bookrandom Chapter 105 Transport Team
Chapter 105 Transport Team
It was the height of summer, but the air-conditioning fan was quite powerful and the room was still quite cool after a night of blowing. Both people on the bed were covered with thin blankets.
When he was sleeping soundly, there was a knock on the door. Wei Qinglang woke up first and got up to open the door.
Cheng Pan stood outside the door and said, "Brother-in-law, the people from the restaurant are here."
Cheng Shuang heard the noise but didn't want to wake up. She turned over in a daze and wanted to continue sleeping, then she heard footsteps coming back, followed by a rustling sound.
She opened her eyes and saw Wei Qinglang changing clothes. He had just taken off his shirt and thrown it on the bed, and was looking for clothes in the closet with his bare chest.
Her gaze unconsciously moved from the shoulders to the chest to the abdominal muscles, and the sleepiness seemed to fly away.
This country boy has a great body, his back muscles, chest muscles and abdominal muscles are all just right. He looks good too, and is quite pleasing to the eye.
As he looked at Cheng Shuang, he suddenly shuddered, turned around and began to recite the Heart Cleansing Mantra.
After repeating “Form is emptiness, emptiness is form” several times, someone patted her shoulder and a voice called her in her ear.
"Cheng Shuang."
Cheng Shuang was startled and turned to face the enlarged face. She frowned and said, "What are you doing?"
Wei Qinglang suppressed the urge to smile. "Someone from Taibai Tower is here. They saw you were awake and asked if you wanted to go."
The room is so small, and a pair of eyes have been staring at him for a long time, how could he not feel it?
I'm just pretending not to know.
"Go ahead." Cheng Shuang sat up and got out of bed, not forgetting to argue, "I was just woken up by you."
"Oh." Wei Qinglang followed her instructions.
The people from Taibai Tower arrived early. Because they were a horse team, they caused quite a commotion when they entered the village. After asking a few people, they were directed to the door of the bamboo house, where they happened to meet Cheng Pan who had gotten up early to open the door.
Cheng Pan asked and found out that it was someone from the restaurant who came to pick up the goods, so he immediately knocked on the door and called for him.
After instructing Wei Qinglang to put away the things that needed to be put away in the room, Cheng Shuang opened the door and went out first. She told Wei Nanxing to take the people outside to the vegetable garden to pick vegetables first, and then went to wash up.
When she finished washing up leisurely and came out of the yard, Wei Qinglang was already chatting with Manager Zhou, the leader of the transport team, and Cheng Shuang also went over to exchange a few polite words.
Manager Zhou was in his thirties, of medium build and square face, with a pair of eyes that showed shrewdness and competence. After exchanging pleasantries, he said, "Brother Wei, Madam Wei, let's get on the scale now."
The transport team brought baskets and scales for the ingredients. Wei Nanxing took a few men to the vegetable garden to teach them how to pick the vegetables. A full basket of tomatoes had already been carried out.
Cheng Shuang nodded, and two waiters came over to weigh the ingredients. Baskets of food were carried out, weighed, and loaded into the truck. Manager Zhou took a notebook and registered them on the side.
"One hundred and fifty kilograms of tomatoes, one hundred and twenty kilograms of eggplants, one hundred kilograms each of bitter melon, green beans, and cabbage, and fifty kilograms of Chinese cabbage."
Manager Zhou showed the two the weighing records and said, "These are for today's first day. Oh, and the shopkeeper specifically asked me to order ten kilograms of chili peppers."
Cheng Shuang pursed her lips and said, "I'm sorry, Manager Zhou, the chili peppers are not yet at their best time to be picked. I can only give you two pounds today. Please tell Shopkeeper Meng that they will be fully ripe in a few days, and we'll have a sufficient supply."
Even if it is not enough by then, she can replenish it from the mall. It is not mature yet, and it is not good to take advantage of the situation in front of her brothers and sisters.
Manager Zhou nodded, "There's also pickled cabbage. The shopkeeper said to take a thousand kilograms first, and a thousand kilograms of watermelon as well."
Wei Qinglang said, "The pickled cabbage is packed in a jar. Excluding the weight of the jar, one jar probably weighs about 400 kilograms."
"No problem, then take two cylinders first."
After finalizing the quantity, Manager Zhou called a few managers in to move the sauerkraut. It took four or five people to move a large jar of sauerkraut, and they moved out two jars.
While they were moving the sauerkraut, Cheng Shuang took Cheng Pan and Wei Xinyi to pick peppers. They picked a little over two kilograms, which was considered two kilograms in total.
After finishing this, they took Manager Zhou and two carriages to the watermelon field in Beishan to pick watermelons.
On the way, a curious villager asked, "Qinglang, what are you going to do? What do these people do?"
"Go pick watermelons, they are here to harvest them." Wei Qinglang did not hide it, and he could not hide it if he pulled them back later.
"What is a watermelon? I only know about winter melon. Is it a vegetable? If we're going to harvest vegetables, we've planted some winter melons. Should we harvest them now that they're almost ripe?"
Manager Zhou smiled and said, "Master, we have winter melons grown in our restaurant's farm, so we don't have to go outside to harvest them."
"Oh, you're from a restaurant. What kind of restaurant are you from?"
Beishan is a low mountain with a road leading to the mountain for cutting firewood. However, the area at the foot of the mountain is all the fields of the old scholar's family. Villagers rarely come here unless they have nothing to do. After they were sold to a rich family in the town, a simple wooden house was built and two servants of the rich family lived there to look after it. No one came here anymore, so the villagers didn't know what the Wei family planted there.
When the carriage arrived at the watermelon field, Wei Qinglang began to teach the waiters who were lined up in a row to choose watermelons. "Choose those with uniform color. If you can hear a low thumping sound when tapping gently with your hand, they are relatively ripe and can be picked. Be careful when picking them. Use a knife to cut off the stems of the watermelons and be careful not to damage the watermelons."
After that, Wei Qinglang took his men to demonstrate how to pick two watermelons. After the men learned how to do it, they dispersed and went to pick the watermelons. Wei Xinyi also came to join in the fun. She imitated her brother and patted a watermelon while lying on it to listen. She said she wanted to pick the sweetest one to take home and eat later.
As the agreement reached yesterday did not include transportation and picking, Cheng Shuang did not go to help with the picking. She squatted on the edge of the field, fanning herself with her hands and watching the people working in the fields. Cheng Pan watched Manager Zhou absorbed in calculating on an abacus and thought he was very impressive.
Manager Zhou quickly noticed her look and asked with a smile, "Miss Cheng, are you interested in the abacus?"
Cheng Pan lowered his head embarrassedly, "No, I'm just looking around, I don't want to disturb you from settling the bill."
Manager Zhou had been working in the restaurant since he was a teenager. He had come into contact with all kinds of people and his eyes were very sharp in judging people and things. He smiled and said, "It's okay, this account will be settled quickly. If Miss Cheng is interested, I can tell you about it."
Cheng Pan hesitated and unconsciously cast a glance at Cheng Shuang. Cheng Shuang gave her an encouraging look and said, "If you are interested, then go ahead and learn. It's good for girls to learn more skills. I'll buy you an abacus someday."
Cheng Pan nodded and then walked over to listen to Manager Zhou explain to her how to use the abacus.
The watermelons in the field were all about the same size. The guys worked for two quarters of an hour and picked a hundred of them, weighing 1,108 kilograms.
The watermelons were loaded onto the truck, and Shopkeeper Zhou quickly calculated the bill using his abacus: the watermelons were 23.6 taels, the sauerkraut was 840 jin, totaling 21 taels, and the chili peppers were 2 jin, totaling 600 wen.
Tomatoes cost 2,250 wen, eggplants 1,800 wen, bitter melons 1,500 wen, and beans and green beans 2,400 wen.
Cabbage and Chinese cabbage cost one thousand two hundred coins, totaling fifty-four taels and three hundred and eighty coins.
It was already dawn. Manager Zhou gave the money to Wei Qinglang and left with the transport team.
The truck was empty when it arrived, but was fully loaded when it left. The villagers then realized that what Cheng Shuang said before about growing vegetables to sell was not a joke, but that it could really make money. Even restaurants in the county came to buy goods.
In addition to the vegetables they had never seen before, they were particularly curious about the two carts of round melons. When they saw Cheng Shuang and the others coming back with one in each hand, they all asked curiously.
"Cheng Shuang, that's a watermelon you're holding. It looks like it weighs about ten kilograms, about the same size as a winter melon."
"How do you eat this? Steam it or stir-fry it? Can those people sell all the food they take away?"
A group of people talked at once, and Cheng Shuang smiled and said, "No need to steam or fry it, it's a fruit, just eat it directly like peaches and pears."
"It's so big, how can you eat it directly?"
"Just cut it with a knife, it's so sweet." Wei Xinyi, also holding a small watermelon, rushed to answer.
Cheng Shuang looked at the villagers who were eagerly waiting for her return. Thinking that many villagers had given her gifts before, she walked over to Wei Qinglang and discussed with him in a low voice.
Then when passing by the headman's house, Wei Qinglang took the watermelon from Cheng Shuang's hand and delivered it to the headman's house.
Cheng Li was repairing farm tools in the yard. When he saw Wei Qinglang come in with two big watermelons in his hands, he was immediately displeased.
"Why are you sending it to my house again? It's a waste for us to eat the things we can sell for money. Go away, take them all back."
The food was placed on the table, and several children from the headman's house who had eaten watermelon yesterday gathered around, looking at it with shining eyes.
Wei Qinglang said, "Village head, listen to me first. None of us villagers have ever seen watermelons, so I'm leaving these here for you to try. Cut them up, and whoever wants to eat can take a piece. Nanxing and I will pick some more and send them over later. Once we share them, there won't be any left."
When Cheng Lizheng heard that the food would be distributed to the villagers, he hesitated for a moment and then did not refuse. It was rare for the child to be so generous and willing to let the villagers have a taste of it.
After returning, Wei Qinglang harnessed the donkey cart again and asked Wei Nanxing to go back to the watermelon field to pick thirty watermelons and take them to the village headman's house.
Cheng Shuang went to Cheng Daming's house to treat Cheng Xiaomai.