CHAPTER 599: CHAPTER 22: LOVE RIVALS MEET (EXTRA CHAPTER FOR 10 FANS, SENIOR BROTHER & YEZI)

The batch of hairy crabs at the Agricultural Specialty Store sold very well, changing from once a week to every other day for delivery. The method Yezi taught for preserving the crabs before had not been used at all. On the busiest day, a whole hundred hairy crabs were sold.

Many of the nearby residents, after tasting the store’s hairy crabs, praised them for being much tastier than those branded with "Yangcheng Lake" or "Mingkun Lake" signs. The public has discerning eyes when it comes to good quality and affordable items; such things shouldn’t be wasted. The crab business at the Agricultural Specialty Store was really extraordinary.

Even some of the elderly could not resist coming to buy a couple of crabs from time to time to accompany their drinks. Several nearby seafood restaurants also inquired about being supplied, offering two yuan more per crab than the selling price in the store. This far exceeded the expectations of Zhuo Feng, his wife, and Mao Dazhu.

Feng Xing and Uncle Lu discussed and selected the seafood restaurant with the best reputation to supply fifty crabs daily. By the end of October, the hairy crabs in the crab pond had been almost entirely caught, with the remaining stock only expected to last until the middle of November.

Uncle Lu roughly calculated, deducting the cost of crab seedlings and labor, that he had made about three hundred thousand yuan from selling crabs this year. The funds for next year’s crab seedling breeding were also secured. Thinking of these, Uncle Lu couldn’t stop reflecting on the hardships that Yezi had been through.

After hearing this, Feng Xing dared not say a word. Zhuo Feng had been uneasy ever since the day Yezi left. She always wanted to find an opportunity to explain things to the kid again but never found the chance. Since that time, Yezi seemed to have been avoiding Zhuo Feng, with Uncle Lu coming alone to deliver the crabs.

The exciting events at the Agricultural Specialty Store didn’t stop there.

Another incident truly took Mao Dazhu by surprise: the cushions that Xiao Xian had recently brought back. When those cushions were sold in the Agricultural Specialty Store, Mao Dazhu didn’t pay much attention to them, especially since Xiao Xian had explained that each cushion cost five hundred yuan.

Mao Dazhu thought, having dealt with bamboo and traditional weaving all his life, how could a cushion stuffed with straw sell at such a high price? It’s absurd to even ask for that much. The cushions were just casually placed in the store. Although the weaving craft was quite beautiful, attracting some nearby devout Buddhist grandmas to touch them whenever they came to buy a few kilograms of sweet potatoes, it was limited to just touching – no one actually reached into their pockets to buy one.

Unexpectedly, one day a stylishly dressed female customer came in, having been recommended by someone to buy a rattan mat from the Five Gentlemen’s Bamboo Mat, which she found very comfortable. Hearing that there were new-style cushions, she didn’t even ask the price and bought two, citing that such grass-woven cushions were rare these days, and it would be appropriate to send back home for her Grandma to use while chanting scriptures.

Seeing her filial piety, Mao Dazhu gave her a discount of ten yuan. To his surprise, after a while, the female customer came back and bought several more, saying that her parents also wanted to buy a pair. Mao Dazhu thought, these are wealthy people, a few hundred or thousand isn’t a big deal to them.

Before the female customer left, she noticed that they also sold hairy crabs in their store and bought a few kilograms, saying that her family was also involved in aquaculture and wanted to do some comparison at home.

Mao Dazhu didn’t pay it much mind, but thinking about it, selling five cushions had brought in over two thousand yuan, the profit was really quite high. This amount put Mao Dazhu in a good mood, and he would just sit in the Agricultural Specialty Store when he had nothing else to do, pondering over the weaving methods for the cushions.

At the end of October, one afternoon when the staff had gone out for lunch, Mao Dazhu sat alone in the store, trying to find some loose straw from a cushion. He had been pondering for a good while, including Yu Shan Yang from the senior home, who had also thought long and hard about the mats woven by Xiao Xian.

Whether it was the mats or the cushions, Xiao Xian’s weaving technique had a characteristic that there were no visible ends at which to start unravelling; all straw ends and rattan ends were nowhere to be found, as if the mat was naturally integrated as a whole.

"Meixin, you said the hairy crabs were bought from this store?" a very arrogant man asked, as a young woman who had previously bought five cushions from the Agricultural Specialty Store walked in arm in arm with a well-dressed male customer.

The male customer was not old, with neatly slicked, shiny hair, but he looked at people with a sidelong glance, showing only the whites of his eyes, which gave a bad first impression at a glance.

"It is this store, Brother Chong, you should speak clearly. Didn’t you and brother praise how delicious those hairy crabs were?" Meixin paced uneasily.