TCFSRMR |Chapter 17

“Make soy sauce to sell?” Hearing Shi Guoan’s plan, Yin Zhaodi froze for a moment, and instinctively objected, “If we go sell things and get our capitalist tail cut off, what then?”

When she married in, she had heard that back then, because Shi Guoan’s biological father had an unknown identity, there had been quite a few twists and turns when their family’s class status was determined.

Later, it was only after the fellow workers who had worked hard at the dock together with Shi Zongyi went to help find the work team that their family was finally classified as poor peasants.

If they secretly sold things and got caught, wouldn’t that drag the whole family down?

“We’ll be careful, and absolutely won’t let anyone find out.” Shi Guoan explained patiently —

Thinking of doing a bit of small business was not something he had come up with on a whim. It was just that on several trips to the city, Shi Guoan had noticed that the number of people secretly selling things in the black market had clearly increased.

Even in the village, there were people who secretly picked mushrooms and took them to the black market to exchange for a little brown sugar, dried noodles, and eggs for women in confinement…

Listening to Shi Guoan’s analysis, Shi Ying immediately felt admiration —

No wonder Dad could later run such a huge business empire!

It was because she had memories from the future that she knew these things, and understood that a sweeping transformation was about to arrive.

And yet Dad just made a few trips to the market and listened to the radio, and could roughly guess it.

“How could people like us, little ordinary folk, guess the big national affairs accurately?” Yin Zhaodi obviously could not listen to it —

They were just mud-legged peasants who farmed the land, what could they know?

Unfortunately, Shi Guoan had always been the one in charge of this family, so she could only grumble. As for wanting to influence Shi Guoan’s thoughts, that was completely impossible.

In fact, aside from her, everyone in the family, from the old couple Shi Zongyi and his wife, to the brothers Shi Guoping and Shi Guoliang, and finally the children in the family, was clapping their hands in agreement.

Feeling excluded, Yin Zhaodi was furious, and simply got up and went back to the room.

After closing the door, she could still hear the chattering voices of several children:

“I’ll tend the fire…”

“I’ll go catch fish and shrimp…”

“Me, me, me…” Shi Ying also raised her hand. “I’ll go into the mountains to look for spices.”

“Look for spices? Look for shit spices!” Yin Zhaodi, hiding alone in the room and sulking, snorted instead —

There were also pepper trees in the mountains here, but right now, every household was miserably short of money. Anything that could be eaten was picked home by everyone in a swarm before it was even ripe.

Those pepper trees growing out in the open had, by now, not only had their peppercorns picked clean, even the pepper leaves had been stripped bare. Yet unexpectedly, that big brother still had wild ideas of going to find a new pepper tree. Wasn’t that dreaming?

In fact, even Shi Guoan himself had no confidence at all that he could successfully find pepper —

It wasn’t that finding wild pepper trees was impossible, but if he wanted to find one, the difficulty would definitely be no ordinary thing.

Of course, if there was anyone among them who had the most confidence in Shi Guoan, it was Shi Ying —

One branch of the Shi family’s wealth empire was soy sauce.

And in Shi Ying’s era, the Shi Group’s soy sauce was already an undisputed king, holding a full twelve percent of the Zhongxia market share.

This showed that this risky move by Shi Guoan had clearly been a great success.

Not to mention that she currently had a ready-made cheat code, too — was there anyone more professional than 001 when it came to looking for suitable plants?

“Okay, okay,” Shi Guoan agreed with a chuckle, that relieved and proud look in his eyes as if the children had done something amazingly impressive.

That very night, Shi Guoan quietly took Shi Guoping and Shi Guoliang to the riverbank to set shrimp traps. Then, while it was still dark, he took out all the shrimp traps they had set, and when he brought them home he actually poured out a full half basin of small fish and river shrimp.

“Can these fish and shrimp also be used to make soy sauce?” Yin Zhaodi frowned —

Villagers generally preferred to catch those big fish with meat on them. Small river shrimp and little fish like these weren’t even enough to fill the gaps between the teeth, and on top of that they used up oil. Most villagers would catch them and then throw them away.

No matter how Yin Zhaodi thought about it, she felt that Shi Guoan was unreliable.

Yet no one in the family listened to her. After putting down the fish and shrimp, they really did pick an afternoon when it had rained and there was no need to go to work, and went into the mountains to look for spices like pepper.

Yin Zhaodi truly did not want Shi Guoping to go. They had finally gotten past the wheat harvest season, and corn and the like had all been planted. Not to mention resting at home, they still had to run up the mountain to do useless work —

It wasn’t as if she had never gone with the villagers to pick pepper before. Everyone knew there were only those few trees. Every time they went, everyone scrambled for them like mad.

After being tired to death before, why couldn’t they just settle down at home for once!

But her opinion was once again ignored.

In the end, the three brothers Shi Guoan brought Shi Ting and Shi Heng and Shi Ying into the mountains —

Mainly because Shi Ying was determined to go. If you asked Yin Zhaodi, when adults were working, if children were disobedient, wasn’t everything solved by giving them a couple of slaps.

But Shi Guoan was not like that. He had no way of refusing any request of Shi Ying’s at all. He would surrender immediately, even without Shi Ying begging him.

Seeing that Shi Ying wanted to go, Shi Heng, although still silent, also followed along like a shadow.

As for Shi Ting, she wasn’t like Shi Ying and proactively said she wanted to go along. Instead, she directly slung a small basket over her arm and ran out after them.

When bringing Shi Ying and the others into the mountains, Shi Guoan had actually already made up his mind. At worst, if they found nothing, it would just count as accompanying his daughter to play.

In fact, just as he had expected, the group wandered around in the mountains until the latter half of the afternoon and still had not gained much —

They did find a few pepper trees, but all of them had almost been stripped bare by people. Shi Guoan and the others put in tremendous effort and only managed to pick a few grains.

“With just this much, I’m afraid it won’t be enough.” Looking at the pepper grains in the bag on his back, which you couldn’t even find without looking closely, Shi Guoping felt a little discouraged.

Shi Guoan, however, did not lose heart, after all this outcome was also within his expectations:

“Keep looking. If not today, then tomorrow. It can’t be that all the pepper trees have been picked clean.”

“Otherwise, let’s go look for mushrooms too,” Shi Guoliang said enviously, looking at Shi Ying and the others —

Unlike them, who walked all the way while feeling disappointed, the little ones had found quite a lot of wild mushrooms.

Speaking of which, Shi Guoliang was also very puzzled, because these wild mushrooms, like pepper, had clearly already been searched over and over again by the villagers. A few days ago he had come here with others, and had gone back empty-handed.

Yet look at Yingying and the other two. At this moment, they had already filled up the small baskets they were each carrying.

Shi Guoliang really wanted to tell his big brother that if he didn’t help look for pepper, could he just follow his niece and nephew to look for mushrooms instead?

Shi Guoan was both amused and exasperated. He was just about to spit a retort when he heard Shi Ying suddenly say:

“A rabbit, such a big rabbit…”

Shi Guoan hurriedly looked up, and only saw a patch of movement in the grass. Shi Ying and the others had already dashed after it.

Afraid that something might happen to them, Shi Guoan also hurriedly ran over, and saw a scene that made him laugh and not know whether to cry —

That fat rabbit had actually had its leg caught by vines.

Shi Guoan and Shi Guoliang also became interested. They no longer bothered looking for pepper, and quickly rushed to pounce on the rabbit.

Just as they were about to catch it, the rabbit suddenly struggled violently. In the next moment, both the vines and the rabbit rolled down the mountainside.

Shi Guoping was no longer discouraged either, and chased after the rabbit down the slope. When he reached the bottom, he saw that the rabbit was already tightly entangled by the vines and couldn’t move at all. He was immediately overjoyed:

“Oh my, a rabbit, such a big rabbit.”

There was also nothing but smiles on Shi Guoan’s face. He was just about to say something when he looked up, and his eyes instantly lit up:

“Look at that –“

It turned out that among the trees and shrubs rising and falling all around, a pepper tree was poking its head out.

Although this pepper tree was not especially thick, because it grew in a hidden place, no one had discovered it at all, and wasn’t it full of clusters of peppercorns on top?

“Oh my, our luck is way too good!” Shi Guoliang was so happy he lifted Shi Ying and started spinning her around and around.

“Guoliang, be careful…” Frightened, Shi Guoan quickly reached out and took Shi Ying over. “The ground here is uneven, don’t let Yingying fall.”

Shi Guoliang scratched his head, smiling with honest simplicity.

Shi Ying, however, felt warm all over —

She really was afraid that if this kept up, she would get spoiled rotten.

“Let’s pick the peppercorns, and when we’re done, we’ll go home.” Shi Guoan waved a big hand, then thinking of something, reminded them again, “Don’t pick too much, just enough to use is fine. Let the rest ripen better.”

Pepper was still more flavorful when it was fully ripe.

In the end, her body was still somewhat weak. After finally coming out of the mountains, Shi Ying was a little too tired to walk. Shi Guoan put the pepper, mushrooms, and fat rabbit into Shi Guoliang and Shi Guoping’s baskets, and then he carried Shi Ying on his back.

On the way, Shi Ying felt that she had almost rested enough, but Shi Guoan still refused to let her down:

“You’re still small, you can’t let your legs get injured from running.”

Walking and stopping like that, by the time they got home, it was almost midnight.

They hadn’t even reached home yet when they saw Miao Xiuxiu, Yin Zhaodi, and Shi Jie and the others standing at the courtyard gate, craning their necks and waiting expectantly. The few of them hurriedly quickened their steps.

Over there, Miao Xiuxiu also spotted Shi Guoan and the others, and quickly came up to meet them:

“What’s wrong with Yingying?”

“Mom –” Shi Ying also woke up, and immediately felt a little embarrassed. “I’m fine, I just fell asleep on Dad’s back.”

“As long as you’re fine, as long as you’re fine.” Seeing that everyone who had gone out had returned without missing a single one, Miao Xiuxiu’s hanging heart finally settled.

Yin Zhaodi first took Shi Ting’s small basket. Seeing that it was indeed exactly as she had expected, with nothing in it, her resentment toward Shi Guoan grew even stronger —

Big brother at least knew to feel sorry for his own daughter, while their Tingting had just followed along for nothing over such a long distance.

Then she went to take the basket Shi Guoping was carrying:

“I told you not to go, and you just wouldn’t listen. Look at your clothes, they’ve even been torn by branches… Oh my, what is all this you’ve got in here…”

It was clear that the basket on her hands had some weight to it.

Yin Zhaodi froze for a moment, subconsciously pulled off the layer of grass covering the top, and her voice suddenly rose:

“R, rabbit?”

After saying that, she covered her mouth again. It wasn’t until she was sure there really was no one around that she found her voice again: “My goodness, where did you get such a rare thing? This is really, this is really, ancestors bless us…”

Under the grass, wasn’t it exactly a fat rabbit? This was the first time Yin Zhaodi had ever seen such a big rabbit. If it were made into braised meat, it would probably make a huge pot!

Looking further down, she discovered even more mushrooms, one after another, the kind that were normally hard to find even after wearing out all the iron shoes in the world!

By the time Shi Guoliang put his basket down too, Yin Zhaodi was practically starting to doubt life —

Not only did her younger brother-in-law’s basket have quite a lot of mushrooms in it, there were also many of those blue-green peppercorns she had previously been certain, even if one wore out all the iron shoes in the world, there would be no way to find!