The Country Maiden: Fields and Leisure-Chapter 768 - 767 Agreed

Wang Yongzhu opened up frankly, "I naturally have my own purpose! I must get involved in this wild tea business. My family has always dealt in mountain goods, and there’s no reason to pass up such a good opportunity right before my eyes. My goal aligns with yours, which is to make money."

The man leading the group looked at Wang Yongzhu for a long time before he reluctantly believed her.

"Since the Scholar’s Lady shares our goal, how about the Scholar’s Lady negotiates with that big boss outside on our behalf? We’re not greedy; we just want to earn a few more taels of silver each year, learn the skill of tea frying, and we’ll supply all the tea produced by Yingzi Gully exclusively to you! We absolutely won’t sell to outsiders!"

The man tentatively made his request.

Upon hearing this, Wang Yongzhu realized that this leader of Yingzi Gully was a man who knew his limits and also had vision. He had picked up on the most critical point from her earlier words.

Learning how to fry tea!

Only by mastering tea frying could the wild tea forests of Yingzi Gully become their inexhaustible wealth for the future.

Otherwise, merely harvesting some tea leaves would only earn them a bit of hard-earned money.

She readily nodded her head, but still put forward a condition, "If this tea really becomes famous in the future, I’m afraid this wild tea forest won’t be enough. I will cut some wild tea branches and try to propagate them to see if they can survive on the mountain next to my house."

"If they survive, I plan to collect a batch of wild tea branches from these Tea Mother Trees to see if I can establish a tea garden. However, I promise that the wild tea branches I need will definitely not have a major impact on you! Moreover, even if I manage to establish a tea garden over there, it will not affect your tea leaves. What do you think, can you accept that?"

She laid her cards on the table with this speech, making her intentions very clear.

The leader and a few other men discussed quietly among themselves, all of which Wang Yongzhu heard.

"What do you think about what the Scholar’s Lady said? Can we agree to it?"

"What’s there to disagree with? Originally, this wild tea forest isn’t even ours. If it were any other businessman, they would come in after getting wind of it, pick the tea themselves, and then sell it for money without us even knowing!"

"These naturally growing things can’t be protected from others, can they? I find the Scholar’s Lady’s words quite clear! She’s just taking a liking to our wild tea and thinking that if it can really be sold, she’ll take some cuttings to see if they can survive. Isn’t it just like us admiring someone else’s well-grown vegetable seedlings and asking for a few to bring back?"

"I think so too. What else could attract the attention of the Scholar’s Lady in our deep and remote woods? She is the Scholar’s Lady, after all. If she were determined to buy the wild tea forest behind us, what could we do? Even if we don’t learn the tea frying skill, our households would still have some extra income each year, and that’s better than before, isn’t it?"

"Xiao Shan, why are you still hesitating over such a good thing? This doesn’t seem like you!"

"Exactly! This is a great opportunity; why are we hesitating? Roll up your sleeves and just do it without chickening out!"

...

After a while, the man named Xiao Shan finally turned around.

"Then it’s settled!"

Wang Yongzhu also breathed a sigh of relief. She wanted to create a tea garden, and it was true that secretly taking a few cuttings from the wild tea forest would surely go unnoticed, or even if it did, it wouldn’t be a big deal.

Now that she was neither short of silver nor time, why sneak around when she could just speak openly and avoid trouble?

Moreover, she saw that the hunters of Yingzi Gully were quite honest, without too many tricks or ambitions. Having such a wild tea forest could be both a blessing and a curse for them.

However, as of this moment, improving their lives is definitely not a bad thing!

"Alright then! When that big tea-buying boss arrives, we three parties will sign an agreement. In the future, we’ll just follow what it says on the contract, so we don’t have to worry about anyone reneging," Wang Yongzhu reassured the hunters.

The hunters indeed seemed much more relaxed, and the way they looked at Wang Yongzhu softened considerably.

Just then, the women finished preparing the meal and brought it out. In an instant, around thirty people gathered, making a lively crowd around the dining table, eating heartily.

Even Wang Yongzhu, although she was still in mourning, ended up eating an extra bowl of rice, carried away by the atmosphere and the delicious mushroom soup.

Later that night, time came to rest, and it was Yang Zhaodi’s husband, Li Dashan.

Being a man who knew the proper manners, he was aware it would be inconvenient to stay in the cave. He intended to have his wife and younger sister accompany the esteemed guest in their home while he spent the night at the neighbor’s.

But Wang Yongzhu refused, asking him to find a secluded cave instead. He helped light a fire and borrowed a clean pot, took several bundles of firewood, and planned to work through the night to process the tea leaves.

Of course, that was the reason given to others. In reality, she wanted to use the purchased tea-frying machine to properly fry and sort the tea leaves.

If she stayed at Yang Zhaodi’s home, it would not be convenient.

Having no choice, Li Dashan found a clean cave, helped set up everything, and, after being out for so many days and working until now, he couldn’t stay awake any longer and fell asleep.

However, Yang Zhaodi and her sister Yang Zaizhao were somewhat worried about Wang Yongzhu and came out to check on her cave in the middle of the night, seeing the firelight constantly glowing inside before they could rest assured and go back to sleep.

Wang Yongzhu let the tea-frying machine handle most of the tea leaves. She kept one-third and spent 5 points in the System to buy a copy of "The Complete Art of Tea Frying" to learn from.

Then, she slowly practiced by hand until around three or four in the morning when she barely managed to finish processing the tea leaves.

Looking at the results of her night’s work, the leaves were all pressed into pieces; some were broken, others over-fried, but it was still much better than the leaves fried with a wooden spatula in an iron pot by the hunters.

Gazing at the tea leaves, she finally felt sleepy and leaned against the cave wall for a short rest.

By the time she awoke, it was already bright outside, but the cave was still quiet and calm.

Shaking her arms, Wang Yongzhu slowly walked towards the cave entrance and saw several elderly people and children, who could hardly walk the day before, basking in the sun.

Seeing Wang Yongzhu come out, one of the bigger children ran up to her and pointed to a pot on a big brazier inside the cave, "Breakfast!"

Wang Yongzhu walked over to the brazier and saw that it still had some heat left, with white rice porridge being kept warm in the pot on top and a salted bird egg cooking inside.

Just as Wang Yongzhu finished breakfast, the man who took the lead yesterday came in, "Scholar’s Lady, outside Yingzi Gully there are two carriages and several people saying they know you—one is your Fourth Brother, one is your nephew, and a few others—"

Wang Yongzhu immediately understood that it must be Guan Yifei who had found someone to come.

She promptly patted the dust off her clothes and stood up, "Let’s go and see."

Leaving the cave, they hadn’t walked far along the path before they encountered the hunter from Yingzi Gully, leading Wang Yongping and his group, who were on foot.

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