Chapter 88: Successful Planting Yields Fast Returns

If Wei wants to use the cave to grow mushrooms, he will have to find the rizheng of a nearby village to negotiate.

Although this mountain is deserted and people can go to the mountain to cut wood and pick herbs, if they want to make a long-term lease for the use of the cave, they still need to reach an agreement with the villagers.

We’ll see what arrangements we have to make after this is investigated.

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Jue Xie and Xie Ying returned to the Xie family’s other compound first.

Jue Xie had the herbs brought down to be dealt with, dried where they should be dried, and cleaned where they should be cleaned.

“Brother, you can’t mess up these herbs for me.” Xie Ying admonished.

“Don’t worry sister, you personally picked it, I’m bound to have to keep it safe for you.” Jue Xie said with a smile.

“And that ointment from just now, give it back to me and don’t try to hide it.”

Xie Ying held out her palm and asked Xie Jue for the ointment.

This time Jue Xie didn’t take it out painfully, but instead had the cheek to ask for it from Xie Ying.

“Ying Ying, leave this ointment to me.”

“Brother, what do you need the ointment for?” Xie Ying was curious.

“Nothing, I just thought it smelled good and wanted to keep it to smell good, and when it’s hot I have mosquitoes harassing the market at night when I’m reading, applying this ointment might help me avoid that worry.”

“Just give it to you if you need it.” Xie Ying was generous to her own family, as long as Jue Xie had a valid reason, she wasn’t going to be petty and not give it to him.

Then Xie Ying added, “But don’t forget you have to return the gift to Ruo Ruo ah, last time I let you bring some good things back from the capital, you didn’t bring them back to me until now, causing me to have no gift to give to others.”

Jue Xie exclaimed, “Sister, you’ve wronged me, from last time to now, I’ve been in Xing Shan County, not leaving a step, let alone going to the capital, how can I bring you something back?”

“Then what have you been sticking around Hing Sun County for? Aren’t you done with the things you need to be busy with?” Xie Ying asked.

“There are parts that are busy, and things that still need to be taken care of.” Jue Xie replied.

The battle was over for the time being, and he really should have gone back, but because of the matter of the seventh prince, his grandfather ordered him to stay in Xingshan County for some more days.

“How about this, I’m going to make a trip to Taizhou Prefecture in a couple days, the Seventh Highness is in the Prefecture nowadays, there are some things that require me to make a trip over there, at that time I’ll take some time out and help you and Wei’s sister to buy some fresh things to come back.” Jue Xie said after pondering for a while.

“Good, you have to buy it properly, mine doesn’t matter, people have given me things several times, my return gift has to be decent, I can’t lose face.” Xie Ying admonished.

“Don’t worry, I won’t let my sister lose face.” Jue Xie assured with a smile.

The siblings talked and laughed for a while, after which they left the other courtyard with today’s harvest to return to the Xie family’s main residence.

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After receiving Wei Ruo’s notice, the milkmaid immediately took action, explaining to her husband to purchase the things Wei Ruo needed, while going to talk to the villages near the West Mountain instead.

The conversation went surprisingly well, the milkmaid had just said that she intended to hire people from the village for one hundred and fifty wen per month of labor, and Rizheng agreed without hesitation.

In order to respect the Rizheng, the Nurse followed Wei Ruo’s wishes and gave the Rizheng the power to choose the right and capable young men in the village.

Rizheng first excused himself, but after hearing mom Xu say that if they made it, they would have to expand subsequently and would need to hire more people, Rizheng agreed flatly.

It was because it was not too good to push only one or two people to the Rizhong, but if he could have a dozen or two jobs, he would be relatively good at making arrangements, and he would not have to worry too much about the villagers having a problem with his arrangements.

This is a gospel for their poor mountain village located in the west of Xingshan County, they do not have much skill, and their family has only a few thin fields, which are not enough to eat when the wind and rain are good, not to mention the past few years.

There was a job for them to do and two hundred cents a month, which was enough income to feed the family.

After the materials were collected, they were configured according to the ratios given by Wei Ruo.

Fill into a cylindrical medium like a dead wood segment.

Then a pass was sent to the inside of the cave, and the follow-up work was left to the hired villagers Li Erniu and He Dong.

The job is not too complicated, but it is still mainly responsible for looking after it, making sure that no wild animals or people will enter the cave to destroy it, and then it is to observe the growth of the mushrooms and report on it regularly.

Seven days later.

When the first batch of shiitake mushrooms grew up, the milkmaid personally ran a trip and set the picking standards, then she let the two responsible people, Li Erniu and He Dong, pick all the shiitake mushrooms whose sizes were up to the standards, and she sent the store’s fellows to transport them down the mountain.

Immediately after that, the milkmaid sent some to the Wei Mansion to Wei Ruo.

Seeing the first batch of successfully cultivated mushrooms in the outside world, Wei Ruo was filled with joy.

It’s only been seven short days since the harvest, and the cultivation cycle of shiitake mushrooms is really so much shorter than other crops!

“Miss, what to do with these mushrooms?” Xiu Mei inquired.

“Immediately take it to the market and sell it.” Wei Ruo said, “Then ask Uncle Xu and the others to follow the standard of the first cave I found, and find a few more such caves near that area to expand the scale of cultivation.”

“Miss, shiitake mushrooms aren’t a staple food and they don’t keep well, if we plant too many of them, we’ll smash our hands if we can’t sell them.” Xiu Mei worried.

“Don’t worry, I don’t plan to sell them all when the scale expands. The shiitake mushrooms that we can’t sell we’ll use to dry them to make dried shiitake mushrooms, and we can also make shiitake mushroom sauce. All of these can make the preservation time of the shiitake mushrooms substantially longer.” Wei Ruo had already had a plan to deal with this a long time ago.

“Dried shiitake mushrooms and shiitake sauce? I haven’t even tasted them yet, I’m looking forward to it!” Xiu Mei jumped at the chance.

“When it’s made, you’ll be the first to try it!”

“The first few tastes don’t matter, as long as the lady can grow more crops and make more silver!”

Wei Ruo was happily talking to Xiu Mei about the mushrooms when the front yard sent someone over to inform her that Miss Xie had sent a gift over to Wei Ruo and was waiting for Wei Ruo to sign for it in person.

Before leaving, he also made a point of saying that Miss Xie sent more things, and asked Wei Ruo to bring more hands.

Xie Ying made to shout back to Wei Ruo several times, so Wei Ruo wasn’t very surprised when she heard about this.

I just don’t know what kind of gift Xie Ying has prepared for her.

When Wei Ruo came to the front yard, there were already a number of people standing in the front yard, even Yun’s and Wei Qingwan had come.

“Miss Wei.” A simple looking old man walked up and said to Wei Ruo with a smiling face, “I am the housekeeper of the Xie Mansion, and I came to deliver the return gift to Miss by order of my young master Miss.”

Wei Ruo looked toward a wagon pulling goods behind the Xie Mansion’s steward and asked, “Are these all?”