"Mom, do you know how much money I made today?" Xu Nian’an took out his money pouch. Calling it a pouch was a bit generous—it was actually just a small cloth bag sewn from scraps by Ji Ying for them to carry things in.
"How much?" Ji Ying asked casually, as she was almost done with a piece of land and had already started cooking dinner.
Ji Ying thought, for Xu Nian’an and Xu Nian’an’s mung bean jelly sales, making even one yuan would be very impressive.
"Guess," Xu Nian’an teased.
Xu Nianhua looked at her younger brother affectionately. Unlike their straightforward and simple eldest brother, Nian’an was the mischievous type.
Ji Ying guessed a number she believed to be impossible.
After all, Xu Nianji at the brick factory worked hard all day and only made one yuan.
"More than that," Xu Nian’an said, his smile bright.
Ji Ying raised her eyebrows and added fifty cents.
"Nian’an, you had only one bucket of mung bean jelly today. Could it really have sold for five yuan?" Ji Ying felt her heart skip a beat. What did earning five yuan in one day mean?
Thirty days a month, that would be one hundred and fifty yuan a month!
That, that was an unimaginable number.
"Mom, you better count it yourself."
Seeing Ji Ying guess back and forth and still not get it right, Xu Nian’an simply placed the money in Ji Ying’s hand—there were fifty-cent, ten-cent, twenty-cent coins, and even a one-yuan bill; a small stack of money, all in Ji Ying’s hand.
"Is, is this what you made today?" Ji Ying felt dizzy.
She, she, she wasn’t seeing things, right?
This money, it looked like more than five yuan.
Ji Ying counted the money three times before she dared to believe it was truly seven yuan and fifty cents!
"We also gave a few bowls to Grandma Cai and the first lady who bought some, quite a few bowls indeed," Xu Nianhua recounted, tallying up on his fingers. If they hadn’t given away those three bowls, they would have made eight yuan today.
Excluding the cost of brown sugar, they made at least seven yuan.
"How much did you sell each bowl for?" Ji Ying’s heart in her chest beat even faster.
No wonder the two kids had rushed to the hill to pick fruit jelly as soon as they got home.
Xu Nianhua had barely finished speaking when Ji Ying’s eyebrows nearly leaped off her face, "That expensive, and you sold out?"
"Mom, twenty cents isn’t expensive. It’s hard work making it!"
"Besides, every bowl we give others is more than full!"
Xu Nianhua felt she was quite generous!
In the future, mung bean jelly that costs three to four yuan a bowl is everywhere.
Now selling for only twenty cents, she hadn’t even raised the price to thirty cents yet!
If Xu Nian’an knew what Xu Nianhua was thinking, he would be shocked speechless; he felt guilty about setting the price at twenty cents, constantly insisting Xu Nianhua fill the bowls generously, completely full, otherwise, he felt uneasy!
That night, when Xu Qinghe found out they’d made seven yuan and fifty cents, he was also surprised. He said with a laugh, "The bucket I made yesterday wasn’t for nothing."
He hadn’t slept most of the night, rushing to finish making those two buckets.
"Dad, Mom, looking at this, we’ll be able to save up for our school fees very soon," Xu Nian’an said, no longer feeling like he should give up on school.
During the summer vacation, by taking the opportunity to sell more mung bean jelly, he still wanted to go to school, because only by getting an education and learning more could he earn even more money in the future.
"Good, keep up the good work," Xu Qinghe encouraged them, not saying much else. He saw clearly that mung bean jelly was something every household could make. Today was the first day, perhaps people were just intrigued by something new. After a few days, when more people started making it, it wouldn’t be so easy to earn as much.