Distributing seeds

"If the vegetables you grow using his methods in the second half of the year still don't measure up, next year our village will cooperate with Xiao Huan by putting our fields in as shares. Apart from the people doing the regular work, every household will receive dividends according to the fields they contribute," the village chief continued.

"We'll discuss the specific dividend plan at the end of the year. Grow things yourselves first and see the gap between you and him. Stop bullshitting all day, thinking you can soar into the sky, saying you're the best at growing vegetables. Pah!"

Everyone burst out laughing at the village chief's words, while a few farmers who had been bragging lowered their heads in embarrassment.

Those were all boasts made during idle chatter. If they really had that kind of ability, who would want to hole up in this little mountain village, toiling with their faces to the yellow earth and their backs to the sky? Who wouldn't want to head to the city for beautiful wives and lovely concubines, eating, drinking, and having fun?

After the laughter and banter, the village chief wasted no more words and brought out the various seeds Ye Huan had prepared for the village, including both grain seeds and vegetable seeds.

"Choose for yourselves. You're all veteran farmers, so pick whatever you want to grow. Aside from what we said earlier-no pesticides or chemical fertilizers, and watering with mountain spring water-you know how to do everything else yourselves. Once this batch grows, we'll compare them."

Afterward, people from each household came forward to pick the vegetable seeds they wanted. They also wanted to see why, if they grew vegetables the same way, Xiao Huan's could sell for dozens of yuan per jin.

Convinced? How could these people possibly be convinced in their hearts? At most, they were only conceding it with their mouths for now. Having farmed all their lives, who would think they were worse than someone else? They were all nursing a stubborn determination. Wasn't it just mountain spring water? Wasn't it just not spraying pesticides? At worst, they would have to work a little harder.

Several households had even discussed it and prepared themselves for the hard work. Rather than use the village river water that flowed down from the mountain springs, they would find spring water up in the mountains to water their vegetables. They refused to believe it wouldn't work.

After choosing their seeds, each household started seedlings and then sowed them at the appropriate time. For once, nobody in the village was playing cards or bragging anymore. After all, vegetables selling for dozens of yuan per jin were very tempting.

Everyone was brimming with enthusiasm, and some really did go into the mountains to find spring water, tirelessly carrying one or two shoulder-pole loads down every day to water their vegetables.

Ye Huan left them alone and merely smiled when he saw them. His attention was now on the watermelons and strawberries, which had gradually begun ripening lately. He checked them every day, and when the first watermelon ripened, he picked it and brought it home. He weighed it: the watermelon was a full twenty-five jin.

He picked up his phone, first filmed it before picking it, then picked it, took it home, cut it open, edited the footage, and uploaded it, all flowing like clouds and water. He was becoming increasingly practiced at all this.

After lunch, as his parents were preparing to go back to their room for a nap, Ye Huan brought out the sliced watermelon for the family to taste.

"The watermelons are ripe?" his father asked.

"Yeah, this is the first one. I brought it back for us to taste. Once they ripen in batches, I'll deliver them to Gu Family Cuisine," Ye Huan said with a smile.

"It's so sweet!" Mother Ye exclaimed after taking a bite. "Although we missed the early market, it's still not too late. With watermelons this big, two or three a day should be enough for Manager Du, right?"

"I didn't plant many in the first batch, either. It'll barely be enough to supply them. If there are extras, we'll just eat them ourselves. We can't sell off all the good stuff," Ye Huan said with a smile.

His grandfather nodded. He felt that deeply: they couldn't sell off all the good stuff.

"All right, that's all we can do for now. Gu Family Restaurant is still a little small," Ye Huan's father said with slight regret. Now, even earning over ten thousand a day seemed like nothing much to him. People were like that; ambition was cultivated day by day.

"It's already pretty good. We're just starting out, too. If we really worked with those huge hotels, we wouldn't come out ahead. We're not on equal footing." Ye Huan didn't particularly mind. He was still at the experimental stage. Suddenly start dealing with those big hotel chains? He couldn't beat them at their own game.

"Mm. You two don't have the brains for it. Just stick to farming at home for the rest of your lives and leave these matters to Xiao Huan," his grandfather said after eating a slice of watermelon.

"Oh, understood." Ye Huan's parents nodded. Indeed, they should just stick to farming.

Ye Huan said nothing more. He knew what he was doing. These past few days, he had also focused on improving his own strength, so that if something really did happen one day, he would have the ability to settle it.

His progress cultivating the Longevity Dao Scripture was nothing special. Without the spiritual spring in his space, he reckoned he wouldn't make much progress even in a month, so he had first turned his attention to the minor spells in the Shennong Scripture. His practice over the past few days had gone fairly well!

"Xiao Huan, there's something I want to tell you. Starting tomorrow, I'm planning to have Xiaobai from the village entrance come help pick vegetables. Your dad will be driving the vegetables over from now on, so let him sleep a little longer. It would be terrible if something happened," Ye Huan's mother told her son after finishing her watermelon.

"Xiaobai?" While Ye Huan was still wondering who Xiaobai was, his mother saw that he couldn't remember and told him directly, "Your Eighth Grandpa's granddaughter-in-law. Jingjing's mom."

"Oh, oh, Sister-in-law Bai? Brother An's wife? Sure, you decide. I won't get involved in that." Ye Huan nodded, now knowing who she meant. The Brother An he spoke of had already been dead for two years, leaving behind a pitiful mother and daughter: twenty-five-year-old Bai Jie and three-year-old Jingjing.

She was actually younger than Lu Huan, but Ye An had been older than Ye Huan, so Ye Huan called her sister-in-law. There was nothing wrong with that. A pitiful pair.

"One hundred a day. What do you think?" Mother Ye asked.

Ye Huan understood. His mother wanted to lend them a helping hand. "Sure, Mom. You and Dad can make the decisions for this vegetable plot. I'm only responsible for the technical side and the market," Ye Huan said with a smile.

The old man laughed heartily, patted his grandson's shoulder, and went off for a stroll by the big tree at the village entrance, contentedly humming some unknown tune.

Ye Huan's mother also smiled faintly, very pleased with her son. Bai Jie had a hard life. Only two years after marrying into their village, when her daughter was just one, Ye An had been struck and killed by a vehicle while doing casual work in town.

The other party pulled some strings and eventually paid two hundred thousand yuan in compensation, and the matter actually ended just like that. Ye Huan knew the Eighth Grandpa his mother mentioned: he and his wife were an elderly couple who valued boys over girls to an extreme.

Ye An's parents had died early, and these two elders had taken it upon themselves to divert their eldest grandson's two hundred thousand yuan in compensation to find their younger grandson a wife and build him a new house. Their reputation in the village stank to high heaven.

Because he ranked eighth in Ye Huan's grandfather's generation, Ye Huan had called him Eighth Grandpa since childhood.

With her husband dead, Bai Jie and her daughter not only received not a single cent, but also lost the pillar of their household. Their life was easy to imagine. And Jingjing was only three, so Bai Jie couldn't even leave to work elsewhere. She remained stuck in the village, usually growing some grain and vegetables, raising a few chickens and ducks, and keeping two pigs.

Selling them at the end of the year brought in a little money.