As soon as he stepped through the front door, Lin Xiaolong called out, "Xiaoxue!"
"What is it, Brother?" Lin Xiaxue hurried out of the main room, a look of deep worry on her face.
She thought something else had gone wrong. Their family's situation had just started to turn around and things were finally looking up; she was genuinely terrified of any new setbacks.
"Nothing's wrong. One of the cherry trees at home has ripe cherries. Come with me to pick them so I can take the cherries and the beehive to town to sell." Seeing the expression on his sister's face, Lin Xiaolong immediately realized she had misunderstood and hastened to explain clearly.
"You scared me to death." Lin Xiaxue patted her chest, but then asked with a puzzled look, "Brother, did your eyes play tricks on you? I watered them just yesterday, and I didn't see any tree ripening this fast."
"Just come and take a look with me, and hurry up and bring something to hold the cherries."
The two grabbed a dozen plastic buckets for the cherries and walked briskly toward the cherry orchard.
Along the way, Lin Xiaxue refused to believe it, feeling sure her brother's eyes were playing tricks on him.
However, upon reaching the orchard and seeing that particular cherry tree, Lin Xiaxue was struck dumb with astonishment. Her jaw dropped in utter disbelief.
This...
How could this be?
Even if they were ripe, they couldn't possibly be ripe to this ridiculous extent.
The cherries on this tree were not only a full size larger than those on the other trees, but they were also a deep, glossy purple-red, making anyone's mouth water just at the sight.
"Brother, what... on earth is going on here?" Lin Xiaxue asked in amazement.
"Hehe, your brother secretly gave this tree a bit of fertilizer yesterday." Lin Xiaolong had already stepped forward and started picking.
"What kind of fertilizer? This is way too incredible! Tell me right now so I can buy some more and put it on the other trees." Lin Xiaxue said excitedly.
"This fertilizer is only available to me, so don't worry about it. Just hurry up and pick the cherries so I can go sell them." Lin Xiaolong instructed.
"You got it, Brother."
Lin Xiaxue stopped asking questions, stepped forward, and eagerly joined her brother in picking the cherries.
Just as they were picking, the faint sound of footsteps rang out not far away.
Ever since practicing the Longyang Formula, Lin Xiaolong's sensory perception was several times sharper than before.
Hearing the footsteps, he immediately looked in that direction, but failed to spot anyone approaching.
He frowned and shouted sharply, "Who's over there?"
"Brother, there's nobody else in our orchard," Lin Xiaxue asked in confusion.
Lin Xiaolong shook his head at his sister and gave a slight nod of his chin toward the distance, signaling that someone was hiding over there.
Lin Xiaxue looked, but still didn't see anyone.
"If you don't come out, I'm going to start throwing stones," Lin Xiaolong said loudly.
As soon as the words left his mouth, a woman's voice rang out, "Oh my, Xiaolong, Xiaxue, it's me, your aunt."
Then, the figure of a plump woman appeared before the two of them.
It was none other than their aunt, Wang Yanhong.
Chapter 14: Surrounded by Female Comrades
Seeing Wang Yanhong, both brother and sister frowned.
The relationship between Lin Xiaolong's family and his uncle's family had never been good, and this was primarily stirred up by this aunt, Wang Yanhong.
Back then, Lin Xiaolong's cousin, Lin Yongqiang, had only managed to get into a vocational college, which was simply incomparable to Lin Xiaolong getting into a key university. This made Wang Yanhong intensely jealous, and she would gossip everywhere whenever she had free time, claiming that Lin Xiaolong only passed by copying someone else's answers, while her own son had gotten in through genuine ability.
Of course, talk like that only fooled ignorant gossips; hardly anyone believed her.
When Lin Xiaolong was beaten into a "fool" and forced to drop out of school, she jumped around with even greater glee, telling everyone she met that Lin Xiaolong had misbehaved at school, broken his brain, and been expelled.
Furthermore, after misfortune struck Lin Xiaolong's family, she egged on his uncle to completely sever ties with them, terrified of being implicated by association.
Given her character, Lin Xiaolong and his sister couldn't be bothered to pay her any attention, so they never expected her to show up right in their family's field today.
Naturally, Lin Xiaolong wasn't about to give her a pleasant expression.
"Since when did I have an aunt?" Lin Xiaolong asked coldly.
"Oh, my, what kind of talk is that from you, child? It doesn't sound like something an educated person would say," Wang Yanhong said as she walked forward.
"Save it, I've already dropped out of school. If you have something to say, spit it out. We're busy and don't have time to shoot the breeze with you," Lin Xiaolong said impatiently.
"What could you possibly be busy with? I saw you two carrying buckets over here early in the morning, and the cherries aren't even ripe."
Wang Yanhong didn't stop walking and reached them in a few steps.
Then, her jaw dropped, her eyes widened, and she froze right in her tracks.
"Good heavens! Good heavens! Are these cherry trees? Aren't these plum trees?"
She simply couldn't believe her eyes, rubbing them as she spoke, thinking her vision was playing tricks on her.
Yet no matter how hard she rubbed, what she saw was still a whole tree covered in large, purple-red cherries—cherries so appetizing they made people want to drool just looking at them.
"Cherry or plum, it's none of your business. Hurry up and leave, don't hold up our work." Lin Xiaolong bluntly showed her the door.
No wonder Wang Yanhong had run over to their cherry orchard; she must have seen him and his sister carrying buckets into the fields.
Besides, nobody else's cherries were ripe yet, but he had come with buckets to pick them. Knowing her nosy nature, it would be a miracle if she hadn't tagged along to see.
"Xiaolong, why are you chasing your aunt away? What variety are the cherries in your garden? How did they grow so big and ripen so well?"
As she spoke, she plucked a cherry, popped it into her mouth, and began to chew.
The moment she bit into it, she cried out in fresh amazement, "My goodness! This is too delicious!"
"You've seen them and you've eaten them, now hurry up and leave." Lin Xiaolong issued his eviction notice once more.
"Don't be like that! You haven't told me what variety this is yet. Xiaolong, I'm your aunt after all! If you tell me, and in the future only our two families have this variety, won't we make a fortune?"
After eating a cherry, Wang Yanhong was consumed with envy. Cherries like this would undoubtedly be hot commodities on the market; even if the price were twice as high as ordinary cherries, people would still scramble to buy them.
After all, this society was not short on wealthy people.
If her own family's cherry orchard could grow this variety in the future, she would undoubtedly make a massive fortune.
"They're the exact same variety as the others. Who knows what got into them this year that made them grow so big and ripen so early?" Lin Xiaxue had a thinner skin after all and wasn't ruthless enough to chase her off directly the way her brother did, so she simply told the truth, hoping to nip any such thoughts in the bud.
"No way," Wang Yanhong flatly refused to believe it.
"Believe it or not, there's nothing I can do. If I had some special variety like this, why would I bother growing the others? Besides, this tree has been planted for five years and never acted like this before," Lin Xiaxue said.
On second thought, Wang Yanhong realized that made sense. She had never seen this variety before; perhaps it really had mutated.
Her face immediately fell, and she curled her lips, sneering, "And here I thought your family had managed to get your hands on some new variety."
"We didn't get any new variety. Are you happy now? Since you're our aunt, and you see that my mom and dad are in poor health, why don't you help the two of us pick some cherries?" Lin Xiaolong said.
"Hah! When do I have time for that? You're the ones selling them for money, and you won't give me a single penny."
Seeing a junior attempt to order her around, Wang Yanhong immediately reverted to her petty and mean-spirited self. Dropping those words, she tossed her head, swished her hips, and walked away.
"Brother, what kind of person is she?" Lin Xiaxue asked, feeling somewhat amused and exasperated as she watched Wang Yanhong leave.
"Don't lower yourself to the level of people like that. Picking these cherries quickly is what matters."
Both brother and sister were young and efficient at physical labor, especially Lin Xiaolong, who moved extremely fast.
In less than two hours, the two of them had stripped all the cherries off the tree, gathering a full ten buckets. Each bucket weighed about twenty pounds, making a total of roughly two hundred pounds for the ten buckets.
"Brother, how much can cherries like this sell for per pound?" Lin Xiaxue asked excitedly, looking at the harvested fruit.
Lin Xiaolong happily patted his sister's head, "Xiaoxue, I reckon fifty yuan a pound will be a breeze."
"If the other trees turn out like this too, we won't have to worry about our family's debts anymore."
"Right," Lin Xiaolong said, equally excited. "The other trees will be like this too. But our top priority right now is to sell these off first. If they get overripe, nobody will want them."
"Brother, I'll go to town with you to sell them."
"No need, I can go by myself. You stay and watch the house, and be careful in case someone tries to mess with our trees," Lin Xiaolong said.
Lin Xiaxue was momentarily stunned, then nodded heavily, "Brother, don't worry."
Returning home, Lin Xiaolong first borrowed a motorized tricycle from their neighbor, Aunt Zhang. Then he drove the tricycle to the edge of the field, loaded up the cherries, went back inside to grab the wild beehive, and headed straight for the county town.
Longyang Village was a little over twenty kilometers away from the county town—not a very long distance.
Once he arrived in town, Lin Xiaolong had no idea where the market was located.
So he simply found a residential compound and parked on the roadside right outside its main gate.
Because Lin Xiaolong had gotten up early, he reached the compound just as the city folks were heading off to work.Displaying these cherries on the roadside immediately attracted a lot of attention. After all, cherries hadn't really hit the market yet; the few available were either lackluster, poorly ripened, or exorbitantly priced at around twenty yuan per jin.
Lin Xiaolong’s cherries, however, were a deep, ripe purple, round and plump—their appearance was indescribably good.
"Are these cherries?"
"My goodness, they're huge!"
"I wonder if they taste any good?"
"Why have I never seen this variety before?"
"Young man, can I try one?"
Soon, a crowd of women gathered around, chirping with questions. Most were on their way to work, many riding electric scooters, making it easy for them to stop. The more people stopped to ask, the more curious onlookers were drawn in to see what the commotion was about.
"Of course you can try them. Buy them only if you think they're good," Lin Xiaolong said. He was naturally handsome, looking like a college student, and his polite demeanor immediately won the crowd over.
Many were already eager. Hearing they could sample them, people quickly picked up the deep purple cherries and popped them into their mouths.
"Wow! This is incredible!"
"Sweeter than honey!"
"You're right, I can actually smell a hint of honey in them!"
"This is the best cherry I've ever tasted. How much? I don't care how expensive it is, I'm buying it."
"Me too! Young man, weigh ten jin for me quickly; I want to share them with my friends and family."
The women who had tasted the cherries felt their taste buds exploding. Some didn't even ask the price, urging Lin Xiaolong to weigh them immediately.
"Beautiful ladies, these are sixty yuan a jin," Lin Xiaolong said.
"That's a bit pricey," one woman muttered softly.
"Pricey? The greenhouse cherries I bought before weren't even this big, let alone this sweet, and they cost eighty a jin!"
"Same here, there's no comparison."
"These would be such an impressive gift."
"Something this good? I couldn't bear to give it away. It looks so nutritious!"
"Come on, weigh ten jin for me. I don't mind the price, young man."
"Me neither, give me five jin."
"I'll take three."
Once the trend started, everyone scrambled to buy, fearing they’d miss out. They had never even seen such cherries before, let alone tasted them, and they were terrified someone else would buy them all. Lin Xiaolong had originally intended to sell them for fifty a jin and was worried no one would buy them at all. He hadn't expected that at sixty, they would be snapped up instantly.
With so many women crowded around, acting as if they were fighting over money, even more customers were attracted. Lin Xiaolong’s two hundred-plus jin of cherries sold out in less than an hour, netting over 13,000 yuan in total.
The only thing that bothered Lin Xiaolong was his lousy, slow-reacting phone. Everyone paid via WeChat or Alipay, and if his phone hadn't been so sluggish, he could have sold them all in half an hour.
Lin Xiaolong was grinning from ear to ear. He had been worried about paying back Liu Erhu the 150,000 yuan within a week, but now that problem seemed easily solvable. After all, there were plenty more cherry trees at home; if he went back today and dripped more spiritual liquid under the trees, he would have another batch by tomorrow.
With the cherries gone, it was time to sell the wild honeycomb. If he weighed the honey inside, it would easily be over forty jin. Ordinary honey sold for fifty or sixty a jin, and this was rare wild honey—selling it for two hundred a jin wasn't unreasonable, surely?
However, the morning rush was over. Without the crowd of ladies to boost interest, he wasn't sure if anyone would buy. Lin Xiaolong had kept the bucket containing the honeycomb at the very back during the cherry sale to avoid being overwhelmed. Now, with the cherries sold, he pulled off the lid and propped up a piece of cardboard on his tricycle with the words "Wild Honeycomb" written on it.
With money in his pocket, his mind was at ease. He already had over 13,000 yuan in cash, so he wasn't worried about how quickly the honeycomb sold. Besides, he knew that when the evening rush hit, something this good would likely be snatched up again. It was even possible a wealthy buyer might purchase the whole thing at once.
Lin Xiaolong hadn't eaten much for breakfast, so he simply cut off a piece of the honeycomb to eat. As he ate, he mentally reviewed the inheritance from the Longyang Formula.
Just then, a red Mercedes drove out of the apartment complex and passed by him. The car drove a short distance before reversing back. The window rolled down, and a lovely voice asked, "Are you selling this wild honeycomb?"
Lin Xiaolong looked up and his eyes lit up. What a beautiful woman. She looked to be in her twenties with skin as white as milk. Although she wore sunglasses, her facial contours alone hinted at an ethereal, stunning beauty.
Despite being shocked by her looks, Lin Xiaolong quickly recovered. He smiled slightly and replied, "Yes, I just harvested it from a cliff. Feel free to step out of the car and take a look."
The woman had expected him to be like other men, unable to take his eyes off her. She hadn't expected him to be only momentarily dazed before returning to a natural state. She felt a flicker of respect for him, turned off the engine, took off her sunglasses, and stepped out.
Without the sunglasses, Lin Xiaolong saw her full face and was even more stunned. Her beauty was easily a notch above the famous "fairy sisters" of the entertainment industry.
"It's so big?" The woman had reversed because she smelled the honey; she had assumed it was a gimmick, as wild honeycomb was hard to find these days. But seeing the size of it surprised her. This couldn't be fake; it was far too large. It looked freshly harvested, and the golden honey inside emitted a fragrance she had never smelled before. It made her mouth water.
"Miss, would you like to taste a piece?" Lin Xiaolong asked, cutting off a small chunk with a knife and handing it to her.
The woman didn't stand on ceremony. She took it, examined it, and popped it into her mouth. Instantly, a sweet, fragrant sensation that seemed to melt the soul surged through her body.
"Delicious, it's absolutely delicious!" the woman exclaimed.
"If you like it, buy some. This kind of wild honeycomb is a rare find; you might never come across it again," Lin Xiaolong said.
"Tell me, how much? I'll take it all," the woman said generously.
"Take it all?" Lin Xiaolong had considered that someone might buy it in bulk, but he hadn't expected it so soon. But wasn't this exactly what he wanted?
"I was planning to sell it for two hundred a jin. I weighed it; it’s forty jin. How about eight thousand yuan?" Lin Xiaolong said bluntly.
"Eight thousand? For the whole thing?" The woman looked surprised.
"Too expensive?" Lin Xiaolong asked. "I risked my life to harvest this from a cliff. I nearly got stung to death by wild mountain bees."
"No, no, I just thought it was so cheap for something this good. Even ordinary honey is several tens of yuan per jin," she said quickly.
"So she thought it was too cheap," Lin Xiaolong breathed a sigh of relief, though he also felt a pang of regret—he should have asked for more.
"How about this: I'll take the whole thing, and I'll give you a round figure—ten thousand yuan," the woman said grandly.
Ten thousand? Now it was Lin Xiaolong's turn to be surprised.
Normally, people haggled prices down. Here was someone actively adding two thousand yuan to his asking price. Was she the type who had more money than she knew what to do with?
"Deal," Lin Xiaolong said happily.
The woman smiled slightly. "Don't be so quick. I’m giving you an extra two thousand for a reason."
"What reason?" Lin Xiaolong paused; as expected, there was no such thing as a free lunch.
"That is, if you ever find more of this wild honeycomb, you must sell it to me. Consider it an exclusive deal," she said with a smile.
"You want a monopoly?"
"Yes. But don't worry, I won't let you lose out on the price." The woman smiled like a blooming flower. "How about it?"
"Deal. But I don't have your contact information," Lin Xiaolong said.