In Front of the Plaza Stall
“That comes to 125 yuan total.” Jiang Heng skillfully weighed and bagged the items, then handed over the packed small dragon shrimp and mulberries.
The customer scanned the code and paid.
Along the way, Jiang Heng reminded them they could join the WeChat group, where she would announce her stall hours and offer advance ordering.
About thirty percent of customers were willing to join, and the group was gradually growing.
However, as time passed, Jiang Heng noticed a new mushroom stall not far away, which did have some impact on her mushroom sales.
Mushrooms themselves have a great flavor, and even without Spiritual Rain, they’re a rare and delicious taste.
For many who aren’t very discerning, Jiang Heng’s mushrooms were just higher quality, but if the price was much cheaper, some would accept slightly lower quality.
So, quite a few regular mushroom buyers didn’t purchase this time.
But overall, the customer flow didn’t drop too much, mainly because Jiang Heng also had small dragon shrimp and fish.
The difference between fish is huge.
Especially customers who had tried her fish before would, upon seeing her sell fish again, buy one without hesitation.
Those who liked grilled fish mostly bought grass carp, occasionally a large-sized cyprinid, and those who preferred braised fish had many options: cyprinid, bream, wild crucian carp, white mouth fish, or mandarin fish. For those who liked soup, wild crucian carp, black fish, and bighead carp were the choices.
Not to mention, Jiang Heng also had small dragon shrimp.
At 40 yuan per jin, especially for such large-sized shrimp, it was already a very good deal, so more people were willing to buy.
Jiang Heng had prepared three baskets, nearly forty jin in total. After half an hour since opening, she had sold most of it, with just over ten jin left.
Another basket had smaller shrimp with a higher price; half of those remained.
The mulberries were mostly sold out, with about ten jin left.
Mushrooms were down by half.
Jiang Heng took advantage of a quiet moment to sit on her tricycle and lazily pulled out her phone to play a game, suddenly feeling a bit nostalgic.
Since the mushroom stall attracted more customers, she hadn’t had such free time to play games in a long while!
Of course, part of the reason was that the farming game she played had reached a certain level and become boring.
At times like this, Jiang Heng couldn’t help but recall a farm game from her memories where you could grow vegetables, raise animals, and friends would steal crops from each other.
Unfortunately, that game was shut down.
After playing for a bit, more customers gradually arrived, and she sold quite a few items.
Just as Jiang Heng was about to sit back down, a familiar regular customer rushed over.
Wang Miaoyuan, who was an old customer at the mushroom stall’s opening, hadn’t planned to come today.
She had bought a lot two days ago, and given her and her best friend’s modest income, she needed to be restrained with such pricey goods.
But that restraint was instantly broken when she saw the message in the vegetable-selling group.
“Small dragon shrimp! We have to try some, right?!” Wang Miaoyuan decisively told her best friend Yu Gui.
Yu Gui immediately agreed: “Buy! I heard from the queue before that the boss’s fish are delicious, with almost no earthy smell. The quality of these shrimp must be great! Even if it’s a bit pricey, it’s worth it.”
Wang Miaoyuan: “Actually, the price isn’t too bad. Big ones are only 40 yuan per jin.”
Yu Gui: “Oh my, then we definitely have to buy!”
“How many jins?”
“Two jins? That won’t be enough,” Yu Gui said, then instinctively wanted more. The small dragon shrimp were so good every time they ate that it never felt like enough. She couldn’t help but raise the amount: “Four jins? 160 yuan seems okay.”
“Okay!” Wang Miaoyuan agreed immediately.
After hanging up, she eagerly awaited the end of work, but today the boss had a meeting just before closing!
No matter how small the place, there’s always a boss who loves last-minute meetings.
The meeting lasted almost an hour, and when Wang Miaoyuan finally rushed out, she worried the boss might have already sold out and packed up.
But to her surprise, there were still quite a few items left, especially mushrooms—much more than she had expected!
Wang Miaoyuan hurriedly said, “Boss, give me four jins of those black-red shell small dragon shrimp.”
Jiang Heng immediately grabbed the net bag.
Wang Miaoyuan started picking mushrooms, noticing there were still some pine mushrooms she liked, so she added some to make the total two hundred yuan.
While picking, she casually asked, “Boss, why is there so much left today? Did you come late too?”
Jiang Heng smiled wryly and explained, “There’s another stall selling mushrooms.”
Wang Miaoyuan suddenly felt awkward: “Oh, oh. Shouldn’t have asked…”
Fortunately, the buying pace was still quick. Wang Miaoyuan paid and quickly left. Instead of going to the Market, she went straight home.
As she walked to the other side, she happened to see a middle-aged man selling mushrooms at a stall about two hundred meters from the plaza.
Many elderly people from the village usually sold their homegrown vegetables there, at prices cheaper than the Market, so the stall had a steady flow of customers.
There were still two customers picking mushrooms at that moment.
Wang Miaoyuan glanced at the price list and was stunned.
What??
Termitomyces only 150 yuan??
Though she had only bought once and found it too expensive to afford regularly, she remembered the usual price starting at 200 yuan!
That price difference… no wonder it’s so huge.
Wang Miaoyuan immediately felt cheated and couldn’t help but walk over to take a closer look.
The boss saw her and enthusiastically greeted, “Come have a look, fresh wild mushrooms, just picked today!”
Wang Miaoyuan approached, and once closer, she saw that most of these mushrooms were the same varieties as the other stall, but… the appearance and aroma were not as good.
They did smell good and were mostly wild mushrooms, but the size and quality looked noticeably different.
Wang Miaoyuan no longer felt cheated.
Different quality, different price.
“Boss, are these really freshly picked wild mushrooms? Why don’t they smell as good?” An auntie nearby, after picking for a while, suddenly asked—a question Wang Miaoyuan had also wondered.
Wang Miaoyuan glanced over; it was Li Ruqin, an auntie who often bought mushrooms right after them.
Li Ruqin didn’t notice her and frowned at the mushrooms in her hand.
The boss loudly replied, “Of course they’re wild! Many mushrooms can’t be cultivated, especially Termitomyces—it has to grow in termite mounds.”
Li Ruqin narrowed her eyes. Having dealt with the Market for many years, she immediately suspected a few things.
Maybe most were wild, but not necessarily picked by this boss himself.
She’d thought so.
For years, good mushrooms had been scarce.
First, the environment got damaged, so wild fungi were hard to find.
Second, prices at their market weren’t high enough, so whatever they found was sold elsewhere.
Now, a new wild mushroom seller appeared—it was probably this boss buying from others.
Good wild mushrooms mostly grow in remote mountains, and freshness would suffer, so the quality couldn’t compare to the other stall.
After some thought, Li Ruqin put the mushrooms down.
Well, if you hadn’t tried better ones, these were pretty good.
But she had.
Looking again, they just didn’t match up.
That young girl (Jiang Heng) was quite impressive, managing to get so many obviously fresh wild mushrooms every day.
The boss got a little anxious: “Why are you leaving? These are good mushrooms. If you like, I can give you a discount.”
“No, no, I have enough vegetables for now.” Li Ruqin hurriedly waved her hand and walked faster.
Wang Miaoyuan saw the whole exchange and quietly left too.
Pricey it may be, she definitely preferred Jiang Heng’s mushrooms.
And good-quality food made one feel comfortable eating it.
Wang Miaoyuan liked to stay up late, often couldn’t fall asleep at night, had trouble waking in the morning, and found it painful to get up for work.
This caused occasional breakouts on her face—few but constant, one after another, very frustrating.
But recently, without realizing it, her sleep had improved.
She felt sleepy right on time at night and never had trouble falling asleep. Her acne also diminished significantly, and her skin improved a lot.
By comparison, Wang Miaoyuan felt spending a little more money was worth it.
Back home, she told her best friend about it.
While carefully handling the small dragon shrimp, they chatted.
Hearing this, Yu Gui was surprised: “Your sleep improved too? I thought it was because I haven’t ordered takeout lately. My sleep got better, and my hair’s less oily!”
“Wow!” Wang Miaoyuan’s eyes lit up, suddenly realizing a blind spot: “Right! The last time I washed my hair was yesterday, or the day before, no—three days ago! Didn’t even realize my hair’s not getting oily so fast anymore!”
They looked at each other and sighed heavily.
Wang Miaoyuan: “Turns out staying up late was the culprit. Now that I’m resting well, all my problems are gone.”
Yu Gui: “It’s all about eating good ingredients. When your body’s comfortable, your routine naturally normalizes!”
They concluded: “We should keep buying from Boss Jiang!”
They just hoped Boss Jiang wouldn’t be discouraged into quitting mushrooms.
Jiang Heng felt she wasn’t that fragile.
After 7 p.m., only scraps of fish and small dragon shrimp remained, about thirty jin of mulberries left—though not great quality—and one-third of the mushrooms still remained.
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