CH 26

As soon as they left Laike House, Qiao Yuan could no longer contain his excitement. Forgetting that they were still on the main street, he eagerly jumped into Yu Dameng’s arms and whispered excitedly, “We’ve struck it rich, we’ve struck it rich! We’re rich now!”

Seeing how happy he was, Yu Dameng’s eyes shone with delight. He lightly embraced Qiao Yuan and nodded in response, “Mm.”

Wealth should not be flaunted openly. After reveling for a while, Qiao Yuan quickly regained his composure and led Yu Dameng back to the iron shop.

When Old Man Yu first saw the six shiny silver ingots, he was so shocked that he couldn’t close his mouth for quite a while. “How…how did you get so much silver all at once?”

Qiao Yuan explained the ins and outs of the matter to Old Man Yu. After listening, Old Man Yu was still a little worried. After all, they had only received the silver and not yet delivered the goods. “Can this…really go through?”

“Father, trust me!” Qiao Yuan made a promise, he still had confidence in his own skills.

After that, none of them were really in the mood to continue working, so they closed the shop early and went home.

The weather had been good these past few days, and the pebble road was finally passable for people.

As soon as they returned to the old house, Liu Ge’er couldn’t wait to ask, “Can we walk on the pebble road now?”

Qiao Yuan happily pinched his little face. “I’ll take you there later.”

The three of them also told Lin Cuifen about the matter. Of course, Lin Cuifen was no less shocked than Old Man Yu. Her head was still dizzy when she went to see the pebble road.

“Wow! This is so beautiful!” Liu Ge’er happily hopped on the pebble road.

The adults cared more about practicality. “This is great. It won’t get muddy on rainy days.”

Qiao Yuan put aside the silver and asked Yu Shanwen to call Zhao Gensheng and others to come take a look. They had also been eager to see the results.

Yu Shanwu suggested to Lin Cuifen, “Mom, let’s also have one like this at our home!”

Liu Ge’er also nodded in agreement.

In fact, the old house is paved with flat large stones, which can withstand rainy days. But the children like it, and their lives were better now, there was no need to be stingy over the cost of sticky rice. Lin Cuifen readily agreed. She could take the children to collect stones during idle times in the day.

Zhao Gensheng, Wu Erping and others also walked back and forth on it, saying that they also wanted to lay one in their own home. After greeting them, the two of them went to the Wangjiawan Village to order the wooden frame for the flower buns, and it was another busy period.

At night, Qiao Yuan started his favorite activity again – counting money.

“Now there are a total of ninety-five taels and six qian of silver at home,” Qiao Yuan happily counted. “and that’s not even counting the profits from the iron shop in the past few days! Otherwise, our family would have a hundred taels of silver!”

Then he thought about where would be the safest place to put so much silver.

Yu Dameng suggested, “Bury it underground.”

Qiao Yuan looked around their bare house. It seemed there was no place safer than this…

So, in the middle of the night, the two of them started digging a hole in their own room. Qiao Yuan only allowed Yu Dameng to bury seventy taels of silver, and the rest was left for business turnover and daily expenses.

After that, under the lamplight, Yu Dameng wove straw sandals for Qiao Yuan, while Qiao Yuan set up a small table on the bed to draw up his development plans.

It was not a good thing to do food business in the iron shop all the time. The first step was to rent a shop. The main product of the shop was naturally flower buns, similar to the business with Laike House. If they could get two or three orders a year, they could make a lot of money. If they were lucky, they could also contract various banquet pastry production. There were many rich and noble families in Yunshui County. But the shop couldn’t just sit idle all year round waiting for these two or three deals. He planned to think of some more snacks to sell.

As for the iron shop, after rushing to finish the orders for shredders and peelers, they still had to carefully consider how to operate it going forward.

For their living situation, they still had to dig a well in the yard and to build brick walls around the courtyard.

Seeing the candlelight getting dim, Yu Dameng got up and trimmed the wick.

Qiao Yuan had just put down his brush. Looking up, he smiled and asked, “Done weaving?”

Yu Dameng also smile, “I’ve woven a pair.”

“Then let me try them on,” Qiao Yuan said as he got out of bed.

Yu Dameng stopped him and squatted down to help him put on the shoes.

Qiao Yuan got out of bed, walked around and even jumped a few times. “They fit perfectly.”

His cheerful and lively appearance was really attractive. Yu Dameng couldn’t resist and slowly embraced Qiao Yuan from behind, resting his big bear-like head on Qiao Yuan’s shoulder.

Qiao Yuan pretended not to know and asked, “What are you doing?”

…..

The next day, the two of them followed the house agent1房牙子 (fáng yá zǐ): This is a colloquial term for a local guide or fixer who helps outsiders navigate a new place. to look at the shops.

The first shop they looked at was on the back street behind the Yu family iron shop. The shop was quite spacious but there was a chicken slaughterhouse on the left. Qiao Yuan felt that opening his food shop next to that would be unsanitary. The second shop was quite far from the iron shop, and the storefront was also small. Qiao Yuan didn’t like it either.

When they arrived at the third place, there was a teahouse on the left where people listened to storytelling, and a wine shop on the right. It was only a short walk from the Yu’s iron shop, taking less than half a cup of tea’s time2半盏茶的脚程 is an idiomatic expression that means a short distance that can be walked in a very short time, such as the time it takes to drink half a cup of tea. The building was two stories high with a small courtyard and a well. Qiao Yuan quickly made up his mind and asked, “How much is the monthly rent for this shop?”

The house agent knew that the customer was interested and couldn’t help but feel delighted, saying, “Fixed price, five taels of silver.”

The price was not cheap, but the size and location of the shop were quite good, and it is definitely worth the money. Qiao Yuan signed a three-year contract with the house agent, paying one-month deposit and one-month rent in advance. If the shop was still not sold after three years, Qiao Yuan could continue to renew the lease.

Qiao Yuan’s goal was naturally to save up enough silver to buy this shop outright, so he asked, “Little brother, how much silver in total would it take to buy this shop?”

The house agent was delighted inside. He had already recognized Yu Dameng and Qiao Yuan, and knew the currently popular pancakes in the county came from Qiao Yuan, whose family also had an iron shop. Buying this shop was only a matter of time. His attitude became even more respectful as he said, “In reply to Yu Fulang, the current market price is about two hundred taels. But it’s hard to say in another three to five years.”

Qiao Yuan understood. With Yunshui County’s large population and the Yunshui Lake docks, shop prices would naturally inflate. Based on his current earning speed, taking over this shop within a year would be no problem if everything went steadily. He smiled and took out half a tael to give to the house agent, “Thank you, little brother. I hope you can keep an eye out on it for me. After the deal is done, there will be a reward for you.”

Seeing Qiao Yuan’s generosity, the house agent readily promised, “If someone wants to buy this shop, I’ll hold them off for you first. But I hope Yu Fulang can act quickly.”

Qiao nodded and accepted the key, then escorted the house agent out.

He walked around the shop again. There were four rooms on the second floor. Two of them could be turned into private rooms, and the remaining two could be used for storage and living quarters. On the first floor, besides the front shop and the back kitchen, there were three more rooms, which could be used to house the shop’s helpers.

The more Qiao Yuan looked, the happier he was. He excitedly told Yu Dameng, “This is my dream! You don’t know, I worked hard and saved up for a long time in my original place, and finally bought a shop this big. But then I died, and who knows who got the shop cheap in the end!”

Yu Dameng furrowed his brows and came over to cover his mouth, “Don’t talk about dying.”

Seeing how anxious he was, Qiao Yuan was even more delighted. He took the chance to wrap his arms around Yu Dameng’s waist, and said with a smile, “If it weren’t for…I wouldn’t have met you!”

“I think our life now is great, no, the best. I have you and our home,” he added.

Yu Dameng’s cherished him even more in his heart. He held Qiao Yuan tightly, unwilling to let go.

Now that the shop was settled, it needed some renovation. Yu Dameng and Old Man Yu had work to do at the iron shop, so Qiao Yuan used the silver to hire some professional plasterers and bricklayers.

First was the back kitchen. Qiao Yuan planned to knock down the wall of one of the side rooms to connect it with the original kitchen, making the kitchen space a bit bigger. Then along the walls, they would build a counter top. The empty space under the counters could be used for customized cabinet storage in the future. Three ovens would also be built, and three more stoves would be added.

On the first floor of the shop, Qiao Yuan planned to order a few shelves from the wood shop to display pastries. When selling them, it would be like a modern bakery. Customers could pick whatever they liked and put it on a tray, then go to the counter to pay. The second floor would be made into two private rooms for customers to choose patterns when they sit down. As for the pancake stall, Qiao Yuan planned to order a small cart and place it at the door. When he hired someone, he could just push it to the docks nearby and sell it there. He could sell more there in a day.

After discussing these plans with his family, Old Man Yu made a suggestion, “If you open the shop, it’s better to buy someone. Otherwise, I’m afraid the recipe will be leaked out.”

The vegetable pancakes were fine, he ground all the ingredients into powder before mixing into the batter, and the pancakes would be pre-made at the shop already. Hired workers would only need to know how to wrap and fry pancakes.

But for the other things he wanted to sell later, there would be this risk. In this era, buying people was indeed the most reliable method. This was the social rule of this era, and Qiao Yuan couldn’t change it. After thinking it through, he added buying people to his development plan.

When it came time to make the flower buns for the Laike House’s order, if it was just him doing it alone, he would absolutely not be able to keep up. These past few days, Qiao Yuan had been busy training the Yu family.

Other than Liu Ge’er, everyone needed to know how to pinch the individual flower buns that made up the stacked flower buns. With this foundational but most labor-intensive task distributed, at that time Qiao Yuan could focus on the flower buns that required more skill and technique.

Lin Cuifen and Yu Shanwen both had nimble hands. Coupled with the basic flower bun not being difficult to start with, after Qiao Yuan taught them five or six times, they could make seven or eight out of ten decently. They just needed more practice to completely master it and increase speed.

Old Man Yu was also doing alright. Although his progress was a bit slower, he improved each time. When it came to Yu Dameng and Yu Shanwu, it was a complete disaster – every single one was unrecognizable, and their progress was even slower than Liu Ge’er who was watching and learning on the side!

However, they were not discouraged. They failed over and over again, and tried over and over again. Yu Dameng thought that if he learned well, he could help Yuan Ge’er reduce his burden. Yu Shanwu thought of Brother Yuan’s promise of a crossbow.

Lin Cuifen also said, “Every year during the Autumn Festival, your eldest brother gets three days off. He’ll come back with your Brother Qiu. We can arrange for them to help then too.”

Qiao Yuan nodded. It was only with the entire family working towards the same goal that they could overcome obstacles and improved.

I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. If you want to show your support, you can buy me a coffee. It would make my day! For every five coffees I get, I will release a bonus chapter.