The maize was ordered in the East Lake, and Liu Hongjube and Liu Huahua returned home with the dung basket on their backs, and they had to come tomorrow morning, and the maize that had just been ordered was difficult to germinate without watering. Liu Guiyuan has already gone back in advance, there is a little doll at home, she doesn't dare to leave for too long, and when the lotus seed will turn over in three or four months, she has to look at her every inch, and it will be troublesome at that time.

Now that Liu Chongshan and his family are not there, the eldest sister said that the bad thing about her relatives has also been solved, and Liu Guiyuan, who is idle, begins to think about things, thinking about how to earn money with her own wisdom, and when she earns money, she will not talk about it, and cover the courtyard wall of the house as soon as possible, so that her three sisters are at home, and they don't have to be careful at night.

Thinking about it, Liu Guiyuan really came up with a way to make money, this thing has to thank the eldest sister and the second sister, two days ago her family had two more pigs to build a pigsty, the sisters went to the back mountain to pull the stone when they picked a handful of wild loquats, this wild loquat is small, it tastes sour and sweet, generally only the children in the village will pick a few, but it is this inconspicuous little thing can be made into ice powder to be sold in the market.

Think of using the juice of wild loquat to make ice powder, mixed with dilute sand sugar water, put it in the freshly dug well water to chill, if possible, and sprinkle some sesame seeds, hawthorn or wild mulberry and raspberry, that taste so much better to relieve the heat.

"Can you make that ice powder you said?" Liu Huahua held a small green and yellow wild loquat in his hand, a little unbelieving, and took a bite of it, well, it was really sour and a little sweet.

"Let's try, anyway, my father and mother are not at home, so it's not up to us to decide what to do." Liu Guiyuan sat up from the straw mat with a bone, his eyes full of sparkling light.

"Okay, let's listen to longan, and Ming'er will go to the back mountain to pick it." Liu Hongjube looked at Liu Guiyuan and smiled softly.

Early the next morning, Liu Guiyuan had eaten, fed Liu Lianzi and ate batter and egg custard, and asked the fourth grandmother to help take care of it.

"Don't worry, I'm fine at home, I'll show you a good look." The fourth grandmother likes the newborn baby doll the most, and when Zhang hugged her last time, the little doll stared at her for a long time, in her words, this is called fate.

Liu Guiyuan thanked the fourth grandmother for going out, walked halfway and retreated, and asked, "Fourth grandmother, where is the dog baby, he is not at home?" ”

"Well, he is in a bad mood when he stays in the house, so it's better to tell him to be quiet." The fourth grandmother knew that the eldest grandson was reluctant to Xu Shanmei, but she couldn't help it, the family had a total of two or three hundred yuan, and she couldn't make up twenty taels of silver until she died, so she couldn't redeem herself.

Liu Guiyuan's eyes rolled half a circle, puffed up his cheeks to help think for a while, and then lay down next to the fourth grandmother's ear and said for a while, and saw that the fourth grandmother's original sparse flat eyebrows smiled into curved eyebrows, and said: "Okay, just ask him to help, it's okay, he is the elder brother, and he will help you." ”

After the fourth grandmother said this, she walked into the house with lotus seeds, lifted the gray curtain, and shouted angrily: "Dog baby, get up quickly, your sisters in Guiyuan are looking for your help, aren't there a lot of wild loquat in the back mountain, you go and help pick some back, don't ask a few of them to go up the tree, do you hear?" ”

The dog baby is a good child, although she is in a low mood, her grandmother spoke, nodded and followed Liu Guiyuan out. Waiting all the way to the back mountain, Liu Guiyuan knew what it means to be all over the mountain, the whole back mountain from the foot of the mountain to the top of the mountain, there are wild loquat trees of different sizes, there are green and yellow as far as the eye can see, and they are hanging on the branches like grapes, but no one picks them.

When he arrived at the place, the dog baby looked up and found a stout wild loquat tree, took off his shoes, spit on each of his hands, and soon went up the tree with two feet.

The dog baby was dangling the branches on the top, and the green and yellow wild loquat was falling down, Liu Hongjujube and Liu Huahua used a broken grass mat to pick it up below, and the waiting for it was almost over, and then fell aside, and soon gathered into a pile, and Liu Guiyuan was responsible for putting the fallen loquat into a cloth bag. In fact, she originally planned to use a fishing net to be enough, and as long as her fishing net was replaced with a longer bamboo pole, it would definitely be accurate, but it was not as fast as the dog baby.

When I went out in the morning, I picked a full bag before noon, and when I saw that it was almost over, the dog baby got down the tree quickly, walked to Liu Guiyuan, put a whole bag of loquat behind him, and said, "I...... I got it. ”

"Brother Dog, do you want to go to the town to see Sister Shan?" Liu Guiyuan followed her and asked.

The dog baby glanced back at her and nodded honestly, and Liu Guiyuan told him the plan he had thought of halfway: "I want to make ice powder for the people in the town to make so many wild loquats, and sell them to the people in the town, I can't do it too young, and the eldest sister and the second sister are inconvenient, are you willing to help us sell ice powder?" ”

The dog baby was a little confused, Liu Guiyuan continued: "Let's do this business together, my eldest sister and second sister make ice powder at home, you send it to the town to sell, the money we earn is cut off from the cost, and the rest of the money is half for each person, what's the matter?" ”

She plans to make sand sugar ice powder, fruit ice powder and glutinous ice powder, these three flavors cost in addition to ice powder, but this cost can definitely be earned back in the future. As for the profit of one person and half, this is the price she opened in line with the principle of mutual benefit, the three sisters are all girls, it is definitely inconvenient to sell ice powder in the town, it is just right for the dog baby brother to come forward, when she talks to Sun Jingxuan, she will ask the dog baby to set up a stall in front of his store, and they can also advertise each other.

The dog baby thought about it, and was a little unconfident, he grew so big that he couldn't even speak, how could he go to the town to sell things, so he pointed to his mouth and said, "I can't ....... ...... Say...... Speak. ”

Liu Guiyuan saw that he was struggling to speak, so he came up with an idea and said: "Brother Dog, don't worry about this, when you get to the town, people want to ask what you sell, you can take out the ice powder and give it to him to taste, how much does it cost, you just point to the price written in advance and show him, and he will understand everything." Besides, Sister Shanmei is in the town, and if she goes out of the house occasionally, you can still watch it. ”

Sure enough, as soon as he heard this, Brother Gouwa's eyes lit up instantly, and he ran quickly towards home with a bag of fruits on his back, which made the three sisters laugh.

When I got home, the fourth grandmother waited at the door with lotus seeds, Liu Guiyuan waited to make ice powder, and asked the eldest sister to make some mats to eat, so she and the second sister were busy cleaning the fresh wild loquats, washing and removing the seeds inside, smashing them with a kitchen knife, and finally finding a piece of gauze wrapped in water and rubbing it continuously until there was no trace of gelatinous mucus to stop.

After rubbing, the wild loquat juice presents a kind of water red, very good-looking, and then as long as it is placed in the well water that has just been drilled and chilled to solidify, in order to see the finished product quickly, Liu Guiyuan called the dog baby to move the water tank placed in the outer shed to the inner room, and then re-hit some well water and put it inside, cover the bamboo cover and wait.

Liu Huahua really wanted to taste what Liu Guiyuan said about the ice powder, and kept opening the lid to check it this day, waiting for the ice powder to be full of gelatinous shape, right

The two sisters who were feeding the pigs outside shouted: "Eldest sister, longan, okay, it's really ice powder!" ”

Liu Guiyuan heard the shout, ran into the house, and after seeing a layer of dark brown transparent blocks, she knew that the ice powder was made, because there was no cutting corners, no pigments were added, this pure natural handmade ice powder showed a dark brown color, she gently scooped it out with a rice spoon, divided it into several bowls, took the sugar that the eldest sister took from the back room, little by little and in it, and then handed it to the eldest sister and the second sister, and said, "You two taste it first." ”

"Well, it's sweet, it's really sweet, it's much better than eating wild loquat raw, it's not sour at all, it's sweet." Liu Hongzao bit the rice spoon and exclaimed.

"Yes, it's not only sweet, but also cold, it's the best to eat this in summer, why are you so smart, you can think of anything?" Liu Peanut is very satisfied with the taste of the ice powder, and the small rice spoon is scooped lightly one by one.

"Look, can you sell it for money?" Liu Guiyuan picked up a bowl of ice powder and tasted it, the taste is definitely not as good as the modern taste, the modern ice powder has a lot of sweeteners, and it has been kept in the refrigerator, which is more popular than the taste of the earth ice powder they made by hand, but even so, such a bowl of ice powder is enough to capture the hearts of the ancients.

Liu Guiyuan called the fourth grandmother and the dog baby brother next door to taste, and after they tasted it, they also said that they were good, and the next step was to make more ice powder and send it to the town to sell.

"Just two copies for a penny, don't you think?"

Liu Guiyuan has calculated the cost of a piece of ice powder, a pound of the most inferior sand sugar is eighteen yuan, and a pound of sand sugar can boil one and a half pounds of water, and about one hundred and fifty parts of ice powder can be redeemed, so that the cost of each serving of ice powder is only 0.15 yuan, of course, this is not considering other expenses such as wild loquat and labor costs. According to the reference of a bowl of tea and a penny in the town, Liu Guiyuan finally priced the ice powder for two cents, put more sugar in the sand sugar ice powder, and put less sand sugar in the fruit ice powder and glutinous ice powder because of the added ingredients, and try to share the cost as much as possible.

"I think the price is a little low, the five flavors of thirst water sold in the town cost a penny, and our ice powder is either loquat or sand sugar, and it is a bit of a loss for two cents." Liu Hongzao lowered his head and thought for a while, and said his opinion.

Liu Guiyuan knew that last time she and her eldest sister went to the town to deliver snails, and met a fragrant drink shop specializing in all kinds of thirsty water along the street, the cheapest of which is this five-flavor thirsty water, the practice is to soak the five-flavor thirsty water in the boiling soup, and fry it together with thick black bean juice the next day, and then add sweet tea to make it sweet and sour, just a small bowl will cost a penny.

"I think what the eldest sister said is right, let's have a bowl of money." Liu Huahua also agreed with the eldest sister's opinion.

Liu Guiyuan thought about it for a while in her heart, thinking that she would write a penny, from picking loquat to making ice powder, I don't know how much effort it took to make it, she couldn't help but take labor seriously.

"Okay, I'll listen to you, Brother Dog, you have nothing to do at home to cut some small bamboo chips, and then use them as spoons for the guests."

Liu Guiyuan gestured towards the dog baby, the dog baby was just stupid and said bad things, but her mind was fine, and she nodded excitedly. At this time, the fourth grandmother, who had not spoken, spoke, and said: "Dog baby, you go to the town tomorrow to buy two large vats, and put them in our cellar, where it is cool, and the ice powder they make is the most suitable for chilling longan, and buy four more vats with lids, and thirty thick bowls, remember?" ”

In the end, the ginger is still old and spicy, and the fourth grandmother arranged the preparation for them very carefully as soon as she opened her mouth, and the temperature in the cellar was low, and the juice of the wild loquat could quickly become powder.

"Then tomorrow I will follow Brother Dog Wa to the town, and talk to Brother Sun by the way, eldest sister and second sister, you two continue to make ice powder at home, try to pick more wild loquats, fourth grandma, lotus seeds will bother you to take care of the old man." Tomorrow is the day to send the snails, she went over and said.

"Okay!"