just along the way didn’t make her feel embarrassed at all.
She laid the items out, stating generously, “Rice crusts and fried twists are twelve a catty, millet crisps and walnut cakes are fifteen a catty, and pea crisps are eighteen a catty…”
Each item was two yuan more expensive than what it sold for in town. Yet the villagers were still completely delighted to support her.
“Oh, you only have this little bit today? Then give me half a catty.”
“Are the pea crisps good? They’re rather expensive, weigh out a little bit for me.”
Jian Xingxia didn’t fuss over the amount either. Since she had the electronic scale, she could weigh even a single yuan’s worth if requested.
It was only a hundred yuan worth of goods in total, weighing less than ten catties altogether. She and Fangfang had eaten a bit, and she had gifted two catties to Grandma Hu Ming, so the remaining seven-plus catties sold out in less than ten minutes.
With a quick calculation, her one-hundred-yuan cost yielded exactly one hundred yuan in sales.
This meant she had earned a free dinner and repaid Grandma Hu Ming’s favor.
Jian Xingxia rode happily toward the mountains.
The two-to-three-kilometer road took only about twenty minutes by tricycle. It was mainly because the last few hundred meters of mountain road were rather rough and lacked streetlights; otherwise, a two-to-three-kilometer concrete road could easily be cleared in ten minutes. After all, she didn’t have to dodge other vehicles, nor were there traffic lights to wait for.
Jian Xingxia could see the lights of the old house from a distance.
Before heading out, she had anticipated a late return today, so she had turned on the lights in the courtyard and by the front entrance in advance. The electricity at home was currently inexhaustible, as solar power was free, so Jian Xingxia didn’t have to worry about running out of power at all.
Since she wasn’t home, Dahua hadn’t gone inside either, nesting in the courtyard and occasionally rising to peck at flying insects.
Catching sight of Jian Xingxia, Dahua’s small eyes darted about as she walked unhurriedly over to her feet. She was incredibly clever. Hunting bugs on her own was one thing, but she still had to demand food from Jian Xingxia every day to mark her “labor compensation.”
Jian Xingxia practically suspected that she had also come from another world to “work” for her.
Dahua had made the right bet. Jian Xingxia truly had something delicious for her today. The walnut cakes and biscuits were all sold out, but Jian Xingxia had brought back the plastic bags containing the crumbs.
Opening one up and pouring it out into the courtyard, Dahua immediately began pecking away.
Stepping into the house, Jian Xingxia felt exhausted enough to collapse. She had been running on a loop ever since she returned, without a single moment of rest.
After wolfing down a cold sweet potato, she finally recovered a bit of strength. She moved the chestnuts and electronic scale from the tricycle inside, then plugged in the cord to charge the electric tricycle.
Fortunately, the house had a chest freezer and a washing machine now. Jian Xingxia placed a bottle of soda into the freezer before heading off to take a bath.
By the time she finished her bath and threw her clothes into the washing machine, the soda in the freezer was chilled just right. It was ice-cold and thoroughly refreshing, instantly dispelling the summer heat.
There was no electric fan in the house. Feeling a bit warm right after her bath, Jian Xingxia sat by the doorway of the main hall to catch the breeze. She lit a mosquito coil; though she could see mosquitoes beneath the lights, they didn’t come to pester her at all. After all, Dahua was nesting right at her feet. Whichever blind mosquito dared to fly over would instantly become Dahua’s next meal.
Jian Xingxia opened her phone, originally intending to buy some more cotton scraps and instant rations, when she suddenly noticed a huge flurry of messages popping up on WeChat.
