Chapter 203 Want some fried chicken?

The two successfully escaped from the Cao residence.

Cao Yingying found a quiet place to start writing a letter. She was careful not to send the original letter found in Madam Cao's room, but instead copied it and put it in the letter before sending it.

"I never expected your handwriting to be so beautiful," Zhao Ergou exclaimed in surprise. "Did you start reading and writing from a young age?"

"This is a small regular script calligraphy, practiced by following the model my mother left behind." Cao Yingying sealed the letter, her voice low. "Zhao Ergou, I really envy you four brothers, having such a good and gentle mother..."

Zhao Ergou didn't know how to comfort her, so he could only stay by her side in silence.

After writing the letter, you need to mail it.

When ordinary people wanted to send letters, they would usually ask acquaintances or traveling merchants to carry them, but this was too slow, and it was difficult to find a traveling merchant who happened to be going there in a short time. The best option was to use a post station.

On the surface, the post stations were dedicated to serving the imperial court, but in reality, the court didn't have much work to do, and the post station staff were idle most of the time, so they naturally developed the service of sending letters for the people.

However, the price is very high, and the letters are not sent immediately, but only after a sufficient number of letters have been received.

The price for sending a letter to Quanzhou is two taels of silver.

Although Zhao Ergou was quite surprised, he still readily paid up the money.

After leaving the inn, Cao Yingying sincerely thanked her, saying, "I can't even remember how many times you've helped me. Wait for me..."

“When you get back to the Cao family, you’ll repay me properly, right?” Zhao Ergou interrupted her. “My mother said she doesn’t need your repayment, she just wants you to come home happy. If you really want to repay me, come with me to Ping’an County to buy cloth. It’s getting late, we’ll go home after we buy it.”

Cao Yingying gave a soft "hmm".

The two returned to the city gate. Zhao Da lay on the oxcart, having just woken up from a nap. It was still early, just past Shen Shi (3-5 PM).

The three of them rode in an oxcart back to Ping'an County.

Last time, Zhao Ergou took out fifty or sixty taels of silver to buy cloth, and after reselling it, it became more than eighty taels, which he then spent all of.

Coarse cloth, linen, and fine linen—all the money was invested in purchasing these three items, because the villagers couldn't afford other materials.

But when they arrived at the third cloth shop, the shopkeeper said apologetically, "A man came this morning and bought all the hundreds of bolts of coarse linen and hemp cloth in my warehouse. The next batch of goods won't arrive for another half month."

Zhao Ergou had a bad feeling.

He pressed further, "What did that man need hundreds of bolts of coarse cloth for?"

He would buy a dozen or so horses at a time, accumulating them little by little, for fear that if he bought too many, others would be eyeing him and imitating him.

The shopkeeper explained, "He claimed to be the purchasing manager for Master Wang's household, and it seems he wanted to make autumn and winter clothes for the servants..."

Zhao Ergou breathed a sigh of relief; at least they weren't here to steal his business.

He bought more than a dozen bolts of linen and fine linen at this shop, and then went to the next shop to continue his purchases.

Cao Yingying stopped him: "How much stock are you planning to buy this time?"

Zhao Ergou replied, "I'm going to invest all eighty-seven taels of silver I have."

“I don’t think it’s advisable,” Cao Yingying said. “No one did this business before because people didn’t know there were such big profits involved. You’ve done it twice in a row, so word should have spread by now. Some bold people might start trying to trade fabrics today, and the market in Baiyun Town might be affected.”

Zhao Ergou thought for a moment and said, "Baiyun Town has more than 30 villages. I bought more than 500 bolts of cloth in the last two trips, and sold them all after visiting only four villages. Today I have about 800 bolts, which should be enough for six villages. There is still a lot of room in the market, so it should be fine."

Cao Yingying didn't say anything more.

Although her family was in business and she owned shops and estates, she didn't manage them personally. Her understanding of business was limited to theoretical knowledge. Zhao Ergou, on the other hand, had personally researched the market and certainly knew more about it than she did, so she refrained from interrupting.

In less than half an hour, the eighty-odd taels of silver were all gone.

The oxcart was piled high with bolts of cloth, covered with a coarse cloth, and the people on the street had no idea what was on it.

The oxcart swayed and rattled back to Dahe Village.

The sun gradually began to set in the west.

Cheng Wanwan started preparing dinner.

Chunhua nimbly helped out from the side. She hadn't stopped since she arrived this morning, afraid that if she slacked off, her aunt would send her home.

Seeing the girl pick up an axe to chop firewood, Cheng Wanwan quickly said, "You can chop firewood when your brother Dashan comes back. Go to the backyard and feed the lambs and rabbits, otherwise the little ones will go hungry when Yingying comes back."

I wonder if Yingying will be able to find out any information when she goes to town today.

She suddenly regretted it; she shouldn't have given this bad idea to let the little girl fight back against her stepmother. If she didn't find any evidence and the stepmother caught her and forced her to marry again, then she would be doomed.

She was somewhat uneasy.

Chunhua's voice rang out from the backyard: "Auntie, something terrible has happened! One of the chicks has broken its leg!"

Cheng Wanwan quickly put down the kitchen knife and went to the backyard. In the corner, a chick was lying on the ground, barely alive. Its right leg was broken and it was bleeding a lot. It looked like it was about to die.

The chicks and ducklings at home are almost two months old. They'll be laying eggs in another month. If they die now, it would be a huge loss.

Cheng Wanwan sighed and picked up the chick.

"Mother, I'll go find Doctor Zheng to take a look." Zhao Sidan said with great heartache. He had raised these chicks and ducklings with great care, and seeing the chicks injured made him feel even worse than if he himself were injured.

Cheng Wanwan was speechless. Only this little idiot would come up with the idea of ​​treating a chick.

She asked, "Chunhua, do you know how to kill a chicken?"

Chunhua nodded: "I've seen my father kill people, so I know a little bit."

She tossed the chick into Chunhua's arms: "Hurry up and kill it, we're going to make fried chicken today."

"Mom, how could you... What, fried chicken?" Zhao Sidan swallowed hard. "What's fried chicken? Is it tasty?"

"You'll see when it's cooked."

Cheng Wanwan couldn't help but swallow.

After arriving in this era, she tried her best to control her appetite. She suppressed all thoughts of boiled fish, spicy hot pot, barbecue, hot pot, milk tea, fried chicken, roast meat, snail rice noodles, and so on.

But when she saw the chicken, she couldn't resist.

Modern fried chicken uses white-feathered chickens that are just over a month old, which have tender meat and a crispy texture.

This little spring chicken is perfect for making fried chicken.

Without hesitation, Cheng Wanwan locked herself in her room, bought a fried chicken recipe book, and began to study it slowly.

Before I could finish watching the tutorial, I heard shouts coming from outside the yard.

She quickly opened the door and went out. Standing at the entrance of the courtyard, she could see a horse-drawn carriage driving in on the main road at the village entrance.

"It's my dad!" Chunhua exclaimed in disbelief. "How come my dad can drive a horse-drawn carriage?!"

The person sitting in the carriage was indeed Zhao Youcai. He had gone to town in the morning wearing new clothes and shoes, but now he was covered in mud and looked utterly disheveled.

He simply had no talent for driving. What others could learn in half an hour took him most of the day. He fell countless times and was laughed at countless times... But thankfully, he finally learned and managed to drive the carriage back. Of course, he would never tell anyone that the horse almost broke free on the way. If the horse had run away, he wouldn't have been worth twenty taels of silver even if he had been sold...

"Whoa—!"

With a long shout, he brought the carriage to a stop at the entrance of Cheng Wanwan's courtyard.