Miao Qing shot Tietui a look and picked a hairy chestnut from the tree, handing it to him.
Tietui took it and started cracking it open while saying,
“Sis, the hairy chestnuts on these little trees are all empty—the bugs and birds have already gotten to them.
If you want chestnuts, you have to go up into the mountains. The trees up there are big and bear a lot. If you go early enough, you might even find some good ones—”
But when he saw the chestnut he’d peeled—completely flawless, not a single blemish—he suddenly fell silent, as if someone had grabbed him by the throat.
Miao Qing was amused by his dumbfounded expression. It was true that the chestnuts on these trees had been hollow, just as Tietui had said.
But after she’d discovered them, she’d picked out a few trees in hidden spots and gradually accelerated them. Today, she channeled even more energy into them, and in an instant, they ripened.
By the time Tietui noticed, the tree was laden with plump, fully mature fruits. All it took was a gentle shake, and the hairy chestnuts came raining down with a patter.
Tietui felt like he was dreaming as he picked up the fallen chestnuts, pried open the outer shells, and peeled off the inner skins.
The chestnuts inside were large and plump, without a single wormhole. He took a bite—crisp and sweet.
They were even better than the ones his father used to bring back from the mountains—simply incredible.
Miao Qing flicked Tietui’s forehead in amusement.
“Don’t just stand there—hurry up and gather them.”
Tietui grinned foolishly and kept picking, quickly filling half a sack.
Miao Qing stopped him. Any more and they wouldn’t be able to carry it back—there was still a long way to go.
“Sis, how about this—you wait here while I go borrow a cart from Sixth Uncle’s place and grab a couple more sacks from home?”
Tietui couldn’t bear to leave just like that. If they didn’t take all these wonderful chestnuts back today, he wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight.
“Let’s head back first. You go talk to Sixth Uncle and see what he says. Whatever he decides, you just listen to him.”
Miao Qing had already thought this through. In this day and age, trying to get rich quietly on your own was difficult to pull off.
Private trading wasn’t allowed, and as for the black market—she didn’t even know which way its door faced.
She was a coward and didn’t want to take any risks.
So without exposing her secret, cooperating with the brigade was the best option for now.
Tietui had no objections. The chestnuts had been discovered by his cousin, and Sixth Uncle had always been so good to them. He’d actually been wanting to ask his cousin if they could give some to Sixth Uncle’s family anyway.
Liang Futian was busy with a headache. The snow had come late this year, but once it started, it came down as a blizzard.
It had caught him off guard. The livestock needed to be moved, the storehouse needed reinforcing, the roads needed clearing, and he had to arrange for strong laborers to go chop more firewood…
But what worried him most were the needy households in the brigade, especially the elderly.
Just thinking about it gave Liang Futian a headache—heating was one thing, but what about food?
It wasn’t even year-end settlement time yet, and even if it were, the meager grain allotment wouldn’t be enough to last the winter.
When he saw Tietui suddenly show up, Liang Futian was taken aback and quickly asked,
“What’s wrong? Did something happen at home?”
“Nothing’s wrong, Sixth Uncle. It’s just that I found these.”
Tietui pulled out a handful of shelled chestnuts and handed them over.
His cousin had said she hated being questioned, so he should tell everyone that he’d discovered the chestnuts himself.
Though Tietui didn’t quite understand why, he obediently followed her instructions.
Liang Futian picked up a chestnut and examined it, quite surprised—chestnuts this big and this fine were rare.
When Tietui told him there were plenty more, Liang Futian immediately arranged for someone to go back with him.
Chestnuts were good stuff—they could be sold for money, and not cheaply either. With some luck, they might even be able to trade them for potatoes at the purchasing station.
Though the authorities didn’t allow profiteering, they weren’t so strict about wild goods picked by the villagers themselves.
When the time came, they’d just have the kids like Tietui go and put on a pitiful act—it was sure to work.
Miao Qing had already eaten her fill of boiled chestnuts by the time Tietui returned.
Covered in snow, caked in mud, he carried back a sack of potatoes, grinning so wide it looked like his mouth might split open.
He said he’d taken Big Niu and the others to harvest all the chestnuts and had even searched the entire South Slope again for more chestnut trees.
Then they’d taken two sacks of chestnuts to the commune on the donkey cart and traded them for four hundred catties of potatoes.
Sixth Uncle said that since he’d discovered the chestnuts, he’d earned eight work points as a reward, plus five catties of potatoes. And the chestnuts they’d picked earlier could all be kept for themselves.
Tietui was practically glowing with joy, all traces of his usual prematurely mature composure gone.
“Sis, the purchasing station pays ten cents a catty for shelled chestnuts.
We must have picked forty or fifty catties total—that’s several yuan, enough for you to buy meat next month.”
Miao Qing blinked.
“You mean… the money from selling the chestnuts… all goes to me?”
“Of course! You’re the one who found them. I already got eight work points and the potatoes for free.”
Tietui scraped the mud off his shoe uppers without looking up.
Yang Xiaomei also took it for granted. Taohua, however, was heartbroken.
If she’d known chestnuts were worth that much, she wouldn’t have eaten so many just now.
But boiled chestnuts really were delicious—floury, sweet, and fragrant.
Miao Qing felt that wasn’t quite fair. Even though she’d been the one to make them grow, the actual work was mostly done by Tietui and the others.
For the sake of long-term cooperation, splitting it fifty-fifty made more sense.
Tietui’s family firmly disagreed, but they couldn’t win against Miao Qing—and she pulled out her trump card.
“Don’t you want to get treatment? Don’t you want to buy White Rabbit candy for Sugar Bean?”
The whole family fell silent.
Once they’d agreed on how to cooperate, the rest was simple.
After lunch, Miao Qing took Tietui and Taohua right back out again.
They picked goji berries, then sour jujubes, then turned around to knock down walnuts.
By the end of the day, Tietui was completely numb—his soul was practically floating in the sky as he walked.
He’d grown up here and had been over these places countless times. How had he never known there were so many good things? Were his eyes broken?
Taohua was too young to worry—she was just happy. All the sacks they’d brought were full.
So much—this would definitely sell for a lot of money.
Miao Qing was tired. For someone lazy, working from morning till night was truly brutal.
She couldn’t do another thing—she needed to go lie down.
The three of them dragged the sacks home. Taohua busied herself with sorting and organizing, while Tietui, still dazed, lit the fire to cook.
The goji berries and sour jujubes weren’t that much—just three or five catties total.
There were more walnuts, but they’d basically knocked them all off the trees.
His cousin said there wasn’t that much stuff, so there was no need to make a special trip to tell Sixth Uncle—they could just sell them together with the chestnuts later.
Tietui wanted to say, Sis, this really isn’t a small amount.
Even his father, back in the day, hadn’t always been able to bring back this many wild goods in several trips up the mountain.
If he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, he wouldn’t have believed that there were still green walnuts on the trees in this freezing weather.
Maybe it was better not to tell Sixth Uncle—he was afraid Sixth Uncle would question his eyesight just like he did.