1994: Vegetable farmers strike back

Chapter 287 What is your dream?

It was getting late, and a gentle breeze swept across the fields. Several people by the roadside seemed a little dazed.

Chen Jiazhi smiled and said, "Don't just stand there. Deputy Director Yi has been promoted to Director. From now on, you have to call him Director Yi!"

After recovering from their surprise, the group offered their congratulations.

Li Mingkun said, "Director Yi, you've finally become the boss after all this time, shouldn't you treat us to a meal?"

Yi Dinggan said, "Why does it sound so awkward coming from your mouth? I feel like there's a sour smell in the air."

"Hey, I wouldn't dare. I'll be relying on you to protect me from now on~"

"Alright, stop joking around." Chen Jiazhi interrupted their banter. "Everyone has the opportunity to be the site manager. While there's still time, let's hold the work meeting first before I leave."

The two trucks carrying vegetables had been working together for a few days, with one going to the market first.

Soon, the group of men were smoking and chatting about their work at the market under the cover of night.

No matter the circumstances, Chen Jiazhi always places great importance on production.

After listening to several people's speeches, my recent focus has been on preventing heavy rain and preparing for the market around the Dragon Boat Festival.

The market conditions around last year's Dragon Boat Festival are still fresh in the minds of Yi Dinggan and his colleagues.

Because Chen Jiazhi won the bet.

The group hitched a ride and enjoyed the benefits of the small greenhouse for the first time.

Therefore, Yidinggan has also set its sights on the Dragon Boat Festival this year, and there are more green vegetables on the market around the Dragon Boat Festival.

Yi Dinggan said, "The seeds have been sown one after another, and seedling cultivation is underway. The most important thing right now is to properly cover and uncover the plastic film. We also need to pay close attention to the weather forecast and weather changes every day."

Don't sleep too soundly at night. If you feel something is wrong, get up immediately and organize people to cover the area with a plastic film.

"And for green peppers, we also need to monitor for pests and diseases at all times, and ensure that the ditches are well drained..."

Everyone was on high alert regarding the rain.

If the rain is even slightly heavy, the leafy vegetables will be flattened and the vegetable patch will become hardened.

High humidity combined with high temperatures can easily cause leafy vegetables to rot in the ground, and even more so during transportation.

Small arched greenhouses and plastic film are currently the only solutions, but covering and uncovering the film is a very troublesome and tiring process.

Before it rains, covering the plastic film is like going to war.

"Without small greenhouses for green peppers, we're at a loss when it rains heavily!" Huang Rixin asked. He is in charge of Group 3 in the north area, which mainly deals with green peppers.

"We've done our best," Yi Dinggan said. "Being able to persevere this far has already achieved our predetermined goal; the rest is up to fate."

Overall, we have now entered an unsuitable growth period for green peppers.

The fate of green peppers is not particularly promising.

After listening, Chen Jiazhi only emphasized the seedling cultivation of leafy vegetables, saying that if the vegetable fields encounter unavoidable disasters such as floods, transplanting is a good remedial measure.

He then went home with Yi Dinggan for dinner, and during the meal, they inevitably talked about Jia Sufen again.

Chen Jiazhi couldn't help but ask, "Where did Liu Minghua go?"

"He might have gone back to his hometown."

"do not know."

"Why bother with him?"

Li Xiu, Yi Dinggan, and Chen Jiafang all shook their heads. "Jiazhi, do you want to bring Liu Minghua to the market?"

Chen Jiazhi pondered for a moment and said, "I didn't deliberately try to find him. It's just that he sold vegetables with me at the market for a while last year. I felt that although he was short, he was quite clever in the market."

Yi Long, who was eating, stopped eating. "Uncle, are you as clever as me?"

Chen Jiazhi smiled and said, "I'm still a bit inferior to you. You're the little detective of the wholesale market; there's no news you can't find out."

Yi Long's lips curled up slightly. "Uncle, when we have the weekend off, I'll come help you sell vegetables again!"

"Studying is the priority. I'll be starting junior high soon, and I'll strive to get into high school and university later."

"You want me to finish high school and college before I start helping you sell vegetables?"

Chen Jiazhi was choked with speech.

Chen Jiafang couldn't help but scold, "All you think about is selling vegetables, can't you do something else?"

Yi Long said, "Selling vegetables makes money!"

Yi Dinggan retorted, "Sell you my ass! If you could really go to university, why would you be doing this kind of work!"

"Then what should I do? Can I earn more money than selling vegetables? Can I earn more money than my uncle?"

"You!" Yi Dinggan, who had been quite pleased, was now enraged.

"Where's Xiaohu?"

"I also want to make money."

"..." Yi Dinggan simply drank his wine in silence.

Yi Hu also looked at Chen Jiazhi, "Uncle, can I help you sell vegetables and earn money during my vacation?"

“If you want to, that’s fine with me,” Chen Jiazhi said, then changed the subject, asking, “But what are your dreams?”

"Make a lot of money!" Yi Long answered decisively, which angered Yi Dinggan, who glared at him again.

Chen Jiazhi then asked, "Where's Xiaohu?"

Yi Hu said softly, a little shyly, "A scientist... but I also want to make money."

They're all very simple and unpretentious, but childhood dreams don't count.

Chen Jiazhi smiled and said, "It's too early to talk about dreams now. What you need to do now is to study hard when you're studying and play hard when you're playing."

Yi Long asked, "Can we go to the arcade?"

"Where are you going! You're not allowed to go!"

Chen Jiafang gets furious whenever this topic comes up. Because they have money, the two brothers have been going there quite often, and have caused a lot of trouble.

Yi Dinggan also firmly disagreed with the two of them going.

"You don't need to go to the arcade, but you can play games." Chen Jiazhi pondered for a moment and said, "How about this, if you do well on your final exams, and you all get into the top ten in your class, I'll buy you computers."

"What is a computer?" Yi Dinggan asked, as his family was unfamiliar with the subject.

Chen Jiazhi didn't know how to explain it for a moment. In his previous life, apart from buying his son a laptop when he was in high school, he had virtually no contact with computers.

But he knew that this thing was technology, the future, and would affect the development of the entire era.

Therefore, he felt that the next generation could learn computer science, and since he himself was still young, he could also learn it.

Yi Long asked, "Can computers play games?"

“Yes,” Chen Jiazhi said. “You can do many interesting things, much more interesting than playing games. If you learn computers well, you can become scientists and make a lot of money, much more than selling vegetables.”

"Okay, let's buy a computer!"

"Top ten in the final exams, haha."

"How about the top twenty?"

"No."

"You can even haggle over the price when selling vegetables!"

"When have I, your uncle, ever successfully negotiated a lower price for vegetables?"

"That's why others call you stubborn as a mule."

"Tsk, believe it or not, I won't buy it for you!"

Yi Long immediately stopped making a fuss.

After having dinner at home and smoking a cigarette, Chen Jiazhi called Li Xiu to go sell vegetables.

"Jiazhi, drive slower! DouDou, say goodbye to Mom and Dad!"

Peng Guozhen carried Chen Zhengyun into the courtyard, where Chen Zhengyun was already adept at clapping and waving.

"Let's go."

The car disappeared into the night. Peng Guozhen shook his head, "They really are busy all year round, without any rest!"

She walked into the house and saw Chen Shaochang calmly smoking, so she started muttering to herself again.

"If you had had Jia Zhi's drive back then, you would have become an official long ago."

"They might not survive."

"You have so many excuses."

Peng Guozhen entered the room and saw the two brothers, Yi Long and Yi Hu, reading and doing their homework at the table.

"Wow, looks like we're really going to have a college student in the family this time..."

...

It was already quite late when we set off, but Chen Jiazhi had an empty car, so he drove relatively slowly and didn't have to queue when entering the market.

When they arrived at the stall, the two trucks loaded with vegetables from Jiangxin Market were a step behind.

The vegetables from Dongxiang Market arrived a little earlier; they were delivered by a temporary truck hired by Chen Zhengxu, and there were only two or three thousand catties of bok choy.

Like Yi Dinggan, Ao Dehai also focuses on the Dragon Boat Festival, concentrating on preparing dishes around that time.

Recently, the trading volume at the Jiangnan Market has also increased, which may be related to the recent abundance of vegetables.

Although green peppers are still relatively scarce, they are not as sought-after as they were at the beginning, but sales are still going smoothly.

As soon as the goods arrived at the stall, someone came to pick them up.

"Boss, 300 jin of green peppers today."

"Okay, that'll be 660 yuan in total."

"Please arrange the delivery as soon as possible, I need to leave early."

"We'll arrange for it to be delivered to you right away."

Li Xiu was in charge of collecting money, while Chen Jiazhi began organizing people to deliver goods. Currently, there are more and more active people in the market, making it a mixed bag.

Chen Jiazhi mostly collaborated with He Qiang and his group, gradually handing over unloading and delivery to them.

"He Qiang, find one of your brothers to deliver the vegetables to this boss."

"okay."

300 jin of green peppers were immediately loaded onto a tricycle and delivered.

In general, aside from needing to stay up all night, Chen Jiazhi deliberately reduced his physical labor.

We don't need to make money from everything. We can share some of the profits and keep He Qiang and others around us. If something happens in this foreign land, we'll have more people to take care of us.

This year, things have been quite turbulent across the country.

In the past two years, there were probably more highway robbers and robberies of passersby, but this year it has escalated to robberies of jewelry stores and even banks, with criminal cases emerging one after another.

That's why Chen Jiazhi bought a gun. For someone who's always on the road and needs to carry a lot of cash, a gun is more useful than a machete in a critical moment.

This situation will likely continue until at least next year, when another crackdown will take place.
The stalls were shipping goods in an orderly manner without much interruption. Goods were being unloaded and sold simultaneously, and by the time unloading was complete, half of the goods had been sold.

After Chen Jiazhi finished another transaction, he heard Zhang Qiren, a merchant next door, shouting.

"Old Chen, you seem to be running low on energy lately, are you just ordering the same dishes every day?"

"But it's expensive!"

"You have to make money by selling in large quantities in this business. Your little bit of green peppers won't last many more days, and the quality will gradually decline."

"Old Zhang, there's a saying I don't know if you've heard before?"

Zhang Qiren is not very old, and he and Chen Jiazhi have become quite familiar with each other. The two like to call each other "Old Zhang" and "Old Chen".

"What?"

"Jealousy can completely change a person." Chen Jiazhi offered him a cigarette. "I can feel the strong sourness emanating from you right now."

Zhang Qiren took the cigarette without ceremony and said, "Tsk, you're really sarcastic. I'm just telling the truth. By the way, where's Li Cai? He hasn't come for several days."

"He went to buy supplies."

Just then, a large truck covered with a tarpaulin drove in.

Chen Jiazhi had already seen Xue Jun sticking his head out from the passenger seat.

"Look, that truckload of vegetables is it. We're going for volume. I can do that too."

(End of this chapter)