OBS Chapter 398: Booth Fee Collection
Chapter 398: Booth Fee Collection
The master and his disciple squatted on the street and ate pancakes as if no one was around.
As I was nibbling on the pancake, the sky gradually brightened and one or two pedestrians hurriedly passed by on the street.
There are more vendors selling vegetables, and more people are constantly joining in.
Zhou Guo turned her head and looked over, and saw that they were all wild mushrooms, some of which were even varieties she couldn't name, as well as all kinds of fresh wild vegetables, all neatly picked and tied up in bunches.
She couldn't help but turn her head to look at Li, "Mom, look, there are so many people selling wild vegetables."
Li said, "I saw it. You said you wanted to bring bracken and Chinese toon. I said you couldn't sell them. Maybe you can sell them."
Zhou Guo thought for a moment and said, "The vegetables in the vegetable garden haven't grown yet, so everyone has nothing to eat. The rich families have their own farms and might try to grow some, but we small families don't have farms or vegetable gardens, so we eat the same as us, and we have to eat whatever is on the street."
She got up and wandered from the beginning to the end of the street, and found that there were quite a lot of wild vegetables, but no one was selling bracken and toon, which seemed to be difficult to sell.
I don’t know whether she can sell the ferns and toons today.
Chen, who was on the other side, saw that they had brought all the bracken with them and said with a smile, "If you can sell this today, I will pick some when I get back. We will have to snatch all the bracken from the hills in the village by then."
Zhou Guo pointed to other stalls and said, "Aunt Chen, it's not just bracken. Look at what they sell on their stalls. There are all kinds of wild vegetables. Vegetables in every household haven't grown yet. It's a period of famine, so we have to eat wild vegetables at this time."
Chen said, "I'm joking. I might as well go to the mountains to pick mushrooms instead of picking wild vegetables to sell. Our village is so far from the county town, it's not easy to come here. Mushrooms are much more expensive than wild vegetables, and I have to carry them on my back. If I had the energy, I would have brought more mushrooms. Wild vegetables are only worth a few dollars, and I don't know if a basket of them can be worth a pound of mushrooms."
Everyone else nodded, but that didn't make sense. Bracken was heavy and hard to sell, so its price was definitely not as high as mushrooms. Only someone crazy would buy bracken.
Zhou Guo thought that since they didn't have a car, it would be uneconomical to carry the food out by manpower, especially if they also had to bring wild vegetables.
At this time, there were more pedestrians on the street, and vegetable vendors came out one after another.
However, everyone seemed to be buying at familiar stalls, and no one had come to ask about the price in their area.
After waiting for a while, no customer came, but the person who collected money came. He only charged three cents for each stall.
When the other party saw the full load of things on display at Zhou Guo's house, especially the cart, he frowned and said fiercely, "Three cents is not enough for so many things. I'll charge you six cents!"
Li was not happy, "Sir, other families charge two cents, why do we charge four cents?"
"Don't you see how many things you have? Look at the land that other people occupy, and then look at yours. You wish the whole street was occupied by yours. There are only so many stalls. If you take up one more, others will have one less. Of course you have to pay more. Pay the money, or don't set up your stall!!"
Zhou Guo glanced at her stall, then turned her head to look at other stalls, and saw that they were all enough to match the three of them. She rubbed her nose and paid the money honestly. She only charged for two portions, which was quite considerate of them.
Seeing that she paid the money so readily, the other party's face softened and his tone slowed down. "We are all here together to set up a stall. You occupy such a wide area and only pay three cents. Others will have opinions and our work will be difficult. It's done. The money has been paid. You can make good use of this piece of land."
Chen and the others left before he dared to speak. He said, "How can this be? I've only heard that the booth fee is charged per household, but it hasn't been said that it is charged according to the amount of goods. How can this be justified?"
Mrs. Li felt the same way, but she looked at her daughter and said, "That's good, so we don't have to argue with them. There are so many people watching us early in the morning. If we offend the officials, I'm afraid no one will dare to come. It's not worth it. We are here to sell things, not to offend anyone."
Chen nodded and said, "That's right. How can we ordinary people fight against them? It's better not to cause trouble."
People were coming and going in the market, and more and more people were buying vegetables.
Gradually, people began to patronize their stalls. The pieces of meat with gray-black skin on the carts were particularly eye-catching. "Is this skin black pork?"
Zhou Guo said: "It's a wild boar that we hunted in the mountains! The meat is fresh, tender and delicious, and tastes very different from ordinary pork!"
After hearing her say this, the person asking became more interested, "What's the price?"
Zhou Guo usually charges about 22 wen for fat pork and 17 or 18 wen for lean meat. He would add at least 2 wen for wild boar meat. He said with a smile, "You know, wild boar meat is hard to come by. We just happened to catch it by chance. A pound like this is 25 wen, a pound like this is 23 wen, and a pound like this is 20 wen. It's not expensive."
"It's not that expensive. I want this one... and this one, weigh it for me too."
The two pieces of meat weighed ten kilograms each. Zhou Guo praised sincerely, "Sister-in-law, you are really willing to eat it!"
The woman's mouth corners lifted up involuntarily, and she smiled: "There is no other way. The men and children in the family love meat, so we opened a small grocery store on the street. We don't make much money, but we can still afford to eat wild boar meat."
Zhou Guo said: "You bought so much at once, your business must be booming."
She was praising sincerely. It was not easy to be willing to eat meat like this these days.
The woman was even happier when she heard this. She turned around to look at her stall and pointed at the goat mushrooms in front of Li and asked, "Is this from your family too?"
Zhou Guo turned around and nodded, "Yes, this is my mother. Auntie, would you like some goat mushrooms? They are delicious when they are fresh, and they are also delicious when they are dried. They are even better for stewing meat in winter. We have fried a bowl of them every night these days. They are delicious. My mother also said that we should dry some at home. When there is no vegetable in winter, we can take out seven or eight of them and cook a bowl of soup to make a dish."
"You guys eat it every day at home?" The woman was very surprised. This thing is so expensive, most country people would not be able to afford to eat it. One pound of sheep mushrooms can buy two pounds of meat. How come these country people are more willing to eat it than her?
Zhou Guo smiled and said, "There's nothing we can do. We have many children in our family and they all want to eat. My mother said that we are all growing up and we need to eat even if we are wearing tattered clothes. Although this food is expensive, it is grown in the mountains and is a mountain delicacy. Rich families eat it and they say it must be good to eat, so they pick out the ones that don't look good and cook them for us at every meal."
The woman nodded and pointed at the goat mushrooms and said, "Then I'll weigh ten kilograms."