PCJ – Chapter 207 Tea Leaves

“Jiaohua, Jiaohua, I can ride, I can ride!” Dumb’s shout echoed through the entire horticultural field.

Zhang Jiaohua looked at Dumb speechlessly. When Dumb first started learning to ride the Bicycle, the tea trees in the horticultural field were just budding green shoots, and the navel orange saplings were only a few centimeters tall. But now, the tea leaves were lush green, and the navel orange saplings had grown to over twenty centimeters, some even sprouting a few branches. The intercropped soybeans in the horticultural field were also flourishing.

Almost a month had passed in the blink of an eye. This guy had been coming over every day and taking numerous falls. Only now could he wobble on the tripod, yet he was so proud. It made Zhang Jiaohua utterly speechless.

“Jiaohua, Jiaohua, I can ride!” Dumb shouted as he charged over, but in the end, he lost control and headed straight for Zhang Jiaohua and the pangolin.

Zhang Jiaohua quickly dodged to the side, and the pangolin also leaped away, nimbly avoiding the heavy-duty bicycle. Then came a crash, and Zhang Jiaohua couldn’t help but feel a pang of pain. If a person gets hurt, they can heal, but if the Bicycle is damaged, it’s not easy to repair. Of course, even though Dumb was clumsy, after practicing for so long, he wouldn’t let the Bicycle crush him when he fell. Over a month of practice, he hadn’t gotten good at riding, but he had mastered various ways of falling. Zhang Jiaohua suspected Dumb had been sent by someone to wreck his Bicycle. In a month’s time, the once pristine Yongjiu bicycle had its trademark dented and multiple parts deformed and chipped. Fortunately, the Bicycle was durable enough to still function without making a sound, despite the damage.

Sure enough, the Bicycle ended up crashing into the pigsty in the pig farm. Dumb was fine, landing headfirst into a pile of straw in the pigsty, grinning at Zhang Jiaohua with a straw-covered head. The Bicycle lay on the ground, and when picked up, only the handlebars were slightly off. Zhang Jiaohua used his leg to straighten the handlebars and found the Bicycle still rideable.

Not entirely without issues, the fender was deformed again, and a large patch of paint had chipped off.

Dumb kept saying, “It’s fine, it’s fine. When I fell, I watched where I was going. Jiaohua, you’ll still let me practice riding, right?”

“No, no. I told you yesterday, if you wreck my Bicycle again, you won’t get to practice anymore,” Zhang Jiaohua said firmly.

“I really can ride now. Just let me practice for another week, no, three days, and I’ll be able to ride to town,” Dumb insisted.

“With your skills, you want to ride on the main road? You might not care about your life, but I care about my Bicycle. If Grandpa Luo in town sees how wrecked it is, he’ll blame me for not taking care of his gift,” Zhang Jiaohua said.

“No, he won’t. People in town are rich; they won’t care about a Bicycle,” Dumb pleaded, afraid Zhang Jiaohua wouldn’t let him use the Yongjiu Bicycle anymore.

Zhang Manyin arrived at the horticultural field, his mind filled with thoughts of Jiaohua’s horticultural field every day.

“Jiaohua, I’ve been running around town these past two days but couldn’t find a way to sell the tea leaves. The agricultural supply company used to buy tea leaves, but since our county’s tea factory closed down, they don’t buy tea leaves anymore. I asked around town, but no one buys fresh tea leaves. The loose tea in shops is all processed tea from tea farms. We don’t have the skills to process it ourselves. Otherwise, we could sell it to the shops in town,” Zhang Manyin, a grandfather who wasn’t good at expressing himself, showed his deep affection for his grandson in moments like these.

“Then let’s process it ourselves,” Zhang Jiaohua said after thinking for a while.

“It’s not that easy. Processing tea is a skill. It’s not simple,” Zhang Manyin frowned, his already wrinkled face looking even more weathered. The tea field seemed like a treasure mountain, but the grandfather and grandson, despite being in the mountain, couldn’t extract any treasures from it.

“Can living people be choked by urine? I’ll go to town tomorrow and find Grandpa Luo to see if he knows anyone skilled in tea processing. I’ll learn the technique. At worst, I’ll use this batch of tea leaves to practice,” Zhang Jiaohua said, looking at the more than two hundred acres of lush tea trees with a heartache, knowing it was all money.

Early the next morning, Zhang Jiaohua went to town, leaving a message with Gong Ziyuan through Dumb and asking for a day off. Gong Ziyuan always turned a blind eye to Zhang Jiaohua’s absences. After all, he didn’t know how to teach such a prodigious student.

“I do know someone who can process tea. He used to be a master at the town’s tea factory, but he’s retired now. I’m not sure if he’s still working. After lunch, I’ll take you to the tea factory to find him,” Luo Yongming said, looking at the battered Yongjiu Bicycle with some heartache. He quickly found his Bicycle maintenance tools at home and gave the Bicycle a thorough repair, while also thinking of a solution for Zhang Jiaohua’s current problem.

The master Luo Yongming mentioned was Zhong Jinxiang, a former tea processing master at Gezhuping Town’s tea factory. Although skilled at making low-grade tea, he wasn’t considered exceptional in the city or province. Gezhuping Town wasn’t traditionally a tea-producing area, but during a nationwide push to develop tea fields, every village established one. Zhong Jinxiang learned tea processing through county-organized workshops and was proficient in making loose tea. Despite his modest skills, he was a rare technician in Gezhuping Town.

Zhong Jinxiang’s house wasn’t far. After lunch, Luo Yongming rode his Bicycle and took Zhang Jiaohua to Zhong Jinxiang’s home.

“Master Zhong, are you home?” Luo Yongming called from the entrance.

“Who’s there? I’m here,” replied a middle-aged man in his fifties or sixties, emerging from the house. It was indeed Zhong Jinxiang.

Zhong Jinxiang recognized Luo Yongming immediately. “It’s you, old leader. What brings you here?”

Zhong Jinxiang warmly invited them in, asking his wife to serve tea and water to Luo Yongming and Zhang Jiaohua.

“Master Zhong, this is Zhang Jiaohua from Meizi Village. He’s the grandson of a friend of mine and has contracted the village’s tea field. The tea leaves are about to be harvested, but there’s no good way to sell them. The town’s factory is closed, and the agricultural supply company isn’t buying. He wants to learn tea processing from you,” Luo Yongming explained, avoiding suggesting that Zhong Jinxiang process the tea himself, fearing Zhang Jiaohua couldn’t afford to hire him.