Chapter Twenty: Impossible to Mass Produce

After finishing with the manure water, Zhong Di filled several plastic buckets with fresh water and continued soaking. Taking advantage of the evening hours, he topped off the chickens’ water, ensuring that tomorrow he could focus on other tasks without needing to set aside time for watering them. As for the rabbits, they only needed to be fed fresh grass daily; when eating greens, rabbits could go without water, and drinking might even cause diarrhea.

Once he confirmed that both the rabbits and chickens were in good shape, Zhong Di returned to his room and lay down on the bed.

Whimper… woof.

Yu Sheng saw Zhong Di stretched out on the bed, paying him no heed, so he protested with a bark.

“Sigh… your little darling hasn’t eaten tonight!” Zhong Di understood what Yu Sheng meant and decisively ignored him, letting him bark. Without a double-yolk egg, what could he do?

He took out his phone and browsed his messages. There were fewer each time, but among the new friends he’d added, two had left him notes.

“Is your orchard open for visits now?” asked one, recommended by Su Rou. Clearly, they were sincere.

Zhong Di replied: “I’m still making adjustments. In about two months, we’ll be ready for a trial opening.”

According to his plan, whether it was green radish or bok choy, it would take at least two months. By then, the chicks would have grown, earning him some money, and he could make some modifications to the orchard to make it more attractive. Of course, the exact opening date would be adjusted based on progress. For now, it was out of the question—everything was still a mess.

Having replied, Zhong Di opened the chat from someone named Miao Miao.

“Hey, want to meet up?”

After reading the message, Zhong Di instinctively wanted to delete the contact, but after a moment’s thought, he kept it, though he didn’t reply.

Su Rou hadn’t left him any messages this time, so Zhong Di considered and decided to reach out.

“How many double-yolk eggs do you need?”

After sending the message and waiting for a while, Su Rou didn’t respond, so Zhong Di gave up waiting. She couldn’t always be online, after all.

Finished with his messages, Zhong Di happily opened his battle royale game. After some effort, he finally achieved a sixty-eighth place finish, put away his phone in good spirits, and prepared to sleep.

This is how I’ll keep striving, advancing one or two places a day. If I persist, there’s still hope I’ll win a match someday.

Early the next morning, just as the sky began to lighten, Zhong Di was already awake. Eagerly, he took the bucket of manure water to the Wild Sand Immortal Seedling.

After watering, Zhong Di followed the guidance that the Wild Sand Immortal Seedling had imparted to him and harvested three tender shoots, totaling six leaves.

This put him in a bind. Even if one leaf produced one double-yolk egg, that would only be six eggs a day. Sold at twenty each, that was just one hundred twenty yuan. It seemed mass production was impossible. After keeping some for himself, selling double-yolk eggs seemed hopeless.

After a brief consideration, Zhong Di decided to chop up the immortal shoots, mix them with fresh grass, and feed them to the chickens. Whatever the outcome, he would try it first.

Based on his rough calculations, the ratio of double-yolk eggs would certainly drop, but each egg’s taste would definitely improve.

This was precisely why Zhong Di wanted to experiment. After all, double-yolk eggs were expensive and not many people wanted them; he couldn’t rely on them for steady profit.

Ordinary free-range eggs, on the other hand, as long as their flavor improved—even if the effect wasn’t dramatic—could be sold for forty a kilogram without issue.

“Zhong Di, are you there?”

While Zhong Di was feeding the chickens and rabbits, he heard Uncle Zhang’s voice at the gate.

“Yes, just a moment,” Zhong Di replied, putting down his work and going to open the door.

As they’d agreed yesterday, Uncle Zhang had brought two people to help prune the trees. An experienced worker cost three hundred yuan a day.

Zhong Di handed out several pruning shears, and the three men got straight to work without unnecessary chatter.

Watching them for a while, even though the pruning wasn’t perfect, they were seasoned hands and wouldn’t make major mistakes. Their work was solid, so Zhong Di went back to gathering grass.

The two plots at the back were quite far apart, so Zhong Di had to transport the grass with his electric tricycle, load by load, which slowed things down.

“Zhong Di, why are you hauling the grass back? Wouldn’t it be easier to let it dry in the field and burn it?” Uncle Zhang commented.

“Look at all these grasses; each one is seeding. If you mess around like this, the ground will be covered in seeds, and next year you’ll have a nightmare weeding. Burning it would kill some of the seeds.”

Uncle Zhang usually minded his own business, but the more he watched Zhong Di work, the more he felt the boy was doing things wrong, so he couldn’t help but say something.

“Uncle Zhang, this is an advanced management method. I’m trying to maximize resource use. As for the seeds, I have my own way to deal with them later.”

Hearing Uncle Zhang’s advice, Zhong Di had no objections and responded vaguely. The man was only thinking of his welfare, so he couldn’t be impolite.

“All right, you’ve got your own ideas. I won’t interfere. Once you’ve got it all sorted, I’ll learn from you,” Uncle Zhang said before returning to pruning the jujube trees.

Zhong Di took a quick look around the jujube trees. Some had a certain vitality—about a dozen of them.

He wouldn’t touch those, letting them grow as they wished.

As for the others, Zhong Di planned to replace them. After all, visitors to his orchard wouldn’t want to eat dried jujubes! He needed fruit available from spring through autumn to attract people.

At noon, Uncle Zhang and his helpers kept working, while Zhong Di went to prepare lunch for them and called them in to eat and rest when it was time.

In the heat of summer, especially for farm work, noon was impossible for labor.

Here, no matter the task, ten hours of work a day was standard, and most stuck to it.

The two men Uncle Zhang brought were skilled workers and could be contacted for future jobs.

“Uncle, let’s exchange chat contacts. If there’s work in the future, a message will do, much more convenient.”

Zhong Di asked for the two uncles’ chat info—he’d checked with Uncle Zhang, who had no objections. They were acquaintances; there was no commission involved.

One uncle was surnamed Liu, the other Zhou, both had moved from the interior to the northwest twenty or thirty years ago.

After lunch, Uncle Zhang took the other two back to his orchard to rest, knowing Zhong Di had no space for them.

Zhong Di didn’t object; he really had nowhere to host them—just one double iron bed, and he was unwilling to let others sleep in his bed.

Once Uncle Zhang and the others left, Zhong Di went to the chicken coop and collected the day’s eggs—just one double-yolk egg, as expected.

He set aside the eggs collected this time for comparison.

Lying on the bed, Zhong Di took out his phone and glanced at his messages.

Two were waiting: one from yesterday, asking when his orchard would be open for visits, and another from Su Rou.