The steelyard scale in Li Xiang's house had been passed down for several decades. According to his grandma, Li Xiang's grandfather had acquired it when he was young.
The scale's beam was incredibly smooth and sturdy, with a blue-black color. It was inlaid with a series of large and small golden star markings—brass dots—and both ends were capped with brass sheets. Li Xiang figured it was probably made of Red Xunzi wood.
The blue-black color was the result of a complex dyeing process. A Red Xunzi wood beam had to be cleaned with limewater, then coated with a ferrous sulfate solution, followed by a Chinese gall solution, and so on.
For old-fashioned scale beams, the best and most practical wood was "Ironwood," which was so tough it was difficult to cut even with an axe. The next best was Red Xunzi wood, followed by other hardwoods like Nanmu, Cudrania, Jujube, Golden-thread Plum, Red Silkwood, rosewood, Padauk, and Dalbergia.
The wood usually needed to be air-dried in the shade for over a year before being crafted through a series of complex, time-consuming processes like planing the beam, carving the fulcrum notch, calibrating the scale by inlaying the star markings, sanding, cleaning, dyeing, and finally, trimming and polishing.
Some people would take their family's old scale beams and have them carved into beads to make a bracelet. But if the wood was genuinely high-quality and the scale itself was well-preserved, its value as a collectible was far greater than that of a bracelet. To turn it into beads would be a criminal waste of a precious item.
The scale beam had sixteen star markings, signifying a 16-liang scale. Long ago, the master craftsman Lu Ban was said to have carved thirteen star markings into a hardwood beam based on the seven stars of the Beidou and the six stars of the Southern Dipper. At the time, the rule was that one jin was equivalent to thirteen liang.
Later, during the time of Fan Li, three more stars were added to the original thirteen. These three stars represented "Fortune, Prosperity, and Longevity." The meaning was that if you short-changed your customers, you would lose your fortune, your prosperity, and your life would be shortened!
Many people in ancient times believed this, so they became much more honest in their business dealings.
Of course, not everyone believed in such an "ethereal curse," and some unscrupulous merchants continued to do as they pleased.
The old scale in Li Xiang's house had been used for many years, but because it was regularly maintained, it was still quite accurate. Once, when he was shipping something, Li Xiang weighed it at home, then took it to an SF Express shipping center and weighed it again on their electronic scale. The discrepancy was within an acceptable range.
To be on the safe side, Li Xiang would usually add a little extra to ensure the weight was never short, always over. He considered it a way of giving back to his fans.
He would never short-change anyone. His mushrooms were quite expensive, especially the Black Truffle at 560 yuan per 500 grams. He could have skimped by a few dozen grams and the customer might not have even noticed; not everyone weighs their package upon arrival.
Even if they did notice, he could have made excuses, like saying it was due to moisture evaporation because it wasn't wrapped in plastic—a normal phenomenon.
After sorting and weighing everything, Li Xiang tallied his haul. He had 12.3 kilograms of Black Truffles, 4.75 kilograms of Caesar's mushrooms, 6.85 kilograms of "Bigfoot" mushrooms, 3.2 kilograms of matsutake, and 1.9 kilograms of morels.
Then, he started portioning the mushrooms into plastic bags according to the fans' requests in the comments and sent his bank account number to each of them via private message.
He was only halfway through when he had to stop. 'Damn, this isn't enough.'
He did a quick count. So far, fifty-six people had left comments. After calculating the shortfall, he was still short 14.5 kilograms of Black Truffles, 8 kilograms of Caesar's mushrooms, 14 kilograms of "Bigfoot" mushrooms, 3.5 kilograms of matsutake, and 2.5 kilograms of morels.
If he wanted to include a little extra for everyone, he'd need to gather even more.
But it was no problem. He replied to the fans who had commented later, sincerely apologizing and explaining the situation. He let them know they wouldn't have to wait too long; he would ship out the current orders tomorrow morning, head back into the mountains in the afternoon, and guaranteed their orders would be shipped within three days.
The fans were all very understanding, telling him not to rush and just take his time.
As for the fans who had already been "assigned" their share, they were thrilled. Most of them sent the money that same evening. One or two were busy that night and sent it the next morning.
Some of the fans who hadn't made the cut even sent money in advance to "confirm" their orders, afraid they might miss out again. These fans probably guessed that Li Xiang fulfilled orders based on who paid first. In reality, that wasn't the case; he was simply going by the order in which the comments were posted.
Because the shortfall was quite large, Li Xiang went to SF Express to ship out all the mushrooms he had on hand, then immediately headed back into the mountains.
This time he brought two bamboo baskets. To speed things up, he didn't livestream or even record a video. There was no time. The rice in the fields was waiting to be harvested, and if he didn't cut it soon, the stalks would start to collapse.
This time, Li Xiang's mushroom gathering was much faster. Unleashing the full power of a Tier One Transcendent, he crossed mountains and ridges as if they were flat ground. Wherever he passed, snakes, insects, rats, and other animals all scattered.
He even spotted a fat rabbit but didn't have time to try and catch it.
It only took him one afternoon and one morning. Job done.
Then it was back home to portion everything out and mail it from the county town.
The prices were 560 yuan per 500 grams for Black Truffles, 80 yuan per 500 grams for Caesar's mushrooms, 150 per 500 grams for "Bigfoot" mushrooms, 200 per 500 grams for matsutake, and 500 per 500 grams for morels. In the end, he earned over 45,000 yuan. Adding the previous sale, his total profit was now over 50,000 yuan.
Li Xiang sold only fresh mushrooms, and his prices were fair—cheaper than the market rate, with a better guarantee of quality.
Usually, fresh mushrooms are more expensive than dried ones, especially high-value wild varieties. The flavor, texture, and nutritional value of fresh mushrooms are all superior to their dried counterparts.
After one fan received his order, he weighed it and exclaimed, 'Whoa, what an honest seller! This stuff is so expensive, yet he gave me an extra hundred grams. I totally scored!'
He then went straight to Li Xiang's mushroom-gathering video to leave a comment and a like, expressing his thanks.
Someone else replied, "I weighed mine too! I bought a kilogram of morels, and he sent several extra. And the quality of the morels is fantastic. The umami flavor in the dish I made... tsk tsk, haha, I won't say more. If you know, you know."
Seeing this, other fans who had received their orders—some of whom hadn't even started cooking yet—hurriedly weighed their packages. Sure enough, they had their own "little surprise" too.
"Brother Xiang is a class act! Giving an extra fifty or a hundred grams of something this expensive... yep, I'm definitely buying again!"
Li Xiang thanked them one by one. He was at the edge of the paddy field, setting up his phone to start recording a video of the late rice harvest.
After being drained and left to dry, the mud in the paddy field had firmed up considerably. Li Xiang, wearing rain boots, bent low. His hands were large. He gently gathered a large handful of rice stalks with his left hand, while his right hand single-handedly wielded the thirty-kilogram High-Density Blade. Lifting the heavy blade as if it were light, he swung it gently, and the stalks were all severed at the base with a clean, neat cut.
Originally, his grandma had told him to use a small, light sickle. She had tried to lift his High-Density Blade once and found it was dead heavy—completely impractical for harvesting rice.
But Li Xiang insisted on using it, saying it was good for training.
After all, it was only about six or seven *fen* of land.
When his grandma saw him handling it like a toy, she stopped trying to talk him out of it. 'If her grandson wanted to play, let him play.' Besides, there wasn't that much rice, so it wouldn't matter if it took him an extra day or two to finish.
'Filming a video and using such a heavy Chopping Knife... he definitely won't be fast. It doesn't look like he's serious about working.'
But when his grandma came to bring him lunch at noon, she was absolutely stunned!
She saw that not only was all the rice cut, but it had already been tied into bundles, and he was in the middle of loading them onto a three-wheeled flatbed.