13. Money-making strategies

On the second day, Fan Changyu went to his own butcher shop early in the morning with fresh pork and brine.

Peddlers and hawkers were already calling out their wares at the morning market, and middle-aged ladies wrapped in thick jackets and carrying baskets were choosing and bargaining in front of the various stalls.

After Fan Changyu put the food on the chopping board, he greeted the butchers who were on good terms with his father as usual, but their responses seemed somewhat reluctant.

Fan Changyu was wondering about this when an old lady who was buying vegetables saw the pig head she had placed on her stall, which was still steaming and smelled very tempting. She asked her, "Is this halved pig head also a bonus?"

Fan Changyu thought that the lady asked this question because she had heard that she had sent salt to the water before, so he said embarrassedly: "Auntie, this pork head is not cheap, and the salt is also expensive. Where can I send it?"

The old lady pursed her lips and her eyes fell on the halogen next to her: "Is this halogen a gift?"

She said, "When I reopened my shop, I gave away some for a day to celebrate. Now I won't give any away. If you want to buy some, you can buy one or two ounces for two cents."

The old lady's expression changed immediately. "Other butcher shops give it away for free, but you're still asking for money?"

Fan Changyu was even more puzzled: "Are you saying that all the butcher shops on this street give away salt water when you buy meat?"

The old lady said, "I'm not lying to you. Just look for yourself and you'll know."

"Take it and walk slowly!"

Just then, a new deal was made at the butcher Guo opposite. The hawking sound attracted Fan Changyu's attention. He saw that the woman who was buying meat was not only holding pork, but also a bag of offal wrapped in oil paper.

Butcher Guo noticed that Fan Changyu was looking at him, so he turned his head away and continued to arrange the pork on his stall.

There was a large basin in the corner of the chopping board. It was too far away to see what was inside, but now I think it should be salt water.

Fan Changyu's eyes widened. This shameless old man, when she gave tips to customers before, he was so jealous that he almost rushed over to overturn her stall on the spot, and repeatedly told her not to give tips in the future. But he turned around and used this method to attract business.

Looking at the shops on both sides of the house, they also saw a basin of brine on the chopping board. No wonder they looked a little strange when I greeted them just now.

The old lady asked: "Are you going to give it to me or not? If not, I'll go to another shop to buy it!"

Fan Changyu immediately said, "Send it!"

Anyway, pig offal is not worth much, and the brined ingredients we buy are not only brined offal, but also brined pig head meat. We can just continue to use offal as a bonus to build momentum for selling brined meat!

When everyone was selling pork, some buyers couldn't tell the good from the bad. It was a different story when they added brine as an extra ingredient. The color, aroma and taste couldn't deceive people!

This is actually better for her business!

The old lady had long been eyeing the brine in Fan Changyu's shop. The brine in other places was grey and had no fragrance, but the one she had was bright red and obviously of high quality.

When he heard that Fan Changyu was also offering a gift, his face immediately lit up with a smile: "Give me five pounds of buttocks meat!"

Fan Changyu skillfully chopped five pounds of pork butt, weighed it and gave it to the old lady, and also cut five ounces of salted offal for her.

The old lady took the salted meat and smelled it, saying that it smelled delicious. Before she left, she said, "You made a great gift. I'll ask the neighbors to come to your place to buy meat!"

Fan Changyu agreed with a smile, and said that he would give the old lady more gifts next time. The old lady left happily with the meat.

When people nearby saw the lady buying fresh meat from Fan Changyu's shop and taking a bag of salted offal with her, they also went up to her and asked the price as the salted offal in her shop looked good. In the end, everyone bought meat from Fan Changyu's shop without exception.

People buying meat and vegetables saw a lot of people gathered in front of Fan Changyu's shop, and subconsciously realized that the things in her shop were better, so they also squeezed over to take a look.

Before the morning market was halfway through, all the fresh meat and offal in Fan Changyu's shop had been sold out, leaving only half a halved pig's head.

On the other hand, in other butcher shops, the only successful business was when the meat in Fan Changyu's shop was sold out, so he decided to buy it from them.

Guo the butcher saw that someone had finally come to his shop, so he pushed the pork on the chopping board vigorously: "Look, this is top-quality pork belly, and I even gave it salt water!"

The buyer looked over at the grayish offal in his basin and immediately pouted and shook his head: "This is a free gift from Fan's Meat Shop. The offal is shiny and oily. Did you just boil it and then add some salt?"

"I'll come earlier tomorrow and buy from Fan Ji!" The buyer put down the piece of pork he had picked up and looked at, and left.

Butcher Guo had a very ugly face. He looked at the pork in his shop, then at the brine in the basin. He was so angry that he kicked over the stool next to him, cursing under his breath.

Naturally, this movement was also seen by the people in the nearby shops.

Fan Changyu's butcher shop was right across from Guo the butcher, and she also saw this scene.

The butcher lady who was on good terms with the Fan family whispered to her, "Actually, everyone doesn't want to do the thankless task of giving away gifts."

After all, when one of the butcher shops gave away pork for free, business was good, and all the butcher shops on the whole street started giving away free gifts. However, the taste of any of the butcher shops was not particularly outstanding, so the business was not much different from when they were just selling pork, and they had to waste the offal.

The butcher's wife continued, "But Guo is more cunning than a beehive. A few days ago, he repeatedly warned us not to give you any gifts, but the next day he started giving them, not even thinking it was shameful. We went to him and told him he was being unreasonable, but when we got into a fight, he just lay on the ground and begged for mercy. He has an uncle who is a lawyer for the county magistrate, so we couldn't do anything about him, and we couldn't just sit there and watch him steal our business with gifts, so we all started giving him some rubbish."

Fan Changyu knew that this auntie had explained so much to him because she didn't want him to misunderstand them, so he said, "I'll save myself the trouble, auntie."

Seeing that Guo the Butcher had a bad day, the butcher's wife was secretly happy. She glanced at Guo the Butcher and couldn't help but gloat over the misfortune and said, "Fortunately, Changyu is back. Let's see how long his salt water can last."

Butcher Guo, relying on the fact that he has a relative who works as a lawyer in the county government, has always been arrogant. The merchants doing business in this street have long been fed up with his face.

In the past, only Fan Changyu's father was fearless and dared to suppress Guo the butcher. After Fan Changyu's parents got into trouble, Guo regarded himself as the local tyrant of this street, and he was always shouting and yelling.

Fan Changyu didn't even glance at Guo the butcher sitting opposite him. After selling the last half piece of pork head, he counted the copper plates in his drawer.

The pig we killed today weighed only 15 pounds, and the fresh meat and brined meat sold for a total of more than 2,300 coins. After deducting the cost of buying the pig, we made a net profit of more than 1,300 coins!

Fan Changyu strung the copper plates together with a thin rope, weighed their heavy weight, and felt relieved.

The property will be transferred soon, and the business in the butcher shop is slowly getting back on track. She and her sister will have better and better lives in the future!

When she saves enough money, she will take her sister to the capital to seek medical treatment! It is said that the best things in the world are in the capital, and the best doctors are also there.

-

After Fan Changyu packed up his shop, he took the money to the market, bought some medicine for the two medicine jars in his home, one large and one small, and some spices for making broth. He left a sum of money for buying a pig, and now he had only a few hundred coins left.

Fan Changyu sighed slightly. It is true that only when one becomes the head of a household does one understand how expensive firewood, rice, oil, and salt are.

She picked and chose to buy some New Year's goods and was walking home. Before she entered the alley, she saw a snow-white gyrfalcon flying high into the sky from her home. It seemed to be the same one she had seen before.

Fan Changyu was puzzled. Did the gyrfalcon often look for food here?

If you come here often... you'll have a chance to catch him, right?

The Saker Falcon flew away in an instant, but Fan Changyu was already calculating in his mind how much he could get from selling it at the market.

When she got home, she pushed open the gate and saw at a glance that the window in the man's room was half open. He was sitting at the desk in an old black robe, with his long hair scattered around his body. He had a calm expression, and his slender, scabby fingers were holding a brush, concentrating on writing something.

There is a red plum tree planted outside the window, which was planted by her father for her mother.

This year, perhaps the plum tree realized that its old friend was gone, and since the beginning of winter, it has only produced one small flower bud.

Amid the frost and snow on the branches, there was a single bright color on one branch, but even so, it was not even one-tenth as beautiful as the person in the house.

The wind blew the fine snow into the window, and some of it fell into the man's hair. His eyebrows and eyes under his black hair were truly cool and delicate.

Fan Changyu's breath was slightly choked. When the man raised his eyes to look at her, she did not rush to look away. She continued to look at him openly and asked, "Aren't you cold with the window open?"

Xie Zheng met her eyes and found that she was still staring at him, with no intention of avoiding him. He frowned slightly, avoided her gaze and said, "It's dark in the room. Open the window for more light."

His voice was as cool and clear as ever.

Fan Changyu said "Oh", took the things in his hand back to the main room and put them down, then went to see his sister who was taking a nap, and then got him a charcoal basin and handed it to him.

Perhaps because the window in the room had been open, Fan Changyu felt that it was as cold inside as outside after entering the room.

She glanced at the many papers covered with ink on the table and couldn't help asking, "What are you writing?"

He wrote so much. I'm afraid he must have been freezing all morning. Isn't he cold?

After Xie Zheng finished writing the last word, he put away his brush, but because there was no pen rest, he had to temporarily place the ink-soaked brush on the gap in the inkstone.

He said calmly: "Shiwen."

Fan Changyu knew what contemporary writings were. In the past, Song Yan often saved money to buy them, and one scroll cost him three hundred coins.

She was surprised and asked, "You can also write contemporary essays?"

Xie Zheng continued to use the same words he used to fool Carpenter Zhao to evade her: "I have traveled a lot and gained some knowledge. The books sold in small bookstores are also of varying quality. If you write something that can fool people, the bookstore will accept it."

Fan Changyu choked when he heard this, thinking that those scholars who bought contemporary literature were really unlucky.

Thinking that the fashionable writings that Song Yan bought by saving money in the past might have been like this, I suddenly felt a little secretly happy.

She coughed lightly, then she remembered his injury: "The road is slippery on a snowy day. Even if you sweep the snow clean, there may still be thin ice on the ground. The wound on your body just broke open yesterday. It's too dangerous to go out with crutches..."

She said so much in rapid succession, just because she was worried about him?

Xie Zheng was slightly startled, then he narrowed his eyes and said, "I asked my neighbor's father-in-law to bring it back."

Fan Changyu's complexion improved a little, but thinking of the reason why he wrote contemporary essays, he pursed his lips and said, "Since you have agreed to give me the gift, I will fulfill my promise and let you recover well. The only financial difficulty now is that the property has not yet been transferred. You... don't need to do this."

Fan Changyu felt bad for letting a seriously injured person drag his sick body in the cold wind and rack his brains to write contemporary essays to earn money to support the family.

The cold wind blew into the room, blowing Xie Zheng's untied long hair. He looked at the woman in front of him with frowned brows, and his indifferent expression became a little more subtle.

He didn't want the woman in front of him to misunderstand him, so he said, "I'm just writing contemporary essays to relieve my boredom when I have nothing to do. It's not what you think."

The more he said this, the more certain Fan Changyu became of his guess.

After all, who would write contemporary essays in the cold wind to relieve fatigue in such a cold weather? For a moment, my mood was extremely complicated.

She pursed her lips and said, "Don't worry about me being poor. I can support you!"

After she said this, she left the room, leaving Xie Zheng alone sitting at the desk. He pressed his slender fingers between his eyebrows, his eyes deep and complex, as if he was thinking about something that gave him a headache.

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Note: Laozhang is a respectful title for older men.