Chapter 148

Chapter 148

Zhang Xiaojiu felt somewhat relieved seeing Ma Shi working here. He turned to her and said, "Just stay here and work hard. Don't stir up any trouble."

After a moment's thought, he repeated what he had told Mrs. Zhang, "Don't ask for pay. I'll leave you some money when I leave."

Ma Shi was displeased. Though she was eager for the job, she didn't want to work for free.

Lin Chunyan gave Zhang Xiaojiu a helpless look. Sometimes, it was no wonder Ma Shi got angry with him. Words like that were hard to take happily.

After seeing off Zhang Xiaojiu and his group, Lin Chunyan asked Lan Jier and Hui Jier for their opinions.

The two sisters shared a room with Ma Shi, and things had been peaceful so far. Lan Jier remained silent, lips pursed, but Hui Jier said a few kind words for Ma Shi.

With that, Lin Chunyan decided to keep Ma Shi on and assigned her to help with the roast duck preparation.

Ma Shi was very excited and promised to do a good job and not hold anyone back.

Ma Shi had nimble hands. When she had woven mats for Lin Chunyan before, hers were fine and smooth, with no barbs at all.

After a few lessons from Lin Chunyan, Ma Shi mastered the roast duck cooking technique and the sauce. She even learned to slice the roast duck very thinly.

Lin Chunyan then went to see Ye Xianhan and asked him about their village's duck farming situation.

Ye Xianhan understood immediately and cheerfully shared the information with her.

Lin Chunyan planned to acquire more ducks and make the most of the current customer surge to earn extra money.

In just a few days, when Lin Chunyan did the accounting, she found that the revenue was significantly higher than usual. They had collected so many coins that they had to exchange some for silver pieces.

Seeing the silver, Mrs. Zhang and the others were delighted and enthusiastically called out to passersby about their roast duck.

A boatman overheard and asked Mrs. Zhang to give him a few coins a day. He would help promote their roast duck while recruiting passengers in other towns.

"I guarantee to bring more customers for you."

Mrs. Zhang was reluctant to part with the coins, but Lin Chunyan was willing to invest. She actually started discussing the matter with the boatman.

The boatman had just tossed out the idea, not expecting Lin Chunyan to take him up on it. He didn't ask for much, "Just give me two or three coins a day, and I'll shout out for you to anyone who takes my boat."

Tutor Duan came over with tea, "How would we know if you’re actually shouting for us or not?"

The boatman was unhappy and felt insulted, "You might not trust others, but are you doubting me too?"

Tutor Duan quickly said, "I didn’t mean anything by it. We’ll definitely pay you; I was just checking."

Lin Chunyan took out two coins and handed them to him, "I remember you used to take food containers to other towns from here. How about we sell you the roast duck at cost price? Whatever you sell beyond that is your profit."

Hearing this, the boatman no longer wanted the two coins and only asked if it was true.

After all, sometimes he could sell more than a dozen items in a day. If he bought them at cost, wouldn't he make a lot more than just a couple of coins?

Seeing Lin Chunyan nod, the boatman immediately bought two more food containers and packed all the roast duck items inside, already planning which town's dock to head to first.

After returning, Ye Xianhan told the villagers about the ducks being purchased at Lin's establishment. The Village Headman was so happy that it took him a long time to react, "Are you sure about what you're saying?"

No matter how many times he asked, Ye Xianhan patiently answered. He fully understood the Village Headman's feelings.

Back when he was working as a laborer at the dock, his family had no other way to make money. They would only take duck and goose eggs to the town for sale when they had accumulated enough.

Selling sporadically took a long time and didn’t bring in much money, but it was one of the few sources of income the villagers could find.

But things were different when Lin Chunyan started buying their ducks. The villagers no longer had to put in so much effort, knowing someone would buy their ducks.

The Village Headman didn’t wait for the evening; he went door-to-door right away to spread the news. Soon, all the duck breeders in the village were excited.

Some calculated how much they could earn, while others regretted not having more ducks. There were also concerns about whose ducks would be bought first, fearing that if it was too late, Lin Chunyan’s establishment might not want so many ducks.

The villagers chattered and argued until very late, and it was only then that the Village Headman managed to calm everyone down.

However, early the next morning, many people came to ask the Village Headman and Ye Xianhan about the situation. With many duck breeders in the village, they needed to come up with a plan.

"I also heard that the neighboring village is raising a lot of ducks, and once those ducks grow up, we might not have a chance anymore."

Some hadn’t thought of this before, but after hearing others talk about it, they began to worry too.

The Village Headman lost his initial excitement and, after discussing it with Ye Xianhan, decided that each household should contribute two ducks.

"This way, even though we’ll earn less, every household will still make some money."

Lin Chunyan had no idea about all the commotion her duck acquisition had caused. She was cleaning the duck down she had collected from making roast duck, laying it out in the sun to dry.

She had never made down jackets before and was feeling her way through. After washing the duck down several times, she laid it out in the yard to dry.

At first, with every gust of wind, the duck down would blow everywhere. And without disinfectant, the smell of the duck down was still strong.

Mrs. Zhang knew Lin Chunyan was afraid of the cold and that she was going through all this trouble to make winter more bearable. Seeing Lin Chunyan busy in the west room, Mrs. Zhang offered to help gather the duck down from the yard.

When Liu Niangzi came over and saw Mrs. Zhang covered in duck down, she clucked in surprise, thinking Mrs. Zhang had been messing with the animals again.

"Why do you always pick on those feathered animals?"

Mrs. Zhang didn’t know how to explain to Liu Niangzi, so she simply carried all the duck down into the house and shooed Xue Tuan out to prevent him from making a mess.

"Did your daughter-in-law let you out to chat?"

After tidying up, Mrs. Zhang sat in the yard with freshly roasted sunflower seeds and casually handed a handful to Liu Niangzi.

Liu Niangzi munched happily, "Sis Rou is busy up the mountain, so I thought I’d come over for a chat while making a meal."

At this point, Liu Niangzi sighed, "Life has been so dull lately. I haven’t had time to gossip for ages, always running up the mountain."

"Look at you, acting all wronged. Why don’t you go back and tell Sis Rou you’re quitting? Go back to your old life."

Liu Niangzi pouted, "The old life wasn’t great. Now, even though I’m busier, I eat better and dress better."

Liu Niangzi glanced around their yard and, seeing that Lin Chunyan and the others had come out of the west room with strings of sun-dried grapes, immediately got up and joined them.

"Are these the grapes you’ve been drying?"

Seeing that all the duck down had been cleaned up, Lin Chunyan felt happy and nodded in response to Liu Niangzi. "They’ve been drying for a long time, and it’s finally done. Take some when Mrs. Zhang goes back later."

They had dried a lot of grapes this year, and Lin Chunyan was generous. She even asked Lin Taohong to get a small basket for Liu Niangzi.

Liu Niangzi didn’t hold back, "I’ll take these back and eat them. Next time, I’ll bring some tofu pudding from the tofu workshop on the mountain to add to our meal."

The leek flower sauce had fermented for a week and was now ready to eat. That evening, Lin Chunyan went to Old Zhou’s house to get a piece of lamb.

Since Old Uncle Zhang and the others had been helping for a while, Mrs. Zhang didn’t keep them any longer. Every household had plenty of chores, and she urged them to head home.

Of course, they couldn’t let them work for free for so long. Although Old Uncle Zhang insisted they didn’t need anything, Lin Chunyan still prepared plenty of ham, salted eggs, and salted duck eggs for them to take back.

This meal was meant as a thank you to them.

Lin Taohong had already quickly gone to invite Uncle Lin and Third Uncle Lin over. A large pot had been set up in the yard, and the chopped lamb was already in the pot, bubbling away in no time.

"Did you cook lamb just to eat fresh leek flowers?" Old Uncle Zhang muttered, thinking it was too luxurious to eat lamb. He felt that just making some noodles would have been enough.

But Mrs. Zhang encouraged them to dig in, saying, "We work hard to enjoy life. A little lamb won’t break us."

To those unfamiliar with her, it might seem like Mrs. Zhang was being very generous.

The fresh leek flowers were indeed delicious. When paired with fermented tofu and sesame paste, the combination with lamb was irreplaceable.

"This is delicious. When I leave, get me a small jar, will you?"

"We want some too. After we finish these busy days, we’ll go to the wild slope to pick more."

"We should pick more. Wild leek flowers taste better than the ones at home."

Mrs. Zhang mentioned that their leek flower sauce was made with the leek flowers grown at home. "But we won’t plant so many leek flowers next year. We’ll only use them to make dumplings in the spring. There’s no time to eat them the rest of the year."

Lamb can be warming, and whenever Lin Chunyan had invited everyone over for lamb hotpot before, she would prepare various drinks to go with it. This time was no exception. Today, she had prepared sour jujube juice for everyone.

The sour jujubes were from the few trees they had seen next to the walnut trees on West Mountain. Except for one tree that had gone wild and bore no fruit, the others had plenty of sour jujubes.

However, the villagers said that if they didn’t cut down the wild tree, it would infect the others, and then there would be no wild sour jujubes to eat.

Ding Hui Niang often went up the mountain. She was an efficient person, and before anyone else could act, she had already chopped down half of the wild tree.

Lin Chunyan didn’t take too many sour jujubes, leaving some for the other children in the village.

Besides, hawthorn and crab apples were also ripe for eating. Last year, Dog Dan’s Father had gone to various places to collect them, but this year, he didn’t need to go. His father-in-law’s villagers had already picked and sent the best ones over.

Dog Dan’s Father hadn’t hidden the incident where the mountain folks had passed off sour grapes as good ones. He had told many people, and the news had spread far and wide.

They also grew hawthorns on their mountain. After the shopkeeper Cao’s staff went to check them out, they found that the hawthorns weren’t as good as the ones from Dog Dan’s Father, so they came directly to him to buy.

The once smug mountain people were now stunned. No one wanted their hawthorns before, and most of them would just rot on the ground, returning to nature.

But now that someone was buying them, they could earn much more. After tasting such sweet profits, why would they willingly give up that income?

They approached Dog Dan’s Father again, humbly begging and apologizing, hoping he would buy the hawthorns.

Dog Dan’s Father remembered the last incident where he almost couldn’t leave the mountains, and with Lin Chunyan’s words, their business had grown larger. They needed to make sure people knew they weren’t to be trifled with.

Dog Dan’s Father firmly turned them away.

After finishing the lamb, everyone—adults and children alike—gulped down the sour jujube juice, which helped quench the thirst brought on by the sauce.

Old Uncle Zhang and his group were sent back home, carrying big bags and small bags. Yet no one complained about the effort; their steps were lighter than ever.

No matter how well they ate here, nothing compared to the comfort and peace of their own home.

To Lan Jier and Hui Jier, Old Uncle Zhang and Zhang Manliang were different. They had known them for many years, being relatives in the same village. With their departure, the two girls felt a pang of sadness.

However, the two of them soon became busy again. Before the scholars returning from the township exam had a chance to come back, Lin Chunyan worked with them to make the pastries for those who had passed the exam.

This time, the pastries would not only be sold at their establishment but also supplied to Clear Breeze Building in large quantities.

Compared to their establishment, Clear Breeze Building’s pastries naturally sold better.

Lady Zhu had spent nearly a month learning accounting and finally managed to handle the books on her own. She no longer needed to rely on the Bookkeeper, who had been deceiving her without her realizing it.

When she first took over Clear Breeze Building, it was the Bookkeeper who was the most resentful. If not for Lady Zhu, he would have been the top choice for the manager position.

Having it taken away like that, how could the Bookkeeper be willing? With just a little tampering, even without major errors, he could make things difficult for Lady Zhu.

This was precisely why Lady Zhu was determined to learn accounting.

The accounting method she learned was naturally different from the Bookkeeper’s. Lady Zhu didn’t follow his method, and after figuring it out herself, she slammed the account book onto the Bookkeeper’s face.

Slapping someone in the face is a huge insult, and the Bookkeeper, being a semi-literati, couldn’t swallow the humiliation. In a fit of anger, he decided to resign.

He believed that even if Lady Zhu learned accounting, she wouldn’t bother with the accounts and would still need to hire another Bookkeeper.

They were simply testing each other’s limits, like a game of tug-of-war.

Besides, Lady Zhu’s temperament had always been like this. Back when she was a tea lady, she used to cause a lot of trouble that Bookkeeper Huang had to clean up.

But to everyone’s surprise, as soon as he left, Lady Zhu had already found a new Bookkeeper.

This new Bookkeeper was someone who had learned skills alongside Lady Zhu under Lady Huang. The young lady was very intelligent and clever, and what surprised Lin Chunyan the most was that this young lady bore a resemblance of five or six parts to Qiwen Jie.

“She has several brothers at home. When I first saw her, I was also shocked,” Xiao Zhu whispered to Lin Chunyan. “Later, I found out that she is actually a distant cousin within the extended family of Qiwen Jie.”

Lady Zhu had this young lady come over to help with the accounts, and she also spent half a day in the mornings continuing to learn from Lady Huang.

When Lin Chunyan visited, the young lady was doing calculations. Lin Chunyan watched for a while and saw that she worked quickly and accurately, and she was very calm.

“You really did, didn’t you? Did you deliberately pick this young lady?”

Lady Zhu grinned, “Of course, it was on purpose. Lady Huang indeed has quite a few good accountants. I only picked this one, and I’ve saved her for you. You should go take a look when you have time.”

“I’ve been busy with something or other lately. Now that you mention it, I really should go take a look. We can’t run the place without an accountant.”

Especially at the tofu workshop, where daily deliveries of tofu, tofu skin, and fermented tofu required an accountant.

After helping deliver the pastries to the kitchen, Xiao Zhu went back to learning the tea ceremony with Lady Qin. Although Lady Zhu had promised to teach her, Lady Qin did most of the teaching due to her busy schedule.

Lady Qin thought very highly of Xiao Zhu. Even though Qiwen Jie could no longer protect her, Xiao Zhu would often sneak off to visit Qiwen Jie, bringing something with her each time.

Lady Zhu was aware of this; otherwise, Qiwen Jie might have starved to death in that house.

After delivering the pastries, Lin Chunyan went to visit Lady Huang. Before she even entered, she could hear the sound of recitations coming from the room.

Lin Taohong, who had come along, refused to go any further, afraid that Lin Chunyan would make her study. She found a large stone near the entrance and sat down, watching the clouds drift by.

Lin Chunyan chuckled, “Fine, stay here. Just don’t wander off, or I’ll lose you.”

Autumn was different from other seasons. The sky seemed higher, and the clouds drifted lazily, thin and serene.

Lady Huang was pleasantly surprised to see Lin Chunyan and quickly ushered her into the room.

The young ladies and young masters were all studying in the courtyard. Although Huang's home wasn't that big, it wasn't too cold yet, so it was manageable for now.

"Once winter hits, it’s going to be tough," she said. "Fortunately, we've earned quite a bit of money, and in a few days, we plan to build a new room on the north side so that they won't freeze."

Lin Chunyan had heard Tutor Duan mention this before. The couple, while fond of making money, weren't so money-hungry that they wouldn't invest a little.

Inside the room, Sister Huang was speaking, and outside, her daughter was helping her teach. When Sister Huang noticed Lin Chunyan looking over, she said with some pride, "My daughter takes after me and is very smart, which really lightens my burden."

Lin Chunyan observed the young lady and indeed saw her excellence. She thought that in another time, this young lady could have gone far.

"I just stopped by to check things out," Lin Chunyan said. "I wanted to see if there are any good prospects."

Sister Huang, having guessed Lin Chunyan's intention, pointed to a few young ladies nearby. "Those girls are solid students and very reliable," she said.

Lin Chunyan followed her gaze and noticed that when the young ladies realized they were being watched, they became quite tense, their bodies stiffening.

"And then there’s Cui Liu—don’t let her energetic nature fool you; she picks things up fast," Sister Huang added.

Lin Chunyan hadn't known this before and thought that if Cui Liu was suitable, she could oversee the wool accounts at Li Shi’s shop.

Lin Chunyan chose a young lady who caught her eye and waited until their break to call her over and ask a few questions.

The other girls watched, a mix of envy and anxiety in their eyes. The girl was so nervous, she started stammering.

The more anxious she got, the harder it was for her to form sentences, and tears welled up in her eyes.

"Just think of it as a friendly chat," Lin Chunyan said reassuringly.

Lin Chunyan's words had some effect; seeing her young age and amiable nature, those who were bolder dared to speak with her.

The young lady who was first questioned, however, felt quite uneasy about it and went back to tell her mother.

Her mother was none other than the daughter of the pancake lady. Upon hearing this, she looked worried and said with a tinge of disappointment, "Why did you stutter? I remember your grandmother mentioning that Lin Xiaoniang used to be very selective. If you could work for them, you wouldn't have to worry about your future."

She had learned to make various types of pancakes from her mother. Although her sister-in-law never said anything, her sister-in-law's family always thought she was taking advantage of the situation.

She had originally thought so too. Even though the pancake lady was her own mother, she lived in constant fear.

The mother and daughter lamented for half a day, but there was no way to change the situation. Even if they knew Lin Chunyan and Lady Song, they didn't think of seeking their help.

"Let's just focus on learning for a while longer. Maybe next time Lin Xiaoniang will need an accountant."

For now, this was the only way to comfort themselves.

Who would have thought that a few days later, Lin Chunyan really sent Lady Huang to ask this young lady if she was willing to help on the mountain.

After a moment of excitement, the young lady didn't know how she had been chosen. She went home and told her mother first. The mother and daughter then hurriedly informed the pancake lady about it and offered incense to their ancestors, thanking them for their protection.

Lin Chunyan had also discussed with Cui Liu, asking her to help manage the accounts for Li Shi. This way, whether it was handing over to the embroidery house or to Xiao Jiu Zhang, everything would match up.

Li Shi was very happy to have someone help her with the accounts. She was skilled at weaving wool or dyeing, but she couldn't handle the accounting.

None of the others in the family were good at it either, so Li Shi's gaze inevitably fell on Wu Lang.

With the family's life improving day by day, she had the idea of sending Wu Lang to study.

However, Uncle Lin did not agree with this plan.