Chapter 236 -228: Washing Potatoes

Bai Zhi looked helpless. “I just got caught up in the moment. Hu Feng was clearly trying to provoke me, so I just went along with it and shot a comment back at him.”

Hu Changlin looked embarrassed and said with a dry laugh, “Zhi, don’t blame Hu Feng. He’s just worried about you. He sees you as one of us and doesn’t mean anything else by it.”

Of course Bai Zhi knew that. It was just that Hu Feng had such a vicious tongue, and the things he said were so unpleasant that she couldn’t help but want to talk back.

‘Now she was starting to regret it. After all, she needed to take a cart to get into town, and Hu Feng had basically become her exclusive driver. If he was mad now, what would she do if he decided to go on strike tomorrow?’

In the afternoon, she and Zhao Lan went to the fields and came back with a sack of earth melons they had dug up.

The two of them squatted by the river to wash the earth melons, and Zhao Lan was beaming with joy. “Zhi’er, I’ve never seen earth melons this big! I really didn’t expect this. It’s only been a month, and they’ve already borne fruit. Not only that, but they’re huge and ripened even earlier than the green wheat. This is truly unexpected.”

Bai Zhi was grinning from ear to ear. “I didn’t expect it either. It looks like a yield of ten thousand jin per mu is a sure thing. The most important task now is to quickly find a market for them.”

At the mention of a market, the joy on Zhao Lan’s face faded a little. “Zhi’er, these earth melons have poisoned people in the past. We know they’re good, but the common people don’t. I’m afraid they’ll be very difficult to sell.”

“It’s alright, I have a plan.” She had never intended to sell them to the common folk shopping at the market. ‘If she tried to sell ten thousand jin of earth melons at the market, she would surely end up just like that old woman she saw last time—completely ignored, without a single customer.’

The mother and daughter were washing the mud off the earth melons. As the sun gradually set, it grew cooler by the river. The village women began to crowd toward the riverbank, carrying basins of clothes. When they saw the earth melons, they couldn’t help but offer a few words of praise. Some even had covetous looks on their faces; being poor, they couldn’t stand the sight of food without feeling a pang of hunger.

There were too many people, so Bai Zhi simply feigned ignorance and didn’t give any away. ‘In this kind of situation, if you give one, you have to give to everyone. Otherwise, you’ll just end up offending people.’

Seeing that she had no intention of generously sharing, the villagers dispersed and went back to their own chores. They were all people who had suffered. Bai Zhi and Zhao Lan had only just started having a few good days. The fields they were allotted couldn’t be planted with green wheat, so they planted these earth melons instead. But very few people ate earth melons these days, and it would likely be incredibly difficult for them to sell any. They would have to rely on these earth melons to survive the winter. It was only natural that they were unwilling to share them, and there was nothing to hold against them for it.

However, not everyone thought this way. At least, the Bai family members didn’t.

The old madam, Liu, and Ms. Zhang arrived, each carrying a basin of clothes to wash.

In the past, the family’s laundry was washed by either Bai Zhi or Zhao Lan. The others never touched it; at most, they would take the clean clothes back and hang them up to dry themselves.

But now, no one was willing to do anyone else’s laundry, so they simply washed their own.

From a distance, Liu saw Bai Zhi and Zhao Lan squatting by the river washing something. She initially thought they were also doing laundry and was about to go over and mock them, but as she got closer, she saw they were actually washing earth melons. A whole sack of them, big and plump. The sight alone made her feel hungry.

Liu nudged Ms. Zhang beside her with her elbow, signaling for her to go over and snatch a couple.

Ms. Zhang shot her a glare, ignored her, and walked away with her basin.

Liu then turned her gaze to the old madam. The old madam’s eyes were also fixed on the earth melons, and she swallowed a large gulp of saliva. The rice at home had run out long ago; they had been eating wild vegetables for days and hadn’t tasted anything else in a long time.

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