Chapter 16

The weather finally cooled down. After finishing her daily tasks, Mei Qiuping found it hard to sleep for several nights. Feng Zhenchang, however, slept soundly beside her. Every night, Feng Zhenchang would drink a bit of the distilled liquor made by the village craftsmen. His alcohol tolerance was low, but he would drink a small cup each night, which helped him sleep well.

Mei Qiupin tossed and turned, and finally sat up, feeling hot. She woke Feng Zhenchang, who was snoring. "What's wrong again?" he asked irritably, still half-asleep.

Mei Qiuping didn't bother to argue with him. "You sleep so soundly every night! What do you think about the sugar-coated chestnuts that Ping mentioned?"

Hearing this, Feng Zhenchang also became more alert. "I think we can definitely do it. When I have time, I'll go to the hydropower station dam and pick a few loads of sand. The sand there is uniform and clean. After the chestnuts are harvested next month, we can try roasting them first, following the instructions on Ping's paper. Even if we ruin a few pounds of chestnuts, we'll eventually get the right taste, and then we can go to the provincial capital!"

Mei Qiuping complained, "You're so careless. Ping has never even been to the county, and you believe him just because a classmate said so?"

"No matter what, Ping wouldn't lie to us about something like this!" Feng Zhenchang was actually a bit hesitant, but he thought it was best to try it out first.

Mei Qiuping was impatient and wanted to decide quickly. "Alright, tomorrow you don't need to go up the mountain. Stay home and repair the chicken coop and fix the fence in the vegetable garden behind the house. I'll go back to my parents' place and talk to Dad. The day after tomorrow is the Mid-Autumn Festival, and Yiliang will definitely call home. I'll ask him to come back and clarify things!"

Mei Yiliang was her youngest brother, who was still unmarried and had been living in the provincial capital for years.

"Alright, the sooner you find out, the sooner you'll be at ease." Feng Zhenchang knew his wife's temperament—she was always full of energy and couldn't sleep well if something was on her mind.

Another person who couldn't sleep well was Mei Jianzhong. He also had a restless personality, and his daughter had inherited this trait. His grandson had sent out his work over half a month ago. Although his grandson had repeatedly told him it would take at least a month to get a response, he was still a bit anxious.

Thinking back to when his grandson confidently told him that at least one of the two places would accept his work, Mei Jianzhong realized that his grandson might have been a bit too confident. Later, he added that if neither place accepted it, they could try other magazines. Mei Jianzhong didn't know how well his grandson's writing was, but after listening to him read it, he found it quite close to life and touching.

He also knew that his grandson, having grown up in the countryside, understood how hard it was to earn money and had never asked for pocket money or anything from home. The fact that he asked for a few yuan to send the letters this time showed that he had some confidence.

In the surrounding villages, he had never heard of anyone who could turn their writing into printed words in a nationally published book. Imagining that his 12-year-old grandson might be the first to do so made him quite excited.

These days, whenever he saw the mailman, he would ask if there was any mail for him and repeatedly instructed the mailman to keep it quiet if there was any mail, especially if there was a money order, and to quietly deliver it to him. He even promised to give the mailman a good pack of cigarettes, which left the mailman quite puzzled.

One noon, as Mei Jianzhong was carrying a hoe back home to prepare lunch, he saw his eldest daughter returning and helping to wash the bedding.

"Why are you here? Is there something wrong?"

Mei Qiuping poured him a cup of tea. "Ping told me you've been feeling well these days?"

"Still pretty healthy," Mei Jianzhong said, sitting in the yard and looking at the clothes hanging on the bamboo poles. "You don't need to wash them every time you come. I can do it myself."

Mei Qiuping smiled. "I know you, you just put the clothes in the basin, add some detergent, and step on them, right!"

Mei Jianzhong changed the subject. "You came down without a special occasion. Is there something wrong?"

"There is something. Has Yiliang called?"

"No, I've only received five letters from him in recent years, and he rarely calls. But he will call in a couple of days for the Mid-Autumn Festival. Is there something you need to ask him?"

"Yes, there is something I want to ask him," Mei Qiuping hesitated.

"Oh, should I tell him to call you?"

"Yes, still to the village office."

Mei Jianzhong didn't ask what it was about. He was worried that his daughter had come to ask about Feng Yiping's submission to the magazine, but it turned out not to be the case.

The father and daughter didn't chat for long before the eldest son's family returned. The eldest son carried two hoes, and his wife held Rui Rui. Soon, Rong Rong also came home from school.

They naturally had lunch at the eldest son's place. Uncle Guosheng said he would go to town to buy some meat, but Mei Qiuping stopped him, saying it was too far and they might not have any left. Guosheng asked his wife for money, but she took a long time to come out, leaving him quite embarrassed. Thinking about it, they didn't have much money. Not long ago, when his nephew came, they had bought meat once. So, he scooped up a liter of soybeans and asked Rong Rong to take her brother to the village tofu shop to exchange for tofu.

Mei Qiuping had come down in a hurry today because she had something on her mind. She was always thinking about the potential monthly income from selling sugar-coated chestnuts, which would be several hundred yuan. Otherwise, with her temper, she would have argued with her sister-in-law about the meal. Even so, only the two children were happy eating tofu and eggs.

On the day of the Mid-Autumn Festival, Feng Yiping visited his homeroom teacher for the first time. Mei Qiuping, on the other hand, had no heart for work. In the afternoon, the village women's committee came to her house and told her that her brother Yiliang would call the village office in an hour. She was very happy and, without waiting for Feng Zhenchang to come home for lunch, took a yuan, locked the door, and went to the village office with the women's committee.

The village office was about three miles from Feng's home, and it cost a yuan to be notified to pick up a call.

After Mei Qiuping finished the call and hurried back home, Feng Zhenchang had already returned and set the table, waiting for her to eat.

"Did you ask Yiliang?"

"Yes, I asked if he had eaten sugar-coated chestnuts in the provincial capital, how much they cost per pound, and how many people buy them."

"What did Yiliang say?"

Mei Qiuping drank half a cup of coarse tea and smiled. "Yiliang said they cost six yuan per pound, and there aren't many sellers, but they can sell at least 20 pounds a day."

"Ha ha," Feng Zhenchang also laughed. "Now you can rest easy and sleep well tonight! Let's eat."

"Yiliang said he will come back when the chestnuts are harvested."

"That's even better. We can let him taste our roasted chestnuts and see if they are good. If he thinks they are, he can help us find a place to live and buy the necessary equipment when he goes back to the provincial capital."

Mei Qiuping took a few bites of rice. "What about the things at home, like the pigs and chickens, and the fields? And the most urgent thing is money—travel expenses, rent, and the cost of tea oil and sugar. It will add up to several hundred yuan. Where will we get the money?"

Feng Zhenchang had already thought about it. "The rice and peanuts have been harvested, and there's not much left in the fields, just the rapeseed. We can ask my second brother to look after it. For the chickens, we can give the key to the Wei Dong family and ask them to help feed them. It's not much work, just scattering some grain every day. As for the money, we don't need to worry. We can sell the pig."

"You mean kill the pig? Is the meat selling well now? The other day, the neighbor killed a pig, and it only sold out because it was the Mid-Autumn Festival. Otherwise, it wouldn't have sold out." Mei Qiuping didn't like this idea.

"Don't worry. I'll go around the village tonight and see how many people can buy it. If no one buys it, I'll go to town and find a pig trader. Our pig, which hasn't eaten any feed, can sell for about 1.8 to 2 yuan per pound. That should give us at least 500 yuan. If that's not enough, we can ask Yiliang to help us with the rent. He has been outside for years, so he should have a few hundred yuan. We can pay him back when we make money."

"Alright, let's eat early tonight. You can go around the village, and we can kill the pig ourselves. The meat price will be higher, and we can keep some of the pork fat and offal."

Mei Qiuping was a bit reluctant. This year, they had good luck. The pig, which they bought last year for about 20 pounds, had never been sick and had grown to over 250 pounds. She had worked the hardest, especially in the hot summer, when she had to gather two large baskets of pig grass every day to feed the pig. Although they had sold most of the pigs in recent years, they always kept some. The idea of not keeping any at all made her quite unhappy.

"Alright, alright," Feng Zhenchang gave her a piece of meat. It was the Mid-Autumn Festival, and they had bought a pound of meat. The fish pond in front of the village was being drained today, and the nephew who had contracted it sent them a grass carp and five small carp, so the meal was quite abundant. "Think about it. According to Yiping's calculations, we can earn several hundred yuan a month. Isn't that enough to buy a pig in a month?"

Alright, the idea of earning several hundred yuan a month made Mei Qiuping happy.

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