Chapter 85

  Cheng Dali heard that someone from Apricot Flower Ridge had arrived and immediately came out of the house. As soon as he got outside, he was surrounded by a crowd of people.

  "This is Cheng Dangjia? He's really handsome!"

  "Haha, I'm hiding so deeply, yet you can still see through it."

  "Why doesn't Lord Cheng come to our village as a guest? Many people in our village want to meet Lord Cheng."

  "This... is this true? My feelings are the same as everyone else's."

  The oriole's song and swallow's speech filled the air. Cheng Dalai had just come out when he was pulled and held back by a group of women, an experience he had never had before.

  Xiao Bai Lang called Cheng Da Lei aside and said: "Cheng Dang Jia, can I store the grain here with you first, and then come back to get it when I need it later?"

  "Why do you have to do this? Can't you just take it away yourselves?"

  "What I'm afraid of is that they'll be taken away, and our mountain stronghold won't be able to hold on." A bitter smile appeared on Xiao Bai Lang's face.

  Cheng Dalai's eyes swept around in a circle and saw that Gaofei Bao and his group had their eyes red to the point of bleeding.

  A severe winter is approaching, and everyone is thinking of ways to store grain for the winter. With this batch of grain, it will not be a problem for Apricot Flower Ridge to get through the winter. However, the surrounding wolves are eyeing them covetously, and they may not hesitate to make a move on Apricot Flower Ridge.

  As for the grain existing in Heli Village, there is no need to worry about this problem. The reputation of Heli Village was fought for, and now that there are people here, there is even less need to worry about who will come to rob Heli Village.

  Cheng Dalai agreed and told Xiaobailang to take away a batch first, and the rest would be marked with a label. Whenever she needed them, she could come and get them by showing the label.

  Gradually, other mountain strongholds also came to exchange grain, and indeed several of them had the same idea as Little White Wolf. However, more people still didn't trust Cheng Da Lei's choice and decided to pull their grain back to their stronghold.

  Taking advantage of the chaos, Gao Fei Bao quietly pulled the carriage and slipped away. If he didn't leave, he wouldn't be able to avoid being killed by the crowd's spitting stars.

  Fei Hu Village, Gao Feibao looked at him leading the horse cart back, with sacks piled on it, and immediately understood what had happened.

  "What was I saying? Forget it. Anyway, don't worry, I'll find Cheng Dalai and have a good talk with him about this matter."

  Gao Fei Bao had a silly expression on his face: "Big brother... come and take a look?"

  "What's there to see? It's just bringing it back as is, what's so great about that?"

  The flying leopard drew its sword and inserted it into a sack of wheat, from which golden grains rolled out.

  Gao Fei Hu's eyes widened in disbelief: "This... did he really switch it?"

  "Is this fake or what, fair and square, they didn't even take advantage of a slight discount. Haven't you seen how many grains were exchanged at Apricot Flower Ridge? At least several thousand catties. Luckily I brought some back to plant earlier, otherwise we wouldn't have gotten any discount this time."

  Gao Fei's face turned red with anger, he really hadn't expected this kind of thing to happen.

  "Those with surname Gao... get the hell out here!"

  "I'll curse your ancestors for eighteen generations..."

  At this moment, the voice suddenly came from outside the mountain stronghold. Gao Fei Bao was furious in an instant and said: "Who dares to be presumptuous in my Flying Tiger Stronghold, doesn't want to live anymore?"

  "Wait..." High-flying leopard blocked Big Brother: "Don't go out, the street cursing has arrived."

  Everyone has seen that the apricot flower ridge has changed its grain, and this matter will naturally not go wrong again. After knowing this matter, many people beat their chest and stamp their feet. If they had planted some more at the beginning, would they still have to worry about this winter?

  Going back to the root of the matter, this is still High Flying Leopard's fault. He didn't allow everyone to plant, but he secretly went back to the mountain stronghold to plant himself.

  Are there such people?!

  Everyone was no match for Fei Hu's stronghold, so they had no choice but to send out the women from their own stronghold to curse loudly at the entrance of Fei Hu's stronghold.

  The slanderous words reached Gao Fei's ears, and the more he scolded, the more unbearable it became, even his face couldn't hold on.

  "They don't plant themselves, what's it got to do with us? What right do they have to come here and scold?"

  "This... I think this thing is not reliable, don't let them plant it." Gao Fei Bao said: "But I didn't make all of them listen to me either, they said at that time, following Master Gao Er, will definitely go on the right path."

  ……

  After preparing the peppers, Cheng Dalai arranged a time to trade with the merchants from Qingzhou. The other party pulled the grain to the bottom of Hamao Ridge and handed it over at the foot of Hamao Ridge.

  After knowing that the business partner was a mountain bandit, the other party did not have much reaction. Anyway, businessmen are profit-driven, as long as they can make money, it's fine. And so, during the transaction, there naturally wouldn't be any shortage or cheating.

  Cheng Dalai was also considered a good person, he gave one dou of chili peppers and one dou of grain, without intentionally taking advantage of his identity as a mountain bandit to bully the other party.

  Doing business is like this, if you don't leave a little profit for the other party, after one cooperation, it's hard for them to cooperate with you again. But if you give up your own interests to the other party, they will think you are a fool and start thinking of ways to invade your interests.

  The key is still grasping the degree.

  Finally, it was roughly a ten-to-one exchange. One kilogram of chili peppers could be exchanged for ten kilograms of grain. Cheng Darui used 5,000 kilograms of chili peppers to exchange for 50,000 kilograms of grain.

  That day, I don't know how many mountain stronghold people came to gather information on this side. Everyone only saw the Toad Mountain Stronghold hauling cart after cart of grain up the mountain. There were even rumors that the Toad Mountain Stronghold now had a stored grain reserve of 500,000 catties.

  Rumors are naturally unreliable, but for the entire Qingniu Mountain, the current Haicheng Village has become rich.

  Looking at the grain-filled granary, Cheng Dairen's heart also became more settled. Nowadays, even if someone besieged the mountain for a year or two, the Frog Village would never worry about starving to death.

  This is probably the reason why having food at home makes one feel at ease.

  Cheng Dairen is still like this, let alone others in the mountain stronghold. In this era, for most people, filling their stomachs is the top priority. With these grains, everyone will not have to worry about starving for several years.

  Cheng Dali considered whether to hold a bonfire party to celebrate. He had just sent away the Qingzhou merchants, when a large group of people came to pay their respects, all from other mountain strongholds. The scene was so shocking that it frightened Cheng Dali.

  "Cheng Dangjia, we came specifically to help with planting chili peppers."

  "At first I just wanted to plant, but it was all high-flying leopard this son of a bitch..."

  "To be honest, I have always thought highly of Cheng Dangjia. When someone spoke ill of him in the past, I didn't believe it."

  Cheng Dali suddenly realized that these people were all eyeing the income of Apricot Flower Ridge and had now come to Ha Ma Village, pestering him to death to plant some chili peppers.

  "Gentlemen, gentlemen... winter is coming, you farmers must know better than me, if we want to plant, we have to wait until next spring."

  "Don't forget about us when you're the big boss next year!"

  "I'm the first in line, and as soon as spring begins, I'll come looking for the master of the house."

  So they left the Toad Village, and as they walked away, they kept scolding Gaofei Leopard. Not long after they left, Gaofei Leopard arrived, saying the same thing.

  But winter has arrived and nothing can be planted now. Cheng Dalai sent him away like this.

  Yes, winter is coming.

  A gust of cool wind hit him in the face, and the last leaf on the tree fell onto Cheng Dairen's shoulder, without any defense, a long and cold winter had come suddenly.