After returning from my cultivation journey, I built a farm through fortune telling.

Chapter 24 It's no big deal, I'll just have to put in the effort.

Her son, Huang Mao, came out of the bathroom drying his hair: "Mom, what's wrong?"

Aunt Wang grumbled, "The price of the wild vegetables we're eating tonight has gone up!"

Huang Mao sensed his mother's bad mood and immediately joined her in her indignation. He angrily threw down the towel and said, "How can you do this! Raising prices like this! 50 yuan for 3 bundles of vegetables is already expensive! And you're raising it again! How can you be so greedy!"

"You can't say that!"

Aunt Wang wiped the water droplets that had been splashed on her face and glared at her youngest son, who spent all his time at home playing video games: "When I was buying vegetables today, they already said that today was a special price, and next time it would be the original price."

"I see! Then we can't blame them for raising prices."

Huang Mao, sensing his mother's change in mood, immediately changed his tune: "We're not unreasonable people. The business has already fulfilled its obligation to inform consumers. If you think it's too expensive, you don't have to buy it. It's a matter of personal opinion—what was the original price? If it goes up by three or five yuan per pound, you can buy more. It really does taste good. I'll transfer you some money—"

"30 yuan a bundle. Each bundle weighs about one jin (500 grams)."

Huang Mao paused in transferring money, silently deleted the "1000" he had just typed, re-entered "2000", deleted it again, and finally transferred "3000".

"Mom, this seller is really kind. They could have robbed you, but they still gave you wild vegetables."

"Look at what you're saying! What do you mean by robbing people? They're just doing honest business, how is that robbing them? You just said it's a matter of opinion, and now you're saying all this. I wonder who it was that was grabbing food like a thug at the dinner table, and then telling me to buy more!"

"I never expected it to be this expensive! Thirty yuan a pound, that's enough to kill me!"

"Then your life is really cheap."

Aunt Wang said sarcastically, "That's true. Staying at home playing computer games all day, not waking up during the day and not sleeping at night, how long can you live? A short life is a good thing!"

Huang Mao: "..."

I'm so tired of saying the word "live streamer"!

Your son is a game streamer, Mom!

Isn't it normal to have your days and nights reversed?
"Hmph—if you keep going like this, who knows how many more meals of wild vegetables you'll have left! Just because you're young doesn't mean you can be reckless. Look at your hair, don't think that just because you dyed it yellow you won't be able to see your part."

Huangmao: “!!!”

He was so scared that he quickly went to look in the mirror—thank goodness!
He's still a handsome young man with hair!

Seeing Huang Mao's nervous movements, Aunt Wang had no hope that he would listen to her; she was really tired of saying the word "advice".

Let's return to the wild vegetables she's been longing for—

“Wild vegetables are scarce now, and some sell for 20 yuan a pound. But this one tastes so good, is 30 yuan a pound expensive? Besides, they already had a 50% discount yesterday, so today, let me calculate—it's only 23 or 24 yuan a pound. Is that expensive? No, it's not!”

In the short time that Aunt Wang was talking to herself, Huang Mao hadn't even realized what was happening when his dear mother had already successfully won him over.

A new message appeared in the group chat at that moment—

I'll take 8 bundles of bracken and 2 bundles of wild onions!

Then I transferred 300 yuan to the group owner!

Suddenly, three troublemakers appeared in the group, like offering incense, and the group became suspiciously quiet.

The world outside of mobile phones is filled with incredibly vulgar insults.

Human joys and sorrows are indeed not shared.

Bai Chen looked at the transfer and grinned from ear to ear: "Hehehe—in such a short time, thirty bundles have been ordered! Nine hundred yuan!"

Egret: "Then what are you standing there for? It's a scarcity marketing tactic. Tell your customers in the group that it's not the season for wild vegetables to be widely available yet. Tomorrow, we'll only have a maximum of 50 bundles of scallions, 50 bundles of bracken, and 50 bundles of purslane. We're out of lamb's quarters."

"Is the quantity limit so strict? We haven't even started picking them yet! How do you know there are only this many?"

Bai Lu started counting on her fingers: "I estimated it this morning, it can't be wrong."

If there's a mistake, then let's force it to grow!
"Oh, oh, oh!" Bai Chen, seeing that Bai Lu understood, quickly edited the message and sent it, adding a note—

[30 bundles have already been pre-ordered, leaving 120 bundles. Of these, 40 bundles are of wild mustard greens, 37 bundles of bracken fern, and 43 bundles of wild vegetables. Buy now while supplies last!]
Then we waited for the word to spread in the group, and sure enough, reservations came one after another.

I want bracken fern! Ten bundles!

Wild vegetables, three bundles; bracken fern, two bundles!

Give me all 25 bundles of the remaining bracken!

Bai Chen, who had been watching closely, quickly announced: [Okay, the bracken is sold out.]
[Hey! Are you crazy?! If you buy everything, what are the other people supposed to eat?!]

[Exactly! Boss! Come out here, you need to limit the number of purchases! There are too many people and not enough porridge! What are we supposed to do, those of us who came late?!]

【Whose fault is it that you're late! If you hadn't thought it was too expensive, you would have bought it already! Now you're blaming others! I'm buying it all! Buying it all! If I didn't dislike prickly ash, I would have bought it all too!】

【I love eating prickly ash, boss, ten bundles, please! And two bundles of wild onions too!】

[Just a quick comment: Wild vegetables should be eaten fresh. Buying too much and putting it in the fridge will make it less fresh. To the friend who bought the bracken fern, could you spare 5 jin (2.5 catties) for me?]

Dream on!

Hey! How could you be like this! Eating alone?!

At this point, a member of the group asked a question—

[Boss, if I order ten pounds of wild vegetables, do you have any wild onions to deliver?]

Bai Chen has made the decision.

[Customers who order 10 jin or more will receive a free bundle of wild vegetables, but you cannot specify which wild vegetables to order. Orders of 20 jin will receive two bundles, and so on.]
Egret: "...Do you know how much work you'll have to do and how much money you'll lose by making this decision?"

Bai Chen waved his hand: "In the early stages of a business, you have to give customers a little taste of success. As for the workload—what does that have to do with you? You talk as if you've done any work."

Niu Ma is not him and Bai Wei.

Egret: "..."

Without me, you wouldn't make any money!
Bai Wei, who was watching from the side, said, "But then again, wild vegetables also need time to grow. If we pull that patch of wild vegetables bare tomorrow, it will take three days before we can pick them again."

"Three days? That won't do!" Bai Chen insisted. "How much money will we lose if we sell less per day! I'll just have to work a little further away to pick them!"

When it comes to making money, Bai Chen is always the most enthusiastic. He has already decided that he will take a few more days off and will not go back to work until he has completely stripped the nearby mountains bare!

"Okay, then I'll trouble you!"

Bai Lu has no problem at all about expanding the wild vegetable picking area. As long as Bai Chen and Bai Wei are willing to work, she's all set!

Her spiritual energy is enough to cultivate two to three patches of wild vegetables a day, yielding a harvest similar to that of Black Stone Pit. While some in the group were arguing and others were placing orders, Bai Chen had already run upstairs to his computer. He was checking the WeChat names of the orders, the types and quantities of wild vegetables, and most importantly, the transfer amounts.

Because the people who made the reservations bought a lot, at least five pounds at a time, and some even ordered ten pounds at a time just for the free gift, it was not difficult to count them at all. There were a total of 17 customers.

Bai Chen showed Bai Lu the data recorded in his Excel spreadsheet: "I forgot something, I forgot to include the free gifts. 10 people ordered 8 bundles, one ordered 20 bundles, one ordered 25 bundles, and 5 people ordered 5 bundles. We need to pick 162 bundles tomorrow and give away 12 bundles!"

Bai Wei raised an eyebrow—

See, here comes the workload!
Bai Chen didn't care about the workload; he was just worried about the money.

Twelve bundles! Quickly calculating the bill, it came to a full 360 yuan!

I'd rather he work himself to death for two days straight!

I shouldn't have been so generous!

Bai Chen sighed, "Forget it, considering the price of 4,500, 360 is just 360. It's gone, it's gone! But after picking wild vegetables at Black Stone Pit tomorrow, we really need to check other places for wild vegetables. We can't rely on just one place; even if we harvest all the land, we still won't have enough."

Hey! A lot of people in this group didn't get any, they're almost fighting over it! Tsk tsk tsk, they only realize how little they had when it's time to sell! Tell me how much money they lost!

Looking at the money he couldn't earn, Bai Chen wished he could go into the mountains right now and gather ten or eight tons of wild vegetables to sell.

"How about we pre-order more? Even if it's just a hassle, I'll still have to work hard—"

"No matter how hard you work, it's useless!" Bai Lu interrupted Bai Chen's self-pity: "Only wild vegetables from Sanqing Mountain can sell for this price now; wild vegetables from other places don't taste the same!"

Let's wait until tomorrow. She'll go and spread some spiritual energy. Bai Chen better not complain about not having enough work to do then.

"Why? They're all wild vegetables! Why are the ones from Sanqing Mountain so different?"

"You'll find out later."

Bai Lu kept her in suspense, and Bai Chen generously gave her a free eye roll.

Of the more than fifty people in the group, only seventeen managed to buy vegetables.

As expected, the chat history quickly reached 99+, with all sorts of comments, including criticisms of the boss who was incompetent and couldn't even gather more wild vegetables!
"By the way," Bailu said, "did they mention their name and phone number when they placed the order in the group? If not, that's fine. Just refund all the transfers and have the customer add you on WeChat to chat privately, noting the name and phone number of the person picking up the food."

"The biggest problem with pre-orders is that they can be claimed by someone else. If the name and phone number don't match when you pick up your groceries, we won't give them to you. Also, there is no home delivery service available for groceries at the moment. Please pick up your groceries at the Chengnan Market."

"Okay." Bai Chen just agreed, then realized something was wrong and handed the phone back to Bai Lu: "You can come now."

Will egrets accept jobs?

Of course not!
Bai Chen had no choice but to continue tinkering on his own. Bai Lu nudged Bai Wei, giving her a look that seemed to say: Aren't you going to help him?
Bai Wei studied e-commerce and worked in e-commerce operations in Dongcheng for a year before returning to Yangcheng. She is definitely more professional than Bai Chen when it comes to placing orders.

But Bai Chen had already done half of it, so she stopped getting involved, gathered up the clothes, and went to take a shower.

"Finally done."

Bai Chen stretched, having checked all the customers' names, phone numbers, and balances. He was about to return the phone to Bai Lu when he saw a message from a customer—

"Sorry, boss, I just ordered five catties of prickly ash. Would you mind exchanging it for three catties of bracken fern and two catties of wild onion?"

Before I could even reply, another person came along offering to trade bracken for wild onions.

[The wild onion has lost its kin.]
Boss, please think of a solution.

There are solutions, but he won't even think about them!

I just finished organizing it, and all this changing is making things so difficult for me!
Bai Chen is now experiencing the bitterness of "reservations," because another person came wanting to change to bracken, but not getting the desired result, and wanted a refund.

Bai Chen was exasperated, scratching his head repeatedly: "Ugh, so annoying! Why did I have to do pre-orders! It would have been so much better to just set up a stall; they could only buy what was available there!"

Bai Wei comforted him, "It's temporary. After eating our wild vegetables two or three more times, they won't have such a ridiculous idea as canceling the order anymore. They'll be lucky to even be able to buy them."

"What?"

"secret!"

"White Egret, you didn't put something forbidden in the food, did you...?"

"..." Bai Lu gave him a flick on the forehead: "Bai Chen, if you don't want your brain, you might as well donate it! What are you thinking about all day long?"

After being hit by Bai Lu, Bai Chen had a sudden inspiration: "Hey, why don't I develop a group-buying mini-program? They can place orders online directly, and they can order whenever they want and get a refund whenever they want!!"

Then Bailu watched as he started typing away on the keyboard.

"We only have this little bit of wild vegetables, and you're already making a mini-program? Isn't that a bit premature?"

Bai Chen didn't even look up: "It was just a small thing."

Since none of the workers had any objections, what else could the egret possibly say? It would be needed sooner or later anyway.

"White Egret, tell me what you're really thinking! Have you made up your mind to come back and farm?"

Bai Jiang and Qin Xiu came up from downstairs and sat on the sofa, both with stern faces, looking at Bai Lu.

Bailu's skin was taut all over. She hooked the small bamboo chair over and sat down low in front of her parents: "Mmm!"

That single word almost drove Bai Jiang and Qin Xiu half to death with anger. They desperately tried to convince the brat in front of them that she was their own child, whom they had raised with love and care until she was over twenty. Although she was a bit disobedient now, as parents, they couldn't give up on her.

Qin Xiu took a deep breath: "Your most important thing right now is to take care of your health. What kind of behavior is it to take your younger siblings all over the mountains looking for wild vegetables! Yes! We sold over a thousand wild vegetables today, but how can we sell over a thousand every day? You need to take care of your health—"

"Once you're healthy enough, you can farm?" Bai Lu patted her chest and said, "I'm all better now, my health is top-notch, and I have a great appetite!"

Qin Xiu: "..."

What did you think of her?

Are you trying to fool me into thinking I'm a pig?

Qin Xiu was so angry her expression turned ferocious: "So you're saying you absolutely have to cultivate this land, is that it? Fine! You want to farm? I'll just ask you when to start seedling cultivation, when to plant beans, when to plant melons—what are you doing?"

"Let me check!"

Bai Lu spoke with conviction and had already consulted Baidu.

This time, not only Qin Xiu, but even Bai Jiang, who doted on his child the most, was speechless: "You just checked and planted the seed, you...you..."

"Can't I even check?!"

Bai Lu was truly aggrieved. Her farming knowledge from the cultivation world wasn't applicable in modern society. What could she do if she didn't look it up?!
Oh no, now she's even more unreliable in her parents' eyes.

None of the family members are cut out for business; they're all slowly figuring it out.
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(End of this chapter)