CH 36

As soon as the tenth month came, the weather suddenly turned colder. Qiao Yuan got up early and felt cold even wearing the jacket that Lin Cuifen had made for him.

Yu Dameng immediately stopped a covered ox cart on the road. Old Man Yu and the twin brothers refused to get on no matter what, so only Yu Dameng accompanied Qiao Yuan to sit.

There were only the two of them on the ox cart. The driver was up front steering the ox and couldn’t see what was happening in the cart. So Qiao Yuan stuffed his hands into Yu Dameng’s embrace to warm up. “How are you still so warm, like a stove?”

Yu Dameng looked at him freezing like this and felt distressed. “Let’s buy an ox cart too, and get you a fox fur coat to block out the wind.”

Qiao Yuan thought this made sense. He had some assets now, so why keep suffering like this? Plus with an ox cart at home, they could transport goods from home to town in the future without needing to rent someone else’s cart. “Let’s go to the livestock market at noon to take a look.”

Yu Dameng nodded and hugged Qiao Yuan in his arms to warm him up. “Then I’ll come find you at the shop later.”

Because the Lu residence had ordered a considerable number of egg cakes, Yu Dameng also followed him into Yu Qiao Ji, helping Meng Bei deal with the eggs, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to open the pancake stall on time.

During a break from work and chatting, Qiao Yuan told the Meng couple about the news that the Lu family’s old lady’s birthday banquet would be ordering flower buns from their shop. “I’ll have to ask Sister Meng to help too, and pay her wages, one hundred wen a day.”

Li Xiumei readily agreed, “I’ll come help, you don’t need to pay me.”

Qiao Yuan wouldn’t let her do that. “That won’t do, sister-in-law, business is business. It will be very tiring for those two days. Those two days will be very tiring, I won’t feel right if you don’t take wages. And you’ll need to start learning in advance too, which will take up your time.”

Li Xiumei then stopped declining and jokingly said she would take some dough out on the street later to practice, making everyone laugh out loud.

The current daily inventory for the shop was 120 pieces of egg cakes, 100 pieces of meat floss cakes, 120 pieces of rice candy, 60 jin each of rice crackers and peanuts, 30 jin of dried sweet potatoes, 15 jin of hawthorn slices, and 60 jin of the four flavors of pancakes.

These, plus the vegetable pancakes and flower buns, had a profit margin of around four and a half taels, and they could be sold out every day.

Qiao Yuan decided to maintain this number for the time being, and after finishing the birthday banquet for the old lady of the Lu family, he will make adjustments when he would introduce new products.

When the shop opened for business, and four servants from the Lu family took away the snacks that the steward had ordered yesterday. This brought in nearly two taels of silver. After deducting the cost, there was still a profit of one tael and three qian.

Qiao Yuan handed over the silver he had just received to Ming Xu, “This afternoon, go buy cotton clothes with Ming Chen. The weather has turned cold all of a sudden.”

Ming Xu nodded, now daring to chat casually with Qiao Yuan too. “I’m in the shop all day, and it’s warm by the stove. I don’t feel it.”

Qiao Yuan laughed and told him about his misery in the morning. “The wind is like a knife, cutting your face until it hurts.” He thought for a moment and said, “It’s cold, use as much hot water as you want. The shop doesn’t lack that bit of firewood money.”

Ming Xu pursed his lips in a faint smile, his eyes turning moist.

Over the past few days, they had gradually purchased about six hundred jin of hawthorn. He had bought them a bit late, so these were varieties that ripened later. If he had started earlier, they could probably have gotten two thousand jin in a season.

Qiao Yuan planned to deal with these hawthorns today, making most of them into hawthorn slices, and leaving the rest to make candied hawthorn rolls1https://baike.google.com/item/%E6%9E%9C%E4%B8%B9%E7%9A%AE/2403537 and balls2https://baijiahao.google.com/s?id=1668039726032312067&wfr=spider&for=pc – I was torn whether I should translate these as sherry balls (as per Google), snow balls (as per Bing), or hawthorn balls (as per Baidu), so I just translated it as balls. to eat at home.

Yu Shanwu was so tired of removing the hawthorn seeds that he was almost debating his life choices3快怀疑人生了 (kuài huái yí rén shēng le) is an expression that means to almost question the meaning of life. . “I feel like I’m going blind.”

The shop was short of staff, and he had been working these two child workers hard all day. Qiao Yuan felt very sorry. “I’ll give you some pocket money later, and you can go out and have fun.”

The two brothers immediately perked up, and their speed increased noticeably.

After working all morning, Yu Dameng came to the shop to find Qiao Yuan to go to the livestock market to buy cattle, and Yu Shanwen and Yu Shanwu also followed to join in the fun.

The livestock market was very noisy, with various animal sounds mixed together, and the smell was also very pungent. There were mostly chickens, ducks, geese and rabbits for sale.

Qiao Yuan saw a crowd surrounding and watching a horse auction, so he went over to take a look too. That horse had a sturdy build, shiny coat and looked to be a fine horse, yet its bidding price was already two hundred taels!

And that was just the starting bid price for the auction!

Even the skinny and unreliable-looking ones next to it were going for seventy taels.

Qiao Yuan decisively went to buy an ox instead, abandoning the idea of buying a “BMW4宝马 (bǎo mǎ) – literal translation is “treasure/precious horse”, but as a proper noun, it refers to the brand BMW.“. Donkeys and mules were not even under consideration.

Yu Dameng had previously reclaimed wasteland on the border, so he knew how to judge the quality of cattle. After comparing three places, he picked a young and sturdy yellow ox. It had good strength for plowing and ate quickly.

He bargained with the seller for a while, and the final price was fifteen taels of silver. The ox could also plow the land during the busy farming season, and the more Qiao Yuan thought about it, the more he felt it was a good deal.

Next to the livestock market, there was a place that sold canopies. Qiao Yuan spent another three taels of silver to buy a canopy. If he loaded goods, he could remove the canopy and leave only the cart, which was very convenient.

The young ox was docile, and it didn’t take much effort to put the canopy on. Yu Dameng test drove it and the ox was very obedient and well-behaved.

Qiao Yuan took the two brothers who were already impatient to try it out, and commented, “We’ll have to ask mother to make some cushions to put on top, it’s a bit uncomfortable to sit like this.”

Yu Shanwen and Yu Shanwu lost interest after a while and only felt dizzy from the jolting, which made Qiao Yuan laugh out loud.

Qiao Yuan asked Yu Dameng to drop them off at Yishi Fang. “We’ll order some dishes first, and you go and pick up father. We’ll have lunch here.”

Yu Dameng nodded and drove the ox cart back to the iron shop.

Old Man Yu was overjoyed to see the young ox, which was a big addition to the family. While Yu Dameng went to buy the ox, he had already cleaned up the shed, and made it into a cowshed.

Yu Dameng drove the ox to the cowshed. When he was taking Old Man Yu to Yishi Fang for lunch, he was still worried about how the ox would eat. He had to hurry and buy some hay and store it in the shop.

When the two of them arrived at Yishi Fang, the dishes had just been served.

Qiao Yuan ordered some simple home-cooked dishes. The portions were large, but the taste was very ordinary.

Even Yu Shanwu, who was not picky, complained, “This is much worse than Brother Yuan’s cooking.”

Qiao Yuan smiled and said, “After we finish the business with the Lu family, I’ll take you to Laike House to eat. The food there must be delicious!”

It was said that they had restaurants in the capital, but he didn’t know why they also opened one in this inconspicuous little place.

After having their fill of food and drink, Qiao Yuan hummed a tune and returned to Yu Qiao Ji. The Meng couple also came back from their stall, but their faces didn’t look too good, filled with bitterness and resentment.

“What’s wrong?” Qiao Yuan asked.

Li Xiumei sighed, “Today there was also someone at the dock selling vegetable pancakes just like ours!”

Meng Bei said, “I asked around, and it was the Ma family’s iron shop. The price was the same as ours, but they didn’t have to queue up, and it was new, so many people went there today.”

The pancake batter could be figured out by someone with a mind after a long time, but there were only a few blacksmiths in the city, and it was not easy to find the Yu family to make the griddle. Before anyone else could figure it out and order a griddle from the Ma family, the Ma family actually started selling pancakes themselves. However, Qiao Yuan didn’t think it was a big deal, it was just normal business competition, and it was inevitable.

Qiao Yuan said, “It’s fine, anyway he can’t sell it cheaper than us. I’ve already lowered the price to the minimum. Now it just depends on whose tastes better.”

Li Xiumei cheered up at this. “Then their food definitely can’t compare to ours, you can smell the difference! It’s just annoying that they’re copying us!”

Qiao Yuan nodded. “Let’s wait and see first.”

He thought that the Ma family wouldn’t be able to sell for long. First, he had been selling for a long time, and the people in the county town knew him, and his pancakes taste better, and he had more varieties. Second, if he didn’t control the ratio of coarse and fine flour well, he probably wouldn’t make much money at the price he sold them for. The griddle was made of a lot of iron, and it was very expensive to make, and not many people would be willing to risk spending that money to order a griddle from him to sell pancakes.

Even if there were, he had ways to deal with them.

Meng Bei continued, “And there’s also the matter of your uncle, I also asked about it. He probably became a small manager because he didn’t pursue the responsibility of the dock for your father’s death and didn’t ask for compensation. He’s also good at calculating, and people say he’s smart.”

Qiao Yuan was even more angry inside. Qiao Guangzhi had taken advantage of the original owner’s father’s death but did not treat the original owner well. After getting through this busy period and earning money, he would definitely teach Qiao Guangzhi a lesson!

In the afternoon, they entered another busy round, and Meng Bei and Li Xiumei stayed to help with the hawthorn. Both of them were skilled workers, and they helped a lot. Qiao Yuan paid them a hundred wen each for the day’s work.

They drove home with the ox cart today, and it was much faster. As soon as they entered the village, a group of children followed behind.

Yu Shanwen and Yu Shanwu are both childish in nature, sitting in the car with a proud look. Qiao Yuan found it amusing and told them to get off the cart, “Call mother and Liu Ge’er to come and let them try sitting in the cart too.”

To avoid being watched again at the old house, Yu Dameng drove the cart directly to their place. When Lin Cuifen and Liu Ge’er came back, he took them for a ride.

Lin Cuifen got off the ox cart and laughed, “The canopy is great. We’ll get sheltered from the sun and we also won’t get wet when it rains. ”

Liu Ge’er also giggled happily.

Seeing there was still some time before nightfall, Old Man Yu said, “Dameng and I will go up the mountain to chop some trees to build a shed for the ox first. You guys ask around the village to collect some hay.”

Qiao Yuan only knew that cattle ate grass, but he didn’t know what kind of grass. But Lin Cuifen knew more, and she took care of everything. “I’ll go around and ask who has some. Let’s stock up more, so the ox will have something to eat in winter.”

Yu Shanwen and Yu Shanwu had run off somewhere again. For a while, it was just Qiao Yuan and Liu Ge’er left at home.

He gave Liu Ge’er two pieces of the candied hawthorn rolls he made today. “Just eat these, don’t eat too much or your teeth will rot! Sit here and be good, brother will go cook.”

Liu Ge’er nodded, sucking on the sweet and sour candy, swinging his legs happily, looking extremely content.

Qiao Yuan was washing the ribs and preparing to stew the soup first when Xu Xiuhua came.

She was not as fierce as before, but she seemed to have formed a habit in front of Qiao Yuan, always unintentionally showing some contempt, which made him very uncomfortable. “Yuan Ge’er, I heard that you handed over your pancake stall business to your sister-in-law’s family?”

Qiao Yuan sneered, thinking who else could you have heard from. “Yes, what’s wrong?”

“You child!” Xu Xiuhua became anxious and remembered Qiao Guangzhi’s warning, so she quickly smiled and tried to please, “Why don’t you think about your maternal family when something good happens?”

Qiao Yuan was utterly disgusted, too lazy to beat around the bush with her. He casually poured the washed pork ribs into another basin and said bluntly, “If you have something to say, say it directly.”

Xu Xiuhua smiled this time. “You still need a shopkeeper in your shop, right? It’s difficult for a ger like you to handle everything alone while running a shop. Let your cousin go and help you, you don’t have to pay him much, three taels of silver a month will do!”

“As you know, your cousin is good at studying and mature. If he goes to your shop…”

Xu Xiuhua was still chattering non-stop, with a smile on her face like a flower.

Qiao Yuan sneered and took two steps back, picked up the water that had just washed the pork ribs and splashed it directly on Xu Xiuhua’s face.

“Ah!” Xu Xiuhua screamed like crazy, wiping her face and jumping up. Her face was sticky and greasy, covered in a layer of oil. She was so angry that she trembled, pointing at Qiao Yuan in disbelief, “You…you…”

“What do you mean ‘you'”! Qiao Yuan fiercely slapped her hand down. “You think I’m easy to bully? Coming here to cause trouble again and again? With everything your family did to me in the past, let me tell you, don’t dream of getting any benefits from me in this lifetime! You better stay away from me and stop disgusting me!”

“You cheap slut!” Xu Xiuhua was enraged by the humiliation and charged angrily at Qiao Yuan.

Qiao Yuan dodged slightly and saw Liu Ge’er stumbling towards him. He quickly picked up a broom and chased Xu Xiuhua out.

The author has something to say:

In ancient times, the calendar was based on the lunar calendar. Its 10th month corresponds to November in the solar calendar. The northern regions in November are really cold~~~

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.