Seeing that the old lady’s expression had eased, Wang Shi (the second aunt-in-law) quickly leaned in with a flattering smile.
“Mother, how many dandelions did we collect today?”
There was no helping it—among the Gu family, only her son was studying, and that required a lot of money. Wang Shi was desperate to know how much silver the family had left, and whether it was enough for her son’s school fees.
The old lady shot her a glare and said nothing.
Wang Shi had no choice but to turn to Gu Yuan instead. Gu Yuan, however, was easy to talk to and told her directly.
“Today was just the first day, we only collected twelve jin. But second aunt, don’t worry. Once our reputation spreads, we’ll earn more and more.”
Then she added, “Mother, that strong wife came today to pick a fight. I’m worried she might cause trouble behind our backs.”
Gu Yuan didn’t think reporting it was shameful at all. She repeated everything Strong Wife had said earlier in full detail.
Even though Strong Wife had been left speechless, Gu Yuan had clearly seen the look on her face when she left. With her personality, she would definitely stir trouble later.
Wang Shi rolled up her sleeves. “So that’s it! I was wondering why she was suddenly so ‘kind’ today!”
She immediately realized she had slipped up when everyone turned to look at her, and awkwardly laughed it off.
The old lady didn’t stop her, only warned, “Remember what you should and shouldn’t say.”
Wang Shi stormed out, cursing.
Seeing this, the second uncle spoke up. “Mother, since dandelions make so much money, should we also collect them from nearby villages?”
The third uncle agreed. “Mother, I think second brother has a point.”
Soon, discussion followed.
The old lady then laid out two options for the second uncle: either he continued farm work and earned extra commission per jin, or he quit farm work and only ran errands with no extra pay.
After some calculation and hesitation, he chose the first option.
The old lady agreed and dismissed them.
After everyone left, she told Gu Yuan she would go to town the next day to sell dandelions.
Meanwhile, the others all had their own plans—some went to catch cicada larvae for frying, others went into the mountains.
As for Gu Liu, she ignored everything and continued going into the mountains alone, hunting and gathering food for herself.
She didn’t care about cicadas at all.
Later that evening, Gu Yuan spoke with the old lady in private.
She brought up a solution: renting a “peddler” through a system shop. For a small cost, she could summon a fake traveling merchant to complete transactions and avoid suspicion.
It cost only one tael of silver for twelve hours of use, and could be reused flexibly.
She had already earned enough silver from the mountain that afternoon.
The next day, they went to town together.
At a slope near the village, Gu Yuan pretended to be tired and briefly separated from the old lady to summon the rented peddler first.
In town, they soon found him.
The old lady carefully inspected his goods and confirmed they were good quality. Then she sold twelve jin of dandelions for a total of 840 copper coins.
The old lady was satisfied and immediately began buying goods: rice, flour, coarse grain, salt, and sugar.
Seeing the opportunity, Gu Yuan whispered that they should buy everything, including salt, since they could resell it for profit.
The salt alone could be resold for a large margin.
The old lady hesitated for a moment, but the deal looked too good to pass up.