Gourd Farm

Chapter 21: Meeting a Scoundrel

Yang Feng just realized how lucrative selling fruit salad can be. And that's just for one type of fruit. Supermarket owners mix and sell various fruits together, making even more profit. The only difference is that he grew the fruits themselves, so the cost is negligible.

After a busy day, Yang Feng went to the vegetable market to buy a catty of pork. He arrived late and almost missed the chance to buy meat.

On the way back home, he saw Xia Ying still working on the roadside. She had been selling goods all day, from morning till dusk.

"Xia Ying, how was business today?" he asked.

"It's okay. How about you?" Xia Ying asked.

"I peddled on the school side, and it's also okay," Yang Feng replied.

Since he fixed her car last time, he got to know the Watermelon Girl, Xia Ying. They had been selling goods together for a long time, so they naturally became familiar with each other.

"Oh," Xia Ying replied.

"Well, I'll go back first," Yang Feng said.

When Yang Feng got home, he washed and sliced the pork into thin pieces. He picked a few vegetables from his garden and stir-fried the pork in a hot wok until fragrant, then extracted the excess oil.

He poured the oil into a bowl and covered it with a lid. He would use it when making noodles, adding a touch of delicious flavor.

The pork in the wok was almost ready. He added some soy sauce and seasoning, stirred it a few times with a spatula, then added water to stew it for a while. Finally, he added the vegetables and vermicelli to the pot, and let it simmer for a few minutes on low heat.

He went to the store to buy a bottle of cold beer, and when he came back, the aroma of the dish greeted him at the street corner. When he first cooked it, he didn't notice much of the fragrance, but now, even before he got home, the aroma was already wafting in the air.

There were no large bowls in the house, and since he usually ate alone, he didn't need them. He just used a small iron basin to hold his food.

He was so eager to eat that he didn't even bother to use chopsticks. He picked up a piece of pork with his hand and put it directly into his mouth.

‘It tastes great, just a little hot,’ he thought.

"Bang!"

Skilled with chopsticks, he pried open the beer cap and took a gulp. The ice-cold beer flowed down his throat, causing him to shiver a bit.

He had a delicious meal of pork stewed with noodles and a bottle of beer. It had been so long since he had eaten meat that he almost forgot what it tasted like.

With a full belly and a buzz from the beer, he grabbed his hoe and headed to the field. The watermelons were now growing many fruit stems.

However, Yang Feng had already seen this watermelon before, so he didn't feel as surprised as before. Instead, he was particularly looking forward to the cucumbers. A few days ago, the cucumber plants were still blooming flowers, but now they have already produced many small cucumbers. Looking at these slender cucumbers the thickness of fingers, Yang Feng felt a great sense of achievement.

Currently, the main task is to weed out some of the weeds. The water from the bottle gourd not only benefits the fruits and vegetables, but it also works well against weeds. Therefore, if the weeds are not removed for two days, they can grow faster than the fruits and vegetables.

The work in the greenhouse is almost done. Tonight, Yang Feng plans to rest early.

Tomorrow morning, he plans to go to the chicken farm in the neighboring village and bring back a few truckloads of manure.

He already has enough money to buy another greenhouse, so he wants to take advantage of the time now and use the manure to fertilize the surrounding land. Otherwise, when the watermelons and cucumbers grow, he won't have time to do it.

...

When he woke up, it was already 5:30 in the morning. If it weren't for setting the alarm, he wouldn't have been able to get up.

For some reason, the later it gets, the easier it is to sleep, unlike in early summer when he couldn't sleep because of mosquito bites.

As soon as he arrived at the chicken farm, he heard two wolfhounds barking loudly at the gate.

"Who's there?"

The old man guarding the gate of the chicken farm came out to take a look.

"Oh, I'm here to collect some chicken manure," Yang Feng explained.

"Oh, it's you, young man. Wait a minute, I'll come and open the gate for you," replied the gatekeeper.

The gatekeeper, wearing a faded military coat and a cigarette in his mouth, slowly made his way over to Yang Feng.

Yang Feng had collected manure from this chicken farm before, so the gatekeeper recognized him. Otherwise, he would never have let him in, as it was a strictly guarded area for animal breeding and outsiders were not allowed in.

Riding his bike, Yang Feng headed straight east to a chicken coop. The gatekeeper told him that they cleaned it up last week, so there should be plenty of manure by now.

"Cha, cha, cha."

Yang Feng started shoveling under the chicken coop, but the smell was too strong. It was so pungent that his eyes couldn't stay open.

After struggling to fill one cart with manure, he almost threw up on his way out.

This smell would linger on his mind for several days after he finished collecting manure, making him lose his appetite.

After hauling two full carts of chicken manure, it was getting late and time to set up the roadside stand.

 After taking a shower and changing clothes, Yang Feng picked the ripe watermelons and headed to the location.

Within 40 minutes, he arrived and noticed something was happening at Xia Ying's stand.

 It was only 9 am, yet her stand was already surrounded by a large crowd of people, which was unusual for such an early hour.

Out of curiosity, Yang Feng walked over to take a look.

Before he even got close, he heard a woman shouting loudly, arguing and causing a commotion. It seemed like there was some kind of conflict going on.

When he got closer and listened carefully, he heard:

She said she bought a watermelon here before, but it didn’t weigh right.

Based on what he knew about Xia Ying, he didn't think she would do something like that.

Moreover, they are all vendors who sell here every day. How could they ruin their own reputation?

At this moment, Xia Ying was surrounded by people and her eyes were a little red.

After listening for a while, Yang Feng realized that the middle-aged woman was insisting that she had bought the watermelon from Xia Ying, but Xia Ying denied it and claimed that she had never sold watermelon to this middle-aged woman.

This was a difficult situation because there were no surveillance cameras or anything nearby.

One claimed to have bought the watermelon here while the other denied it, leaving the situation difficult to resolve.

Yang Feng remembered selling Xia Ying’s watermelon before and even smashed one himself. (must be referring to the time he dropped/smashed a watermelon to gather the attention of the pedestrians  on Chapter 17)

He recalled that Xia Ying's watermelons were of a pure 8424 variety, which were typically seedless, or at most with very few seeds.

Upon examining the watermelon in the middle-aged woman's hand, he found it to be roughly the same size as an 8424 watermelon.

But if someone who knows about it looks at the pattern, it doesn't belong to the 8424 variety at all.

Now Yang Feng seems to understand, it is estimated that the middle-aged woman was deceived when she bought a watermelon somewhere else, and now she can't find the seller, so she came to extort a young girl.

There are people like this who take advantage of others' honesty and those who lookd easy to bully.

In the past, he really couldn't be sure about the variety of this watermelon.

Recently, he has been growing watermelons for some time, so he has some knowledge of watermelon varieties and has read many books.

Therefore, he is now sure that this watermelon is definitely not sold by Xia Ying.

Her cart of watermelons is still here, and they are all pure 8424, without any ordinary watermelons like this one.

"Hey, I'm talking to you. I'm asking you to compensate me for two watermelons. Why aren't you saying anything? It wasn't a big deal, but if you keep this up, I'll call the police."

Seeing that Xia Ying was being pressured into silence, the middle-aged woman's attitude became even more forceful.

"I..."

"What 'I'? Hurry up and compensate me for the watermelons."

Yang Feng raised his hand to stop the argument between the middle-aged woman and Xia Ying. Although he was not planning to get involved in this matter, he realized that Xia Ying and he were old acquaintances, and he knew that something was amiss.

"Excuse me, excuse me," he said, blocking the middle-aged woman's path and squinting his eyes. "Are you sure you bought this watermelon here?"

The middle-aged woman was taken aback and became a little nervous, but she still stubbornly insisted, "I bought it here! There is no mistake. Who are you?"