Chapter 390 The Market Opens

At noon, it is a time when everyone in the village can rest for a while.

The village head took the opportunity to convene a meeting, which was held under the big locust tree. The entire village, young and old, gathered with their rice bowls in hand, making quite a grand gathering.

"To avoid disturbing everyone's rest, I'll get straight to the point," the village headman shouted. "As you can all see, the market that our village pooled together to build is finished, so now it can start making money. After discussing it with Da Shan's mother, we've decided that all the shops on the second floor will be used as inns, managed by people hired by the village. All twenty shops on the first floor will be rented out, whether they're from the village or not. However, villagers get a discount. The rent is normally 500 coins a month, but for people from Dahe Village, it's only 200 coins for the first two months. 200 coins for a shop to start a business—such a good deal is hard to find even with a lantern! There are only twenty shops, first come, first served!"

The villagers listened while they ate, and after they finished eating and listening, they looked at each other in bewilderment.

They have houses in the village, why would they rent a shop? Two hundred coins a month is quite expensive. Wouldn't it be better to use that money to buy a few pounds of meat?

Besides, they don't know how to do business.

Just as everyone was wondering, Old Man Zhao pushed his way out of the crowd and shouted, "I'll rent one!"

The villagers were immediately astonished. They knew that Old Zhao's family sold food, and quite a few people bought their food every day. However, the dishes included meat and eggs, so the cost was quite high. They always felt that they couldn't make much money and never thought of getting a share. But now, Old Zhao's family was directly paying to rent a shop, which meant that they must have made a lot of money selling food during this period, otherwise they wouldn't be so generous.

As soon as Old Man Zhao finished speaking, Old Woman Zhu squeezed out and said, "Village head, we'd like to rent one too."

Their preserved eggs are mainly sold through the Daheyan Restaurant. The recipe was originally given to them by Dashan's mother, and they have to rely on Dashan's mother's restaurant to sell preserved eggs, which makes Old Lady Zhu feel very bad. She rented a shop in the village to sell preserved eggs and salted duck eggs. People who want to buy them can come to the village themselves, which can reduce a lot of trouble for Dashan's mother.

Lu Yingxue raised her hand: "My family will also rent a room."

She tried brewing some rice wine these past two days and gave it to the officials to try for free. The officials liked it quite a bit, so she decided to start with the simplest rice wine and slowly open up the market. She believed that she could eventually carve out her own niche in Dahe Village.

The village head stroked his beard with delight: "Good, very good, everyone is very conscientious."

"cough!"

A dignified cough rang out.

The village head looked up at the outer edge of the crowd and realized that Lord Wu had also come to attend the village meeting.

During this period, Lord Wu's presence was very low, and he rarely appeared in front of the villagers. The village head almost forgot that there was such an important figure in the village.

He quickly got off the big rock, walked over and bowed: "Greetings, Lord Wu."

"I heard the market is now open for rent?" Lord Wu asked with a warm smile. "May I rent a room?"

"Of course," the village head said with a hint of doubt. "May I ask why you're renting the shop, sir?"

“A vacant lot has been cleared on the east side of Coal Hill to be used for manufacturing honeycomb briquettes. Many people will come to Dahe Village to place orders,” Lord Wu said. “The interior of Coal Hill is too complicated and not very safe. Merchants and villagers who come to order honeycomb briquettes can register at the market.”

Cheng Wanwan understood. This was essentially an office for the coal mine to the outside world. This Lord Wu was a man of action, making full use of the conditions to generate revenue for the coal mine while mining it.

However, coal hills have been accident-prone areas since ancient times, and even in modern times, news of coal hill collapses and gas explosions still appears from time to time.

Just as she was about to offer some advice, an official nearby reported something, and Lord Wu left with a frown.

She pursed her lips. It seemed she needed to find an opportunity to go into the coal mine and take a look at its structure. She hoped to make some improvements if possible, otherwise, if an accident occurred, Dahe Village would be the most unfortunate, since most of the workers were from Dahe Village, followed by Wangjiadun, Guihua Village, Lijia Gou, and so on.

The meeting lasted for about half an hour and ended. A total of five shops were rented out. Although it wasn't many, the village head was very happy. He believed that more and more people would rent shops in the future, and as the foot traffic increased, the shop rents would rise, and their market would truly start to make a profit. That day wouldn't be too far away.

As soon as the meeting ended, the Zhao family selected a shop in the very center. Although it was a single-room shop, it was very spacious and could accommodate three tables lined up in a row. In total, it could hold at least eighteen tables. In addition, the eaves at the entrance were also very wide, allowing for two more tables to be placed outside, making a total of twenty wooden tables and accommodating up to eighty people at the same time.

Of course, we won't set up this many tables at the beginning; we'll do that later when the number of customers increases.

Cheng Wanwan was called in to help with the layout planning. She suggested temporarily placing eight tables and installing a wooden partition at the back third of the way. She also suggested creating two windows, one for main dishes and the other for meat and vegetable dishes, just like a formal canteen. This way, customers would be able to queue up voluntarily and avoid being overwhelmed.

“It also saves manpower.” Cheng Wanwan said methodically, “One person is responsible for serving rice, and another is responsible for serving vegetables. Customers can serve themselves the soup. But I think we should prepare more rice bowls and soup bowls. We can’t always let everyone bring their own bowls and chopsticks.”

Grandma Zhao said with heartache, "I've thought about this too, and I've even asked around in the city. The most common kind of large bowl costs twelve coins, and a smaller soup bowl costs five coins. You also need to buy a spoon, chopsticks, and other accessories. If you buy a hundred sets, it will cost two or three taels of silver. That's too expensive."

Cheng Wanwan knew that the old lady was reluctant to spend money, but this money had to be spent. In this era, bowls were a bit expensive, but the bowls and chopsticks in her mall were very cheap. She said, "Last time I went to the city, I saw that the shopkeeper had brought in a batch of flawed bowls and was selling them at half price. You could buy a hundred sets for about one tael of silver. If you want them, Mother, I'll just tell the shopkeeper."

Grandma Zhao pressed on, "What kind of flaw is it?"

"It's probably just uneven coloring, it shouldn't be a big problem," Cheng Wanwan said. "It's similar to the bowls I used to use when I sold ice jelly."

Old Mrs. Zhao had a deep impression of those white porcelain bowls with printed patterns; they were especially beautiful. Buying a hundred sets for one tael of silver was such a good deal!

The old lady immediately nodded: "Eldest daughter-in-law, I'll leave this to you."

As he spoke, he immediately took out a string of coins and stuffed it into Cheng Wanwan's hand.

The shop next door was also being tidied up. Old Mrs. Zhu was moving preserved eggs, all packed in bamboo baskets, and placing them at the shop entrance. She put up a sign with the price on it and had Da Shu, the boy, watch over the shop.

Big Tree is Widow Zhang's eldest son. After losing his mother's protection, he became more and more silent, but also more and more sensible, helping Widow Zhu with all her chores.

Zhu Huzi went to collect duck eggs in the next village. He was basically out and about every day. Although he was only twelve years old, he was already as brave as an adult.

Next door was Lu Yingxue's shop.

She quickly pulled Cheng Wanwan over: "Sister Wanwan, can you help me figure out how to decorate this shop to make it look nicer?"

Cheng Wanwan had no experience running a liquor store, but she still offered some suggestions on the decoration out of goodwill.