Chapter 396: Explosive News

Chapter 396: An Explosive Harvest

The next day, when Fu Tinghua went to work, he called Qi Yunyang, intending to invite him to dinner that evening. However, Qi Yunyang said he had no time recently because his sister and brother-in-law were in the middle of a messy divorce.

Taking the hint, Fu Tinghua didn’t press for details and simply hung up.

Qi Yunyang may or may not know about his brother-in-law’s situation. Fu Tinghua felt that at this critical moment, he shouldn't stick his nose in other people’s affairs.

If the Qi family considered this a scandal, Fu Tinghua thought it best to play dumb.

Su He had been extremely busy lately because her career was about to experience a second wind.

The sugar oranges would ripen in a few days and could soon be harvested for sale.

She and Fu Tinghua had gone to the hillside to check, and the sugar oranges were growing exceptionally well, with a crazy high yield. Each tree bore hundreds of fruits—no joke.

The Fu family finally understood why Su He had mentioned hiring villagers to help with the harvest. The hillside was covered in an endless sea of orange-green fruit as far as the eye could see.

The Fu family had tasted a few—though not fully ripe yet, they were already sweet and delicious.

Who knew how much sweeter they would be once fully matured.

Su He had already negotiated deals with several distributors, offering them a wholesale price of three mao per jin.

She also agreed with them that if sold within Wencheng, the retail price would be uniformly set at five cents. Only those that sat unsold for a couple days or with poor appearance could be sold at a discount.

This way, the market price of sugar oranges wouldn’t be disrupted and would keep prices steady.

Of course, if they wanted to sell them in other provinces, they could charge whatever they could get—Su He wouldn’t interfere.

Deals done, all that remained was waiting for the fruits to ripen.

By mid-November, the temperature dropped further, especially in the countryside, where frost was already forming.

Everyone stayed indoors with little work to do, spending their days cooking, eating, warming themselves by the fire, and chatting—just like that, the days slipped by.

Then, the Fu family announced news that caused quite a stir in Shangyao Village.

They were offering two yuan per day for villagers to help harvest the oranges, with work limited to only six hours a day—two in the morning and four in the afternoon.

Considering the cold weather, Su He thought mornings were too chilly, so she allocated more time to the afternoon.

Two yuan just for picking fruit, and only six hours of work—it wasn’t long at all.

For comparison, working at a construction site paid only three or four yuan a day, and that involved heavy labor like carrying bricks—exhausting work.

Harvesting fruit was farm work, and the villagers considered it much easier than construction labor. Though the weather was cold, it was manageable!

Besides, it was winter—where else could they find work? Opportunities to earn money were scarce.

So, when the Fu family offered jobs, everyone flocked to sign up.

So what if it’s cold? Tough it out.

Idleness was the real enemy—no work meant no food.

However, the Fu family soon announced that too many people had registered, and the spots for day one of harvesting were already full.

Although they needed to hire people to pick the fruit, they didn't need that many.

They only needed about a dozen people, paying about 20 yuan daily in wages.

Even this twenty yuan had the Fu family pinching pennies.

Other villagers who arrived late and found no openings left for them couldn’t help but feel disappointed. They urged the Fu family to be fair and give everyone a turn.

Since they were all neighbors, the Fu family couldn’t refuse and agreed.

The fruit picking would last about half a month. In the first few days, they would see who was pulling their weight, and those hardworking individuals got to stay on until the end.

Once this was announced, those who had planned to slack off or fake working due to the cold weather no longer dared to be lazy.

Additionally, if villagers wanted to buy sugar oranges to eat, they would be sold to them at the wholesale price of 30 cents per half-kilo.

At first, the villagers thought it was expensive, but when someone from the Fu family took the sugar oranges to sell at the market in town for four mao per jin—a full 10 cents more than village prices—they changed their tune.

Villagers who had been reluctant to spend money on sugar oranges immediately bought two jin to take home after tasting them.

The fruit was crazy sweet, sweeter than any other variety of orange.

The kids especially, they absolutely loved it.

At a time when sugar cost an arm and a leg, eating a sugar orange was even sweeter than sugar itself, so everyone was willing to buy at least a little to take home.

Most importantly, these sugar oranges were truly delicious.

In the end, the Fu family realized that all the villagers who helped pick the sugar oranges on the mountain ended up spending their earnings to buy the fruit from them.

So, the money essentially came right back to their hands.

As for Su He, her sugar oranges flew off the shelves immediately upon being introduced in supermarkets.

To be honest, fruits in this era didn’t cost a pretty penny, and many were astringent and tasted awful.

The delicious fruits of later generations were the result of generations of breeding, but in this time when even rice yields weren’t high, the fruit Su He introduced could truly be called a steal for the quality.

The agents who had partnered with Su He were stunned to see the sugar oranges selling like hotcakes.

People were buying them by the sackful, even after being told the fruit couldn’t be stored for too long—many still bought 10+ pounds in one go.

Like they said, their families were large, with over a dozen members.

The sugar oranges were so small that one person could easily eat ten in one sitting.

In winter, they could do without sugar, but they couldn’t skip sweet sugar oranges.

Nobody was happier than Lu Qiming.

He was the first agent Su He approached, as they had previously collaborated on durian sales and it went great.

So when Su He asked if he wanted to go in on sugar oranges again, Lu Qiming immediately agreed.

Su He was upfront that the yield was high and he wouldn’t be the exclusive agent.

But Lu Qiming still trusted her completely and signed a contract on the spot.

This time, Su He opted for a contractual agreement for wholesale sugar oranges. The penalty for breach wouldn’t be too high, of course—it wasn’t some huge operation, after all.

But given that this was the first time for many and nobody really trusted each other, Su He felt a contract was the safest option.

Because of Su He’s approach, many were afraid of hidden traps in the fine print and got cold feet.

These people later regretted it deeply when Su He’s sugar oranges started flying off the shelves.