Chapter 141: Striking It Rich in Silence

Chapter 141: Chapter 141: Striking It Rich in Silence

"We can’t sell them."

"We can’t sell them."

Zhang Dazhuang and Gu Nuan Nuan cried out in unison. The moment the words were out, Gu Nuan Nuan realized she had spoken out of turn. She gave a faint, placating smile and clamped her mouth shut, but Zhang Dazhuang and Zhang Minzhen weren’t about to let her off the hook.

"Dad, Nuannuan, tell me why we can’t sell them. If we don’t sell all these fish, are we supposed to keep them all for ourselves? How many years would it take to eat them all?" Zhang Minzhen asked, confused. She hadn’t yet thought through the finer points of the situation.

Zhang Dazhuang looked at Gu Nuan Nuan. "You explain."

"Well, I was just thinking... this place is so far from Grandpa’s house. It’s a long walk. By the time we carried the fish out, they’d all be dead. If we then had to carry them all the way to town, wouldn’t they start to stink?" Gu Nuan Nuan said, resigned. She had no choice but to bite the bullet and make up an excuse.

"Oh, right..." That was a problem, Zhang Minzhen nodded. Then, it hit her. "No, wait. Who says we have to use baskets? We could put the fish in buckets of water and then put those in the baskets to carry them out. No, no, ugh, you’ve got me all confused. That wouldn’t carry much and would be a lot of work. We could just carry the buckets on a shoulder pole! As long as we can make money, what does it matter if the road is a bit long and the work is a bit hard?"

"But..."

Gu Nuan Nuan looked helplessly at her triumphant mother. It was obvious her mom still hadn’t grasped the real issue.

Zhang Dazhuang looked at the two of them, a faint smile appearing as he noticed the twitch at the corner of Gu Nuan Nuan’s mouth. ’Looks like my own daughter’s mind really doesn’t work as fast as my granddaughter’s.’ He felt both gratified and a little wistful. Without a word, he continued to listen quietly.

"’But’ what? You’re out of arguments, aren’t you?" Zhang Minzhen was quite proud of herself for coming up with such a solution. Seeing them both look speechless only made her more confident she was right, so she continued brainstorming. "Besides using a shoulder pole, we could use one of those small wheelbarrows to transport them. That would be even less work. Or, once we make more money, we could even hire people to carry them for us. Wouldn’t that be great?"

"Hire people? Why would anyone help us move fish?" Gu Nuan Nuan muttered under her breath as her mother’s ideas grew more and more outrageous.

"We’d pay them," Zhang Minzhen said, tapping her daughter’s head. "If we’re paying them a wage, why wouldn’t they be willing?"

"If it were me, I wouldn’t be willing to just take a wage. I’d just sell the fish myself. Wouldn’t that be better? This place doesn’t belong to you, so why is it that you can sell the fish, but I can’t?" Gu Nuan Nuan sighed.

"Why..." Zhang Minzhen started to retort instinctively, but the word had barely left her lips when she froze. ’That’s right. This place isn’t ours. On what grounds could we sell the fish but others couldn’t...’

"You two already thought of this, didn’t you?" Zhang Minzhen gave a wry smile. ’I’m not even as sharp as my own child. How could I have completely forgotten the old saying that wealth moves the hearts of men the moment I saw this giant pie fall from the sky?’

Once she calmed down, she realized it was more than just being unable to sell the fish. They would have to be careful and not take them home to eat too often, lest people notice something was amiss. Otherwise, setting aside strangers, if her second and third brothers and their wives got wind of it, there would be no end to the trouble. Once the sheer number of fish here was discovered, wouldn’t the news spread like wildfire, with everyone swarming the place? They might even start fighting over it. When that happened, would there be any fish left for their family?

"So, are we just supposed to stare at all these fish and not be able to touch them?" Zhang Minzhen looked reluctantly at the fish in the spring. ’I just can’t accept it. It would have been better not to have found this place at all.’

"Nuannuan, do you have a solution?" Zhang Dazhuang asked with a smile, curious to see just how far her thoughts had gone.

Gu Nuan Nuan saw no suspicion in her grandfather’s smiling eyes, only admiration and pride. Suddenly, she felt that she had been acting rather ridiculous. It seemed that ever since her rebirth, no matter what happened, she would hesitate and overthink everything, cautiously tiptoeing around. She was constantly worried that she had changed too much and that someone would figure out she had been reborn...

She bit her lip, suddenly realizing she was being overly dramatic. She was ten years old now, after all. Did she really need to hide her abilities so much? In ancient times, wasn’t Gan Luo appointed prime minister at the age of twelve? What was the big deal if she just acted a little smarter and more mature for her age? She had been disappointed when her mother’s newfound resolve wavered, but she hadn’t realized she was just as guilty of the same backsliding.

"We need to get rich quietly." Gu Nuan Nuan finally cast off her mental burdens. She looked up, meeting her grandfather’s and mother’s eyes directly, and poured out her thoughts. "First, we can’t let too many people know the secret of this Fish Spring."

"Exactly. When you get back, don’t tell anyone except your mother and your eldest brother. The more people who know, the more trouble there will be," Zhang Dazhuang instructed his daughter.

"Of course, I know that." Zhang Minzhen nodded repeatedly, her thoughts perfectly in sync with his. She didn’t trust her second and third brothers’ families, but it wasn’t appropriate for her to say so directly. Fortunately, after the recent family division, her father had surely realized just how unreliable those two families were.

Zhang Dazhuang nodded, then smiled at Gu Nuan Nuan. "Nuannuan was the one who discovered this place. The name she gave it, Fish Spring, is quite fitting. We’ll call it that from now on."

"Fish Spring," Zhang Minzhen repeated, stroking Gu Nuan Nuan’s head. "It really lives up to the name."

"I didn’t actually come up with the name Fish Spring myself. I saw the term in a book once and thought it was a good fit for this place." Gu Nuan Nuan gave a little laugh, changing the subject. "I don’t think we necessarily have to sell fresh, live fish. What if we caught them, dried them, and sold them as dried fish? Look, there’s a big open space right outside here. All Grandpa would have to do is build a few drying racks."

"That’s right, that idea is definitely worth a try. Selling dried fish would be much less hassle. We wouldn’t have to worry about the long journey or the fish going bad, and it would be less work. We could fit a lot into the baskets. More importantly, it would be discreet. If we don’t want anyone to know, we can just cover the top of the baskets with something else as a disguise." Once Zhang Minzhen’s wits came back online, her thinking became much clearer.

"Mmm. Making a few fish-drying racks is simple. Plus, the materials are everywhere around here. I just need to bring my tools in, and I can build them on the spot." Zhang Dazhuang also strongly agreed with this.

"But there’s still a problem. Even if we disguise it well, we’ll suddenly be going into the mountains way more often than usual, and then we’ll start selling dried fish in town. There’s no such thing as a wall that’s completely airtight. I’m afraid our secret won’t last for long," Zhang Minzhen said, her brow furrowing with worry again.