Bending down, he covered the lid of the bamboo basket, and young Ling Tianze happened to see the small heart-shaped birthmark near Yu Xinyan’s shoulder neck, and he remembered this kindness in his heart.
His grandma was still waiting for this money to save her life, so he didn’t delay any longer. He took the items Yu Xinyan gave him, bowed to her, and turned around to merge into the crowd.
After wandering for a while, Yu Xinyan bought a few jin of lean meat and ribs and also purchased some pieces of coarse cloth, planning to make bed sheets.
Once she finished her errands, she found Brother Gu Zi, the small head of the black market.
Brother Gu Zi had just gotten the news from his men: "Sister, you finally came, please come inside quickly."
After Yu Xinyan entered, Brother Gu Zi enthusiastically poured her some water: "Sister, have some water. What good stuff did you bring this time?"
Yu Xinyan didn’t want to waste time here, so she directly took out some mulberries and apricots along with some vegetables from her bamboo basket: "Just these, see if you want them and what price you can offer."
At first, Brother Gu Zi was a bit disappointed: "Sister, these things are fresh, but honestly, I’m not short of them."
While saying this, he reached out to put a mulberry into his mouth, thinking about what price to offer due to the profits they made last time. But his eyes lit up.
He couldn’t help but reach out again to put another mulberry into his mouth: "Damn, these mulberries are really damn good."
After saying this, he swallowed the mulberry in his mouth and picked up an apricot to eat. His eyes opened wide with excitement: "Sister, how much do you have? I, Brother Gu Zi, will take it all. Rest assured about the price; I won’t let you suffer a loss."
Yu Xinyan was quite pleased with his reaction: "I have nine hundred jin of apricots, one hundred and fifty jin of mulberries, and over two hundred jin of each kind of vegetable, though not much."
Brother Gu Zi grinned ear to ear upon hearing the quantity: "Alright, Sister, the quality of these goods is indeed excellent. On the market, apricots usually sell for two cents a jin, and that’s for big ones. The small ones are at most a cent. But your apricots not only look good but taste good too. I’ll give you three and a half cents, how about that?"
Yu Xinyan wasn’t greedy; given the current market situation, what Brother Gu Zi offered wasn’t low. She nodded and said, "Okay."
Seeing Yu Xinyan’s straightforwardness as always, Brother Gu Zi didn’t hesitate: "The quality of these mulberries is also quite good, not just big but juicy, and the taste is impeccable. Sister, mulberries are rarer than apricots. I’ll give you four cents for them, okay?"
Yu Xinyan had no objection, and as for the vegetables, all kinds of vegetables not yet grown in the fields were bought at one and a half cents, and the rest at six cents per jin. Brother Gu Zi’s price was fair.
After agreeing on the delivery location, Yu Xinyan asked him to get her a small briquette stove, a double-handled iron pot, a handled frying pan, and a stew pot, with lids, and finally asked for some enamel mugs and enamel basins. Only then was it complete.
Brother Gu Zi agreed quickly, setting the time and place for the supply drop, and only then did Yu Xinyan leave.
The weather now was already suitable for a noon break, so they agreed to meet at noon. After all, there were no houses near the forest, and no one would be there in the middle of the day.
Seeing it was still early, Yu Xinyan went to the supply and marketing cooperative, using the coupons exchanged for fish earlier, to buy some soap, white sugar, brown sugar, soy sauce, vegetable oil, and quite a bit of salt. On the shelves, there was also Seagull shampoo and Universal Balm, and since she had coupons, she bought them too.
Unexpectedly, as she walked out of the supply and marketing cooperative, she ran into the Grandson of Gousheng: "You came to the town too?"
The Grandson of Gousheng was delighted to see Yu Xinyan, and Master Gousheng nervously asked: "Miss, you said before you wanted those flowers, herbs, and wild fruit trees from the mountain. I’ve found quite a few. Do you still want them?"
Yu Xinyan smiled: "I do."
The two sides agreed to meet at the town fair next Sunday, then parted.
She quickly walked to the agreed place with Brother Gu Zi and his group. Before collecting the apricots, Yu Xinyan had already bought more than ten baskets at Upper River Village and even made a reservation for over thirty more, with the promise to pick them up later.
Upon reaching the location, she first found a relatively hidden spot to wait for them to arrive.
When she heard movement outside, she took out all the items from the space.
When Brother Gu Zi came in with the cart, it was loaded with more than a dozen baskets, all new, as per Yu Xinyan’s rules. She didn’t want to exchange her new baskets for a few shabby ones.
The men on Brother Gu Zi’s side were efficient, and they quickly finished weighing. The total came to four hundred and ninety-six, but Brother Gu Zi was accommodating and rounded it up to five hundred.
Yu Xinyan didn’t want to take advantage, so she used the bamboo basket as a cover to take out apricots and mulberries she kept for herself from the space, making up four yuan worth of goods.
Brother Gu Zi directly gave her a thumbs up: "You’ve got standards."