Chapter 37: Xu Hong’s Scheme

Li Yi was in a great mood today. From selling mountain produce in the morning to selling liangpi at noon, he had made over 600 yuan in just a single day.

Even after deducting all expenses, his net profit for the day still reached 400 yuan.

At a time when the private economy was still a topic of debate, such income was absolutely staggering—even Li Yi himself was a bit surprised.

Of course, this was mainly due to the significant increase in the number of people responsible for mushroom picking during this period.

Originally, only Dongzi and his crew picked mushrooms for Li Yi, yielding at most a little over 100 jin a day—though on good days, they’d occasionally hit 150 or 160 jin.

But now, nearly forty children from the village—anyone who could walk—had joined the effort.

With more people, the yield naturally increased. Last night, over 800 jin of mountain produce was delivered to Li Yi’s home, worth nearly 600 yuan.

Although Li Yi knew this kind of business wouldn’t last long, it still made him happy.

At the very least, by running this small business, he could earn his first fortune before the implementation of the household contract responsibility system.

What Li Yi didn’t know was that trouble was just around the corner!

Xu Hong had taken another day off today, claiming he wasn’t feeling well and needed to see a doctor in the county seat.

Although Zhang Tongfu was dissatisfied with Xu Hong’s habit of taking leave every other day, he realized that spring plowing had just ended and there was still some time before the autumn harvest, so the production team’s workload wasn’t heavy.

So he turned a blind eye to it and approved his leave!

But no one could have guessed that Xu Hong hadn’t taken the day off to see a doctor—he’d come to visit Li Yi.

Ever since he found out that Li Yi was secretly running a small business in the county seat, Xu Hong’s mind had been racing.

It didn’t matter that he couldn’t get into the liangpi business—wasn’t there still the mushroom business? That stuff wasn’t exactly high-stakes.

As long as he could figure out Li Yi’s sales channels, Xu Hong was confident that even a high school graduate like him could handle it.

So Xu Hong arrived near the county town early today to stake out Li Yi. He didn’t dare follow him from the village—that would have been too easy to spot.

When Xu Hong saw that Li Yi was delivering the mushrooms to the state-run restaurant, he instantly felt he had finally uncovered the core secret to Li Yi’s earnings.

Overcome with excitement, Xu Hong headed straight to the state-run restaurant as soon as Li Yi left.

The staff inside the restaurant saw someone enter and immediately called out, “Comrade, we don’t open until after 11:00!”

Xu Hong replied immediately, “Hello, comrade, I’m not here to eat!”

No sooner had he spoken than the staff member frowned and asked, “If you’re not here to eat, then what are you doing at the State-Run Restaurant?”

Just like the staff at the Supply and Marketing Cooperative, everyone at the state-run restaurant—from the head chef down to the waitstaff—was a permanent employee with a secure job.

So, you must never compare today’s restaurant staff to those of later generations—if they snap at you, they’ll snap at you.

Just look—even the walls of the Supply and Marketing Cooperative are plastered with signs that read: “Verbal abuse or physical assault of customers is strictly prohibited!”

Xu Hong paid no mind to the staff member’s attitude and hurriedly asked, “I just wanted to ask if you buy mushrooms here?”

The staff member glanced at Xu Hong and replied, “Yes, of course we do!”

“Well… how much per pound?”

“That depends on the quality. For higher-quality ones, we can pay six or seven mao; for average quality, just three or four mao!” the staff member said indifferently.

Hearing that a pound of mushrooms could fetch so much money, and thinking of the mountains behind the village covered in them, Xu Hong suddenly felt as if he could see piles of small bills waving at him.

“Thanks a lot, comrade. I’ll bring you a batch tomorrow!” Xu Hong said.

“Alright!”

With a sense of excitement, Xu Hong then left the state-run hotel!

What he didn’t know, however, was that just a few minutes after he left the hotel, Liu Jingshan arrived at the front desk and said to several staff members, “You lot, come here for a moment!”

Once everyone had gathered, Liu Jingshan announced loudly, “I have an announcement to make: with the exception of Brother Li Yi, we will no longer accept any mountain produce from anyone else!”

“Director, why aren’t we accepting them anymore?” someone asked in surprise.

Liu Jingshan replied immediately, “Our hotel doesn’t use that much mushrooms, and we don’t supply much to the city either. Before, Brother Li Yi would bring in just over a hundred pounds a day, which was fine. But now he’s delivering several hundred pounds a day—that’s more than enough for us. Why would we need to accept anyone else’s?”

Only then did everyone realize that the man had delivered over 800 pounds of mountain produce today—more than 600 pounds of mushrooms alone.

Besides, mushrooms don’t keep for long. If they aren’t sold that day, they have to be dried. Buying too much would indeed be hard to handle.

Liu Jingshan didn’t care what these people thought; after giving his instructions, he left.

Little did Xu Hong know that his mushroom business had come to an end before it even began!

…….

At noon, Xu Hong was once again hiding in a small grove far from the sugar factory, enduring the scorching sun and mosquito bites, watching with envy as Li Yi tearfully raked in small amounts of money.

On the way back, Xu Hong was seething with envy and resentment!

He had seen a whole truckload of wild mountain produce delivered to the state-run restaurant today—at least several hundred pounds. According to the staff member there, it was worth six or seven mao per pound, meaning that just from those goods alone, that good-for-nothing could pocket several hundred yuan today.

And Xu Hong knew full well that the money Li Yi gave to the village children wasn’t much—four or five yuan a day for the older kids, and just one or two yuan for the little ones.

What a crook—a total crook!

He doesn’t have to do a thing—just make a single trip to the county seat to deliver the wild produce the kids gathered, and he pockets hundreds of yuan. There’s probably no easier way to make money in this world.

And then there’s that cold noodle business—with hundreds of people flocking in every day to buy them, even if he only made five cents off each person, that’s still dozens of yuan!

And given that good-for-nothing profiteer’s nature, there’s no way he’d settle for just five cents.

Clearly, the cold noodle business is doing quite well, too.

More importantly, selling mushrooms is a seasonal business with no guaranteed yield—once the weather turns cool, the mushrooms disappear.

But the liangpi business is different—it can be run year-round. It’s a real cash cow!

It’s a real shame that I, a true native of Qin Province, don’t even know how to make it—how infuriating is that!

So Xu Hong secretly decided: he would take over Li Yi’s mushroom business, and since he couldn’t run the liangpi business himself, he would ruin it.

Consequently, all the way there, Xu Hong was scheming about how he could not only snatch Li Yi’s business but also screw him over in the process.

After much deliberation, Xu Hong decided that no matter what, he would go to the county seat tomorrow and report Li Yi for profiteering.

That way, he could seize the opportunity to take over his mushroom business.

Xu Hong figured that even if Li Yi wasn’t sentenced to prison for profiteering, he’d still be locked up for at least three to five months.

Even if that good-for-nothing eventually got out, it would be nearly autumn by then—the mushroom season would be winding down, and he’d have made a decent profit by that point. Perfect!

With that thought, Xu Hong’s step grew noticeably lighter!