He instructed Yin Le to remember to pick up the children from school in the afternoon. After Qin Yao drove the children to the school, she drove the horse carriage into the city.

Song Yu and Liu Zhong had been going to the county town every day recently. They met Bai Shan selling some fresh fruits brought from the south. He had already been back for some days.

He even set up a fixed stall to sell fruits, and business was quite good.

Qin Yao entered the city and strolled along the street. She quickly spotted that unique fruit stall.

On the stand with banana leaves as the base, there were white peaches, red plums, sweet melons, and lychees. These were all fruits that small places like Kaiyang County typically didn’t have.

So, even though the small stall had intimidatingly high prices, it was still surrounded by stewards from various houses, afraid of missing out on the freshest goods.

Qin Yao waited patiently by the side for a full quarter of an hour before the crowded people dispersed.

In that quarter of an hour, the fruits on the stall were already sold out.

Wealthy families were not short of money, buying basketfuls at a time.

Qin Yao smelled the fragrance of fruit wafting through the air, using her hand as a fan to air herself, still feeling an insatiable thirst.

She took out fifty cents to buy a bowl of ice drink from a water stall and gulped it down, afterward approaching Bai Shan, who was counting money.

She chuckled, and Bai Shan, who was counting money, was so startled that he hugged the silver to his chest, raising his head vigilantly, thinking it was some audacious robber, only to be met with Qin Yao’s mischievous smile, leaving him momentarily stunned.

"It’s you!" Bai Shan complained, "You scared me."

"Quite profitable, huh." Qin Yao jealously glanced at the money box filled to the brim in his arms, sighing, "There are still many wealthy people in the city. Even at fifty cents a jin for white peaches, they are bought by the basket. Looks like our village’s cool melons won’t be hard to sell this summer."

Bai Shan was delighted, "Are the melons ripe?"

Seeing Qin Yao smile and nod, he quickly closed the money box, asked his assistant to pack up the stall, and led Qin Yao to a nearby water stall to order two bowls of the cheapest chilled tea.

He courteously said, "These fruits are just for earning a bit of hard-earned money, nothing too profitable."

Qin Yao wouldn’t believe him.

Indeed, it’s hard work, especially conducting long-distance freight transport in ancient times, and the journey inevitably arduous.

But the profit in this is huge; if not twice, there’s at least a 100% profit.

However, inquiring too much into others’ businesses isn’t the etiquette, so Qin Yao brought up the cool melon harvest in the village this year and asked Bai Shan when he’d be available to personally take a look.

"Last time you told someone to inform me, no matter how many cool melons, you’d buy them. Does that still count?" Qin Yao probingly asked.

Bai Shan took two large gulps of chilled tea to soothe his just-shouted hoarse throat, then nodded and smiled, "It counts, but if the quantity is large, I definitely won’t be able to offer as much as last year."

Qin Yao was mentally prepared, "Alright, then when are you coming?"

Bai Shan calculated the time, looked at the sun, just at noon, "Then today!"

Qin Yao was very willing, "Shall we go now?"

"Hey, hey, finish this bowl of chilled tea first," Bai Shan insisted.

Qin Yao disdainfully curled her lips, "I’m not thirsty."

Alright. Bai Shan picked up her untouched bowl of chilled tea and finished it himself, not wasting a drop.

Bai Shan returned home to fetch a horse while Qin Yao drove her carriage out of the city. They met at the outskirts and together headed to Liu Family Village.

Mid-afternoon, they arrived in the village. Qin Yao instructed each family to pick melons and meet at the village well for Bai Shan to appraise.

That evening, the small village was extraordinarily lively.

Families who grew melons held their carefully selected melons, waiting expectantly yet anxiously for Bai Shan to price them.

Those without melons at home came over with bowls to enjoy the excitement and free melons.

The children were the happiest. Every time a melon was cut open, after Bai Shan picked up a slice, Qin Yao would distribute the leftover melon to them.

Every child in the village got a share, and some managed to grab a second piece. The whole evening, the village was filled with the happy laughter of children.

However, after the prices were announced, some families were happy while others worried.

The melons from Qin Yao’s and Liu Fendan’s families were priced at twenty cents a jin.

Old Liu’s family was twelve cents a jin.

The rest were all ten cents a jin, and that was for the sake of Qin Yao to give such a price.

Otherwise, he really didn’t want to take those misshapen melons.

However, at ten cents a jin, selling to further towns where there were no competing products could still yield some profit.

Perhaps because last year Qin Yao’s watermelons sold for thirty cents a jin, it brought too high expectations to the villagers, and suddenly facing a threefold price drop was a bit hard to accept.

Those with many grown melons accepted it.

Those with fewer melons decided to sell for themselves.

Though inevitably, there were some complaints.

Yin Le sarcastically remarked, "Although we faced heavy rains this year and the heavens weren’t kind, the same seeds faced the same rain, so how come Liu Fendan could grow melons worth twenty cents a jin? You know how much effort you put into growing your cool melons." 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

"Besides, ten cents isn’t low. They’re all misshapen melons, unappealing to look at, so be glad they sold at all."

The complaining villagers turned black-faced but knew they weren’t as diligent as Liu Fendan, so there was nothing to say, and they accepted it.

When Bai Shan came to collect the goods and the silver actually fell into their hands, the villagers no longer had any complaints and secretly decided to grow cool melons properly next year, aiming to sell at twenty cents a jin as well.

Liu Fendan’s family grew a thousand jin, and at twenty cents a jin, they received twenty taels of silver.

Holding the money in his hands, Liu Fendan was dumbfounded.

The villagers were also stupefied, surprised it was so much!

Those villagers who didn’t go to get melon seeds this year regretted it deeply.

Mrs. Zhang’s two acres of melon land, after battling heavy rain and subsequent efforts, yielded only thirteen hundred jin, at twelve cents a jin, receiving fifteen taels and six maces of silver.

This was a huge income, and Mrs. Zhang was overjoyed, unable to resist urging Liu Fei, who happened to return from his break, to get married, "This dowry is ready, which lady do you like? I’ll go propose marriage for you!"

Liu Fei, eating melon, shuddered at the words, dropped the melon rind, covered his ears, and fled the scene.

Behind him followed the Da Lang brothers and sisters and children like Jinbao, Jinhua, Da Mao, Little Lai Fu, and other half-grown boys and girls from the village, a long string of them that made the villagers laugh heartily.

"He’s still a child, what’s the rush?" the Clan Leader teased Old Liu and Mrs. Zhang.

Even Old Liu couldn’t help but burst into laughter, causing Mrs. Zhang to give him a hidden nudge, nod in Qin Yao’s direction, and storm off home.

Qin Yao chuckled, shaking her head, and continued helping the villagers weigh and calculate accounts.

This time, even the villagers who grew the fewest melons had at least two taels of silver, and the most, Liu Fendan, had twenty taels.

Qin Yao’s own five acres left half an acre for themselves, and the rest were sold, earning seventy-two taels in total.

Once the melons were sold, the topic of pooling funds for shares was raised again, and everything happened naturally.

The villagers enthusiastically participated, combining two to three households to afford one share, finally collecting two hundred and eight taels of silver in total.

Qin Yao herself contributed an additional one thousand taels, making it a total of one thousand two hundred taels to fully upgrade and officially launch the stationery factory.