Liu Hongjube and Liu Huahua had no objections, and several people took advantage of the fact that it was not dark to classify those watermelons according to their size and quality, but fortunately there were only more than 300 watermelons, otherwise the empty space in front of her house really couldn't be placed.

Because the three sisters were so tired, they only hugged a few melons in the house, and the other watermelons were put outside.

Rope bed, as the name suggests, is a bed woven with thick rope, this kind of bed because of the simple production, is more common in the farmhouse, Liu Chongshan in the summer when it is too hot, will move out of the rope bed to sleep outside, next to a fire rope made of mugwort, so that there will be no mosquitoes all night.

The next day, the three sisters had breakfast as usual, and the eldest sister said, "I went to the village chief's house and asked his family to send someone to pick melons, and I picked up enough one hundred and fifty melons, and we will ask his family if they accept the rest, and if they do, they don't have to bother to pick them up and sell them in the town." ”

"Then I'll go with you." Liu Guiyuan calculated last night, her family didn't have a few melons, and then pulled to the town to ask others to pick and choose, it was better to sell them directly to the village chief's family, anyway, I heard the eldest sister say that the village chief's family will collect some watermelons in good condition every year.

The village chief's family belongs to the head of the village, built with three neat large tile houses, it is the most magnificent family in the village, I heard the eldest sister say that the village chief Tian was the master of Xiucai, and his eldest son Tian Rutong was also admitted to Xiucai at the age of 18, but unfortunately he died of an emergency illness not long after, leaving only a wife and a posthumous son.

A family has two talents, which is a glorious thing in Huashi Village, and the party Tian Youren is therefore quite respected by the villagers, and later was recommended as the head of a village, and now manages Huashi Village for 20 years.

The yard of the village chief's house is paved with a cross bluestone road, surrounded by rammed and neat land, and a big tree is planted on the left side of the door, Tian Rutang, the second son of the village chief, is laying wheat straw on the wheelbarrow, and his wife is sitting under the tree and weaving a curtain with wheat straw, and there are five or six watermelons next to it.

Tian Village Chief was not at home, Liu Hongjube could only talk to Tian Rutang about returning the melon, he listened to it and went to the house to find the IOU signed at that time, his wife Liu (Liu Shuzhen) is from the village, and talked to them very cordially: "Red dates, how is your watermelon fruiting, do you want to send it to my house to sell?" ”

Liu Hongzao smiled when he heard it and said: "Coincidentally, we are here for this, in addition to the one we borrowed before, there are more than 100 in my house, you go and pick and choose, and keep the bad ones for us to eat." ”

Liu thought that her family was not there, and her sister was troublesome in selling watermelons, so she smiled and said: "I will ask Rutang to go over and collect it first, your melons are few, and you can collect them quickly." ”

"Second sister-in-law Tian, your family collects so many melons, can you sell them all when they are sent to Fucheng?" Liu Guiyuan saw that Liu was easy to speak, and suddenly had an idea, and opened his mouth to inquire about the sales situation in Fucheng, if the buyer can be determined, can she also collect watermelons and send them to Fucheng to sell?

It just so happened that Tian Rutang found the IOU, and when he came over, he heard what Liu Guiyuan said, his eyes paused on her, raised his eyebrows and said: "Watermelon is not easy to sell, it is worthless if it is pressed on the road, when you load the melon, you have to lay wheat straw, and you can't dry it, once you have been exposed to the sun for a long time, cut it and see that the melon pulp has changed color, so who else buys it?" ”

Liu Guiyuan nodded like pounding garlic, thinking that no wonder their yard was full of wheat straw, which was originally used to pad and cover watermelons, and she also took it for granted that it was easy to harvest watermelons, and sent them to the town dock from here, although it was only five or six miles away, but it couldn't stand the bumps on the road.

Liu Guiyuan stopped talking for the time being, and Tian Rutang talked about her family's borrowing of melon seeds and returning watermelons at the beginning of the year.

On the way home, Liu Guiyuan began to think about collecting watermelons, and told her eldest sister to listen, Liu Hongjube hesitated a little, and said: "It's okay if it's sent to the town, but it's a little complicated to send it to Fucheng, can't we let Brother Dog help us sell melons?" ”

The three of them, in the end, it is still a little inconvenient to do business on the street.

"That's definitely not going to work, Brother Dog Baby may not be willing to go to Fucheng, not to mention that we have to go to find a market by ourselves when we get there, I'm not sure if we can find it, so I'm still thinking about it." Now that the watermelons are about to go on the market, she remembered to batch the watermelons to Fucheng, and the time between them is too tight to be in time.

When he got home, Liu Guiyuan told Grandma Luo and the second sister about it, and their views were similar to those of the eldest sister, and they both felt that Fucheng was too far away, and it was very risky for her, who was not familiar with the place.

"If you don't know the year, when the time comes, let's set off to Fucheng together, as long as we can find a suitable seller, we don't have to worry about not making money." Liu Hongzao suggested her.

This dynasty stipulates that anyone who is far away from the place where they live needs to go to the government to ask for directions, but the capital city is less than a hundred miles here, and with the blessing of waterways, it can be reached in two days at most.

"Well, let's do it first, this year is a bit of a rush." Liu Guiyuan thought carefully for a while, and decided to stop this in advance, as for the money-making business, she could think about it slowly in the future.

Since this thing didn't work out, Liu Guiyuan didn't think much about it, the three sisters put the watermelons all over the ground, looked at the particularly small and ugly watermelons, and carried them to the house first, and the rest of the good ones were classified according to their size.

Soon, Tian Rutang really took the two of them to her house to collect melons, including Liu Guiyuan's acquaintance Tian Rubai, he and Tian Rutang are cousins, it is estimated that his cousin's family is not enough to collect melons, so he specially called several of his cousins to come over to help.

There weren't many melons in total, and the three of them worked together. One person held the melons, one counted, and one supervised, and finally a total of 213 watermelons were selected, and the 150 that should be repaid were deducted, and the remaining 63 watermelons needed to be paid.

Sixty-three watermelons, each of which was charged at four cents, was two hundred and fifty-two cents, Tian Rubai gave all the copper coins and returned the IOU to her eldest sister, and the matter was completed. Tian Rubai beckoned another person and pushed the cart away first, Tian Rubai couldn't push it alone, so he waited at Liu Guiyuan's house first.

The sun was getting big outside, and Liu Hongjube received the leftover melons into the house, and Liu Guiyuan walked over and talked to Tian Rubai: "The village chief is worthy of being the village chief, and he actually thought of collecting watermelons here and selling them to Fucheng, but is there such a shortage of watermelons in Fucheng?" ”

Tian Rubai nodded when he heard this, and said: "One place has one characteristic, our watermelons here in Qinghe Town grow well, so naturally there are people from outside who come to collect them, I heard that the fields over there in Fucheng grow few watermelons, and they are not very sweet." ”

Liu Guiyuan took it for granted and said: "So the village chief noticed this and began to buy watermelons in the village?" ”

Unexpectedly, Tian Rubai shook his head violently and explained: "My father and I mentioned this matter once, about ten years ago, not long after the eldest uncle became the head of the village, he met a few outsiders who came to collect melons, and jointly collected the watermelons in our village at a low price. “

From this point of view, the head of their village not only has the mind to make money to support his family, but also has the feeling of loving the people like a son, which is a good thing.

Waiting for Tian Rubai to pull the last cart of melons away, Liu Guiyuan took a broom to sweep the open space in front of the door, Liu Hongzao and Grandma Luo were cutting vegetables and washing rice in the hall, Liu Huahua sneaked out of the house at this time, and still held a piece of leftover watermelon in his hand.

"Second sister, are you stealing watermelon again?"

When Liu Guiyuan saw her second sister like that, she knew that she had eaten the watermelon behind her back, not that she was not allowed to eat it, but her sunflower water did not recede, and the watermelon was cold, and it was definitely not good to eat more.

"The one I ate was just brought in from the sun, it's not cold at all, don't you believe it?"

Liu Guiyuan was so angry that she had to ask Liu Guiyuan to reach out and touch it, so Liu Guiyuan was reluctant to touch the melon skin she had eaten, so he just pointed to the west and said, "Then you take it to the pigsty and feed the pigs, but you gnaw it too cleanly, I guess the pigs don't like to eat your leftovers." ”

"It dares not to eat, it's used to it, and some of it is good to eat."

Liu Huahua walked out quite vigorously, and Grandma Luo behind her called her: "It's a pity to feed the pig with the melon skin, bring it to me to peel it, how good it is to mix a watermelon skin." ”

Liu Hongzao brought the rice and vegetables to the pot outside, turned his back to Grandma Luo and said: "Grandma, our family has a lot of watermelon skins, you have to mix cold vegetables and cut another one, anyway, there are watermelons in the field at home, and you can't eat all the watermelon skins when the time comes." ”

The watermelon skin couldn't be eaten, Liu Guiyuan grabbed this sentence and began to think, since the watermelon skin is a waste that can only be fed to pigs, can you think of some way to use the waste? Why don't you make a watermelon cream, or watermelon sugar, or watermelon peel tea?

Liu Guiyuan's first exclusion is watermelon cream, because the production of this cream requires the use of complete watermelon, first cut a small hole in the melon head, dig out the flesh inside, and then put in traditional Chinese medicine such as miscanthus salt, so that the fresh watermelon pulp is wasted, this cost is too high and belongs to traditional Chinese medicine, it is best not to touch.

The second exclusion is watermelon peel tea, which only uses a thin layer on the surface of the melon skin, so that the white melon pulp is wasted, and the watermelon peel can be made into tea as long as it is dried, and there is no process at all.

The best way is to make watermelon candy from watermelon rinds, like the winter melon candy sold in the town, and sell it by the pound.

If you want to sell the volume, it is best to wait until the watermelon is off the market and the weather turns cooler, as long as a few of them do enough, they can easily sell it until the New Year......

Liu Guiyuan thought of this, so she told a few people about the plan to collect watermelon peels to make watermelon candy, and each family could eat one watermelon a day at most, even if she collected the watermelon skins of the whole village, she could make all the watermelon candy in two or three days at most, so there was still plenty of time.

"I'll see it!" When Liu Huahua heard that he wanted to sell food, it was still sweet, and he suddenly came to his senses, "I see that the winter melon candy in the town is not very delicious, but many people still buy it, so it can be seen that no matter what food is eaten, as long as it is added with sugar, it is easy to sell." ”

"Don't lose the skin of the watermelon, dry it all and put it away, soak it in water to relieve the heat and clear the heat, isn't it better to drink it in summer than to drink white water?" Liu Hongzao also expressed his opinion at this time.

Luo Lao Niang didn't know how to do business, and when she heard them say that the capital was not big, she didn't open her mouth to stop her, she understood that the three girls were all assertive!

Liu Guiyuan saw that the three of them had no opinions, and continued to add: "Watermelon peels can be collected, but you have to tell the villagers in advance, the red flesh must be at least half an inch smaller, and we will not accept it if the mouth bites, otherwise when the guests think that this is someone else's leftovers, then they won't be disgusted to death?" ”

Since you want to sell this, you have to pay attention to the hygiene of watermelon skin, you can't bite it directly with your mouth, if you want to sell watermelon skin, you can dig it out with a knife and eat it, and keep the clean red flesh.