Chapter 3: The Price of Salt is Too High

Chapter 3: The High Price of Salt

The strawberry seedlings nestled among wild grasses in a sun-dappled clearing beneath the trees. Had it not been for Qintong’s keen eyesight, they would have remained undiscovered, for these few plants stood barely four inches tall—a fact that explained their tiny berries.

Zhao An carefully used his stick to loosen the soil around the strawberry roots, then wrapped them in mud. A thorough search of the area yielded eleven seedlings in total.

Uncle Hai and Qintong joined the digging. Only after they finished did Uncle Hai remember to ask, "Young master, what ailment does this wild berry cure? And is it valuable enough to sell?"

"This isn't a medicinal herb; it's a wild fruit. I plan to take them back, cultivate them properly, and grow sweet, large berries," Zhao An explained, realizing Uncle Hai had misunderstood.

Upon hearing Zhao An’s explanation, Uncle Hai’s smile faltered slightly. He suspected the young master was merely indulging in a whim, yet his hands continued to work with meticulous care. If it was just for fun, so be it. They had caught several large fish today, enough to last three to five days. Tomorrow, he would take Qintong to find temporary work; life, after all, would go on.

As the initial excitement of discovering the strawberries waned, Zhao An suddenly realized that neither Uncle Hai nor Qintong recognized them. Even in the memories of his original body, the son of a prime minister, strawberries were unknown; only raspberries and mock strawberries had been seen. He paused his weeding, turned to Qintong, and asked, "If you didn't recognize this, why did you dare to pick and eat it?"

"It looks a lot like a wild berry," Qintong said, scratching his head. "I tasted a bit earlier. Besides being very sour, it wasn't bitter or astringent, so it's definitely not poisonous."

Were ancient people truly this daring?

Zhao An shook his head slightly and sternly told Qintong, "In the future, don't eat anything you don't recognize."

He fixed his gaze on Qintong’s eyes until the boy promised not to eat unknown things again. Only then did Zhao An resume weeding, preparing a soft bed for his beloved strawberry seedlings.

While weeding, Zhao An began to seriously consider the historical context and food-related information. Strawberries are purely South American in origin, belonging to a completely different family from native Chinese wild berries like raspberries, despite their similar appearance.

The country in this book’s world was named the Dawn Country (旭国), clearly a fictional setting. According to the original body’s memories, this country already cultivated three high-yield crops: corn, potatoes, and sweet potatoes. The imperial examinations featured the eight-part essay style, indicating that this world had entered an Age of Exploration, roughly corresponding to China's Ming Dynasty.

However, noblewomen could freely walk the streets, unlike their Ming Dynasty counterparts confined to inner chambers, and the barbaric practice of foot-binding was absent. More significantly, this world possessed martial arts. Although the book didn't delve into a full wuxia setting, when the male and female leads first met, the female lead's kite got caught in a tree, and the male lead effortlessly leaped into the air to retrieve it. There were also brief mentions of the male lead using skilled assassins to eliminate rivals during his ascent to power.

This was truly astonishing. Zhao An clenched his fingers, finding it as miraculous as his own Wood Element Supernatural Power, completely defying classical physics. Yet, upon reflection, perhaps the author introduced martial arts to make the male lead appear more dashing than awkwardly climbing a tree, and to provide a plausible explanation for how a provincial prince's heir could ascend to the throne.

So why were strawberries here? Beyond the world's inherent self-completion, Zhao An surmised that Changxi County's proximity to Jiaozhou and the Nanyue Country meant the latter might have already introduced strawberries. Birds could have eaten the seeds and then dispersed them in the Dawn Country.

These wild strawberries, even if discovered, would likely be consumed as wild fruit rather than appearing in markets as regular produce, given their poor shelf life.

Therefore, the plan to cultivate and sell strawberries was highly viable. Strawberries were appealing, fragrant, delicious, and rare—certain to command a high price. This might even surpass his original plan of unearthing precious medicinal herbs, as it offered an exclusive business opportunity.

With the unexpected bounty of strawberry seedlings, this mountain trip for wild vegetables felt like a resounding success for Zhao An. The fish catch also delighted Uncle Hai and Qintong. On the return journey, they felt lighter on their feet, their excitement overriding their physical fatigue. Being downhill, the trip back was even quicker than the ascent.

Just as most households were finishing lunch, Zhao An and his companions arrived home. Uncle Hai, not letting Qintong help, personally cooked, using the last layer of lard from the oil jar to pan-fry the plump mandarin fish and make soup.

The purely natural food, devoid of additives, wasn't particularly flavorful. However, their bodies, starved of fat and protein, responded with honest hunger. Zhao An alone devoured the fattiest part of the fish, with its crispy, fragrant skin, and drank three large bowls of soup made with shepherd's purse and fern, finally setting down his bowl with satisfaction.

Uncle Hai and Qintong shared most of the fish tail and head, meticulously cleaning every bone before starting on the vegetable soup. They finished the entire pot in one sitting, then held their stomachs, sighing contentedly.

After resting for a while, Zhao An said to Uncle Hai, "We're out of grain. Why don't we trade the remaining fish with the villagers for some food?"

Uncle Hai, still holding his stomach, nodded with a smile. "If the young master wishes for grain, we can trade for a little."

"How much grain can one carp fetch?" Zhao An sensed something amiss and inquired.

Uncle Hai cupped his hands. "About this much unhulled grain. Once milled, it would be enough for the young master's two meals."

"That can't be right. I recall a carp costing a dozen coins or so, enough to buy a peck of rice. How can it only be worth a handful of unhulled grain?" After his original body's parents passed away, he had some experience managing household affairs and was quite familiar with prices.

Uncle Hai explained, "A dozen coins is the city price. In the countryside, fish are not valuable. Villagers have small fish and yellow eels in their fields that children often catch. Besides, our fish are already dead. If they weren't large and had few bones, we wouldn't even get any grain for them."

Zhao An understood. In the rural value system, fish meat was far less valuable than grain. But that carp weighed at least four or five pounds—trading it for a mere handful of grain was incredibly disadvantageous. So Zhao An suggested to Uncle Hai, "Then let's salt it and hang it by the stove to make preserved fish." He had eaten preserved field carp as a child and remembered it tasting quite good.

"That would waste too much salt. Better to dip it in saltwater and dry it by the hearth, using the leftover heat from cooking," Uncle Hai advised. Making cured meats often consumed a lot of salt, as brine would drip away with evaporating moisture. Uncle Hai was reluctant to waste salt and didn't believe a few river fish warranted such careful treatment.

Uncle Hai's reminder made Zhao An recall that in this era, even black-market salt cost over twenty coins per pound, while official salt could fetch forty to fifty. Consequently, black-market salt was rampant, much like the situation in the Ming Dynasty. The Dawn Country also controlled salt and iron, treating salt as a hidden tax. Military funds were largely derived from this revenue. Of course, this system inevitably involved layers of exploitation, ultimately burdening the common people.

Having become a supernatural power user, Zhao An had also undergone political education at the New City Base, making him quite sensitive to such matters.

So, this was not the time to consider salt production. He agreed to Uncle Hai’s method of drying the fish and went out to plant his strawberry seedlings. Once he earned money from selling strawberries, he would find ways to improve the grain seeds in Zhao Village. When the entire village prospered, his living conditions would undoubtedly improve significantly. As for matters beyond that, he couldn't concern himself; he was still someone the emperor disliked.

Before Zhao An’s father became an official, the Zhao family had been farmers and scholars for generations. Their courtyard was well-built, paved with bluestone, yet it lacked the elaborate gardens of truly wealthy families. Zhao An didn't want his strawberry-growing secret discovered by someone like Zhao Tongming, so he carried a basket outside to dig soil, brought it back, gathered some stones, and built a small orchard by the wall.

This time, no one came to help him. Everyone assumed he was merely indulging a whim, planting a few flowers for fun. Besides, Uncle Hai was busy drying fish, and Qintong had gone out with a rope to gather firewood. The ancient world had no natural gas or running water; daily life required immense effort. Fortunately, there was a well in the Zhao family courtyard; otherwise, fetching water for the strawberries would have been a considerable chore.

Using a shovel he whittled from wood, Zhao An dug soil, carried two basketfuls back, then scoured for stones. He built a small, roughly one-square-meter orchard near the well by the wall, a task that left him aching all over.

But he couldn't rest. While the strawberry seedlings were still viable, he quickly planted them, watered them, and then infused each with his Wood Element Supernatural Power. The energy, sufficient to mature two plants, was carefully distributed among the eleven seedlings, causing them to flourish, even producing offshoots and blooming with many small white flowers that swayed gently in the spring breeze.

Qintong, returning with a bundle of firewood, witnessed this miraculous sight and was too stunned to speak, his firewood dropping to the ground with a thud.

Hearing the noise, Uncle Hai came out to investigate. He was about to scold Qintong for dropping the firewood but followed his gaze to the vibrant small orchard.

Uncle Hai quickly closed the courtyard gate and said to Zhao An, who was watering the plants by the orchard, "Withered wood meeting spring—a sign of great fortune, young master, you truly have the bearing of a noble."

Zhao An’s tight grip on the gourd ladle finally relaxed. In this ancient world, where legend and history intertwined, tales of slaying a white snake to become emperor, crossing a river on a clay horse, and golden dragons entering dreams were commonplace. Accelerating plant growth was nothing compared to people who could swallow fire or swords.

As long as his closest servants didn't suspect, others would have no reason to question his identity.

Zhao An turned to Uncle Hai and Qintong and said, "It’s not withered wood meeting spring, but a divine technique taught to me by an immortal in a dream. Tomorrow, these strawberries will bear fruit—sweet and fragrant. You’ll understand once you taste them."

Qintong, having tasted the extremely sour wild strawberries, wasn't particularly fixated on the fruit. He only cared to ask, "What did the immortal look like?"

Zhao An was about to describe a white-bearded old man whose face was indistinct when Uncle Hai interrupted, "Don’t ask what you shouldn’t." Then, bowing to the sky, he added, "Amitabha, may the gods bless us."

Zhao An’s lip twitched. A true immortal would surely be exasperated.

[Author's Note]

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