15. A peach blossom falls from the sky to propose marriage.

Lou Su was approached by a marriage proposal.

The task of purchasing seasonings and fruits and vegetables in the middle of each month used to fall on Yan Yunzhao's shoulders. She picked up a stack of money and went to the salt and sugar workshops in Lixi Town.

"Why did Boss Yan come in person? Where is your young master, the second son of the shop?"

The young servant at the saltworks was lively and capable, and he knew all the big customers who came to buy salt well. He carried a basket of coarse salt and deftly moved it to a filter cloth, while turning his head and asking Yan Yunzhao with a grin.

The saltworks was noisy, so she had to raise her voice slightly: "He's been busy lately, so I'm buying it for him. Just the usual quantity and specifications."

"Alright!" The servant's loud voice echoed from afar.

A short while later, he scooped over two baskets of salt of different textures.

“Normally, Young Master Lou only buys these two top-quality salts: sandy salt and wheat flour salt. Sandy salt has a stronger flavor and is suitable for stir-frying large pots of rice; wheat flour salt is filtered and ground layer by layer, making it as fine as wheat flour, and it is also seasoned with the workshop’s secret recipe, so it is perfectly balanced between salty and sweet. You’ve come at the right time today, as this is the only basket left in the workshop.”

Yan Yunzhao nodded knowingly. These two kinds of salt were indeed good, so he ordered the servant to wrap them all up.

The servant smiled and responded, just as he pulled out two layers of thick oil paper to wrap the two piles of salt, when a loud and clear voice came from behind, silencing the entire workshop for a moment.

"Pack up all the white salt from the saltworks this month for me."

Yan Yunzhao frowned. Salt and sugar prices in Lixi Town were high, and white salt was even more expensive, costing five hundred coins per basket. She wondered who was so generous. She turned her head in surprise and saw that it was the maid who had tried to slap her on the street last time, working for the owner of Guiyue Tower.

Upon seeing Yan Yunzhao, her disdainful expression, which had been looking down her nose at him, paused for a moment.

"Oh, Miss Luo, I'm so sorry, the last basket of white flour and salt was taken by Boss Yan."

The servant, with his sharp eyes, noticed the tense atmosphere between the two, who seemed to know each other, and tactfully offered a word of advice.

“Boss Yan,” the maid, addressed as Miss Luo, narrowed her eyes, still arrogant, “usually, the white salt from this saltworks is only supplied to our Guiyue Tower, and no one in Lixi Town dares to steal it. What, Boss Yan, are you deliberately going against Master Bai and breaking the rules of this trade?”

"The rules of the trade?" Yan Yunzhao chuckled and asked in return, "The saltworks in the capital city oversee the salt industry throughout the entire Daqi, so how come I've never heard of the saltworks issuing an order that only Guiyuelou is allowed to buy from them?"

Miss Luo was rebuffed, and glared at her with her beautiful eyes: "You come out to do business without even asking around about Guiyuelou? Which restaurant in Lixi Town doesn't follow our arrangements?"

As soon as she finished speaking, she seemed to remember something and said sarcastically, "That's right, you don't even have the qualifications to enter the seventeen trades of food stalls, how do you know?"

The Seventeen Trades of Restaurants? Yan Yunzhao pondered for a moment. She had been in Lixi Town for over a month, and the restaurant was in a remote location, so she had never heard of this name before.

However, she was not going to give up the salt. She raised her head and said seriously, "I am new here and may not know much about the rules of the restaurant industry, but I do know the principle of first come, first served. Does Guiyue Restaurant intend to forcibly take it from us?"

Seeing that neither side was willing to back down, the servant was in a dilemma. He leaned close to Yan Yunzhao's ear and whispered, "Boss Yan, give her this salt first. There's more in the shop."

Seeing the servant's serious expression, Yan Yunzhao considered his intentions and suspected there might be something else going on. So, following his advice, he gave the white flour and salt to Miss Luo.

Miss Luo took the white salt, glared at her, and then strode away.

Yan Yunzhao helplessly shrugged: "Are the people at Guiyue Tower always this arrogant?"

The servant was stunned: "Ox? As far as I know, Miss Luo is indeed born in the Year of the Ox, but I don't know about the others."

Hearing his nonsensical answer, Yan Yunzhao couldn't help but laugh, not knowing how to explain. The servant scratched his head sheepishly and could only laugh along with him.

"I'm sorry, Boss Yan. I'll go to the back and get you some more. This Guiyue Pavilion... well, the reasons are complicated." The servant sighed and shook his head, seemingly quite helpless.

These half-spoken words tugged at her heartstrings, and she became intrigued, determined to press for answers: "Oh? What exactly happened? And what were those seventeen types of eateries that Miss Luo mentioned earlier?"

Seeing her curiosity, the servant stopped in his tracks and said, "The Seventeen Restaurants are a trade consisting of the seventeen largest restaurants in Lixi Town. Any owner who wants to open a restaurant in Lixi Town needs the approval and support of the trade to keep it running. However, only nine of the seventeen restaurants remain now. The owners of the other restaurants have all left the trade for various reasons. Guiyue Restaurant is the head of the trade, and everyone has to call the owner, Madam Baiyu, 'the head owner'."

"This Bai family owner is domineering and intolerant of any wrongdoing. Some business owners who entered the industry offended her, and those restaurants eventually went out of business. If you hadn't just given the white flour and salt to Miss Luo, I'm afraid your shop would have faced great difficulties in the future."

Yan Yunzhao understood. It turned out that the Seventeen Restaurants were equivalent to the local restaurant association, and joining would surely bring many benefits. Unfortunately, her small shop had already incurred the displeasure of the association leader as soon as it opened. It seemed that joining the association would require further consideration.

"Thanks to your reminder, otherwise I would have already become a thorn in Guiyuelou's side." Yan Yunzhao said politely, her eyes crinkling.

"May I ask your honorable name?"

Yan Yunzhao spoke politely, which made the servant think more highly of this young boss. He said with honeyed words, "Not at all, Boss Yan, you flatter me. You can just call me Zhou Feng."

Zhou Feng was a straightforward man. He quickly brought over a basket of white flour and salt from the back cabinet. While his subordinates were efficiently bandaging the wound, he explained, "This Guiyuelou restaurant, relying on the support of Prefect Fu, has almost become a local thug in Lixi Town."

As he finished speaking, he deliberately lowered his voice and looked around: "Those of us in this line of work suffer. They keep pushing down prices, and if you don't sell to them cheaply, they shut down your business, leaving you with no way to do anything about it."

"Making white salt is time-consuming and labor-intensive. If they take all the salt at a low price every month, the workshop will lose money and won't be able to pay the workers. So the workshop owner came up with a plan to hide a cabinet of white salt and sell it to others, so that he could at least recoup some of his costs. This month, when the time came, Guiyuelou was late in buying salt, and almost all the salt that was on display was sold out."

"So that's how it is." Yan Yunzhao suddenly realized, and sighed inwardly, "This Guiyue Tower is really no different from bandits."

"Well, Young Master Lou is quite good-tempered. Last time, when Guiyue Lou forcibly took his salt, he had to pull out a priceless jade pendant to get it back."

Zhou Feng handed her the packaged bag of salt, but Yan Yunzhao paused. She was unaware that Lou Su had encountered this incident before; he had bought salt as usual last month without mentioning it.

As he carried the salt out, the words "priceless jade pendant" lingered in Yan Yunzhao's mind.

After spending time with him and observing him over the past few days, Lou Su certainly doesn't seem like a rich young master.

He's not picky about food: when Yan Yunzhao is so busy he's practically wielding a spatula and sparks are flying, he'll happily eat a simple bowl of noodles he makes for him. He's not picky about accommodation: when rooms are scarce at the small inn, he'll offer to sleep on the floor. He's not picky about clothing: he's worn the same coarse blue cloth robe he's washed and re-washed for over a month, only wearing the new clothes Yan Yunzhao buys him when he goes to town occasionally.

Where did he get this priceless jade pendant?

When Yan Yunzhao found him that day, he was all alone, so it must have been his most personal possession. Since it was something he kept close to his body, it must have been very important to him. Why would he give it away to someone else just for a bag of salt? Yan Yunzhao couldn't figure it out.

Back at the shop, she saw a group of girls gathered at the entrance, all dressed in their finest attire, as if they had come to the shop to find a husband.

"Please make way, please make way."

Yan Yunzhao struggled through the crowd, wondering to herself: Usually, there would be no customers by this time, so why are there so many people today? And they're all women?

Before she could figure it out, a girl with flushed cheeks walked out from the crowd.

She was pretty, but seemed quite shy. Standing in the crowd, she awkwardly clutched her handkerchief, hesitant to speak, unsure how to begin.

Yan Yunzhao had a bad feeling and coughed lightly: "And this is...?"

The girl in the middle was pushed by the onlookers behind her and stood timidly in front of Yan Yunzhao.

The handkerchief in her hand was crumpled up, as if she had finally made up her mind. She looked up and said resolutely, "Boss Yan... I'm here to see Young Master Lou."

She carefully took out a jade pendant with a green dragon from her bosom. The dragon was coiled around her, as green as a pine tree in winter, and the carving was lifelike.

"Young Master Lou entrusted this item to me, and asked me to come and find him today."

As she finished speaking, her cheeks turned even redder.

Yan Yunzhao let out a loud "Ah!" in his heart, instantly recalling what Zhou Feng had told him at the saltworks earlier that day: that Young Master Lou had traded a priceless jade pendant for flour salt last month...

Could it be that this girl mistook it for a token of love...?

How are we going to clean up this mess? Looking at the blush on her cheeks, Yan Yunzhao helplessly rubbed his forehead.

In front of everyone, she couldn't afford to offend a young lady's reputation; otherwise, how would she ever get married? In ancient times, a young woman's name was highly valued. She could only advise, "Young Master Lou is currently not here, and I don't know when he will return. Why don't you come again next month on this day?"

The girl bit her lip reluctantly and said stubbornly, "Young Master Lou told me to come today. I'm not leaving."

Unexpectedly, this girl was so devoted. Yan Yunzhao was caught in a dilemma and couldn't come up with a solution that satisfied both sides for a long time.

You can't directly tell her that you misunderstood and that this was just something Young Master Lou used to exchange for flour and salt as collateral, which would make the young lady lose face among her companions; nor can you agree to this unexpected peach blossom on Lou Su's behalf.

Yan Yunzhao pursed her lips and looked at everyone around her one by one. Finally, under their expectant gazes, she honestly said, "This young master Lou... suffers from a strange illness that has not been cured for a long time. I'm afraid he is not a good match for you, young lady. Please consider this carefully."

Her original intention was to frankly admit that Lou Su was suffering from a terminal illness and probably didn't have long to live, but as soon as she said this, everyone's expressions changed in an indescribable way, and she realized that her words seemed to have taken on a somewhat ambiguous meaning.