Carrying a Jurassic on me
Chapter 127 - 4: Exchanging Grass for Wine_1

Chapter 127: Chapter 4: Exchanging Grass for Wine_1

However, you can’t rush the process of making medicinal wine. Now, there are a few bottles stocked in the cattle farm, so you can soak as much as you want. But once soaked, it must sit for a few days. Otherwise, the medicinal effects won’t seep in, and it can’t be called medicinal wine anymore.

Yan Fei estimated and decided to soak half a vat, and not with the good stuff. He used the kind that is usually diluted with water and sold for two yuan. Of course, he hadn’t started selling it just yet. It hadn’t been diluted with water, it was directly turned into medicinal wine.

Before half a vat of medicinal wine was sold, Yan Fei’s medicinal wine from his cattle farm had already made a name for itself. Villagers from several nearby villages knew about Yan Fei’s medicinal wine.

With this wine becoming famous, the other one that can treat strokes also started to sell out, as did the ten yuan medicinal wine and the regular wine, they’re now selling a lot more.

Although the two characters ’selling alcohol’ written by Xu Xiaoyan had already been washed away by the rain and wind, the reputation of the cattle farm selling medicinal wine has spread further and business has flourished.

Moreover, selling alcohol at this cattle farm has not only gained fame for its good effect, but also for another reason. The boss, Yan Fei, has garnered a good reputation, earning him a lot of praise.

As for the reason, it’s unspeakable. Every time someone praises him for it, it brings him to tears.

The common talk in the countryside: The boss who sells the wine is a very generous man. Just look at the price of his wine. The two medicinal wines used to treat chronic diseases are only five yuan. The health-promoting alcohol, which people can choose to drink or not, is sold for ten yuan.

Why does he price it this way? It’s for the patients to afford the wine. When there’s a sick person in the family, six or seven out of ten such families are facing hardships in the village. Not to mention how much it costs for medical treatment, just the exclusion of one worker in the family, let alone the extra burden of caring for the patient, could spell disaster.

Yan Fei’s action is clearly to make these struggling families afford medicinal wine. What spirit does this embody? It signifies benevolence and kindness. It benefits his neighbors and helps him accumulate virtue!

The elderly love to discuss this. In the village, whoever has a generous reputation can gain the upper hand and receive help regardless of the situation.

So many of those who buy the medicinal wine, those who are better-off, will also buy some of the ten yuan ones. The reason being they fear this boss will lose money on the cheap wine, and what if he couldn’t keep the business afloat?

Of course, there are people who think that since the medicine that cures diseases is only five yuan, wouldn’t the one that costs ten yuan be even better? They rush to buy it and try it out.

This matter even got Yan Fei’s grandpa to specifically come and praise him, not to mention others!

Yan Fei was feeling frustrated: I just felt too lazy to find someone to try the medicinal wine, so I planned to sell it for a low price to test its effects and then raise the price, okay? Now everyone is talking about it, making it awkward for me to raise the price!

Fortunately, the cost of this item was relatively low for Yan Fei, even for the five yuan medicinal wine, he could earn about two yuan per catty.

But this two yuan is not much. Even if we disregard the value of the dinosaur bones, the effort Yan Fei put in alone is worth this price. Think about the firewood used for brewing the wine was chopped by Yan Fei, the bones and medicinal materials used for soaking the wine were processed and ground by Yan Fei himself, just to understand how hard he worked.

The trouble doesn’t end there. Just as his reputation increased, a headache problem arose, people started to ask for credit.

That evening, all staff of the cattle farm started to discuss the matter. Two people had come asking for credit during the day when Yan Fei was at school. Lin Yumei said he wasn’t in, so she didn’t give them credit.

However, this matter is always a big problem for rural business. Lin Yumei and Ma Chao asked, and Ma Chao rejected it right away.

When they discussed it in the evening, Ma Chao still held the same opinion: "You can’t offer credit. Your business has only just begun, you can’t start with this, or it will be difficult to do business later."

Then he continued to explain in detail, "It’s not a lack of compassion, it’s just that these debts get rotten all too easily. We’ve been selling liquor for so many years, and the reason we decided to stop is because there’s a pile of bad debts out there. Some owe three to five bucks, some owe a few dozen, some people are conscious enough to come and pay it back themselves. But some people are truly annoying, not only do they not pay their debts, they also avoid you, even going as far as not coming to your place to buy stuff anymore."

It seemed like their family had suffered enough from this. When they talked about it, they sounded bitterly resentful: "If you go hounding people for a few bucks, nevermind whether it’s worth the trip to get a few bucks, you’ll get a reputation for being stingy right off the bat. But if you don’t go after them, the little bits add up, and you end up making no profit from your business."

"Exactly! And could you really go chasing after each family when the time comes?" Heizi enthusiastically suggested. Ever since he got paid and had a chat with Yan Fei one evening, he’d been noticeably more active in his work, clearly wanting to express his strong desire to stay on through his actions.

Yan Fei didn’t know what to do. Honestly, he felt a bit bad for some of these people. If they didn’t give credit, it would look bad. But hearing everyone say this, he realized how serious the issue was. He really couldn’t think of a good solution on the spot.

"Just swap it for feed!" Old Cheng smiled and suggested. Seeing everyone’s attention on him, he smiled smugly. "The old rural distribution points used to work this way. Sometimes when people didn’t have money to buy things, they’d exchange their grain. We can do the same!"

"Yeah!" Ma Chao slapped his thigh. "We’re already buying straw feed and sorghum for distilling with cash. Now we can just exchange our liquor for it!"

"We could even exchange grass for liquor. Our cattle farm is only the size of a palm, and the little bit of green grass surrounding it has already been eaten by the cows." Heizi readily suggested. "Even households without food always have someone who can cut some grass from the roadside ditches."

With these words came a torrent of complaints. Old Cheng, having nothing better to do, said that there was some green grass inside and outside the cattle farm, and that cows also needed to eat green feed. So during the day, he would often tether the cows out to eat a few mouthfuls.

Seeing this old man with a limp, how could he and Ma Chao sit idly by? In the end, the two of them had to take over and do the work themselves.

Being face-saving, he usually worked in obscurity when shoveling cow dung inside the farm. Who would know what he was up to? However, letting the cows graze outside was a different story, especially when it was near the roadside. So usually he would hide far away from the highway, afraid of being seen by his friends while tending to the cows.

As everyone had this discussion, they immediately found the proposal quite reliable.

Apart from Heizi’s slightly unrealistic idea of exchanging grass for liquor, the other suggestions were practical. Whether it was grains for distilling or straw feed, everything could be stored long-term. They could keep it for future use, given that the cattle farm was so large, they could surely make use of the items eventually.

As for why exchanging grass for liquor wouldn’t work, that was simple. Since grass was free of charge, if given the choice between trading food for the liquor or grass for the liquor, nine out of ten households would choose to cut grass. Not to mention whether there was sufficient grass, even if there were, more than a dozen cows still wouldn’t finish it off.

Of course, it wasn’t completely impossible. It’s just better not to mention it at the moment. First, they should find someone to cut some grass for the cows. And when they actually encountered certain extremely impoverished households who didn’t have enough food for themselves, they could let them cut grass to exchange. Otherwise, if too many people found out about it, it wouldn’t end well.

This could serve as both a way to procure feed and a means of doing good deeds! The ultimate goal was still the same; they had to avoid giving credit at all costs.

As for how to communicate this with those families who were looking to take things on credit, Heizi would handle it. After all, he wasn’t embarrassed or ashamed to say anything and wasn’t afraid to offend anyone.

Yan Fei wasn’t afraid to tell him straight that he could only handle collecting food, not money. He just didn’t trust him.

Although Heizi sounded dissatisfied, he was actually quite pleased with himself: this at least proved that he had some use in the cattle farm. So, when his family tried to get him to come back home, he’d have a justifiable reason to refuse, wouldn’t he?

Staying at the cattle farm wasn’t too bad. Yes, it was a bit dirty and the smell was unpleasant when working, but the lifestyle was pretty laid back. The daily food and amenities were better than they were back home. As long as he did his job, nobody would bother him. It was much better than being home, where his family constantly eyed him with scorn and irritation.

With the low standard of living these days and without much of worldly distractions, there were indeed some who deliberately chose to be unambitious. But for the majority who worked hard to make a living, what else could they wish for?