Early the next morning, Ruan Yimian and his father and mother were busy again.

Ruan Dexian still worked in the field, Lu Caimei didn't let her son go out this time, and went to the mountains to pick pomegranate flowers alone. Ruan Yimian stayed at home to boil water, scald the cotton cloth he had exchanged, and cleaned the tools used to make cotton rouge.

The water used in the house was brought back from Nguyen Duc Xian's visit to the village well the night before, and it filled two large water tanks.

Because there is a lot of water to be used today, even if the water in the tank is just filled with a small bucket and poured into the pot, Ruan Yimian will be very tired.

This figure is really useless, Ruan Yimian sighed secretly in her heart. He had to mention it several times, only half a bucket of water each time, and finally filled the cauldron with water, and the person was already out of breath, and his head was a little dizzy.

After fetching water, he sat and rested for a while before he recovered, and his desire to save money for treatment became more urgent.

After he washed and dried the five cotton cloths, Lu Caimei also came back.

This time, they plan to make 500 pieces of cotton rouge, and if they can't sell them all at once, they won't be tight, anyway, this thing won't be broken, and it won't occupy any land.

If Ruan Yiquan only takes two or three hundred out, then the rest will be kept at home for preparation, so as not to rush to meet the deadline next time.

Now is the flowering period of the pomegranate flowers, and if you don't pick them quickly, the flowers will fall and rot on the ground and they will not be usable.

After Lu Caimei poured out the pomegranate flowers in the bamboo basket, she returned to the mountain.

Last time, a bamboo basket and a small basket of pomegranate flowers made one hundred and eight pieces of cotton rouge, and this time to make five hundred pieces of cotton rouge, it is about five or six baskets of mountain pomegranate flowers. The bamboo basket is larger, and three baskets are enough.

After Lu Caimei left, Ruan Yimian washed the two baskets of pomegranate flowers with clean water and dried them in the hall with a bamboo sieve.

The weather was beautiful these days, the sun was very strong, and the mountain wind was blowing, and the cotton cloth was dry in the afternoon.

When Ruan Yimian was cutting cotton cloth, Lu Caimei also returned. In addition to a basket of pomegranate flowers, I also picked a small half basket of bamboo shoots and wild vegetables. However, she looked gloomy and seemed a little unhappy.

"Mother, what's wrong?" Ruan Yimian was a little worried.

"Cao Chunfeng, the long-tongued woman, said everywhere that our family couldn't afford to eat and went to the mountains to pick pomegranate flowers to eat, and also said that we had finished picking all the pomegranate flowers in the back mountain, and we wouldn't leave a little way for those who had no land! Today I went to dig wild vegetables, and I happened to meet Cao Chunfeng and her dogs, and when they saw me, they asked me with a broken face, 'You picked so many pomegranate flowers and dug wild vegetables, what should the rest of the village do?' ’”

Lu Caimei usually doesn't want to tell her son about these bad things, but this time she seems to be angry, she didn't hide it from Ruan Yimian, and carefully told him what happened on the mountain.

In the spring, when the wild vegetables on the mountain grow wildly, bracken, camellia, toon, and everyone's favorite bamboo shoots all grow, and the women and husbands of the village, who are not working in the fields, go to the mountains to dig wild vegetables.

There are so many pomegranate flowers left, one is because it is not a serious dish and is not so popular; The second is because everyone is busy digging wild vegetables and bamboo shoots, and they can't get out.

Ruan's Ruan Dexian wants to farm, Ruan Yimian can't squat for a long time, can't dig wild vegetables, and only Lu Caimei has time to run to the mountains.

But she spent so much time picking pomegranate flowers, and she dug fewer wild vegetables, and in fact she didn't take much advantage of others.

And to make cotton rouge, you can only choose pure color safflower, and there are many left, but Lu Caimei didn't move. In previous years, the pomegranate flowers that were not picked in time were also rotten on the mountain, but this time she picked some more and was attacked like this, which was inevitably a little resentful.

questioned Lu Caimei's two husbands and a woman, all of whom were good friends with Cao Chunfeng, and their own conditions were not good, so they scrambled to Cao Chunfeng, hoping to leak some benefits from her to them. Cao Chunfeng enjoys the popularity of others, and is also happy to occasionally send some pigs into the water to give them favors.

Lu Caimei is not a soft bun, she was scolded by the head and face, so naturally there was no reason to swallow her anger, so she scolded back.

"I haven't asked you how to dig up so many wild vegetables and let the rest of the village do it, but you have the face to question me? Isn't your house 'three meals of meat a day'? Why do you still come to grab wild vegetables with those of us who can't afford to eat? ”

Lu Caimei crossed her hands on her hips and said hatefully to Cao Chunfeng: "This back mountain is a public mountain, not your private mountain, and it is not your turn to 'dog and mouse'!" ”

The women's quarrel was so loud that soon the people who were digging wild vegetables nearby were attracted to it.

After Yu Peilan came over, she saw Lu Caimei scolding the four of them alone, and hurriedly stepped forward to help.

"What? A few years ago, when you folded so many pomegranate flowers to sell them in the town, no one said about you, right? Now everyone is not short of these flowers to eat, my sister-in-law has to ask for your consent to pick more? ”

Cao Chunfeng was very unconvinced: "Did she pick a little more?" That pomegranate flower is almost finished by her! ”

A woman with a somewhat serious face who came over with Yu Peilan said lightly: "Cao Chunfeng, if you think that Sister Lu can't pick so many pomegranate flowers, you can exchange your basket of bamboo shoots with her, if she doesn't bother to pick the flowers, the bamboo shoots dug up should be no less than the ones in your basket." ”

As soon as she said this, the people who were watching the excitement next to her began to chatter.

"It's a good idea, it's fair."

"Then Cao Chunfeng definitely doesn't agree! The bamboo shoots can be sold in the town for money, but the pomegranate flowers can't be sold at a high price! ”

"Cao Chunfeng said that her family has three meals of meat a day, and she still needs to sell bamboo shoots to make money?"

"She didn't dig up the wild vegetables next to her, so she dug up bamboo shoots, didn't she just see that bamboo shoots were expensive?"

"Why do people who eat meat three times a day come to dig bamboo shoots?"

……

Cao Chunfeng clenched the bamboo basket in her hand, and when she heard those words that secretly sarcastically mocked her, she was very angry: "Can't I dig some bamboo shoots and go back to stew meat and eat it?" You are allowed to dig, but I am not allowed to dig? ”

Seeing that Lu Caimei had two sharp-tongued helpers, she couldn't please her, so she left with a sigh of anger after she finished speaking.

After listening to the ins and outs of the matter, Ruan Yimian secretly blamed herself for not thinking about it enough.

There are many people in the village, they take the pomegranate flowers on the Gongshan Mountain to make cotton rouge, now it's okay to make a small fuss, and the future will really make this business bigger, eighty percent will attract people's eyes. It's better to spend some money to buy it in Dongjiao Village, or find someone in the village to collect it, although the cost is more, but it can stay away from right and wrong, settle clean, and make his mother more relaxed.

Ruan Yimian told Lu Caimei about his idea, but Lu Caimei didn't agree with it.

"There are things in the mountains behind the village, why should we spend money to buy them? People can dig bamboo shoots and sell them for money, why can't we pick pomegranate flowers to make money? ”

Ruan Yimian explained to her carefully: "Mother, in the future, we will not only make cotton rouge, but also make more valuable rouge cream, rouge powder, and hand ointment, these things will have to spend money to buy raw materials sooner or later." If you use all the pomegranate flowers in the back mountain, I am afraid that I will really pick all the flowers, now only Aunt Cao has opinions, if the flowers are really picked, I am afraid that there will be more people who have opinions. Moreover, cotton rouge is cheap to use pomegranate flowers, and the rest of the fat powder balm is expensive, so it is natural to use better flowers. ”

Ruan Yimian said this, and Lu Caimei understood.

There are a few families in the village who fled the drought a few years ago, and there is no field here, so they rely on working everywhere on weekdays and digging wild vegetables in the back mountains to make a living. Sell the highest-priced bamboo shoots, dry the wild vegetables and pomegranate flowers that no one buys, and keep them for yourself, so that you can eat them for a long time. If the Ruan family picks all the flowers that can make rouge, their life will be much more difficult.

"Then we really can't keep picking the pomegranate flowers in the back, but can we sell those fat powder balms? Now cotton rouge is easy to sell because it is cheap, and the brothers and sisters in those places where your cousin is a merchant can't afford to buy those expensive things! ”

Ruan Yimian had already thought about this problem, but just by selling cotton rouge, it was difficult for them to save enough money for him to treat his illness, his brother to study, and the silver needed to save Lin Qiu.

Mianrouge looks at making money now, but not necessarily later. The people in the village don't have much money to spare, and they can use it several times to save a little bit of rouge, these people buy it once, I'm afraid they don't have to buy it again for a year, and when Ruan Yiquan sells all the villages around here, it will be slow to sell it again in the future.

If you want to make a lot of money by selling rouge, you still have to be like Lin Qiu, make some rouge powder and rouge paste and sell them in the rouge shops in the town or county. Most of the people who can afford the expensive rouge are the children of merchants and officials in the city, and there are very few ordinary people.

But ordinary people go to the rouge shop to sell rouge, and people really don't necessarily accept it. I don't know how Lin Qiu persuaded the shopkeeper of the rouge shop to accept his rouge in his previous life, Ruan Yimian has been thinking about it for the past few days, but he has no clue.

But it's a big deal to slowly save money by selling cotton rouge, and when you save enough, you can go to the town to rent a small shop, although it is a little slower, but it is also a method.

Lu Caimei heard that he still had the idea of opening a shop, and on the one hand, she felt incredible, and on the other hand, she felt that it was not impossible. A small shop in the town, the cheap rent of seven or eight taels a year is enough, if the five hundred pieces of cotton rouge can be sold this time, they can save more than one or two, even if the later sales are slower, it should be enough to save two or three years.

When he opened a shop and made a lot of money, he could take his son to the county seat and the capital city to seek medical treatment and cure his illness! Lu Caimei was very longing in her heart.