Chapter 10: Chapter 10: Big Purchase
Just like that, it was April 20th.
After an adjustment period of over ten days, the new hires had started to adapt to the pace of work.
At the same time, the large sign on the roof of the old resort restaurant was torn down and replaced with a new one: a large red sign for the Hailufeng Agricultural Technology Company.
The second floor had originally been a wedding banquet hall, complete with an owner’s office, a storage room, and two attached restrooms.
Jiang Miao and his cousin, Jiang Yao, inspected the second floor together.
"Ah Miao, just as you planned, this large hall has been converted into an open office..."
All the tables and chairs from the old restaurant had been cleared out. In their place, small cubicles were partitioned off with aluminum alloy and acrylic panels.
Aluminum alloy frames and glass were also used as partition walls to divide the main hall into six spacious offices.
Three of the new offices were on the north side and three were on the south, with a corridor running down the middle.
In addition, each office was equipped with storage shelves and coat racks.
"Good."
"As long as you’re satisfied."
Jiang Miao turned and asked, "How much longer will the first-floor renovation take?"
"About a month. The main issue is that the kitchen is huge. Part of the kitchen wall has to be torn down and re-plastered. Then we need to put up new walls and glass sliding doors. A month should be enough."
"In that case, I’ll have to ask you to speed things up, Brother Yao."
"Don’t worry. I’ll definitely put in the extra hours. I won’t delay your grand opening in June."
"What’s the situation at the farm?"
"The six-mu fishpond has been filled in. The foundation for the four-mu open area has been compacted, and we’re laying the underground pipes and building the water tanks now. We’ll start pouring the concrete floors in about two weeks. Installation of the steel frame will begin in mid-May. The guys from the steel fabrication plant already came by a few days ago to take measurements, so they’ll be delivering the components soon."
Jiang Miao nodded. "That’s good."
BEEP... BEEP...
Jiang Yao answered his phone, then looked at him apologetically. "Ah Miao, I have a meeting to discuss the waterproof tarps. I have to make a trip downtown."
"No problem. Go take care of it. We can talk on the phone if anything comes up."
"Okay, I’m heading out then."
After his cousin left, Ke Yong, Li Zhou, and Wang Feng returned.
Li Zhou and Wang Feng were both considerably tanner. They had spent the past several days out purchasing eels.
"Boss, here’s today’s purchase list. Please take a look." Wang Feng handed him a handwritten receipt and a list.
Jiang Miao looked it over for a moment. "Three hundred fifty kilograms of white eels today, at 43 yuan per kilogram. That’s acceptable. Including previous purchases, we’re at almost 5,000 kilograms, but it’s still not enough."
Wang Feng sounded a little resigned. "Boss, we’ve already been to all the eel farms around Hailufeng. The ones that are left have eels that are either too small or priced too high."
Just then, Li Zhou spoke up hesitantly, "Boss, what if we went to my hometown, Putian, to buy them? There are a lot of eel farms over there, and the prices are a bit lower than here in Chaoshan."
"Min Nan? Alright, you can all go to Min Nan together." Jiang Miao turned to Li Wenna. "Wenna, draw up a travel budget for Li Zhou and Wang Feng. Let’s set the limit at 30,000 yuan. If it’s not enough, they can request more."
"No problem." Li Wenna jotted it down.
Jiang Miao then looked at Ke Yong. "Ah Yong, you’ll drive Wang Feng and Li Zhou over there."
"No problem," Ke Yong nodded.
Wang Feng asked about the quantity. "Boss, exactly how many eels should we buy?"
"The 5,000 kilograms we have now is only enough for three mu of ponds. The farm has another 71 mu of ponds left. We need about 1,500 kilograms per mu, so we’ll need to purchase at least 100,000 kilograms in total."
"One hundred thousand kilograms!" Wang Feng sounded nervous.
"But there’s no rush. You just need to have it all purchased before July." Jiang Miao suddenly recalled something. "Oh, right. Since you’re heading toward Min Nan anyway, pick up a batch of eels from the Chaoshan Three Cities along the way."
"Understood," Wang Feng nodded.
After arranging their work, Jiang Miao went straight home.
He had already put all fifteen of the breeding tanks at his house to use, having spent the last few days fishing out all the eels from his brother-in-law’s pond.
The fifteen tanks held a total of 150 eels.
He had divided the eels into groups. He also had the feed, nutritional supplements, and medicine that had been arriving, as well as the duckweed he’d had his dad discreetly purchase near Pubei Town.
He had also modified the room, adding an air conditioner and installing small water temperature regulators, salinity sensors, and other equipment.
With everything prepared, Jiang Miao had begun his targeted feeding regimen a week ago. When he wasn’t home, he had his parents help watch the tanks.
After a week of this regimen, Jiang Miao checked his appraisal panel and discovered that the accumulation of special nutrients in the eels’ bodies had more than doubled.
At this rate of accumulation, it would take about another eight weeks to reach the critical point for sex change and reproduction.
This was the fastest possible speed after the adjustments Jiang Miao had made.
After all, there was a limit to how much the eels could eat each day, and he also had to consider the problem of water eutrophication.
In other words, to artificially increase the accumulation of special nutrients in mature white eels and bring them to the critical point for reproductive sex change, it would take at least around 65 days.
This was already about ten times faster than it would be for wild eels in their natural environment.
Wild eels rarely have a consistent, ample food supply, and their food doesn’t always contain the necessary nutrients to synthesize these special compounds.
This was the advantage of artificial breeding.
The reason artificial eel breeding technology had been so slow to advance was that humanity’s research into eels was still not deep or comprehensive enough.
But Jiang Miao had seen the essence of eel reproduction at a glance, so reverse-engineering the technique was a naturally simple matter for him.
Jiang Miao recorded the day’s data and fine-tuned the feed formula once more.
In the yard, his dad returned on the motorized tricycle, which was loaded with a dozen or so bags of duckweed.
"Ah Miao, you’re back early today?"
"I finished up at the company, so I came back to check on the eels."
"This is a thousand jin of duckweed. It should be enough for a week, right?"
Jiang Miao untied one of the bags. It was all fresh duckweed. "This is enough for ten days. With the dozen or so bags we already have, we’ve got enough for half a month."
"That’s good. But is this duckweed really effective?" Jiang Dahai was very skeptical.
Jiang Miao didn’t explain. Instead, he brought up another matter. "Dad, I’m going to need a lot more duckweed in the future. Just buying it might not be enough. Let’s convert our family’s fields to grow it!"
"Grow duckweed? I suppose so. We’ve harvested all the other vegetables anyway. There are only two rows of cucumbers left."
Jiang Miao thought for a moment. "Doesn’t Eldest Aunt have a field over by the reservoir? Dad, you should convince her to grow duckweed. I’ll buy it from her for one yuan per ten jin."
"Hmm. She doesn’t earn much from her other crops, so growing duckweed would be good." Jiang Dahai knew his eldest sister’s situation well. After she got married, her husband died in a motorcycle accident. Since she didn’t have a son at the time, her in-laws drove her away. Her second marriage also ended quickly in divorce.
Her daughter married and moved away a few years ago, so now she lives alone in the village.
Growing duckweed wasn’t difficult. As long as it was a paddy field, you didn’t need to replant after harvesting. It’s a perennial, semi-aquatic plant with a high yield—harvesting several thousand jin per mu at a time was an easy task. In the Lingnan climate, you could harvest it five or six times a year.
His eldest aunt’s land by the reservoir, which included her own plot plus some given to her by their uncle from Xiangjiang River, totaled about two mu.
Jiang Miao knew he would need a long-term supply of duckweed, so it was only natural to help out a close relative in advance.
