354 Tomorrow
“Of course, we won’t.” Xue Sifu immediately laughed.
“That’s good.” As he spoke, Doctor Shen muttered to himself, “I’ll help you get the saltpeter. It might take at least four or five days for me to get the supplies.”
“We don’t have that much money on us right now. We can give you the money tomorrow, alright?” Xue Sifu said with a smile.
Saltpeter was very expensive. It cost two pieces of silver per 50 grams. If it was 120 kilograms, it would cost them 400 silver.
Xue Sifu was confident about spending money like this because he trusted Xue Yan’s words. It was also because of the successful rice noodles and liangpi business that he was not afraid of losing money in trying to make ice. At most, he could earn it back by selling rice noodles and liangpi in the future.
However, once he made ice, he would be able to earn back the four hundred silver very quickly. At the same time, he would be able to earn a lot more.
Maybe he could buy a shop in town one day!
Jiang Yue didn’t think that four hundred silver was too much. After all, there were not many saltpeter mines here, so the supply would be low, causing the demand to be costly.
When a large amount of saltpeter was mined, the price of saltpeter would definitely drop a lot.
For example, gunpowder was invented in ancient times in her original world and was mainly made of saltpeter.
There was no gunpowder in this world yet, so it might be discovered one day.
“What’s wrong with that?” Doctor Shen smiled and said, “I’m not in a hurry to get the money. I’ve been running a clinic for so many years, so I still have some savings. I’ll pay you first. When you have enough, you can give it to me.”
“It just so happens that our family has four hundred silver.” Xue Sifu smiled. The money that Jiang Yue and Xue Yan had earned from selling the mushrooms last time had not been used up yet.
“That’s fine, then you can bring it to me tomorrow,” Doctor Shen said with a smile.
“Alright,” he said. Xue Sifu agreed and thanked him.
“You’re too polite. If there’s nothing else, you should go back. Don’t you have work to do when you get back? Your family sure is a busy bunch!”
“Well, we’ll be going back then.” Xue Sifu agreed.
Xue Yan cupped his hands and saluted Doctor Shen in an extremely polite manner.
Doctor Shen returned the greeting.
“Thank you,” Jiang Yue said.
“Alright, alright, alright.” Doctor Shen laughed as he stroked his beard.
Back home, before Jiang Yue, Xue Yan, and Xue Sifu entered the courtyard, they heard the laughter of Liu Guixia and the others. When they entered the courtyard, Xue Sifu laughed along and asked, “Mother, what were you all laughing about just now?”
The one who replied was Yu Hongyan.
Yu Hongyan smiled and said, “I was just telling them what happened. When I went to visit our family’s vegetable garden today, I met the villagers. The villagers asked me why the strawberries in our family’s land were green, not red, and not round. How would I know? They were originally dug up from the wild. Don’t you think the villagers are st*pid? More than one person asked me.”
“It’s quite silly. We don’t know why either.” Xue Sifu laughed.
Jiang Yue and Xue Yan were both silent.
That was a strawberry. The fruit that just bore was green, and then it would slowly turn red. When it was red, it would be ripe and could be picked.
They were all strawberries, so the shape of the fruit was naturally not as round as that of a raspberry.
“By the way,” Yu Hongyan laughed again, “The half an acre of barren land that our family bought from Qingshu’s family has borne fruit. The fruits are huge, much bigger than raspberries, but they’re still green. I don’t know if they’ll be edible.”
Jiang Yue thought, ‘Those are tomatoes, they can only be eaten when they’re red.’
