I Got Rich in Period Fiction

Chapter 20: Chapter 20 Heading to the Big Market Chapter 20: Chapter 20 Heading to the Big Market Qiao Qingyu first delivered gifts to Sister-in-law Li, not only dried goods and millet cakes but also chili sauce. Sister-in-law Li had wanted to decline, but recently her family indeed only had soybean paste and half a jar of pickles left.

The base’s logistics would still take half a month to deliver supplies.

She could manage all right, but it was not the same for her son.

Xiao Hu was at a growing age and couldn’t just eat pickles every day like the adults.

She accepted the food Qiao Qingyu gave her, which included dried green beans, mushrooms and wood ear fungus, along with a few green onions. Sister-in-law Li was usually straightforward, but in her moved state, she suddenly didn’t know what to say.

Deep down, she had truly come to see Qiao Qingyu as a younger sister.

…

At noon, Qiao Qingyu finally made herself a delicious lunch.

She steamed a small basin of millet rice and stir-fried a dish with dried green beans, dried potatoes, and pickled meat that had been soaked overnight. She indulged in making half a dish of daylilies and, after some thought, Qiao Qingyu made egg drop soup, painfully plucked a few bok choy leaves to add to the soup, with golden egg blossoms and tender green bok choy leaves stirring one’s appetite just by looking.

She placed all the food on the only but scrupulously cleaned old table in the room, then sat down.

She couldn’t help but sigh. Since transmigrating into this book, she had finally been able to eat something she could enjoy.

Although the millet rice was also tasty, the dishes would taste even better with white rice.

Any choosy person could whip up good cooking skills if they wanted to cook, and Qiao Qingyu was just like that.

Back then, there were not many pesticides and fertilizers, so even the sun-dried vegetables were full of flavor.

Not to mention the daylilies and wood ear mushrooms from the deep mountains.

In short, Qiao Qingyu ate very happily.

She sprawled on the kang bed, looking at the black roof beams. Momentarily after, she still got up, took the brown paper package for Shen Fen, knowing that it would be awkward to visit during mealtime.

Shen Fen’s house was in the northern part of the family compound, even shabbier than where Qiao Qingyu was living, but Shen Fen kept it very clean.

Life here was tough, so Shen Fen’s in-laws remained in their hometown. However, she brought both her kids over, who were temporarily studying at the commune’s school, one being a top student and the other a poor student.

The top student was the son, the poor student the daughter.

The daughter, twelve years old this year, didn’t like studying, loved playing with knives and sticks, and her biggest dream was to become a valiant and heroic female soldier to protect and defend the country.

But…
At this thought, Qiao Qingyu hesitated in her steps. In the book, Shen Fen’s daughter went missing, seemingly a half-year after the main female character was reborn.

That would be this winter.

She disappeared at the research base, and until the end, no one found her.

It was an unreasonable event, especially since it was a heavily guarded research base, and the leader of the security department was Director Lin.

How exactly she disappeared, perhaps the author forgot to write, or maybe it wasn’t important, in any case, there was no result to the incident.

Qiao Qingyu continued walking towards Shen Fen’s house. This era’s story, cloaked in the guise of scientific research, in reality, had the main theme of rebirth, a trashy life, and chasing after a man. The trash referred to her, and naturally, the man was He Xiuyu.

As for scientific research, it was mostly He Xiuyu’s findings from his past life, just taken and used by the main female character.

According to the plot, she would be off the scene in another two months.

Qiao Qingyu laughed.

She couldn’t just exit the stage, as she was very busy right now, her series of plans had just begun.

In only a few minutes, Qiao Qingyu arrived at Shen Fen’s house.

Under the guise of giving the children something nutritious, like Sister-in-law Li, Shen Fen was happy to accept them. When leaving, she even took a few sour vegetables.

Qiao Qingyu conveniently enrolled, and was just waiting for the teaching materials to arrive before the study class could start.

After returning home, Qiao Qingyu began to get busy.

Firstly, she counted her property. This trip to Xichuan had cost her a little over four hundred yuan. Her eldest uncle had given her 200 yuan, and her parents thirty-eight yuan…

So now, she had a little over five hundred and sixty yuan on hand.

But she also had over two hundred jin of millet cakes and five cloth bags of fabric remnants. Oh right, she also had an additional means of transportation—a bicycle.

After that, Qiao Qingyu started planting vegetables she would eat over the upcoming months, also taking the opportunity to conduct some experiments.

She placed two wooden boxes beside the kang bed, lined the boxes with wheat straw, then filled them halfway with black soil mixed with ash from burned plants. She entered Seed Laboratory number 001.

She took out seeds of vegetables she loved to eat, like chili peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, and planted ten seeds of each type.

In total, she planted eight varieties. Then the space on the west side of the large kang bed was filled to the brim with them.

Having just washed her hands, she heard a loud knocking at the door.

Qiao Qingyu opened the door and smiled; she had guessed that Fang Xiaomei would come to find her.

Even though Sister-in-law Li had come by Qiao Qingyu’s house these past few days, she hadn’t entered the inner room, so the forthright Fang Xiaomei who entered the west room instantly saw the lush green cabbages and spinach, as well as the sprouting garlic and ginger stems, and the small green onions as tall as a finger.

Fang Xiaomei’s eyes widened in surprise, staring at Qiao Qingyu as she poured her water, “Qingyu, did you grow all these?”

“Yes,” Qiao Qingyu replied, placing the teapot filled with boiled water on the table, thinking to herself whether she should also grow some chrysanthemums for making tea.

The laboratory had a type of white chrysanthemum seed that could bloom in four months, touted in the materials for its excellent effects and also for having its cold properties removed.

If they truly grew well, the profit would be nothing short of impressive.

A pity, really, time, all crops need time.

She didn’t even know how long she could stay here.

She asked Fang Xiaomei, “Did you come here for something?”

After taking a sip of water, Fang Xiaomei excitedly said, “Qiao Qingyu, there’s going to be a big market at Xiaxi Commune tomorrow. You should know it has been nearly twenty years since the last one. It’s going to be incredibly lively. I heard there will even be opera performances. Are you going? If you’re going, I can come by and pick you up on my bicycle.”

She blurted this out in one breath, obviously looking forward to the big market.

Qiao Qingyu didn’t hesitate, “I’ll go. No need for you to pick me up; just wait for me at the entrance of the market.”

And so, the next day Qiao Qingyu rode her bicycle to Xiaxi Commune, carrying fifty jin of millet cakes to the first big market in twenty years.

Xiaxi Commune had dozens of brigades, each brigade consisting of thousands of people. Now that they were all gathered together, the scene was quite spectacular.

Naturally, sales were good.

And the commune members were excited and thrilled.

Nearly more than half of them had come just for the excitement.

After having eaten half a jin of Qiao Qingyu’s millet cakes, Fang Xiaomei couldn’t help but watch the stall for Qiao Qingyu, while Qiao Qingyu made two round trips to sell off all the remaining millet cakes.

She had made fifty yuan exactly, her first earnings in hand!

Fang Xiaomei was dumbfounded; that was two months of her salary, and Qiao Qingyu had earned it in just one morning.

How incredible!

Qiao Qingyu felt she had brought too few millet cakes. Judging by the look of things, even a thousand jin could be sold at the next big market.

However, right now there were no plastic bags, only yellow paper and wax paper for packaging.

Buying a piece of millet cake also required a sheet of paper, which was too wasteful, so she temporarily decided not to consider this trade.

Qiao Qingyu bought a few baskets of various sizes, a few small jars, a small elm wood dining table, and some other miscellaneous items, preparing to hire a horse-drawn carriage to take them back when she saw Fang Xiaomei, who had already gone back to work, coming to find her with her uncle, Vice Director Qian.