Mang village.
In this quiet and peaceful village, the sound of insects and birds singing could even be heard during daytime.
It was now in June, the midst of summer, also the busiest season in a year. This place was located at 22 degrees north latitude, with no coldness in winter, no heat in summer. All seasons here were like spring. Various crops could be grown throughout the year.
The people in the village were peasants who worked on the farmland from sunrise until sunset. At this time, almost all of them were farming.
During more than two months here, He Xiyan had eaten eight to nine locally raised chickens and ducks together with a lot of fresh fish. After that, her health gradually improved and her face became ruddy as well.
She was gradually adapted to such a simple life without intrigue, which, although boring, was indeed quiet.
Chen Jiahang was unexpectedly good to her, leaving delicious food for her every day. He also bought her a lot of things she needed and clothes as well. Though cheap, they were actually the best things he could give her.
At this time, she was in the kitchen, taking out the long beans that had just been boiled into a plastic basin, which filled a whole basin full. Then she took the basin of beans to the door and hung them one by one on the slender bamboo pole.
After being dried, these beans could be preserved for a long time, which were good for cooking and eating.
Authentic farm dishes.
After that, she went back to the kitchen to cut the chili peppers, the small red ones, rather hot. She cut them very quickly, soon filling a large pot.
After cutting the peppers, she cut some ginger shreds and garlic balls, and mixed them into the peppers together with some rapeseed oil and salt.
Then she put these peppers into 350ml bottles and sealed them well. She filled 11 bottles with this pot of peppers.
She didn’t know why she knew how to do this. Maybe she knew it before, or maybe she was born in the countryside. After all, she seemed to be able to do some farm work and cook some local dishes.
Jiahang said that at the entrance of the village, there was a merchant who dealt with farm products intending to order the bottled pepper she made. He even offered a price as high as three and half yuan per one bottle.
The 20 bottles she made last time were sold for 60 yuan.
It was very difficult to make money in the village because it was far from the city. Everyone was self-sufficient here. Once or twice a week, merchants dealing with farm products and medicine would come to the village. Usually they would buy some local products from them, including chickens, ducks, eggs, dried bacon, dried fish as well as rare herbs. During harvest time, they would also buy some grains.
Merchants, however, were all profit pursuers, who offered a quite low price when buying things. The purchase price for a locally raised chicken was only 20 to 25 yuan, which was sold at over 100 yuan in the city. The local eggs were purchased from them at only 0.3 yuan each. Some herbs were indeed of higher price, which, after all, were only a few.
The vegetables and fruits they grew, because of the high transportation cost as well as the short freshness lifetime, merchants were usually reluctant to purchase. After all, they were also cheap in the city, so small batches were not profitable.
Farmers couldn’t sell these vegetables by themselves because this place was too remote, nearly 200 kilometers away from the county center and even 300 to 400 kilometers away from the prefecture-level city. With no train available, there was only a road which was not broad. With inconvenient traffic, they couldn’t sell those things they grew themselves.
Now the main source of income in his family was from the three mu fish pond, which was left by Jiahang’s father. There were many fish in the pond, mainly grass carp, crucian carp and bullhead.
Previously, these fish were mainly made into dried fish and sold to merchants at a low price. In recent two to three years, with the arrival of some tourists who came to experience the rural life and camp in the countryside, the activity of fishing began to arise here.