Chapter 169: Chapter 169: Got an Idea Chapter 169: Chapter 169: Got an Idea Gu Ya left just like that.
Su Yunjin continued to contemplate ways to make money, with her second sister Su Ningxiu and Su Xiaobao both offering ideas. Su Ningxiu said, “Little Sister, why don’t we go dig up wild vegetables in the village?”
The tavern in town was buying wild vegetables, and selling them could indeed earn a few copper coins.
Digging up wild vegetables would not earn many copper coins each time; if they relied on this to make money, it might take three or two years to redeem her older brother’s indenture contract.
Su Yunjin rejected her second sister’s suggestion.
Su Xiaobao pondered for a long time, then remembered that someone in the village caught fish they couldn’t finish eating and would take them to the market to sell. Thus, with an innocent expression, Xiaobao proposed, “Second Sister, Third Sister, why don’t we catch fish? If we catch plenty of fish in the river and sell them at the market, we can redeem our older brother.”
A single fish wouldn’t fetch much money at the market; moreover, catching fish in the river depended on luck and was not guaranteed every time.
Last time, they, the three siblings, spent the whole morning fishing in the river and didn’t even catch many. Relying on fish sales to gather money for their brother’s redemption was certainly impractical.
Second sister Su Ningxiu and Su Yunjin thought alike; both disapproved of Xiaobao’s idea. Xiaobao could see that his third sister and second sister didn’t seem to agree with him. His little face immediately drooped, “Second Sister, then what kind of method should we use to make money?”
Su Zhongshi was an honest person, having spent most of his life farming. Apart from farming, Su Zhongshi couldn’t think of any other way to make money. Listening to his daughters’ discussion, Su Zhongshi felt that it was all due to his incompetence, as he couldn’t even protect his own son and daughter, and he sat there sighing continuously.
In ancient times, there was the principle of living off the land or water available to you, which Su Yunjin understood. The Su family’s village was surrounded by many rivers with an abundance of water, and the most common things found were fish and shrimp.
These things weren’t worth much by themselves, but if one could figure out a way to turn them into something valuable, then they could make a decent profit with minimal cost.
At noon, Su Yunjin saw her mother Mrs. Shen taking out two fish from the water bucket to butcher and immediately went over, “Mother, weren’t there still leftover fish from yesterday? Why are you butchering more fish?”
And she was killing two at once!
The two fish in Mrs. Shen’s hands were not small. Butchering both would certainly be too much for one meal; Mrs. Shen had wanted to keep the fish in the bucket for a few more days, but when she checked at noon, she found both fish floating on the water’s surface, dead. If she didn’t butcher both now and left them in the water, they would likely spoil.
“Yunjin, both fish are dead. If I don’t butcher them to eat now, they will spoil,” Mrs. Shen said. Only then did Su Yunjin belatedly realize that the two fish were indeed dead.
As Mrs. Shen efficiently gutted the fish, she added, “This fish has marks from being pinched by a crab’s pincers; they were probably injured when you put the fish and crabs together that day.”
Looking down at the fish her mother was processing, Su Yunjin suddenly thought of a way to make money. Her eyes lit up; maybe this idea could actually work.
“Mother, I have an idea! I’ve thought of a way to make money.”
Mrs. Shen paused in her butchering, instinctively looking towards Su Yunjin, “Yunjin, what idea have you come up with?”