Chapter 293: Chapter 293: A Bountiful Harvest

Xu Huainian had absolute faith in Gu Qinghuan. Without hesitation, he immediately made arrangements as she suggested.

The factory’s total profits had already reached 5,000 yuan, so Xu Huainian was willing to invest. He set aside a budget of 1,000 yuan to build a new factory building—not just any building, but a large, high-quality one made of red bricks and tiles, aiming to get it right in one go.

Gu Qinghuan couldn’t help but admire his decisiveness. Given his vision, being able to take things this far was no small feat.

However, the plan to build the factory was met with resistance from Xu Mingshan, who was afraid of losing control over everything. But Xujiatun was no longer a place where he could have the final say.

After all, nothing controls people’s hearts better than profit.

Where there’s a policy from above, there’s always a countermeasure below.

Xu Huainian called a meeting with all the commune members and promised them that if they agreed to build the factory, he could guarantee the value of work points would reach 0.11 yuan per point by the end of the year. Once the factory developed further, things would only get better year after year.

In other words, if a healthy young adult earned ten work points a day and worked 280 days a year, their yearly work points would be worth 308 yuan. If a family had three strong laborers, earning over a thousand yuan a year would be no problem.

Of course, that was the ideal scenario. Most work points still had to be exchanged for grain to feed the family. But for a hardworking household, earning three or four hundred yuan a year was entirely possible.

That was a huge improvement compared to previous years, when the value of a work point in their village was at best eight or nine cents, and sometimes as low as five or six. If it really reached 0.11 yuan, that would be a significant increase.

Everyone unanimously agreed to build the factory, so Xu Mingshan’s opposition was useless—he couldn’t go against everyone alone. Even the village committee members were leaning toward Xu Huainian.

Xu Mingshan felt a full-blown sense of crisis, but it was too late. Xu Huainian’s momentum was unstoppable, and there was nothing he could do except worry.

The factory was built quickly, with everyone in the village—young and old—pitching in. For the sake of their shared future, nobody dared slack off, and everyone worked hard.

Xu Huainian didn’t shortchange anyone, either, paying wages of 0.8 yuan per day.

Once the factory was up, Xu Huainian, who knew the strengths of the young men working with him, selected ten of them to join the soap-making team.

His eldest son no longer participated in soap-making, instead taking over procurement for all the factory’s materials. He also helped his parents when he had spare time.

Chen Fengqin and Xu Huainian still oversaw the critical steps of soap production, only delegating the soap-beating process to other workers. Fortunately, aside from beating the soap, the rest of the process wasn’t too strenuous.

Chen Fengqin recruited a few meticulous women from the village to handle cutting, turning, and packaging the soap. Since this only took a few days each month, it didn’t interfere with production.

Word got out that they were hiring women, and many in the village were eager to join. But Chen Fengqin wouldn’t give the opportunity to those who were lazy or gluttonous—she carefully selected three diligent women.

Two were hardworking young wives from the village, and the third was Lin Shengnan, who was strong and never shirked work. Chen Fengqin had a good impression of her.

Lin Shengnan’s husband, Zhu Chunlin, also worked at the factory and was now the team leader in the soap-beating workshop.

At the start of October, Lin Shengnan gave birth to a healthy baby boy. Gu Qinghuan used the money she’d previously saved for them to buy three bags of formula and various nutritional supplements. She also gave them the last four pork trotters from her space, along with some carp for making soup to help with lactation.

With plenty of nutrition, Lin Shengnan’s baby was born strong at six and a half jin (about 3.25 kg), and her milk supply was good. The baby grew healthier by the day.

After her confinement, Zhu Chunlin wouldn’t let her go back to work immediately. Only after forty days did he agree, and even then, she wasn’t allowed to do heavy labor.

But with no elders to help, juggling childcare and work was exhausting, and neither the baby nor the work got the attention they deserved. Chen Fengqin brought Lin Shengnan into the factory, which was a huge help to the couple.

When Lin Shengnan worked, she could keep her baby nearby, feeding and checking on him as needed—much better than leaving him home alone, which would have been too dangerous.

Now, both husband and wife earned wages and occasionally racked up work points. Their lives were steadily improving.

Gu Qinghuan herself was earning two salaries, regularly getting money from Lu Jianye, and occasionally selling produce from her space. Zhong Zijun often brought mountain goods to sell as well.

This autumn was incredibly fulfilling for her—she was always busy making money and would sometimes make a big meal for everyone when she had time.

The sausages she’d made before were a hit, but five jin wasn’t much, and the family quickly finished them. This time, Gu Qinghuan decided to make a larger batch, giving some away and keeping the rest for herself to enjoy throughout the winter—whether steamed or roasted, they were delicious.

She used up all the wild boar meat left in her space’s transfer station for sausages. Altogether, there were 400 jin (about 200 kg) of wild boar, all slaughtered and stored by Xu Huaian before he left.

With the end of the year approaching and new pigs about to be slaughtered, Gu Qinghuan decided to use all this meat for sausages, keeping only a few jin for daily meals.

How many sausages can you make from 400 jin of meat? The answer: about 240 jin. Ten jin of fresh sausage dries down to about six jin, so 100 jin yields 60 jin, and 400 jin yields 240 jin.

As usual, Gu Qinghuan mailed some out, but only sent 20 jin each to Gu Lanting’s family and Xu Huaian. She decided to hold off on sending more to others for now—sending too often wouldn’t be good, and she’d need to send New Year’s gifts later anyway.

Of the remaining 200 jin, she gave 20 jin each to Zhong Zijun and Ji Linhai. Lin Xiaomeng, after tasting her sausages, shamelessly asked to buy some, so Gu Qinghuan gave her 10 jin. Jiang Xue overheard and wanted 5 jin as well.

Gu Qinghuan sold to both at cost price.

She also privately gave 2 jin each to Principal Chen and Chen Fang, and 1 jin to the logistics teacher. When she went to the county to see Lu Jianye, she brought 5 jin for Old Lady Lu.

After all that, Gu Qinghuan still had 135 jin left. She kept 20 jin out as samples and stored the rest in the transfer station’s cold storage, taking them out as needed. The cold storage kept the sausages from drying out and getting too hard to chew.

At about 60% dry, the sausages were just right—rich but not greasy, chewy but not tough.

After making the sausages, there was little meat left in her space. The lamb was long gone, and she was out of wild rabbit and pheasant. It was time to slaughter another batch to stock up.

She picked a weekend, cleared her schedule, sent the kids to help Zhong Zijun shell pine nuts, and focused on butchering pigs and sheep in her space.

Under her absolute control there, the chosen animals died quietly: two wild boars, one adult ram, ten wild rabbits, ten pheasants, and two flying dragons.

It took her a whole day—until midnight—to finish plucking and cleaning. The next day, she spent another day butchering and sorting the meat and organs.

She used the pheasant organs to make pickled pepper chicken offal, which was so tasty you could eat three bowls of rice with it. The lamb organs became lamb offal soup, stewed with radish and topped with cilantro—delicious.

She chopped off all ten rabbit heads and made a pot of classic Shuangliu spicy rabbit heads. There’s not much meat on rabbit heads, but the flavor is amazing—even gnawing on the bones is a treat.

As for the two wild boar livers, she didn’t keep them fresh but instead made cured liver. The key to curing is stir-frying the seasoning—salt, Sichuan peppercorns, star anise, cinnamon, bay leaves, galangal, dried chili, and chili powder—over low heat until the salt turns slightly yellow and the spices are a bit dry.

Once cooled, the seasoning is rubbed evenly over the liver, which is then sealed and cured for a day. After marinating, it can be rinsed and hung in a ventilated place for 10–15 days before eating.

This cured liver isn’t at all gamey, tastes great, and is very chewy. Slicing a few pieces each day is good for iron and appetite, and helps prevent anemia—adults and kids alike love it.

After making it, Gu Qinghuan gave Zhong Zijun two jin, along with some wild boar and lamb.

The new batch of wild boar and lamb tasted noticeably different from last year’s—probably thanks to the spiritual spring water. The meat was tender, juicy, and flavorful, with no gaminess in the lamb.

Gu Qinghuan finally understood why some ethnic groups in later generations could eat whole pieces of lamb with their hands—some lamb really isn’t gamey at all, and just boiling it in water makes it delicious.

With a dipping sauce, her two kids could each eat a jin of lamb. If she hadn’t stopped them, they would have eaten even more.

She also sent some lamb to Old Master Ji—eating lamb in winter keeps you warm, which is important for the elderly. He accepted it happily and gave her a bag of pine nuts in return.

Ji Linhai had risked climbing red pines to gather a batch of pine cones, and Zhong Zijun shelled the nuts from them. Pine nuts are a winter essential for passing the time and a great treat for guests—every household stocks up each year.

Since entering the Mechanical Engineering Department at Huaqing University, Xu Huaian had been busy with intense, fast-paced studies. The worker-peasant-soldier program lasted only two years, combining study and labor, so they had to learn in two years what others learned in four—a real challenge.

Despite the tight schedule, he still wrote to Gu Qinghuan every week. As soon as she received one letter, another would arrive a few days later. It was as if they were in a long-distance relationship—sweet and loving.

In their letters, they shared every detail of their lives, down to what they ate each day.

Besides Xu Huaian’s letters, Gu Qinghuan also regularly received letters from the children she sponsored. They wrote about their high school lives and thanked her for her generosity, which gave these rural kids the courage and confidence to face new environments.

Gu Qinghuan always replied, encouraging them to stay positive, work hard to change their lives, and take control of their destinies.

Every time she read these letters, her heart filled with warmth. A little kindness could change a person’s life—this was truly an investment that paid off.

At the end of December, Gu Qinghuan quietly did something big.

She learned by chance that Wan Rong’s brother was a domestic abuser who had accidentally beaten his legal wife to death. Wan Rong’s father tried to cover it up with money, hoping to settle things quietly. The wife’s family, however, insisted on justice.

Wan Rong’s father threatened the wife’s family, saying if they made trouble, they wouldn’t know how they died. In the end, for the sake of their other children, the wife’s parents agreed to let it go, without even asking for compensation.

Gu Qinghuan seized on this and sent an anonymous letter to the county government.

Wan Rong’s father was investigated and dismissed from his post, and the whole family was implicated. Wan Rong herself resigned in disgrace.

Gu Qinghuan had finally removed this malignant tumor for good."