Not far from the Zhang Family is the Gou Family, and Old Mrs. Gou was scolding someone: "You’re brainless, you just can’t keep your cool. You’ve messed things up like this, how can we talk to the Zhang Family about renting the house? You’re only good at ruining things."
Old Mrs. Gou had originally planned to wait until Granny Zhang was about to leave, and she would personally go over to discuss renting her house.
She knew that person well; she wasn’t petty. The more respect you showed her, the nicer she was in return. As long as the rental was agreed upon, once they moved in, everything else would be easy to negotiate.
Unexpectedly, her own foolish daughter-in-law messed things up like this. From what Old Mrs. Gou knew about Granny Zhang, she feared the house couldn’t be rented anymore.
Looking at her daughter-in-law standing there all dejected made her even angrier: "Get out, get out, just don’t get in my way here."
Once her daughter-in-law left, she took a look at her own yard and started thinking of solutions.
After a long while, she finally made up her mind; she had to make a last-ditch effort. After all, if her grandson couldn’t get a house, the marriage wouldn’t happen. In their area, aside from the Zhang Family, everyone else faced housing shortages. She also knew that their family wasn’t the only one eyeing the Zhang Family’s house.
Now, regardless of whether this succeeds or not, she had to swallow her pride and go over to apologize.
Maybe in the future, there would still be a chance for reconciliation. If she pretended nothing had happened and acted oblivious, there would likely be no chance left with the Zhang Family’s yard.
Granny Zhang, however, was unaware that Old Mrs. Gou was planning to take a roundabout approach.
After finishing their meal, the three of them were heading to a village two miles from the town. That village had a fruit orchard that produced all sorts of fruits. Besides exporting them, locals could also come and buy.
When they arrived at the orchard, the village was organizing people to pick fruits. The person in charge happened to know Granny Zhang and came over to greet her: "Aunt Zhang, you’ve come."
Granny Zhang smiled and nodded at the person: "The village is picking fruits today."
The person in charge nodded with a smile: "Yes, all this area has been ordered. The buyers are coming with trucks to pick up the goods tomorrow, so we have to harvest all the fruits today."
Granny Zhang looked at the people busy both up in the trees and down below: "This year’s harvest looks lovely. Once they’re sold, life will be a bit better for the villagers."
The person in charge knocked his pipe a few times against the nearby tree: "Aunt Zhang, you’re here for?"
Granny Zhang knew they were busy: "Didn’t the village ship out the grapes a few days ago? I came to see if there were any racks left, I wanted to buy some to try."
People nearby usually waited until the fruits were sold before coming to buy the leftover ones with slightly lesser quality. This was cheaper and saved them from being called wasteful.
The man laughed: "Aunt Zhang, since you’re here, we definitely have some. I’ll have someone guide you over. All the grapes from the vineyard have been harvested. Whatever’s left on the racks, you can pick whichever bunch you like."
Then, he waved to a young man nearby: "Xiao Liu, take Aunt Zhang and them over to the vineyard to have a look."
Upon hearing this, the villagers understood what it meant: "Got it, leader."
Xinyan and the others followed the man to the vineyard, where the good-looking grapes had all been shipped out, leaving those with slightly worse appearance. When the surrounding people came to buy, whatever was left would be taken back to the village committee and distributed among the villagers.
They clipped enough for the next few days and stopped. The grapes were quite fresh, but there weren’t many grapes on each bunch, so they simply used scissors to clip them off directly.
As they left, they also bought some small apples. The good-looking fruits had to first be handed to the commune. Only after fulfilling the obligatory delivery could the rest be sold outside.