I must say, after posting that notice, the effect was significant; at least the busybodies were no longer babbling in his presence.
His life once again reduced to the simple cycle of home, field, market.
At Level 6, he could grow tomatoes in his space. He would take the tomatoes grown outside to the market separately and reserve a plot’s worth of space tomatoes every day to make tomato sauce, which he bottled in mineral water bottles, selling two for 50 cents. The sales were pretty good.
At Level 7, he grew peas, lotus roots, and red roses, which allowed for a wider variety of products.
He made pea cakes from peas, osmanthus glutinous rice lotus root slices from lotus roots, and rose cakes from red roses. He planned his activities daily and even built a charcoal-fired oven in the yard to ensure the cakes were crispy. After numerous experiments, the design was perfected, rivaling the purchased electric ovens.
At Level 9, he grew walnuts. He reserved a plot’s worth of daily production for making handmade walnut cakes, also requiring the oven.
At Level 10, he grew apples and strawberries. Strawberries were rare commodities out of season, attracting extra attention, and he would raise his prices accordingly, with the highest going up to 50 cents per pound.
At Level 11, he grew watermelons and soybeans, making watermelon sauce from watermelons and soybean sauce or inducing soybean sprouts from soybeans.
At Level 12, he grew bananas and bamboo shoots. Since he had too much pickled stuff at home, he chose to sell these fresh instead of pickling them. Follow current novels on NoveIＦire.net
At Level 13, he grew peaches and sugarcane. He secretly sold the peaches, and the sugarcane was juiced and boiled into brown sugar for sale. As the sugarcane was quite large and attracting attention, selling brown sugar was much more low-key.
At Level 14, he could grow oranges, selling them like any other fruit. However, during summer, he would take a cart of fruits to park entrances to sell chilled fruit juices. Ice was stored in thermoses, and fruits were juiced using a manual juicer. This sold exceptionally well, especially over the weekends, where selling ten yuan’s worth was considered low.
After reaching Level 15, he could grow grapes, which he then made into wine, bottling it in mineral water bottles to sell at the market. Because of the high cost of sugar, he sold the wine for 50 cents a bottle. Initially, no one bought it, but after he let people taste it, huh?
Once they tasted it, people came to buy daily, but he only brought twenty bottles, no more. After all, given the limited space and household tasks, he needed to cycle through his production.
This made his business better than others’ because he had many more options. He sold not just vegetables but also fruits, wine, pastries, and buns, making and selling whatever was possible. The taste was especially good, and once people ate his vegetables, eating those from others just didn’t feel the same. Hence, he had a particularly high number of returning customers. Initially, it might last by noon, but as the variety and reputation improved, he could sell out by as early as eight in the morning.
As his sales volume increased, naturally, so did his income. On average, he went from earning two or three yuan daily to four or five yuan, and now to seventy to eighty yuan—a qualitative leap indeed. By 1983, he was earning three hundred yuan a month, bringing his total income once again over the one thousand yuan threshold.