Reborn in a small village in the 1990s

Upon hearing Zhao Da'e's suggestion, Shi Zhihui picked up the apple and started eating. In just a few bites, she had devoured half of it.

Zhao Da'e chuckled but didn't say anything.

Several people smiled and flattered Shi Zhihui. After a while, Shi Zhihui finished the apple: "It's delicious."

"And another one." So Zhao Da'e gave Shi Zhihui another apple.

Afterwards, Zhao Dage let Zhou Yuren and Shi Zhihui chat, while he and his cousin Zhou Chunwen went out to continue steaming buns.

Zhou Chunwen muttered to himself, "This guy really knows his stuff; he'll eat anything you give him."

Zhao Da'e made a shushing gesture: "Shh!"

Then he turned to look at the house to the east: "Don't talk nonsense, it wouldn't be good if someone heard us."

Zhou Chunwen pouted and muttered a complaint in a low voice, "I'm just telling the truth. Look at her, she's eating like she's never eaten before..."

Zhao Da'e shrugged: "I really haven't eaten it. You talk about Fuji apples as if you've eaten them before."

Zhou Chunwen lowered her head, looking deaf and slumped: "You've never given me any food, what a waste of how good I've been to you."

Zhao Da'e was both amused and exasperated: "Cousin, let's grow some ourselves in the future. Don't tell me you didn't eat any, I didn't eat any of those Fuji apples either. I saved them for her on purpose. Those things are ridiculously expensive right now, do you know how much they cost? Three yuan a pound. Listen carefully, three yuan a pound."

Zhou Chunwen blurted out a "Holy crap!" without realizing it: "What the hell? Three yuan a pound? The most expensive crop we grow is millet, which is only 40 cents a pound. You want eight pounds of millet to exchange for one pound of Fuji apples?"

A regular, good-looking apple costs 50 cents, while an average one is only 20 or 30 cents. Why is that Fuji apple so expensive?

Zhao Da'e explained, "You don't understand. Things are valued for their scarcity. This stuff is extremely rare right now. Our province has only introduced some in the last two years, but very few people are actually growing it. Only people in Gaizhou are growing it."

“Three yuan a pound.” Zhou Chunwen fell into deep thought: “Big Goose, why don’t my sister and I plant Red Fuji apples? Three yuan a pound, and each tree can yield about 100 to 200 pounds. There are about 100 trees per mu (unit of land area), which is about 10,000 pounds of apples. That’s 30,000 yuan per mu. My goodness, wouldn’t we two become 10,000-yuan households in a year?!”

“Hey, cousin, don’t get your hopes up. It takes five or six years for an apple tree to ripen and bear fruit.” Zhao Da’e sighed. “In five or six years, you’ll be married long ago, and your kids will be old enough to run errands. Can you afford to wait that long?”

Zhou Chunwen: "..."

"It can be grafted."

Zhao Da'e shook his head: "That would take three or four years."

“We can give it a try. My family has more than ten acres of orchards, but the apple production there is already ruined. We only get three or four thousand catties a year, and they only sell for five cents a catty. We’ve been thinking about cutting them down and planting crops for a long time. How about we cut down two acres, graft them, and wait three to five years?” Zhou Chunwen said.

“Then why not just buy bigger saplings? They’re more expensive, but they might bear fruit in two or three years. Grafted ones sometimes have a low survival rate and are prone to disease.” Zhao Da’e sighed. “But I don’t know where to buy them. I know there are places that sell apples over there, but I don’t know if they sell apple saplings. Let’s think about it later. It’s always better to be safe than sorry. What we need to do now is steam some buns, and later stew some sauerkraut and fatty pork, with lots of meat, so that Aunt Si can eat her fill.”

As the saying goes, "He who eats another's food is bound to him; he who takes another's money is bound to him." She ate our food, and now she can't even get it back. If we don't get rid of my cousin's wife, then we'll go and make her vomit up what she swallowed."