As soon as Liu Sanmei heard this, she couldn’t sit still and quickly walked back home.
Watching her hurried departure, Auntie Hu chuckled to herself, saying, "Liu Sanmei, you always praise how accomplished your grandson is, but didn’t Xu Zhihao just marry a city girl? What’s so great about that? To be blunt, what’s the difference between Xu Zhihao and a son-in-law who marries into the wife’s family?"
"Humph, I think the Xu Qinghe family will have great prospects in the future."
Auntie Hu thought of this, and the smile on her lips grew wider. Liu Sanmei would definitely regret splitting from the Xu Qinghe family. The more she regretted it, the happier Auntie Hu would be!
Zhao Juxiang was in the kitchen, cooking with an unhappy expression. Hearing the noise of her mother-in-law Liu Sanmei’s return, she thought she had heard wrongly. She came out to see and found Liu Sanmei rummaging through things.
"Mom, what are you in such a hurry to find?"
Zhao Juxiang asked curiously.
"Where did we put the dried chili peppers?" Liu Sanmei only remembered that they had quite a few dried chili peppers at home.
Ji Ying was very diligent; every year, they could save a lot of dried chilies at home.
Zhao Juxiang asked, "Do we still have dried chili peppers? What do you need those for?"
"To sell for money. Haven’t you heard? Ji Ying is helping others collect chili peppers, and she didn’t even give us a heads up about such a good opportunity."
When Liu Sanmei thought about how she had heard the news from the Hu Family instead, she felt suppressively annoyed.
Ji Ying always called her "mom"; how could she not have thought of her on such a good occasion?
"Collecting chili peppers? Can it really make money?" Zhao Juxiang immediately thought of this point.
"Of course," Liu Sanmei said. "Wet red chili peppers are three cents a pound, but dried red chili peppers can sell for two Yuan a pound."
Liu Sanmei tried hard to recall where exactly they had put the dried red chili peppers.
Hearing about money, Zhao Juxiang’s eyes instantly lit up. As if she had just remembered, she said, "I think they’re hanging underneath the roof beam."
Liu Sanmei recalled that, indeed, to preserve dried chili peppers, it wasn’t easy; they needed to be in a dry and ventilated place without getting rained on.
When not in use, they were hung up, which kept them dry and well ventilated; they would take some down when needed for cooking.
"I’ll go get the wet red chili peppers," Zhao Juxiang said, and she took a large basket to fill with red chili peppers. She didn’t care about picking only the best; as long as it had some red or was tinged with red, she stuffed it into the basket. Each bright red chili pepper transformed into money in Zhao Juxiang’s eyes.
"Aren’t you cooking?" Liu Sanmei watched her actions and said, "Let Qingjiang do it. You go cook; I’m starving to death."
"I can do this." Xu Qingjiang, who was originally sitting in the yard enjoying the cool air, volunteered to take over Liu Sanmei’s task after hearing her words.
She didn’t want to cook.
After dinner, Liu Sanmei and Zhao Juxiang, carrying the chili peppers, went upstairs to see them.
The Ji Ying family had just finished dinner, and people were already delivering chili peppers.
Xu Nianhua and Xu Nian’an, the siblings, weren’t around because of the busy affairs, which didn’t seem to bother them.
Xu Qinghe was making a bean sprout bucket on the side.
Xu Nianji, Zhou He, and Ji Ying were all sorting the chili peppers. If they were dirty, they would wipe them down and place them on bamboo drying trays.
When the sun was hot the next day, they would just take them out to dry.
The chili peppers were freshly picked and had not been treated with pesticides; they were fundamentally clean.
Liu Sanmei and her group arrived just at the right moment. She placed the chili peppers in front of them, including the dried and wet ones, and with a pointed remark, she said, "Qinghe, even if we’re separated, one stroke can’t make two Xu characters."