Mu Xingzhi's few words made Su Qingluan's originally excited look suddenly seem like a bucket of cold water was poured on her, and her enthusiasm was extinguished in an instant.
After some calculations, it turned out that tomorrow was indeed the day that Su Qingluan had originally stipulated to take a day off every ten days.
She sat down on the edge of the bed a little disappointedly: "I forgot."
As usual, Mu Xingzhi picked up a book and read under the lamp. "Isn't it a good thing that I don't have to get up early tomorrow? Why do you look like the sky is falling?"
Su Qingluan tore open the folded quilt with all her might as if to vent her anger, and said angrily, "Didn't it say in 'Cao Gui's Discussion on War', 'The first time you make a strong effort, the second time you will decline, and the third time you will be exhausted'? I just decided to cheer up and work hard tomorrow, which is the 'first time you make a strong effort', but tomorrow is a day off, so I can only 'decline'..."
Mu Xingzhi nodded. "I thought Qingluan was only interested in those vernacular travelogues. I never thought you would also read Zuo Zhuan?"
Su Qingluan was still half-heartedly worried about not being able to successfully rebuild morale and make money tomorrow, so she was a little absent-minded. After hearing Mu Xingzhi's words, she was a little confused for a moment: "Huh? What Zuo Zhuan..."
Facing Mu Xingzhi's indescribable expression, Su Qingluan finally realized: Isn't "The Debate between Cao Gui and others" from "Zuo Zhuan"?
God knows that she has a good memory for remembering this text. After so many years of graduation, she only remembers one sentence: "The first time is full of energy, the second time is weaker, and the third time is exhausted." After all, this is the most famous sentence in this text.
However, she had almost returned the remaining knowledge points to her Chinese teacher, so she couldn't remember them for a while. This article was from Zuo Zhuan. God knows that most of the test points for this article are recitation and interpretation. As for "literary common sense", they are basically comprehensive multiple-choice questions, so Su Qingluan basically forgot them all!
Generally speaking, when Mu Xingzhi encountered such a situation, he would stop there and not ask any further questions, just like Su Qingluan pretending to be ignorant about certain things.
But today, Mu Xingzhi sighed thoughtfully, "In Qingluan's original world, women could actually study the classics, history, and literature?"
After saying that, he lowered his head to read as if nothing had happened. He had no idea that Su Qingluan's heart was like a thunderclap: He guessed it? He actually guessed it?
Wait, was this Mu Xingzhi's deliberate probing? Was it intentional? Was he trying to see me waver and reveal my flaws? Or did he already have some conclusive evidence? Could this guy have also traveled through time?
No, no, no... Su Qingluan denied this guess almost instantly: she had revealed her true identity so many times before. If there was even a slight possibility that Mu Xingzhi had traveled through time, with this guy's meticulous thinking, he would definitely have guessed that her origins had changed a lot. Why did he ask this question at this time?
But would anyone normally think someone was from another world? Wouldn't the first thing they thought was that there was something wrong with them?
After a lot of random thoughts, Su Qingluan's hangover feeling disappeared. After calming down, Su Qingluan asked with great difficulty: "Um... what did you mean by that sentence just now?"
Mu Xingzhi raised his head innocently: "What did you say just now?"
"It's just...'the original world' or something..." Su Qingluan still felt that she should not be bold enough to tell Mu Xingzhi about the time travel. She did not dare to challenge the bottom line of acceptance of people in this era.
"Didn't you say that after you got drunk?" Mu Xingzhi looked up at her, "You said your original world was good and you didn't like this place..."
Su Qingluan was not sure to what extent she had said what she said after being drunk, and she intuitively felt that she could not rush to deny herself now, otherwise she would definitely make things worse.
So she explained vaguely, "I guess I'm just not satisfied with my current life, so I want to change... And I think when I'm drunk, I can't tell the difference between reality and dreams. Maybe I'm mistaking some wonderful experiences I saw in my dreams for reality? Anyway, when you're drunk, you can't take things too seriously, right?"
Mu Xingzhi looked at Su Qingluan until she could no longer maintain her smile. Then he withdrew his gaze as if nothing had happened, lowered his head again, and fixed his eyes on the page in his hand: "Qingluan is right. It's getting late. You should rest."
Su Qingluan was feeling a little guilty and nervous at this time. She wanted to use sleep as an excuse to avoid Mu Xingzhi's possible further questioning, so she quickly hid under the quilt.
However, after being "frightened" by Mu Xingzhi, the sleepyheads she had originally cultivated were so scared that they flew away to who knows where, so she simply thought about the new development direction of "Su Ji" in her mind.
In fact, after more than two years of development, "Su Ji" fruit jam has become almost unsurpassed in this category.
Of course, this does not mean that the jam of "Su Ji" tastes outstanding.
Indeed, the fruit jam carefully prepared by Su Qingluan was initially refreshing because of its rich and varied flavors, and it quickly captured the taste buds of dignitaries from all over the country. Moreover, because of its high price, it even became a symbol of status for a time.
But Su Qingluan never thought that her craftsmanship was an insurmountable gap.
In fact, ever since it was discovered that "Su Ji" fruit jam was favored by various wealthy families, some people have wanted to launch competing products, even if they cannot completely replace "Su Ji", they want to get a piece of the pie.
Moreover, people with keen taste buds are everywhere. As long as they taste carefully, even if they cannot taste the specific ratio of seasonings, they can definitely taste that "Su Ji" jam contains sugar, salt and spices.
In this case, it is only a matter of time before "counterfeits" are invented. Unfortunately, in this era, there is no patent protection, let alone any laws prohibiting "vicious competition", so if the recipe is obtained, counterfeits will be rampant everywhere.
At the very beginning, Su Qingluan had anticipated this - if you want to turn an inconspicuous food into a high-end product, taste is only one aspect, and this aspect is not irreplaceable.
The most important thing is "product culture".
Just like those modern luxury brands, as accessories, clothing and other items, they only have the most basic function, and purely from the perspective of quality and cost-effectiveness, these luxury brands are not even as durable as those affordable accessories and clothing.
But what makes a luxury brand a luxury brand is more importantly its "sense of design", which to put it bluntly is the "concept" and the scarcity of the materials themselves.
Although Su Qingluan did not spend much time thinking about the scarcity of the ingredients themselves, the food raw materials such as "regional specialty wild berries" are themselves "non-mainstream ingredients" and have a certain degree of "scarcity".
The various "blind boxes" that Su Qingluan has painstakingly designed have become one of the main reasons why "Su Ji" is so popular. Just as Su Qingluan had expected, some people actually buy jam for the "blind box" itself.
The charm of blind boxes is indeed timeless.
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