Chapter 54: Buying Farm Tools and Scoring Another Great Deal

Chapter 54: Chapter 54: Buying Farm Tools and Scoring Another Great Deal

The milk tea cup was brightly colored, featuring a round and chubby snowman right in the middle. The snowman wore a red cape and a sparkling golden ring with three sharp horns—the two on the sides were short, and the one in the middle was long. With its large, wide-open eyes, it looked charmingly naive and incredibly endearing.

She also noticed that the cup was actually made of paper!

How could a paper cup not leak tea?

Yun Zhen continued to be astounded!

After finishing the milk tea, she felt warm all over, as if she were bathing in the sunlight.

At that moment, she finally saw the young man who had gone back to fetch his money.

"Miss, I’m so glad you didn’t sell Pleasant Goat," the boy said, handing her a one-hundred-yuan bill.

Yun Zhen took the money and handed him the doll.

The rest of the dolls were also gradually sold off.

Every single one went for one hundred yuan.

She counted her earnings several times—one thousand and five hundred yuan!

It was such a wonderful surprise!

Before heading to Sister-in-law Liu’s vegetable stall for work, Yun Zhen first made a trip to the restaurant. The restaurant wasn’t too busy in the afternoon, completely unlike the packed, beehive-like crowd at noon.

The customers were sparse, arriving in twos and threes, with each person occupying a table and keeping their distance from one another.

Yun Zhen reported back, "Brother Yang, I’ve delivered the food."

Brother Yang smiled. "I received the customer’s feedback on the delivery platform. You did a great job."

Yun Zhen wore a bright smile, having earned quite a bit of money today.

When it was time, she went to Sister-in-law Liu’s vegetable stall to sort vegetables.

"Do you know where I can buy shovels?" Yun Zhen asked Li Mei.

Li Mei looked puzzled. "Why are you asking about that? It’s not like you’re going to farm."

Yun Zhen casually made up an excuse. "Someone asked me about this outside today, and I didn’t know how to answer."

"Oh," Li Mei replied. "There’s an agricultural wholesale market right next to Sister Zhang’s charity organization. They sell all kinds of farming tools there, and the goods are much cheaper than outside."

Yun Zhen committed the location to memory.

After getting off work, she received her sixty yuan in wages.

Today’s earnings:

yuan from selling scrap.

yuan from the restaurant.

yuan from running delivery errands.

1,500 yuan from the crocheted dolls.

yuan from sorting vegetables.

Plus the 3.50 yuan left over from last time.

Total: 1,720.50 yuan.

It was such a massive sum of money!!!

Yun Zhen was overjoyed.

If one yuan was equivalent to one cent, then she currently had over one and a half taels of silver on her!

It would take three months of working at the fabric shop in town to earn this much in wages. In her world, a shovel cost around one hundred cents, so the money she had could buy fifteen or sixteen shovels.

Following the address Li Mei gave her, she searched around Sister Zhang’s charity organization. After asking two or three people, she finally found the place selling shovels.

It was similar to the vegetable market, with stall after stall squeezed tightly together. The only difference was that the vegetable market sold produce displayed on shelves, while here, the farming tools were placed directly on the ground.

Yun Zhen found the stall with the most inventory.

A huge red umbrella was propped up above the stall. The boss sat beside it, with a small brazier at his feet emitting tiny sparks. From time to time, the boss would hold his hands over it to warm them.

Yun Zhen stared at the small brazier, wondering how much it would cost.

Noticing her gaze, the boss asked casually, "Are you looking to buy some farming tools, little girl?"

The boss operated a storefront directly behind his stall.

Yun Zhen squatted down to take a closer look, growing more astonished the more she observed. She saw shovels, hoes, axes, and sickles, as well as some bamboo-woven items that looked like dustpans.

She didn’t really recognize the other tools.

Leaving aside the rest, the hoes alone were absolutely of top-notch quality. It was visible to the naked eye that they were brighter and thinner than the ones in her village. Touching them, they felt smooth and cool, not rough in the slightest.

Her family only had one hoe, which was used for all their plowing and farming. It had long since grown blunt, rusted, and its edges had curled. It was heavy to lift and struggled to turn the soil. The wooden handle was cracked and covered in splinters, which often scratched her father’s hands, causing them to bleed.

They wanted to replace it, but anything made of iron was never cheap.

She grabbed a hoe from the stall.

The wooden handle was smooth and firmly embedded into the metal head. It felt light in her hand and was exceptionally convenient and easy to swing.

If her father and Uncle Village Chief knew such fantastic tools existed, they would probably go crazy with joy!

With something this good, Yun Zhen naturally had to take it back to the village. "Boss, how much do you sell these hoes for?" she asked.

Finally having a customer, the boss eagerly introduced his wares one by one. "Farming hoes are ten yuan each, and the shovels are also ten yuan each. The small dustpans are fifty, and the large ones are eighty. The nine-tooth rakes are thirty-five yuan each. The small axes for chopping meat are eighteen yuan, and the large ones for splitting wood are seventy yuan. The short-handled machetes are thirty, the long-handled large-bladed ones are fifty, and the sickles are fifteen yuan."

He emphasized, "Buy a couple more to prepare for next spring. If you buy in bulk, the price is negotiable."

What?

A hoe was ten yuan?

Was this for real?

Yun Zhen suspected she had misheard.

The hoes in their county town were far inferior to the ones in front of her, yet they cost at least 80 cents each.

The goods in front of her were clearly of high quality. Both the hoe blades and handles were polished to be incredibly smooth, gleaming under the light. They were lightweight and handy, completely unlike the hoes in the village that were dull and cumbersome right from the time of purchase.

When she had held the hoe just a moment ago, she had been quite anxious, afraid it would exceed her budget. The goods were so excellent that she felt a bit unconfident about whether she had enough money in her pocket.

Hearing the price with her own ears, she felt she had stumbled upon another massive bargain!

She asked again just to be sure, "Boss, are they really ten yuan each?"

Seeing her reaction, the boss immediately knew she had never bought farming tools before. He chuckled. "You think I’d lie to you? If you buy more, I can just give them to you for nine yuan and ninety cents each!"

Yun Zhen calculated in her mind. The village needed to clear out the accumulated snow right now, making shovels absolutely essential. The shovels she usually saw only had pointed tips, but the ones here had flat and round tips as well.

Like the hoes, the shovel blades were polished smooth and didn’t prick her hands when touched.

The axes and machetes would also be of great use.

Firewood consumption was high in the dead of winter. The villagers’ firewood was all gathered by scavenging or breaking off branches by hand. These branches, having been weighed down by the snow, were soaking wet and would take ages to catch fire.

If they had machetes to chop down a few trees and axes to split the wood into small chunks for storage, the village could have a steady supply of firewood. They wouldn’t need to go out every day and climb trees to break off branches for fires.

Climbing trees was incredibly dangerous; a single misstep could lead to a fatal fall!

Sickles weren’t needed right now, and she still had urgent uses for her money, so she didn’t plan to buy sickles yet.

Hoes, shovels, machetes, and axes.

Yun Zhen decided to buy these items first.

"Boss, I want ten hoes and ten shovels—four pointed, three flat, and three round. I also want three long-handled machetes and two of the largest axes."

Realizing he had a major customer, the boss didn’t dare delay and hurriedly gathered the goods for her. "Wait just a moment, little girl. I’ll get your order sorted out right away."

After gathering everything, he pulled out a calculator and tapped away, muttering to himself, "Since you’re buying in bulk, I’ll give you the ten-yuan hoes and shovels for nine-ninety each. Ten hoes make ninety-nine, and ten shovels also make ninety-nine. The long-handled machetes are fifty each, so three make one hundred and fifty. The largest axes are seventy yuan each, so two large axes make one hundred and forty yuan.

"That totals four hundred and eighty-eight yuan!"

Yun Zhen counted the money and handed it to him, her heart thumping with excitement.

She had acquired so many iron tools for less than half a tael of silver!

This world was simply too wonderful!

"Is this all you need, little girl? What about pickaxes? The flat-headed ones are great for digging potatoes and sweet potatoes without damaging the crops, and they can also be used for plowing and loosening the soil. They pack more of a punch than hoes. The pointed ones are for digging out stones and grass roots, and they can even break through stiff, frozen ice."

"Pickaxes?" Yun Zhen looked at the two tools the boss brought out.

One featured a long iron head, much thicker than a hoe blade, while the other had a sharper, pointed tip.

She asked for confirmation, "The pointed pickaxe can really break through ice?"