Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Mi Fengniang was about to laugh out loud at her son's antics but forced herself to hold it in. "Given how freely you spend money on those hangers-on outside, I doubt it'll be easy."

"Mom, I won't be home tonight."

Seeing his mom was about to bring up old grudges again, Jin Ge'er bolted.

Mi Fengniang reacted swiftly and grabbed her son, shaking her head. "Of all my kids, you're the one who cares most about your appearance and hangs out with those slackers. I'm worried about you..."

"Eldest Brother likes fancy clothes, Jade Sister enjoys good food, and the youngest is always studying," Ye Dafu, who was busy kneading mud to repair the broken earth stove, hastened to comfort his wife. "Like they say, every generation has its own luck."

Mi Fengniang snorted and kept drinking without another word.

Having escaped unscathed, Jin Ge'er rubbed his nose and sat down, pretending to take a deep breath.

Ye Zhan was assisting nearby, handing her father a small iron shovel, and whispered, "I remember Wang Si..."

"Pah! What Wang Si? Call him Wang Four!" Mi Fengniang slammed her wine cup on the table.

"I remember Wang Si mentioning that our big brother used to be praised by the tutor when he studied at the private school..." Ye Zhan recalled how the Wang family mentioned her brother was once a child prodigy when they called off the engagement.

"Exactly. He was once famous in the four neighboring villages as a child prodigy, but because of the family's circumstances..." Mi Fengniang's heart ached at the thought. "If we hadn't fallen on hard times and couldn't afford to send your older brother to school, he might've become a scholar by now."

"It's all because of me..." Ye Zhan paused, her hands covered in mud. The family had spent everything searching for her, which indirectly led to her brother's misfortune.

"Don't think like that, sister," Jin Ge'er interjected. "Everyone in the family wanted to find you. Besides, the tutor's praise was just courtesy. If I had continued studying, I might have failed the exams repeatedly. It's better to live freely and without worries now."

"Don't talk nonsense," Mi Fengniang gave her son a mock-scolding and turned to comfort her daughter. "Zhan'er, don't blame yourself. It's a pity your brother didn't enter the academy, but it would be even more tragic if you were lost to another place." The thought of any of those possibilities made her shudder.

"Exactly," Jade Sister, chewing on the remaining fish fillet, chimed in. "Back then, everyone in the family was devastated. Yin Ge'er thought he shouldn't have had diarrhea, Jin Ge'er regretted being naughty, I hated arguing with Jin Ge'er, and Mother blamed herself for being distracted. Everyone thought it was their fault, so we were all willing to spend everything."

"In the end, those kidnappers are the real scum!" Ye Dafu slammed the mud onto the earth stove. "Last time, the officers said the eldest princess will be holding a religious ceremony at Da Xiangguo Temple. We should go and burn incense to thank the Bodhisattva."

Ye Zhan mumbled a vague "Mm," her voice a bit nasally. She then lowered her head and scraped the putty meticulously, not missing a single corner.

Once her business took off, she'd make sure to repay her family.

With the family's combined efforts, the chipped earth stove on the Taiping cart was quickly repaired.

The next step was to buy a wok. Ye Zhan planned to customize a large iron wok for stir-frying noodles and purchase a small sand pot for simmering soup.

When Ye Zhan asked around at Ironworker Mi's shop, she realized just how pricey iron pots were in this day and age!

Even the most ordinary iron pot cost 300 wen, let alone a customized one.

But it made sense when you thought about it. With limited mining and smelting technology, metal was naturally scarce.

Items like bowls and cups, which contained metal, were considered precious belongings for ordinary people.

"Master Mi, we're neighbors. Give us a fair price," Ye Dafu boldly bargained on his daughter's behalf.

"Brother Ye, just the raw iron costs 40 wen per jin," Ironworker Mi lamented. "Besides, a batch of traders just came and cleared out my stock. I heard if these iron pots are transported to the grasslands, they're worth 100 taels of silver! I'm losing money giving you this pot, you know!"

After some fierce bargaining by Ye Dafu, it was settled that a custom iron wok would cost 300 wen.

The sand pot was cheaper, available for just 40 wen.

After buying the pots, it was time to set up the food stall. In Bianjing, more sophisticated vendors used blue cloth umbrellas to shield from the sun and rain, with bed stools stacked nearby.

Ye Zhan temporarily couldn't afford a blue cloth umbrella and only planned to buy some long tables and benches for customers to eat at.

But Mother Mi stopped her, saying, "We have ready-made tables and benches at home. Just take those."

Ye Dafu quickly nodded, "Your mother is right. I'll just squat while eating. It tastes even better when you squat!"

The rest consisted of pots, pans, bowls, and chopsticks.

A large wooden barrel was used to hold the cooked noodles, and three large pottery basins were for the stir-fried toppings.

Then there were rough pottery bowls and chopsticks.

These were simple to acquire. Yin Ge'er found a pottery workshop and bought fifty flawed, damaged bowls at a low price, which he carried home, bundled with straw.

Once the cooking tools were prepared, Mother Mi specially washed a flour sack and said, "Zhan'er, a shop can't open without a signboard."

The signboard was essentially a sign.

After arriving in the Song Dynasty, Ye Zhan discovered that the streets weren't filled with plain, uniform signboards.

Each shop tried to outdo the other with creative ways to attract customers:

In front of a mirror shop, small mirrors were strung together to create a pagoda-shaped wind chime. When the sun shone, the mirrors reflected sparkling light;

In front of a scissors shop, a one-meter-tall cloth scissors model was hung. The large black scissors looked so lifelike that you could spot them from a great distance;

The entrance of a large restaurant was adorned with colorful paper flowers and leaves. The more upscale ones used silk peonies that were impossible to ignore;

At a shoe store, "All kinds of shoes" was depicted beneath a large boot;

At the butcher's, pig bladders floated like transparent balloons, filling half the sky. When the wind blew, they drifted with it.

Ye Zhan's small stand also needed some marketing.

Her older brother helped write on the signboard: "Second Sister Ye's Stir-Fried Noodles."

Ye Li was then asked to draw a large picture of three bowls of noodles,

Each bowl featuring minced meat, braised pork, and fish fillets,

With vibrant and eye-catching colors to attract attention.

Mother Mi specially treated the sign with alum to prevent it from fading.

Ye Li had learned to draw talismans from a shaman, and the sign turned out so lifelike that it made people's mouths water.

Even with her family's help in saving money, the total cost of setting up the stand still came to 500 wen.

Fortunately, her mother had left her a string of private savings; otherwise, Ye Zhan really couldn't have afforded it.

Ye Dafu wanted to use the family's money for his daughter, but Mother Mi stopped him, saying, "With several children, we can't favor anyone."

Ye Zhan thought her mother's approach was fair. After all, with the little money they had, who should it go to?

In fact, Ye Li and Yu Jier found their private savings to give to Ye Zhan, saying, "You need money for everything. Take this and use it first."

Yin Ge'er rummaged through his sleeves, a little embarrassed, and licked his lips. Every penny he earned went to the household.

Jin Ge'er took out his fan, "I don't have money, but this fan could be worth quite a bit."

Ye Zhan stopped them: "I now have my own money, and if it's not enough, I'll ask my brothers and sisters for help."

It didn’t cost much to purchase ingredients; Ye Zhan bought many things, and even with meat and fish, it came to just over a hundred wen.

"Why did you buy so many?" Mi Fengniang looked at the prepared vegetables and marveled.

In addition to the green onions and ginger used for cooking, she also bought mint leaves, jingjie, cilantro, scallions, purple perilla, euodia, Sichuan pepper, and yellow ginger for various dipping sauces.

Ye Zhan bought these strong-flavored seasonings to meet the needs of different customers.

Ye Dafu winced in pain: "This is too expensive! There's even pepper? Do you know how expensive a fingernail-sized amount of pepper is?"

"In the capital, different foods have their own tricks; some are served in silverware, some have soup made with sheep bones, and others use fermented crab as a topping," Ye Zhan explained to her parents. "To stand out, I need to have my own creativity."

Although the Ye family parents were frugal, they understood that skimping on ingredients wouldn’t make food taste good, so they reluctantly stopped opposing.

After preparing the dishes, it was time to set prices for the various menu items.

Ye Zhan decided on eight wen for noodles with a topping of minced meat, seven wen for topping with braised pork, and five wen for vegetarian noodles.

City dwellers typically earn between one hundred to three hundred wen daily, and while some earn much more, the area where Ye Zhan lived was a commoner district with generally lower daily expenses, so she set her prices to be budget-friendly.

After setting the prices, she asked her elder brother to help mark the prices below the paintings on the signboard.

Once everything was set up, Ye Li checked the almanac and chose an auspicious time for the opening tomorrow, waiting for the launch.

Yu Jier sighed: "I've heard storytellers talk about opening a shop in a casual manner, but even setting up a small stall took two whole days. Clearly, you can't always trust what books say."

The next day, they opened the stall.

The Ye family woke up early; her brothers helped Ye Zhan push the cart over, the sisters went out of their way to accompany her, and her parents helped carry various pots and jars.

This wasn’t because they favored Ye Zhan; every Ye child received this treatment on their first day of work. It was said that when Second Brother started working at the military patrol office, the family blocked the way so thoroughly that his supervisor advised them to go back.

After setting everything up, the parents even suggested staying by their daughter's side and not doing anything else that day, but Ye Zhan sent them away before they could.

However, having the family come over was beneficial. Ye Zhan noticed out of the corner of her eye that there was another noodle stall across the way, and the owner gave her several dirty looks but didn’t dare to cause trouble when he saw how many family members were with her.

The stall she set up was outside the Zhuque Gate at the Longjin Bridge. This area became the famous Zhouqiao Night Market in Bianjing at night, but during the day, there was also a lot of foot traffic, with countless small vendors.

After her family left, Ye Zhan started the fire and cooked the noodles, placing them into a large wooden barrel filled with cold water.

Then she washed a large iron wok and began stir-frying the toppings, hoping the aroma would attract passersby.

The fish soup simmering in the small casserole pot bubbled away, gradually turning milky white.

The fragrance of the minced meat mixed with various spices in the iron wok spread with the east wind, catching the attention of people on the street.

Sure enough, someone stopped and asked Ye Zhan: "What's this fried noodle about? Is it adding flour to the toppings?"

"No," Ye Zhan quickly pointed to the paintings on the signboard to explain, "Fried noodles are made by cooking soba noodles and then stir-frying them; they don't have any broth, making them more straightforward."

"Interesting," the person said, looking at the cloth paintings, "Then give me a bowl of noodles with fish topping."