Forget about buying two sets of school uniforms, we can't even buy two pairs of socks!
For the sake of her child, this poor woman had no choice but to go back to her parents' home to borrow money.
When she arrived at her parents' home, they insisted that a married daughter should not be supported by her parents' family and told her to go to the city to ask her husband for money.
What's even more outrageous is her brother, who actually implied to his older sister that many women are making a lot of money by making videos of themselves wiggling their hips online. He said that if she wanted, he could help her make videos, since with the filters and beauty effects turned up to the maximum, even a peasant woman could become a fairy!
We can just give him half of the money we earn...
Upon returning home, the heartbroken mother used the money she earned from selling vegetables to buy her two children the Coke they had been longing for. After watching them finish drinking it, she grabbed them and jumped into the river...
Thinking of this, Jiang Xiaoman felt a pang of sadness. Turning her head, she saw Lang Ying squatting on the ground, sorting through the freshly dug bok choy. She was probably planning to set up a stall to earn some money while sending her child to school in town.
I almost forgot, there are no more mountain products or local honey now, and his courier station has also temporarily closed. Not to mention other odd jobs, even Lang Ying, who has a formal job in the cooperative, is now just like him, receiving a guaranteed monthly salary of 1,200 yuan.
This amount of money is indeed enough to live on each month in the countryside, but Lang Ying still has two children who need to go to school.
The daycare center in town costs 1,000 yuan a month for two children.
Without further hesitation, Jiang Xiaoman summoned Jiang Yu, Lang Ying, and Shan Ying to the courier station that very evening.
"Make kimchi? With the pickled kimchi we have here, how can it fetch a good price?"
Although Yama-Ying herself often buys things online, most of them are children's clothes, shoes, and socks. Kimchi is something that every household can make, so who would spend money to buy it?
"Hey! Brother Xiaoman! Are you finally going to make kimchi? Hurry up! Reserve two for me first, no, I want six big jars!" Kong Feifei appeared on the first floor at some point.
Everyone was startled.
"Hehe~ I heard crickets chirping outside, so I wanted to catch a couple to take back for my little cousin to play with." Kong Feifei said shyly, taking out the empty mineral water bottle in her hand.
"Feifei, tell me first, what do you think of my kimchi? If I were to sell it, would anyone buy it?"
"What do you mean, no? Let me tell you, Brother Xiaoman, I've wanted to say this for a long time. Actually, we don't know how to cook the mountain products your family sells. We always take them back to our parents to cook for us."
"But there are so many single people like me in the city now. We all live alone. Asking us to cook is just asking us to be difficult."
"Brother Xiaoman, please! Sell less of the mountain produce! Just make the finished products!" Kong Feifei pleaded with him, even showing him her purchase history—
"Look, there are so many places selling these kinds of farm-style vegetables online now! I've bought watermelon sauce from Henan, soybean paste from Northeast China, pickled taro sprouts from Yunnan, and this spicy papaya shreds from Hunan... Let me tell you, Brother Xiaoman, your fans' purchasing power hasn't even fully exploded yet. Believe me, if you start selling your kimchi, everyone can help you get into the top 100 of the sales rankings in no time!"
"Really?" Jiang Xiaoman couldn't help but be tempted.
Who wouldn't want to be in the top 100 of the live-streaming e-commerce rankings?
"Or if you're not comfortable with that, you could do a pre-sale first~ Anyway, I heard that your kimchi is quick to make. You can do a pre-sale first, and then decide how much to make based on the sales data. That way, you can minimize the losses and see if anyone actually wants to buy this kimchi~" Kong Feifei urged him desperately.
The reason is simple: she absolutely adores the sour, spicy, and slightly sweet kimchi that Jiang Xiaoman makes!
She had already decided that she would buy as much as possible to take back with her when she left!
This tea is a perfect match whether you eat it as a snack or use it as a side dish with grilled meat!
Thinking of the frenzy of fans in the live stream who snapped up the items, Kong Feifei couldn't help but step forward and grasp Jiang Xiaoman's hands. "Brother Xiaoman, this idea was mine! I don't care! If the kimchi is put on the shelves, you have to give me a back door. I won't go to the live stream to grab it. If I can't get it from those bandits, can I just transfer money to you via WeChat?"
“Sure! And if we make kimchi, maybe I can even let Grandma Jiang earn some pocket money with us.” Jiang Xiaoman readily agreed.
The most important part of making kimchi is the pickling process. He won't share this recipe with anyone; he plans to find a few trustworthy people to help him with the pickling process.
However, many of the preliminary tasks can be outsourced, such as picking, washing, chopping, and drying vegetables, and almost everyone in the village can do these tasks.
The most interesting thing is that almost every household in Langshan raises pigs. In order to feed the pigs, many families have opened up very large vegetable gardens and planted a lot of sweet potatoes. Sweet potato vines and sweet potatoes are foods that pigs love to eat.
Thinking of the sweet potato vines, the most important ingredient in his homemade kimchi, Jiang Xiaoman couldn't help but laugh: Was he trying to steal food from a pig's mouth?
Never mind, anyway, if there are no sweet potato vines, the villagers can still go up the mountain to gather pig feed. Isn't that how we got by before?
He refused to believe that as long as sweet potato vines could be sold for money, would ordinary people be willing to cut them down to feed their pigs?
Let's do it!
Jiang Xiaoman doesn't understand politeness at all. In order to "let guests experience real mountain village life up close," Boss Jiang waved his hand and temporarily requisitioned seven poor fans to help him set up his kimchi business!
When Jiang Xiaoman mentioned wanting to make kimchi with the villagers and sell it online, Jiang Youtian slammed his fist on the table and immediately turned on the village's loudspeaker.
Anyway, it's the off-season for farming now. At this time, the students have all gone to school, and the adults at home have nothing to do. Let's all come to the village for a meeting!
Unlike the previous times when they had to go door-to-door to mobilize people, this time, upon hearing that Jiang Xiaoman was collecting goods again, the villagers didn't even hear clearly what was being collected before they quickly changed their shoes and rushed to the village committee for a meeting.
Jiang Xiaoman first gave the villagers a heads-up, explaining that he wouldn't buy immediately, but would first assess the pre-sales situation and then decide the quantity of vegetables to purchase based on the online sales volume.
The reason for giving advance notice was mainly because we were worried that the villagers might carelessly cut down the sweet potato vines and other ingredients for making pickles, which would be a waste to feed the pigs.
"If I'm going to buy these, I mainly need mountain chili peppers, young ginger shoots, sweet potato vines, small red chilies, cabbage, cucumber twists, long beans, and flat beans."
"Of course, if you have time and go up the mountain to dig up wild scallions, pagoda vegetables, celery, bamboo shoots, etc., as long as they can be pickled, I'll buy them all."
"Don't worry, everyone. By the day after tomorrow at the latest, I will post the types of vegetables and wild vegetables that need to be purchased, as well as the purchase prices, at the entrance of the express station, which is where you usually wait for the bus. If you have too many vegetables at home that you can't eat, you can sell them to me."
"However, dear uncles, aunts, and sisters-in-law, let me be frank with you: I'm buying these vegetables to make pickles and sell to people. If they're not good and make someone sick, I'll have to pay compensation."
"So the reason I invited everyone here today is to tell you all to be careful when you're buying vegetables. Don't bring any that have been sprayed with pesticides or have bugs in them. Keep them for your own pigs. Otherwise, if you go through all that trouble to carry them here, and they don't meet my purchasing standards, and I make you carry them back, wouldn't that be playing games with you?"
The crowd burst into laughter, and some even jeered, saying that not only should they not be sprayed with pesticides, but they also shouldn't be sold to people for food if they've just been fertilized with manure.
Even though they are poor in the countryside, no one would do something so harmful.
If we sell to passersby, it's fine, since they're all villagers. But if things get out of hand, they'll gossip about us behind our backs.
Jiang Xiaoman knew that most villagers cared about their reputation, and he deliberately brought it up during the meeting because he knew this.
Don't assume everyone in the village is of one mind; there can be some unpleasantness between neighbors. He made it clear from the start that if anyone secretly brings vegetables that have just been sprayed with pesticides to sell at his place, there might be righteous people who can't stand it, or people who have a conflict with this family, who might take the initiative to come to him to report them.
This mutual oversight will alleviate the pressure on him during the acquisition process.
After the meeting, Jiang Xiaoman took a few fans who came to help and prepared to go up the mountain to pick some commonly used ingredients for making kimchi, and also to shoot a video to drive traffic for the pre-sale.
The fans were both surprised and delighted.
They originally thought that Jiang Xiaoman had brought them here to make kimchi, but how would they know how?
But going to the mountains to pick wild vegetables, that's a great idea!
Isn't this exactly why they worked so hard to grab a spot?
Wild vegetables, here I come!!!
Chapter 172
Seeing several fans rubbing their hands together, figuring out which wild vegetables they could use to make pickles, Jiang Xiaoman had to tell them a "cruel" truth—
"There aren't many wild vegetables in the mountains that can be used to make pickles this season. At most, there are pagoda greens, lily bulbs, and wild garlic."
"The vegetables for making kimchi need to be plump and tender. They mainly use vegetables grown by local people. However, my family doesn't have a vegetable garden down the mountain. The vegetable garden behind the express delivery station is just for our own consumption. We don't grow much there. If we want to make kimchi, we have to go up the mountain. We grow a lot of vegetables there."
"So can we come to your house to play, Brother Xiaoman?" The fans were even more surprised.
"Yes! We'll have lunch at my house today. I've already asked my dad to cook some cornmeal. On the way back, we'll pick some wild vegetables and stir-fry them for you to try."
And so, these lucky fans became the first among Jiang Xiaoman's more than one million fans to visit this "mountain path overgrown with wild vegetables"...
"Ahhh! What kind of treasure is this road? Why are there wild vegetables everywhere? And is that a wild hawthorn tree? And is that a wild grape over there?" One of the fans, a boy who likes outdoor sports, discovered the secret of this mountain road as soon as he entered the mountains.
"Hehe~ You found out? Actually, I transplanted and planted all these wild vegetables and fruit trees little by little from when I was a child," Jiang Xiaoman explained.
His family is now the only one left on this mountain.
In other words, apart from villagers who go into the mountains to find bamboo shoots and mushrooms, almost no one uses this road.
Jiang Xiaoman has always been very good at time management, and he doesn't even waste the time on his way to and from school. From elementary school to junior high school, as long as it wasn't windy or rainy, he often carried a small basket in addition to his schoolbag. The basket contained a small hoe, as well as wild fruit seedlings, wild vegetable roots, and other things that he dug up along the way. Wherever he saw an empty space, he would plant them.
Over time, this ordinary mountain path became Jiang Xiaoman's own path, overgrown with wild vegetables and fruits.
Although they are called wild vegetables and fruits, everyone in the village knows that Jiang Xiaoman planted this road bit by bit, and wild vegetables can be found everywhere in the mountains, so the villagers will not come to dig up the vegetables he grows.
Seeing that the group was eager to try, Jiang Xiaoman smiled, took out the prepared work gloves, plastic bags and scissors from her basket, and began to teach them how to pick wild vegetables.
“We mountain people usually pinch them directly with our fingernails, but the juice of many wild vegetables can stain the skin, and some can even be corrosive to the skin. It would be bad if it caused an allergic reaction. You should wear gloves and use scissors to cut them so that you won’t touch your skin.”
As Jiang Xiaoman spoke, she picked up a clump of duck feet from the roadside—
"This is duck foot, it's delicious stir-fried with cured meat or chili threads. Look, there are tender shoots inside. When picking it, use scissors to cut it along the root. As long as you don't damage the tender shoots above the root, it will sprout again after a while."
Bracken shoots are no longer available this season, but prickly greens are in their prime.
This wild vegetable is covered with a layer of menacing-looking thorns. When Jiang Xiaoman was a child, he was most afraid of encountering this thorny vegetable when he helped his father cut pig feed. If it touched his hands or arms, a large area of skin would immediately become red and swollen, and it would be both painful and itchy!
However, who would have thought that after blanching, this thing would be a perfect ingredient for stir-frying cured meat?
Jiang Xiaoman was prepared. She took out work gloves, put them on, and together with her fans, cut a whole bag full of tender leaves of prickly ash. The old leaves of this vegetable are too tough to chew, so you have to get the tender green leaves that have just grown.
After picking the spiny greens and blanching them, the sharp thorns on the leaves will soften. Then, wash them repeatedly under running water, squeeze out the water, chop them up, and they're ready to be used in stir-fries.
"The prickly ash buns are also delicious. When we come down the mountain this afternoon, let's pick more. I'll make you prickly ash and pork belly buns for dinner. There's no time now, so let's pick some more water celery and then go upstairs to cook."
Water celery is even easier to pick. Just grab a handful along the root, cut it off at the root, remove the old leaves, wash it clean, and you can eat it with the stems and leaves.
When I got home, I saw that Jiang Youliang had already set out a whole coffee table full of tea, fruit and snacks in his small living room, and had also brewed a large pot of refreshing and thirst-quenching herbal tea.
This herbal tea is a common summer drink for people in the mountains. It's very easy to make: simply boil some honeysuckle, wild chrysanthemum, selfheal, and dandelion root that you've sun-dried yourself for about ten minutes, then add two spoonfuls of honey from your own farm, stir well, and filter out the tea residue. It tastes great whether it's at room temperature or chilled.
The best part is that it's free!
After all, the herbal tea sold in the small shop is quite expensive; a small jar can cost several yuan, and people in the mountains are reluctant to spend money to buy herbal tea.
Since the renovation of the guest rooms began, Jiang Youliang has been brewing a large pot of herbal tea for the workers almost every day.
Because of the large quantity needed, he dug up a lot of dandelions and dried them this year, and also picked a lot of honeysuckle and dried them. He will have to wait a while for the selfheal and wild chrysanthemums to ripen.
Life in the mountains is like this: planting in spring and harvesting in autumn. The mountain people follow the customs passed down from their ancestors, collecting all the supplies they need for life little by little as the seasons change.
If life becomes extremely difficult, they can go for months without going down the mountain to spend money, as long as they still have salt at home, they won't starve to death in the mountains.
Fans were captivated by Jiang Youliang's simple and unpretentious mountain life.
Especially after visiting the newly renovated guesthouse rooms at Jiang's place, several people said that they didn't want to wait for the signboard to be officially opened; they wanted to pay and reserve the rooms for two months from now!
“No need to pay now. How about this, I won’t disband this group yet. After my guest room has been ventilated for a while and the formaldehyde has mostly dissipated, I’ll give you guys some insider prices. If you have time, come and have some fun,” Jiang Xiaoman said with a smile.
"Waaaaah~ Brother Xiaoman, are you really not going to consider me? I'm willing to be your girlfriend! A woman three years older than you is like holding a gold brick! Are you really not going to consider me?" Kong Feifei looked at Jiang Xiaoman with tears in her eyes.
What a great boyfriend candidate he is!
He owns a mountain and a house, is good at making money, has sound values, is good-looking, and can even cook... Isn't this the real high-quality male?