Chapter 91 — IAVD (QT) Chapter 91

Unfortunately, the dream of the waitress was destined to be shattered as the crayfish business grew more and more popular.

The crayfish raised with spiritual spring water by Ji Xiu, how could their flavor be comparable to ordinary crayfish?

Although due to the high price, the crayfish were met with a cold reception when they were first launched, once even a single person tasted them, that alluring flavor would linger in the mind, and word of mouth would quickly spread.

Especially since the first person to eat the crayfish was an idle rich second generation, and the friends around him were also similar rich second generations.

After he tried it once, he recommended it to his friends, then friends recommended it to friends of friends, friends recommended it to friends’ family members. One spread to ten, ten spread to a hundred, and very quickly the crayfish heated up the market and became in short supply.

By the time the waitress received her mid month salary and eagerly waited to get off work to pack a portion to take home, the crayfish had already become completely popular.

The Night Snack City opened at three in the afternoon. Qi Xiangkang personally drove out to pick up the crayfish, returned to the shop at four o’clock, and the store was already full of customers who had arrived early to queue up, craning their necks and staring longingly at Qi Xiangkang’s figure.

The moment they saw him appear, their faces lit up with smiles, and they all urged the waitstaff to take orders.

The first thing they ordered was crayfish.

One hundred eighty eight was more expensive than other crayfish, but in the eyes of old gourmets and rich second generations who truly loved food, it really did not count as much money.

If you asked them why they liked crayfish so much, they could not quite explain it, but once the crayfish were placed on the table, the people around it would fight over them more fiercely than the last.

Only after finishing eating would they reluctantly put down their chopsticks, lick their fingers, smack their lips, and reveal an expression of endless aftertaste.

“No way, it’s just delicious.”

As long as crayfish were raised in lakes or paddy fields with passable environments, their taste was already extremely fresh and delicious. Adding a bit of spiritual spring water and raising them for three to five days caused both flavor and size to double. After peeling the shell, one bite filled the mouth with crayfish meat, making people extremely satisfied.

The fifty jin of crayfish that Qi Xiangkang limited each day could be sold out in less than an hour.

Even when it rained, not a single customer who came to check in at the shop would be absent.

In their words, if they did not eat crayfish for a day, it felt like there was no flavor in their mouths, and life had no hope at all.

The waitress’s dream of buying one jin of crayfish at the new product price to taste it could only helplessly watch as the crayfish grew more and more popular and gradually died before it could be realized.

Of course, because the crayfish were so attractive and unforgettable, some outsiders who had never tasted them inevitably harbored bad suspicions.

“Did they mix something into this?”

After the waitress delivered a huge basin of crayfish to the table of rich second generation customers, she smiled and turned to leave, only to hear customers at a nearby table who had not yet ordered whispering.

“I’ve come here five times in a week, and every time I see them ordering crayfish. Tell me, one hundred eighty eight yuan, what wouldn’t be delicious? Why eat crayfish every day and order several jin at a time? I always feel like they added something bad inside that makes people addicted.”

“Now that you mention it, I remember that hot pot restaurants used to like adding poppy shells to their soup base. Could it be that they also added something here?”

“Who knows. I think it’s better not to try it.”

“I also think it’s better not to try. If you get addicted, how much money would you have to spend in the future…”

The waitress walked over with a professional smile. “Customers, you are worrying too much. Today’s crayfish sold out a long time ago. We have loyal regular customers, and we really do not need you to concern yourselves with these matters.”

The few people immediately looked awkward.

Imagining that something had been added to the seasoning of someone else’s shop and being overheard by the waitress, even with skin as thick as theirs, they would feel embarrassed.

Of course, the main reason was that Qi Xiangkang had many connections in this area and was like a local snake. He was not someone to offend lightly.

As nearby office workers who passed by every day after getting off work, they had seen people cause trouble and get thrown out of the shop before, and they did not dare to test the law on the spot.

Seeing this, the waitress coldly turned around and walked away, with not the slightest interest in serving them.

Customers who could not eat grapes and said the grapes were sour, gossiping behind others’ backs, were not worth her effort. She would let her coworkers serve them instead.

However, the occasional one or two people talking nonsense did not affect Night Snack City’s business.

After several consecutive days of regular customers complaining that they could not grab any crayfish, Qi Xiangkang decisively contacted Ji Xiu and increased the daily fifty jin of crayfish to three hundred jin per day.

Of course, the price of crayfish in the shop also rose to two hundred fifty eight per jin.

The price increase brought about a shrinking of business, with some old customers retreating. However, Night Snack City had already dominated the night snack market of Fengti City with its crayfish, flooding local people’s Moments feed and beginning to attract more customers. Business not only did not decline, it actually rose, and they did not care about this small loss.

Only some customers whose wallets were beginning to shrink endured the pain and reduced their check in frequency, cutting back from twice a week to once a week.

Qi Xiangkang was not satisfied with this.

By chance, he had someone promote the crayfish on a public account in Moments, and unexpectedly both the shop and the crayfish gained a huge boost in reputation, allowing him to see the importance of publicity.

He heard that the provincial capital television station was planning to assemble a food exploration documentary. He threw in most of his assets and pulled many strings to meet the leaders of the local television station, inviting them to Night Snack City to enjoy a crayfish banquet.

From initial indifference, to later astonishment, and finally to lingering reluctance at the end.

Station Director Wang looked at Qi Xiangkang and said kindly, “Before tasting it, I was still a bit hesitant, but after tasting this bite of crayfish, I can only say that hearing about it a hundred times is not as good as seeing it once. Your shop truly has a conscience. It is a local beacon. Rest assured, I will do my best to recommend your shop to the higher ups.”

Director Wang had left the provincial capital television station back then, and he had his own connections there. Once he said this, the matter was basically set in stone.

Qi Xiangkang was so excited he was beside himself and quickly fawned over him, expressing that he wanted to give Director Wang a few jin of live crayfish.

Director Wang smiled and refused. “Giving a man a fish is not as good as teaching him how to fish. Why not tell me, Mr. Qi, where you purchase these crayfish? When my family wants to taste them, we can occasionally have some.”

Qi Xiangkang hesitated slightly, but soon thought that a television station director would not possibly open a shop and compete with him, so telling the source would be fine. He then spoke truthfully.

“Hedian Town, Jingfeng Mountain?” Director Wang pondered for a moment. “That really is a place blessed with outstanding people and fertile land. Thank you, Mr. Qi.”

The banquet ended with both guests and host extremely satisfied.

……

The next day, Ji Xiu, who had rushed back from the provincial capital with fruit tree seedlings, received a phone call from the Wang family.

Because Qi Xiangkang had called the night before to give him a heads up, Ji Xiu was not surprised. He gave them the address and told them to come buy if they wanted to eat. Crayfish wholesale was one hundred fifty, retail two hundred.

The Wang family members: “……”

What the Wang family members felt in their hearts, Ji Xiu did not know. But after being choked by that sentence once, they really did come up the mountain to buy crayfish.

They probably wanted to see whether the crayfish from Night Snack City really had additives as rumored, or perhaps they did not trust outside food and planned to cook it themselves. In any case, after two days, they came to Jingfeng Mountain and bought more than ten jin of crayfish to take home.

And because the crayfish from Ji Xiu tasted exactly the same as those from Night Snack City, and the retail price of two hundred per jin was not much different from eating at the shop, the Wang family soon gave up on traveling all the way to Jingfeng Mountain.

Ji Xiu did not mind either. If they did not come, then so be it. He could not be bothered to entertain these scattered customers anyway.

What he was more concerned about now were the fruit tree seedlings laid out before him.

This trip to the provincial capital, the father and daughter purchased two thousand chestnut seedlings, five hundred pear tree seedlings, five hundred orange tree seedlings, and five hundred jujube tree seedlings. They planned to take advantage of the good weather over the next couple of days, before it got too hot, and plant them early.

This ratio was decided after Ji Xiu consulted Ji Jingyu’s preferences.

Local fruit farmers loved to plant peach trees. Because of the uniquely favorable climate and soil, the peaches were very sweet, which led to local peaches not selling at good prices. Moreover, peach trees did not store well. Once ripe, they would begin to rot after just a few days if not eaten.

It was better to plant other kinds, such as pears, oranges, and jujubes, which were rare locally.

Or chestnuts, which stored relatively well, could be kept for a long time, and could also be transported over long distances.

Ji Xiu and his eldest brother Ji Qin spent five days planting these fruit tree seedlings in batches across the four directions of Jingfeng Mountain, then spent a few more days installing drip irrigation facilities.

In the future, the fruit trees and vegetables on the mountain would no longer need to be watered by hand. They only needed to turn on the machine to operate quickly.

There was also a small side note. The jujube tree that had once enjoyed half a drop of spiritual spring water and grew overnight to two meters tall was planted at the very front of the jujube grove.

Compared to it, the other jujube seedlings looked like children.

It grew extremely healthily. Even after leaving its original spot, it continued to grow at a visibly rapid speed. It was not until Ji Xiu relocated it a second time, moving it into the jujube grove, that this growth rate finally normalized.

Looking at it, Ji Xiu felt that next year he would be able to eat the fruit borne on this jujube tree.

After finishing all this work, there was nothing else to do for the next period of time. On ordinary days, he only needed to patrol the mountain once, checking how the fruit trees and vegetables were growing.

Ji Xiu and Ji Jingyu finally had some free time and settled down to rest at home.

Ji Xiu installed a television and computer at home, bought new phones for himself and his daughter, and also gave a phone to his eldest brother Ji Qin to make it easier to keep in touch. After that, he held a teacup every day, curled up in the living room, and lived a decadent life of binge watching dramas.

Ji Jingyu, however, did not enjoy this treatment.

There were only ten days left before school started, and she had not finished her summer homework yet.

That day, Ji Jingyu took her summer homework to find Li Shengnan and stayed at the Li household to do homework.

Li Shengnan was a child with a rather jumpy personality and very poor concentration. She always ended up talking about other things while doing homework.

“Jingyu, where have you been during this time? I don’t see you every day.”

“I went to the provincial capital with my dad for a few days.”

“Wow, you’re so amazing. I envy you.” After cheering her on, Li Shengnan thought of something. “Oh right, you’ve been really busy lately and haven’t had time to go out and play with us, right? Xu Siye keeps asking me about you.”

Ji Jingyu paused her pen. Thinking of that annoying brat made her feel angry.

“Why is he asking about me?”

“Isn’t it because last time he made you faint from anger?”

Ji Jingyu flew into embarrassment and rage. “Li Shengnan, I’ve said it so many times. I didn’t faint because he made me angry. It was because I wasn’t feeling well physically.”

Li Shengnan shrank her neck. “But if he hadn’t made you angry, even if you weren’t feeling well, you wouldn’t have fainted.”

Ji Jingyu rolled her eyes in her heart.

Kids really had a way of stubbornly clinging to their own ideas.

Forget it, she could not be bothered to argue.

She turned back to the point. “So then, if he thinks he made me faint, why is he asking about me?”

“He didn’t say, but from the way he looks, it seems like he wants to come apologize.” Li Shengnan suddenly cupped her face with both hands and whispered dreamily, “I didn’t expect that when he becomes polite, he’s actually a bit handsome.”

What? Ji Jingyu looked at her suspiciously.

A child only twelve years old, her heart already stirring, starting an early romance?

Honestly speaking, Ji Jingyu felt a bit envious watching her.

In her previous life, until she passed away at thirty two, she never knew what falling in love felt like.

She was very guarded toward outsiders, with heavy defenses in her heart. It was hard for anyone to become her friend, and it was also difficult for the opposite sex to stay by her side.

The only boyfriend she ever had broke up with her because she was afraid of married life and kept refusing his proposal.

When the other party proposed breaking up, Ji Jingyu agreed immediately.

She felt full of guilt toward him.

Because she did not love him. Agreeing to his pursuit was merely because she was middle aged, afraid of loneliness, and wanted to find someone for companionship.

But that thought alone destined that they could not continue together.

No couple could continue living the next several decades without loving each other.

She closed off her heart and was unwilling to open up to her boyfriend. Every time she faced his concern and gaze, she chose to avoid them.

She did not know whether, when the news of her death in a car accident spread, he would feel that she deserved it.

A monster like her, cold hearted and unfeeling, incapable of falling in love, only greedy for the warmth of companionship and thus agreeing to date, would deserve to be disliked by others.

Ji Jingyu sighed softly in her heart. Looking at Li Shengnan’s expression, she gathered her spirits and teased, “Oh? Looks like someone likes him?”

“Absolutely not!” Li Shengnan denied it without thinking, with a shy little expression. “I belong to Brother Yuan.”

Brother Yuan, who was that?

Li Shengnan was very dissatisfied. “Brother Yuan is that celebrity who played the Crown Prince. Don’t you even watch TV?”

So it was a character from a television drama.

Ji Jingyu understood and shrugged. “Isn’t it better that I don’t watch? If I did, I’d have to fight you over Brother Yuan.”

Li Shengnan turned serious. “Then you’d better not watch.”

Ji Jingyu laughed lightly and patted her head. “Hurry up and do your homework.”

These little girls changed their idols faster than anyone else. Next time you asked, it would probably be someone new.

A gentle breeze blew in through the window. The two chatted and laughed as they lowered their heads to complete their summer homework.

The trees in the courtyard swayed their leaves, as if lovingly watching the two of them. For a moment, everything was peaceful and beautiful.

……

After finishing her homework, Ji Jingyu bid farewell to the Li family and went home. When she reached the entrance of her own house, she suddenly felt that something was not quite right.

Turning her head, she saw Xu Siye actually hiding behind a tree and peeking.

“What are you doing?”

She had just been talking about him, and he appeared immediately.

Ji Jingyu thought of something and asked suspiciously, “Did you come to apologize to me?”

“What apology? How could that be? What are you thinking?” Xu Siye widened his eyes nervously and immediately denied it three times. “I’m just passing by.”

Ji Jingyu said “oh” with an indifferent reaction.

So that was how it was. She had thought that this kid could not possibly be a good thing. With such a foul mouth and bad temper, Li Shengnan must have been tricked by him.

Too lazy to say anything more to him, Ji Jingyu turned as if to leave. “So you’re just passing by. Then go on. I’m going home too.”

“Wait!” Xu Siye called out to her in a panic.

Ji Jingyu frowned and stopped. “What do you want?”

Xu Siye lost his momentum for a moment. His cheeks flushed red, and after stammering for a long time, he finally asked in a small voice, “Your health is okay now, right?”

“Aren’t you just passing by?” Ji Jingyu looked at him suspiciously. After thinking about it, she did not have any intention of extorting a child, so she said frankly, “It’s been fine for a long time.”

Xu Siye let out a sigh of relief and patted his chest. “That’s good, that’s good.”

He glanced at Ji Jingyu and, seeing her face full of suspicion, felt a little embarrassed. He lifted his chin. “Fine then, you go on. I’m just passing by here. I’m going to find my little brothers to play.”

Ji Jingyu felt inexplicable and waved her hand in disdain. “Hurry up and go.”

“You…” Xu Siye was annoyed. He pretended to leave angrily, but kept sneaking glances at Ji Jingyu’s back. Only after she entered the courtyard did he finally let out a long breath, revealing slightly reddened earlobes as he stood in place, foolishly smiling as he looked at the Ji family courtyard.

“Hehe.”

……

Time flowed like water.

Among the fruits and vegetables planted by the Ji family, some had already missed the optimal growing season, while others required a long fruiting period.

However, with spiritual spring water in hand, none of this was a problem.

After the strawberry seeds sprouted, about twenty days passed, and a bunch of small flowers bloomed, attracting bees and butterflies for pollination.

After another half month, fruits began to form one after another.

Red little fruits hung on green vines, extremely eye catching, like one red gemstone after another, making people drool.

Ji Xiu went out again to look for sales channels for the strawberries.

Up to now, among the people Ji Xiu knew, only Qi Xiangkang could be considered somewhat famous locally. Beyond that, there were only a few professors from the provincial agricultural university with whom he had hit it off at first sight and maintained good relations.

However, neither of these were suitable channels for selling strawberries.

Qi Xiangkang mainly ran Night Snack City, focusing on crayfish and barbecue. Few people would go to a night snack stall to eat strawberries.

Moreover, the strawberries grown by Ji Xiu with spiritual spring water were much larger and much sweeter than other strawberries. Their price was destined to be different from the market price and required a certain level of economic strength to afford.

Ji Xiu planted a total of ten mu of strawberries. With spiritual spring water, before the strawberry plants withered, each mu could produce about seven to eight thousand jin. Altogether, that was seventy to eighty thousand jin.

Based on the local market price of twenty yuan per jin, Ji Xiu’s strawberries would need to sell for at least sixty yuan per jin just to break even.

Otherwise, why would he bother planting strawberries? He might as well raise crayfish every day for higher profits.

During this period, relying on selling crayfish, Ji Xiu had already obtained millions in funds from Qi Xiangkang. The family was completely free of money worries, and the bank loan had long been paid off.

If the price of strawberries was not as profitable as crayfish, he planned not to plant strawberries next season.

Thinking this way, this sales channel was hard to find.

In the end, it was the professors from the provincial agricultural university who introduced Ji Xiu to a path.

It seemed that every city had a landmark hotel building.

The provincial capital certainly had one. This was a five star hotel, with a nightly stay starting at a thousand yuan.

In addition to the hotel, they also ran chain restaurants that offered the most exquisite food and after meal fruits.

Of course, exquisite was synonymous with expensive.

In this restaurant, a small cake that could be eaten in just two bites could sell for two to three hundred yuan per serving.

Fruit prices here were also astonishingly high.

Ji Xiu’s strawberries, which could not fetch a good price elsewhere, were perfectly suited to this place.

After tasting Ji Xiu’s strawberries, the hotel signed a contract with him to purchase them at sixty yuan per jin, one thousand jin per day, using cold chain logistics to preserve the strawberries’ freshness and integrity as much as possible.

The logistics were arranged by the hotel. They had dedicated partner logistics companies, so Ji Xiu did not need to worry.

Of course, once strawberry season arrived, even supplying the hotel with one thousand jin per day in bulk, there would still be excess strawberries.

But with this deal in place, Ji Xiu was not too worried.

After the hotel took one thousand jin, the remaining few hundred jin of strawberries each day could easily be sold by opening a small shop or an online store and shipping in small batches.

If they did not sell, it was fine too. The family could eat them or give them away as gifts.

As long as there were one thousand jin of strawberries as a base, Ji Xiu did not need to worry about losing money.

However, harvesting and packaging one thousand jin of strawberries every day was not something Ji Xiu and Ji Qin alone could handle.

In the end, Ji Xiu chose to hire five villagers with good relationships and good character from the village, paying each three thousand yuan per month, to package strawberries every day.

This job would last at least three months, until the strawberries on the mountain went out of season.

But by then, other vegetables and fruits would more or less be ripe.

These employees probably would not need to worry about work. If nothing unexpected happened, they would stay with Ji Xiu for a long time.

Ji Xiu now had other worries.

Crayfish were fine, since they were in the river and many villagers looked down on them, so not many people stole them.

But strawberries were something everyone ate. In the countryside, they were even considered a luxury fruit. Juicy and hanging on the vines, growing on the mountain, looking like they were just waiting for people to pick them.

How could they possibly still be safe?

After Ji Xiu contracted Jingfeng Mountain, because the developed area was not large at the beginning, he did not restrict village children from herding cattle on the mountain.

He did not expect that once the strawberries ripened, they would attract attention.

When Ji Xiu received a call from the workers and rushed up the mountain, he saw five villagers surrounding a group of children herding cattle, their faces filled with anger.

To the villagers, picking strawberries was their job. This job was light, paid well, and did not require leaving home. It was simply perfect.

But these children had come to steal strawberries.

If the strawberries were all stolen, what about their jobs?

Or rather, if the strawberries were stolen this year and Ji Xiu was unwilling to plant strawberries again next year, what about their jobs next year?

Therefore, compared to Ji Xiu, these villagers were even angrier and particularly furious at the children.

Ji Xiu felt a headache just looking at it.

He could certainly call the police to come educate these children, but they were all fellow villagers. They were not intentionally stealing to sell. Children were ignorant and just wanted to taste them. A few words of education would be enough. It was impossible to really call the police and lock them up.

But if he just educated them with a few words, and these children did not receive a lesson, they might come again in the future.