My 1995 Small Farm.

Chapter 60 Hidden dangers
"It's definitely made of mutton fat jade, but why did you bring a bead instead?"

"What? These beads aren't good?"

"It's not that the beads are bad, it's that something is missing. Usually, jade beads of this shape and size are set with gold and silver and used as necklace pendants. Yours is missing quite a few things..."

"Does Master mean that this bead alone isn't worth anything?"

"Of course! How can a bead made of mutton fat jade be more valuable than gold and silver jewelry?"

"If I were to offer my services, how much could I give?"

"eighty."

Eighty yuan?

"Of course it's eighty yuan. What else did you think? The current market price is around six thousand yuan per kilogram. Your beads weigh at most ten grams, so eighty yuan is more than enough..."

A short while later, Chen Ling came out of the jewelry store, feeling a little disappointed.

It's truly unbelievable that mutton fat jade, which would later cost tens of thousands of yuan per gram, was only about 6 yuan per gram at that time.

That's incredibly cheap.

"I'm not short of money right now, so I'll keep this for now!"

After examining the white jade bead under the sun, Chen Ling put it back into his cave.

They then pushed the cart toward the newsstand not far from the jewelry store.

After picking out a few novels at the newsstand, Chen Ling originally didn't plan to have lunch in the county town and would go straight home, but he ran into an oil mill owner who had bought peanuts from him before, and the owner stopped him.

When Chen Ling first came to the county town to sell peanuts, this man wanted more peanuts than Liu Xingeng.

After seeing Chen Ling this time, he insisted that Chen Ling send him another two thousand catties of peanuts.

Chen Ling said he had already delivered to other oil mills, and the price was one yuan and one jiao. He couldn't have delivered it at the original price of nine mao per jin.

Surprisingly, the person listened without hesitation and immediately agreed, even saying that a deposit could be paid first.

This attitude left Chen Ling completely bewildered.

So I had no choice but to agree to send him two thousand catties when I had time in a couple of days.

Because I need to wait at home tomorrow for the forest seed station to deliver fruit tree seedlings, I will inevitably have to tidy them up, so I won't have much free time.

After that agreement was made.

Chen Ling suddenly realized that if he continued to rely on the products from the cave to make money, he definitely couldn't keep going like this.

Although technology was underdeveloped in this era, it was far from the ubiquitous surveillance of later generations.

But if I continue to rely on the cave and transport two or three thousand catties of peanuts a day by donkey cart or oxcart, it will inevitably arouse suspicion from others sooner or later.

Furthermore, they were selling their produce under the guise of greenhouse vegetables and peanuts, and greenhouses were a relatively new and emerging technology in the surrounding area.

If we encounter someone who's really asking questions, things could get complicated.

"There's only one solution to these two problems, and it's not really a solution..."

"Open a shop."

It's absolutely impossible for him to start growing crops in greenhouses now. Knowing there will be floods this year, it would be incredibly foolish of him to waste time and money on such things.

Therefore, logically speaking, the only thing that can be barely explained is opening a store.

Open a shop, and sell everything from vegetables and fruits to peanuts through the shop.

If you just label them as greenhouse vegetables or greenhouse peanuts, no one will bother to investigate.

After all, having a shop to cover up the truth, one can say that the goods were collected from someone else's greenhouse, or transported from the city or a big city, which is basically a plausible explanation.

Even if previous buyers ask, it's no big deal. Just say it's produced in our own greenhouse. It's just a gimmick. Can't we just say that to get people to buy?

Anyway, the food is grown in greenhouses, and it tastes better than regular greenhouse food. So what if we don't grow our own food in greenhouses?
Of course, this method is certainly not the best, but it is the most convenient, quick, and straightforward method.

And in 1995, in a small mountain town, that was enough to fool most people. "I originally wanted to go home early, but now that I think about it, I should find a place to rent in the city first."

Chen Ling sighed.

If you think about it carefully, if you want to avoid trouble in the future, you'll have to go through this process sooner or later.

After all, in some respects, this is already a considerable hidden danger.

So we went out for a meal first, and then rode our bicycles around the city.

According to Chen Ling's idea, the best place to open a shop is in a remote location, but there shouldn't be too few people, and the transportation should be convenient.

The requirements are not low.

After wandering around for most of the day, he finally found that the place where he met Qin Qiumei in the morning, which was near the county middle school, was quite suitable.

So he started looking around the area, and soon Chen Ling found a family that looked quite nice.

This is a small courtyard with a sense of history, and it occupies a fairly spacious area with a two-story building.

Besides the main entrance, there's another doorway on the ground floor facing the street. It doesn't need much renovation and can be used to open a small shop.

This was exactly what Chen Ling wanted to do.

He then knocked on the door, but no one was home.

Chen Ling inquired around and learned that the house belonged to an elderly couple who had retired from a textile factory. Their son worked in a municipal government agency, and their daughter taught at a county middle school. The house had been uninhabited for a long time.

The elderly couple comes to clean up every month, or grow vegetables in the yard. If they want to rent a place, it shouldn't be difficult.

In those days, few outsiders came to rent rooms in this remote little county town, let alone the locals.

Chen Ling then found the two elderly people according to the address given by the neighbors. The result was surprisingly smooth, except that the rent was fifty yuan higher than in ordinary places.

After looking at the apartment, Chen Ling didn't haggle and signed the lease directly.

The landlord couple gave him the keys, and that's how he got the house.

After the landlord and his companion left, Chen Ling wandered around the courtyard again, taking a look around.

It is indeed very clean, because there is nothing there.

There wasn't even a bed, table, or stool; it was just a two-story building with an empty courtyard.

Whether it's used for a shop or something else, the landlord couple doesn't care at all.

Seeing that it was getting late, Chen Ling didn't linger there any longer.

After all, this place is just an empty shell right now, and will only be used as a cover in the future.

It's definitely impossible for him to sit here every day and run a proper shop.

I come once or twice a month, set out fruits and vegetables to sell, and that's enough.

"Yes, this way we can explain it to Susu after the official opening. Otherwise, if we don't ask her for money when we're out doing errands, she'll definitely have her doubts even if she doesn't ask..."

Chen Ling pondered for a moment, thinking, "I'll just say it's something I did with a friend from the city. We met by chance when we were hanging out in the county town. He doesn't come here often, so we'll just split the profits."

Once the logic made sense, Chen Ling felt much more at ease. He locked the gate to the yard, got on his bike, and headed home.

Unexpectedly, it started to drizzle halfway there, so Chen Ling put the basket and novel back inside the cave and pedaled the bicycle back home at full speed.

Seeing that the rain was getting heavier, Chen Ling stopped the car, took a urea bag from the cave, bent one corner and put it on his head, tied it around his neck with a rope, and continued speeding towards the village.

"Erzhu, Erzhu, hurry and call Erzhu! The shed frame we just erected has all collapsed..."

When Chen Ling came down from the reservoir dam, the rain was getting heavier, and he could faintly hear sounds coming from the southwest.

Chen Ling glanced in that direction, smiled slightly, and slowly drove into the village.

(End of this chapter)