The grain shop is now on track, and several long-term workers from Jiayuan are in charge of looking after the shop.
The farmhands were illiterate and did not know how to keep accounts, so Tian An asked Chen Qiang to temporarily take charge of the work of the grain store manager and accountant.
Alas! Now she was without a housekeeper again. She wondered if she should go and hire a few more people.
Thinking of this, Tian An took Deng Xue to the street.
The weather is getting colder in late autumn and early winter. Although it is not yet freezing cold, the wind in this season makes people's skin dry when it blows on their faces.
During this time, Tian An noticed that the girls in his family had flaky skin and dry lips. Deng Xue, in particular, had her lips cracked from the constant wind from driving her around in a donkey cart.
The two of them strolled slowly on the street, and Tian An took Deng Xue into a shop selling cosmetics.
The shopkeeper saw a customer coming and greeted her enthusiastically: "Miss, what would you like to buy? Our rouge and powder are all excellent."
Tian An looked around the shop briefly before asking, "Do you have any lip balm?"
The shopkeeper said "Yes," and took a small box of lip balm from the shelf nearby and handed it to Tian An.
Tian An opened the small box and smelled it gently to know the approximate ingredients inside.
“How do you sell this?”
The shopkeeper thought Tian An wanted to buy it, so he happily said, "Three hundred coins."
Tian An paused, then smiled and said, "Boss, sell me a box for 200 coins!"
The shopkeeper's smile froze on his face, and after a long while he said, "Miss, I don't bargain like that!"
Tian An put away his smile and pretended to be reluctant to return the things to the shopkeeper: "Forget it, I'll go look somewhere else."
Then he took Deng Xue out of the shop.
Afterwards, Tian An took Deng Xue to several shops, and the price was almost the same in all of them.
Lip balm, which costs only a few yuan in modern times and is almost universally available, costs hundreds of wen here. It's too expensive! No wonder people would rather endure chapped lips than buy a box of lip balm.
At this price, let alone ordinary people, even people living in the county town would feel distressed!
Tian An had two empty shops, and she immediately decided to turn one into a cosmetics shop. She'd sell lipstick, hand cream, skincare, and the like. She wanted to have something affordable for the common people, but also affordable luxury skincare for the wealthy.
After taking Deng Xue to the dental clinic they had visited last time, Tian An hired two accountants, two women who knew how to make noodles, and five girls around fifteen or sixteen years old.
The accountants were a man and a woman, the man's name was Wang Hui and the woman's name was Lan Niang. Tian An had tried to test them out and found that both of them were quite smart and could handle the work of both the manager and the accountant, which was exactly what she wanted.
Tian An was going to send a bowl of noodles to the woman who knew how to make noodles to exchange for Mangzhong and Dongru. The two girls were very capable and young, so she planned to keep them by her side and train them well, so that they could be her right-hand men in the future.
The five young girls were preparing to open a cosmetics shop. Girls understand girls better and can better recommend things to customers. Besides, most customers at the cosmetics shop are women, so it would be more convenient for them to receive them.
Tian An took a group of people to the same store where she had bought quilts last time and ordered 35 quilts. The store was supposed to raise the price due to the cold weather, but since Tian An wanted more, they settled on the previous price.
After ordering the quilt, Tian An led a group of people to the grain store. After having Chen Qiang explain everything to Wang Hui, he let him stay in the grain store and start working.
There were two small rooms in the backyard of the grain store, both ready for living. As for food, we could go to the noodle shop and eat together. This saved us the trouble of setting up a separate kitchen and the expense of buying food.
After leaving Wang Hui behind, Chen Qiang followed Tian An and the others back to the noodle shop.
After arriving at the noodle shop, Tian An directly handed the two women who knew how to make noodles to Mangzhong and Dongru, and asked them to hand over the kitchen work to them.
After observing for a period of time, Tian An asked Mangzhong to hand over the method of making braised meat to Qiao Niang, and she would be in charge of the kitchen from then on.
While Mangzhong and Dongru were handing over their work, Tian An wrote down the ingredients needed to make lipstick and hand cream and gave them to Chen Qiang, asking him to buy them.
The two donkeys that Tian An asked Chen Qiang to buy before, the little donkeys can now pull carts.
Tian An usually uses a small donkey when traveling, and the big donkey is used to pull things in the shop. If there are a lot of things to pull, he uses an ox cart.
After everything was done, Tian An led the group back to the village. There were too many people to sit on her donkey or the cart, so the others had to walk, just like last time.
It was already evening, and the temperature had dropped considerably. Tian An felt a little distressed when he saw the newly bought girls and Lan Niang shivering in their thin spring clothes.
"Has Lan Niang ever been a shopkeeper?"
Hearing Tian An's question, Lan Niang quickly replied, "To answer your question, young lady, I have never been a shopkeeper before, but when my husband was still alive, I helped him manage the shop, and he was also the one who taught me how to read."
Lan Niang was sold by her mother-in-law and brother-in-law. Her husband was in the cloth business and was killed by bandits while out of town purchasing goods.
Her brother-in-law wanted to seize her family's property, so he persuaded her mother-in-law to sell her on the grounds that they had no children.
When Tian An hired her, he only asked if she could read and do the math. Seeing that she was honest and kind, and a poor person, he bought her. Unexpectedly, she even had work experience! This gave her a surprise.
"I'm planning to open a cosmetics shop. You'll be my female manager. Don't let me down!"
Lan Niang was stunned. She didn't expect Tian An to ask her to be the female manager: "Miss, am I alone?"
Tian An nodded: "Yeah! You're alone. Any problem?"
Lan Niang thought for a while before saying, "Thank you for your favor, young lady. I will definitely fulfill your mission."
Seeing her agree, Tian An nodded at her. He really didn't make a mistake. "If you don't understand anything, go ask Manager Liu from the noodle shop and Manager Wang from the grain store. Learn from them. You are one family now, so don't be shy."
Lan Niang nodded: "Okay, girl, I will definitely study hard."
Tian An talked to several other little girls.
"You guys will all be working in the cosmetics shop in the future. You should learn more from Lan Niang, be braver, and be serious about your work..."
"Lan Niang, please take care of them. You will be in charge of them from now on."
Several people said in unison: "Okay, girl."
After arriving home, Tian An handed the person over to Chun Xi and locked himself in the house to get busy.
A cosmetics shop is not as simple as a grain shop or a noodle shop. The things inside are much more complicated.
I need to renovate the place, build containers, and then consider the containers I need to store my goods in. It's impossible to open a shop and just sell lipstick and hand cream.
So she had to make a thorough plan.
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