Manager Tong looked up at the sky. It was already late, and besides, it was too hot to talk about work here, so he spoke up.
"Well, I have a business deal I'd like to discuss with Sister Han. This isn't the right place to talk, so why don't we go to a restaurant together, Sister Han, and have some tea to discuss it slowly..."
Han Yiyi looked at the person opposite her. Although he had the shrewdness of a businessman, he didn't seem like a bad person. Besides, with her appearance, there was nothing for him to scheme against. So she nodded slightly.
Da Niu was already blaming himself for his incompetence earlier, and now that someone was looking for Han Yiyi and asking her to go to a restaurant, he also went to Yunlai Restaurant out of concern.
When Han Yiyi arrived at the restaurant, she realized that although Yunlai Restaurant was the largest restaurant in town, it was only about the size of an ordinary restaurant. But that was not surprising, since Ping'an Town was not very big.
The restaurant has two floors. There are seven or eight tables on the ground floor for individual customers. Han Yiyi glanced at the layout on the second floor and saw that there were about four or five private rooms.
Han Yiyi was led up to the second floor, while Da Niu was left on the first floor. Da Niu was still a little worried. When he saw the look Han Yiyi gave him, he carefully found a quiet spot in the corner and sat down. However, he couldn't help but look around carefully, since this was his first time in a restaurant.
The waiter at the restaurant noticed that Da Niu was with Han Yiyi, and that Han Yiyi had been politely invited upstairs by the restaurant manager. So, he thoughtfully served Da Niu a pot of tea and a plate of snacks.
When Da Niu saw the tea and snacks placed in front of him, he was so surprised that he stood up and hurriedly spoke.
"I...I didn't want these things..." In Da Niu's eyes, these things looked very exquisite and must not be cheap. He only had some copper coins from buying the bamboo pillow today, oh, and a string of copper coins that the man had thrown to him...
Seeing how nervous Da Niu was, Xiao Er quickly spoke up.
"Don't be nervous, young man, these things are free..."
He then went off to attend to other matters, but still glanced up at the second floor, wondering why his manager had brought these two people to the restaurant. These people looked like they came from the countryside and had never seen the world.
The waiter downstairs thought this way, but the shopkeeper upstairs had a different idea when facing Han Yiyi.
From the moment she entered the restaurant, Manager Tong carefully observed Han Yiyi's expression. Instead of being amazed, she seemed to have a sense of "nothing special," which was not the expression a village woman should have on her first visit. Therefore, Manager Tong couldn't help but ask her a question.
"Sister Han, have you ever been to my Yunlai Restaurant...?"
"No, this is my first time here..."
Actually, the reason why Manager Tong invited Han Yiyi to Yunlai Restaurant for a talk was to let her see what Yunlai Restaurant was like, and to make her feel that it was an honor for her to do business with Yunlai Restaurant, so that the subsequent business negotiations would naturally be much easier.
But to everyone's surprise, when Han Yi saw the restaurant, there was a hint of disappointment in her eyes, which made Manager Tong frown slightly.
If Han Yiyi knew what Manager Tong was thinking, she would probably roll her eyes at him. Who was she? In her previous life, she was a food blogger. What kind of restaurant hadn't she eaten at? Compared to those, this Yunlai Restaurant in front of her could barely be considered a hole-in-the-wall eatery.
Han Yiyi picked up the tea on the table, took a sip, and then looked at Manager Tong opposite her, smiling as she asked.
"Manager Tong has his eye on my braising spice recipe..."
Looking at Han Yiyi like this, Manager Tong suddenly felt that he was not facing a common woman, but a seasoned businessman. His expression became more serious as he smiled and replied.
“It seems that Sister Han is a straightforward person, so I, Tong, will not hide anything. Yunlai Restaurant is indeed interested in Sister Han’s braising recipe. I wonder if Sister Han would be willing to sell it? The price is negotiable…”
Hearing what Manager Tong said, Han Yiyi was not surprised. In fact, Han Yiyi had previously planned to rent a small shop to sell braised meat, but if the price was right, it would be fine to sell it. After all, braised meat was not the only food she had in mind. Now that she had money, she could build a house sooner rather than later.
Furthermore, when she went upstairs just now, she saw someone quickly enter the kitchen. Han Yiyi had a strong impression of that person. These days, he would buy her braised food almost every day, and each time he would ask for a lot of braising liquid. It seems that they have been researching their own braising ingredients for some time, but they haven't figured it out yet, which is why they thought of buying it.
However, Han Yiyi never dared to underestimate the wisdom of the ancients, and it was only a matter of time before they figured it out, so she asked.
"I wonder how much Manager Tong is willing to pay for it..."
“Thirty taels…”
In fact, Manager Tong had thought this through carefully. He knew that an ordinary farmer might not be able to save four or five taels of silver a year, so thirty taels was equivalent to six or seven years of their savings.
Furthermore, he had roughly calculated Han Yiyi's profit. Although the cost of pig intestines, pig heads, and offal was cheap, the fact that Han Yiyi could wash the intestines so thoroughly without any odor meant that she must have used salt and flour to wash them, plus the braising sauce, which greatly increased the cost. Based on this calculation, her daily profit was only a little over one hundred coins. With his own investment of thirty taels, it would be equivalent to almost her annual profit.
"Hmph! It seems Manager Tong isn't really interested in buying my braising spice recipe. In that case, I'll take my leave..."
Manager Tong was originally waiting for Han Yiyi to happily agree, but he was stunned when he heard Han Yiyi say that she wanted to leave. He was taken aback for a moment before he realized what was happening and hurriedly spoke up again.
"Sister Han, don't be in a hurry. We are of course sincere in wanting to buy the braising spice recipe, otherwise we wouldn't have invited you here. If you think the price is too low, we can discuss it..."
Hearing Manager Tong's words, Han Yiyi sat back down, and couldn't help but think of a dialogue from a movie she had seen before, "It's okay for me to ask for a price, and it's okay for you to bargain back..." She couldn't help but curl the corners of her mouth and said.
"Manager Tong knows the value of my braising recipe. You can use it to braise not only pig intestines and pig's head, but also chicken, duck, or wild game. Even if you just use the braising liquid to stew vegetables, the taste will be incomparable to ordinary stews..."
Manager Tong naturally knew that what Han Yiyi said was true. The kitchen staff had been studying the braising sauce a lot these past few days. If it weren't for its value, the owner probably wouldn't have let him buy it so quickly.
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