Chapter 8 (continued)

Qing Mengzhu urgently needed to get his hands on some Star Coins. He was almost tempted to go down to the river or out to sea to catch fish.

If he got lucky, he could sell the fish to the mall and earn a sum of Star Coins in a short time.

The problem was that it was currently the closed fishing season, and netting and electrofishing were also prohibited in their area.

Although he wanted Star Coins, he couldn't break the law for them.

Fishing with a rod was allowed, but with his skills, catching fish worth more than seventy Star Coins in just a few days was a fantasy.

It was more likely he would end up feeding the fish seventy-odd Star Coins' worth of bait.

Things had reached an impasse for the time being, but Qing Mengzhu didn't sit idle. He went into the mountains every day to gather produce, earning whatever he could.

He made especially full use of his family's two mountains. He sold whatever wild vegetables and tender leaves he could, and he picked and sold every last green plum on the plum trees.

But no one had tended the plum trees for years, and the fruit they bore was green and small, of fairly ordinary quality. The Interstellar Mall offered only 0.018 Star Coins per jin, not much more than it paid for wild vegetables.

That day, Qing Pingdun was delivering packages in the village when he saw Qing Mengzhu coming down with a load of plums. He stopped his little three-wheeler and called out, "Brother Mengzhu, are you going to pickle those green plums or make plum wine? You picked so many."

Qing Mengzhu said, "A little of both."

Qing Pingdun laughed. "You really do have patience. These days, a lot of people don't eat the old varieties anymore because they're small and astringent."

Qing Mengzhu said, "It would be a waste to let them rot on the ground. I might as well bring them back and put them to use."

Qing Pingdun said, "It's mostly because there's so much available now. A lot of people don't care for green plums anymore. Plenty of them in the mountains rot on the ground year after year, and nobody wants them. Sometimes I think it's quite a waste."

An idea occurred to Qing Mengzhu. "Which mountains? How come they just rot on the ground?"

Qing Pingdun turned and pointed out the mountains behind him. "The ones back there. Didn't a lot of people here used to make green plum jam? Lots of families planted plum trees, but most of them have moved away now, so nobody looks after the trees."

Qing Mengzhu said, "Those are still privately owned fruit trees, aren't they? It's not that nobody wants them."

Seeing his interest, Qing Pingdun told him a little more. "Nobody really does want them. Quite a few families even transferred their household registrations away, and the mountains became public property. Naturally, those green plums became wild plums."

Qing Mengzhu asked, "Doesn't anyone pick them to sell?"

Qing Pingdun said, "How much could they sell for? The merchants who came to buy green plums this year offered only three or four mao per jin, and they were picky about their appearance. Nobody's tended the plums in the mountains for years. They have thin flesh, large pits, and insect holes. If you picked them, you'd lose money on picking and transportation costs."

Qing Mengzhu said, "Is that so? I thought more people would be interested in green plums."

Qing Pingdun said, "Hardly anyone is. Take Mount Wangwu-there's a huge plum grove over there, and nobody wants it."

Qing Mengzhu asked a few more questions, and Qing Pingdun told him where Mount Wangwu was and which path led up to the plum grove.

Qing Pingdun added, "Nobody wants the green plums, but that grove is so big that people go up the mountain to admire the blossoms every year. Search online and you'll even find videos and guides people have made."

Qing Mengzhu was overjoyed. "Thanks. I'll look it up when I get home. I happen to need quite a lot of green plums for composting lately. If I'm sure nobody wants them, I'll go pick some in the mountains."

Qing Pingdun waved a hand. "Go ahead and check. I'm sure nobody wants them. The descendants of the people who planted that grove have all gone abroad, and there aren't many households left in the mountains, just some elderly people who stayed behind. Nobody looks after it."

Following Qing Pingdun's tip, Qing Mengzhu went home and searched a few keywords. Sure enough, he found the plum grove on Mount Wangwu.

The only posts online were videos and photos with descriptions from a few months ago, when the plum blossoms were in bloom. Apparently, nobody had gone there since.

Qing Mengzhu organized the information he had found, then took some woven sacks and drove to Mount Wangwu after lunch.

Thanks to the project connecting every village by road, Qing Mengzhu was able to follow a country road and drive straight to the foot of the plum grove.

To reach the grove, he still had to climb a stretch of mountain path.

The path was probably easier to travel in winter, when the weeds had withered. But spring had been underway for a while, and weeds and shrubs had grown right into the middle of the dirt path.

Qing Mengzhu had to take a brush knife and clear away the weeds and shrubs as he walked, cutting a path through again.

The path was difficult, and climbing the mountain was tiring. It took him more than two hours to get from the foot of the mountain to halfway up.

Fortunately, the plum grove was still there. The branches were laden with plums that had already begun to turn yellow, with a hint of pale red on their skins. They looked extremely tempting.

Qing Mengzhu entered the grove and stood among the weeds, reaching out to pick a large yellow plum with a touch of red at its tip.

The plum looked almost as big as a yellow apricot. It had truly ripened on the tree, and as Qing Mengzhu picked it, he could feel the soft flesh inside.

He held it under his nose and sniffed. A fresh, pleasant plum fragrance wafted up to him.

A plum this ripe was easy to peel. With just a gentle tug, he pulled the skin off, just like peeling a fully ripe honey peach.

With the skin gone, the plum's flesh had a texture like a honey peach's too, looking soft and tempting.

Qing Mengzhu couldn't resist taking a small, gentle bite, only to have the sourness nearly paralyze his face.

It was too sour. Even fully ripe, the plum had not a hint of sweetness, only overwhelming sourness and astringency.

Now he understood why nobody wanted the fruit in this grove, even though its branches were laden with plums.

They didn't taste good, and they couldn't be sold. It would have been strange if anyone were interested.

Fortunately, he wasn't picking plums to eat, but to sell to the Interstellar Mall.

Qing Mengzhu took a moment to recover, then began picking once the sour taste had passed.

He picked a handful of plums and first scanned them with the Interstellar Mall.

The Interstellar Mall offered a decent price: 0.022 Star Coins per jin, a little better than gathering wild vegetables.

The fact that the mall gave him a price instead of judging that he was reselling them also showed that the grove had no owner.

In that case, he wouldn't hold back.

Picking plums was much easier than going out to gather mushrooms or dig up wild vegetables. He had to seize the chance and pick them quickly.

Qing Mengzhu rallied his energy and began picking.

He didn't have to be so careful with a wild plum grove like this. Wearing gloves, he grabbed the branches and stripped the fruit straight into a sack. Each sweep brought down a whole cluster, and he could fill a sack in no time.

The old plum trees were short, too. Qing Mengzhu could reach plenty of branches while standing on the ground, without even having to climb.

After picking for more than three hours straight, Qing Mengzhu had sixteen sacks of plums, all piled among the bushes.

He was exhausted, his face flushed with heat. Insects kept flying into his face, leaving his face and neck hot and itchy.

Fortunately, the day's haul was good. The sixteen sacks held a total of 691.2 jin of plums and sold for 15.2 Star Coins.

If he could maintain that income, he could come up the mountain earlier the next day and pick plums for two days to earn enough Star Coins to activate the Mall Assistant.

It was nearly dark, and being on the mountain at night wasn't very safe. He could easily encounter snakes and insects.

After selling the plums, he piled the ones the Interstellar Mall had drawn from under the plum trees and crushed them underfoot, leaving them to rot naturally into fertilizer.

Carrying a heavy load down the mountain was too tiring, and there was little risk in leaving the plums here to compost. He didn't intend to carry them down sack by sack.

There were plenty of plums in the grove. Qing Mengzhu picked there for three days straight and harvested most of them.

After selling all the plums, his Star Coin balance rose to 124.15, more than enough to activate the Mall Assistant.

Without hesitation, Qing Mengzhu activated it on the spot.

After the sound effect for the mall deducting 99 Star Coins played, he scanned a plum again. The result soon appeared-"'Zhongjiu' green plum, Good Grade - 0.022/500g".

Sure enough, it gave him the variety, quality, and price!

Delight showed on Qing Mengzhu's face. Although the Mall Assistant had given him only a single short line of analysis, it contained quite a lot of information.

With that precise information, he could also search online or consult experts to obtain more accurate information.

The assistant was well worth 99 Star Coins a year!