Chapter 113: harvest beans

Chapter 113: Collecting Beans

Third Grandpa said: "It snowed heavily during the Chinese New Year. The drought has eased. The price of rice, flour and cotton has been falling recently, but why has the price of soybeans increased?"

Seeing this, Gu Jinli didn't understand anything. She said to Shopkeeper Tao: "Shopkeeper, this farmer sells soybeans to your grain store. The most expensive price is five cents per catty. When it's cheap, it's two cents." There is money for one catty, three cents for two catties, but you want us to pay five cents for one catty, which is really a sky-high price, and the price increase is not like this."

She smiled, with disdain in her smile, and said, "Is it because you see us coming here to buy soybeans every day, and you are the only grain store in this town, and you want to take a bite of our meat?"

I must have seen them buying soybeans every day, so I guessed that the tofu was made from soybeans, and seeing that their tofu business was so good, they wanted to increase the price.

 Gu Jinli’s guess was correct. Shopkeeper Tao guessed that their tofu was made of soybeans. Seeing that their business was booming, he wanted to increase the price so that he could make a huge profit.

The Gu family comes to the grain store to buy soybeans every day, and each time he buys three hundred catties of soybeans. With an extra two cents per catty, he can earn an extra six hundred cents a day, which is more than half a tael.

But shopkeeper Tao is a man of honor, so he can increase the price, but if Gu Jinli exposes him, he will not feel comfortable.

Shopkeeper Tao glared at Gu Jinli with an unkind expression, turned to look at Third Grandpa, and said, "Mr. Gu, you come to us every day to buy soybeans. I can't cheat anyone. The price of soybeans has indeed gone up. If you If you don’t believe it, you can go to grain stores in other towns and ask.”

The third grandpa’s face looked very ugly. The meaning of the second half of Tao’s words was already very clear, which was to take advantage of the fact that he only owned a grain store in Qingfu Town and wanted to take a bite of their flesh.

 But if they don’t buy soybeans here, where else can they buy them?

Shopkeeper Tao saw that Third Grandpa was silent and knew that he was in trouble. He immediately started shaking and said to Third Grandpa: "Mr. Gu, your family has been setting up a stall in the town for more than a day or two. You should know that we are the only family in this town." Grain shop, your family will have a stall tomorrow. If you can’t buy beans, will your stall still be able to sell it?”

Shopkeeper Tao's face, which used to be quite good, was now extremely ugly, and even his raised beard gave off a villainous air.

Third Grandpa was angered by Shopkeeper Tao's words, which was clearly a threat.

Luo's father was also very angry. He pointed at shopkeeper Tao and said, "Shopkeeper, when you open a business, you have to pay attention to the long term. If you do this, you will ruin your reputation."

Shopkeeper Tao is not afraid. The Gu family are just victims fleeing famine. What can he do if he bullies them?

What's more, shopkeeper Zeng said that the Gu family has offended the county magistrate, and if he can make the Gu family suffer, the county magistrate will definitely be happy.

"The price of soybeans is this now. If you want to buy it, buy it. If you don't want to buy it, leave." Shopkeeper Tao knew that the Gu family wanted to make tofu, so he was determined to eat it.

Unfortunately, what he responded to was Gu Jinli's words: "You can keep these soybeans to get moldy, we won't buy them!"

“Third Grandpa, let’s go.” Gu Jinli took the lead to walk out of the grain store.

The Third Grandpa and the others saw that she had already spoken out, so they had no choice but to follow her and leave.

The group of people returned to the tofu stall. Mrs. Chu saw that their faces were not good and they did not come back with soybeans, so she hurriedly asked: "What's going on? Where are the soybeans? Why didn't you buy them?"

Luo's father said: "The shopkeeper Tao of the grain store raised the price of soybeans to five cents per catty. He was obviously trying to trick us, so we didn't buy them."

"Five cents a pound, is this shopkeeper Tao crazy?" Mrs. Chu was shocked. Soybeans are the most common thing and can be grown anywhere. And because the coarse grain is difficult to cook, it has always been cheap. The most expensive price was only four cents per catty. The five cents per catty of soybeans was really a sky-high price.

Aunt Tian looked worried: "I didn't buy soybeans, what will I do the day after tomorrow?"

Now that it is cold, they prepare tofu a day in advance, but the tofu at home is only enough to sell for one day, and it will be gone when it is sold out tomorrow. Gu Jinli said: "Let's go home and collect beans. These soybeans are a coarse grain that every household has. We charge three cents, so we must be able to sell a lot of them."

She didn’t believe it. Without Shopkeeper Tao’s grain store, she wouldn’t be able to buy soybeans?

Grandpa No. 3 nodded: "This is a good idea. Come on, let's go home and collect the beans."

Before leaving, Gu Jinli shouted at the market: "Uncles and aunts, our Gu's tofu stall collects soybeans for three cents per catty. If you have soybeans, you can bring them tomorrow, and we will collect as much as you want."

There were many farmers selling agricultural products at the market where they set up stalls. When they heard this, they all asked: "Little girl from the Gu family, do you really want to collect soybeans? Three cents per pound?"

Gu Jinli nodded: "Yes, it's three cents per pound. Our Gu family's stall is here. If you want to sell it, bring it over tomorrow."

A man who was selling soybeans hurriedly said: "No tomorrow, I have two bags of soybeans here, weighing sixty kilograms. If you pay three cents a kilogram, I will sell the soybeans to you now."

His mother-in-law gave birth to a son, but the family was poor and had no money to buy eggs, so he wanted to sell the soybeans at home and buy a basket of eggs to give to the mother-in-law for confinement. But the price offered by the grain store was too low, only three cents for two kilograms. He was reluctant to sell it, so he picked it here, hoping to sell it at a good price. Unexpectedly, this good price really came.

The man carried the soybeans to the Gu family's tofu stall, opened the linen bag and showed them the soybeans inside: "They are all good beans, dried in the sun and not moldy."

Luo's father grabbed two handfuls of soybeans, looked at them, put a few more in his mouth and crushed them. After tasting the taste, he said to Grandpa San: "Uncle San, their soybeans are pretty good, let's buy them."

Third Grandpa also looked at the two bags of soybeans, nodded and said, "Okay, buy them."

 Sixty catties of soybeans cost three cents per catty. The third grandfather counted one hundred and eighty cents for him.

The man took the money and carefully put it into his purse. He smiled and thanked the third grandfather: "Thank you very much, old man. You have helped my family a lot."

Luo's father poured the two sacks of soybeans into the basket, returned the sacks to the man, and the man took the sacks and left.

After this deal was completed, everyone around them knew that they were really harvesting soybeans, and they all said, "Mr. Gu, I also have soybeans. I will bring them to you tomorrow."

“Mr. Gu, I also have soybeans at home. I’ll bring them to you tomorrow. They cost three cents a pound.”

Third Grandpa said: "Okay, three cents per catty, don't worry, I won't overprice you."

 After a while, the group left the town and walked towards Dafeng Village.

They walked very slowly today. Every time they passed a village, Father Luo and Mrs. Chu would go to the village to talk about harvesting soybeans.

By the time they returned to Dafeng Village, they had already harvested four hundred kilograms of soybeans, and the dozen or so villages passing by knew that the Gu family was going to harvest soybeans.

 (End of this chapter)