Chapter 47 Bought Twenty Ducks
The Nanfu Academy has about two hundred students, the oldest of whom is no more than twenty years old, all of them handsome young men.
These handsome young men naturally had money to buy writing brushes, ink, paper, and inkstones. An inkstone cost around 500 coins, and even the worst writing brush cost at least 100 coins. Among these stalls, ice jelly seemed particularly cheap.
"Free samples, sweet and sour flavors to choose from," Cheng Wanwan said with a smile. "We're selling them cheap, three coins a bowl."
Zhao Sanniu's hand trembled as he was serving the ice jelly. It used to cost two coins, so why did the price increase in a different location? Two coins wasn't enough to attract many buyers to begin with; now, he feared he'd be stuck with nothing...
Just as Zhao Sanniu was looking worried, he heard a loud clatter as a large pile of copper coins was thrown onto the table.
A handsome young man waved his hand and said, "Thank you all for your kindness and for wishing to become friends with me. I am short of money and cannot afford to treat you to drinks, so I can only offer you this shoddy ice jelly instead. Please do not find it offensive."
"Brother, what are you saying?"
"I wouldn't dare trouble you with your expense, brother..."
A group of scholars began to flatter and defer to each other.
Cheng Wanwan counted the money on the side and said loudly, "That's thirty copper coins in total, three cows, and ten bowls of ice jelly!"
Zhao Sanniu instantly became excited and quickly ladled out ten bowls. Ten handsome young men held the white porcelain plum blossom bowls and stood in front of the stall drinking them.
Cheng Wanwan doesn't know if there was ice jelly in this dynasty, but it's definitely unique to Hekou Town.
"The refreshing taste is in no way inferior to the iced drinks in Huzhou."
"I felt my clothes were sweaty and sticky, but after taking a bite of the ice jelly, I immediately felt the heat dissipate."
"A bowl of ice jelly cools you down in the summer heat, and two spoonfuls of brown sugar can make you forget your worries!"
"This limerick is excellent!"
A scholar's casual ditty spread throughout the Nanfu Academy, and before long, many more students came to visit.
Cheng Wanwan was in charge of collecting money and taking orders, Zhao Sanniu was in charge of serving the ice jelly, and Zhao Dashan was in charge of adding brown sugar or hawthorn pieces to the ice jelly and washing the tableware in time... It was the first time the mother and her two sons had worked together, but they had a great understanding of each other. In less than half an hour, they had sold out seventy or eighty bowls of ice jelly.
The vendors selling writing brushes, ink, paper, and inkstones nearby were all dumbfounded.
They've been setting up their stall here for many years, and they're lucky if they sell even one serving a day. But this auntie sold out in half an hour.
Are they being too reserved, or is this so-called ice jelly really that refreshing?
Several vendors peered over; the wooden bucket was completely empty.
Cheng Wanwan smiled and said to the students who arrived later, "Today's tickets are sold out. Come early tomorrow."
After packing up their belongings and returning the wooden table, the mother and her two children carried their loads to the main street, intending to buy some more things to take back with them.
Zhao Dashan couldn't help but ask, "Mother, why does it cost three coins a bowl here?"
Zhao Sanniu guessed, "Maybe it's because those scholars look quite wealthy?"
Cheng Wanwan shook her head: "If we charge high prices just because a scholar has money, isn't that deliberately ripping people off? What's the difference between that and some unscrupulous merchants? The reason I raised the price by one coin is because this is Hekou Town, and we carry the ice jelly here on foot, which increases our labor costs. If we transported the ice jelly to the provincial capital to sell, we would have to sell it for five coins a bowl because it takes even longer to get there."
Zhao Dashan and Zhao Sanniu nodded, seemingly understanding but not quite.
Walking into an alley, Cheng Wanwan poured out all her money, a total of two hundred and seventy-seven coins, all of her earnings for the day.
"Dashan, take twenty coins to buy peanuts. They're an ingredient for making ice jelly. Buy as many as you can." She paused, then pushed out thirty coins. "We're out of brown sugar at home. Buy some more brown sugar."
Cheng Wanwan counted out thirty copper coins and gave them to Zhao Sanniu: "Go to the butcher's shop and see how much you can buy with thirty coins."
Zhao Sanniu's saliva started to flow before he even saw the meat.
"After you've finished shopping, you can take a stroll around Hekou Town. We'll meet up here in half an hour."
Cheng Wanwan and her two sons went their separate ways. She still had nearly two hundred coins in her hand, enough for her to take advantage of the situation and buy a lot of things.
She walked out of the alley and went straight into the cloth shop.
There were only two sets of clothes for each of the six people in the family. The clothes were patched on top of patches and were torn beyond recognition. She had been wearing the torn clothes for half a month and could no longer bear it. Especially since there was no underwear in ancient times, she had to get herself a set of underwear.
Walking into the cloth shop, you see homespun cloth on both sides of the entrance. It's made of hemp and is the cheapest kind of cloth. While grain prices are soaring, cloth prices remain surprisingly stable; you can buy a foot for just two coins.
She silently calculated in her mind that it would take about six or seven feet of cloth for an adult man to make a set of clothes, and about five feet for a woman. She bought ten feet of gray homespun cloth, ten feet of blue homespun cloth, ten feet of navy blue cloth, ten feet of black cloth, and ten feet each of earth yellow and light pink cloth, spending a total of one hundred and twenty wen.
After leaving the cloth shop, she spent twenty coins to buy four pairs of cotton women's underwear in the mall. She and Wu Huiniang each bought two pairs, as if they had bought them at the cloth shop.
She wandered around the town and finally saw a place selling chicks. Dozens of chickens looked listless in their cages, as if they wouldn't live much longer. In another cage were ducklings, which were pale yellow and looked a little more energetic.
"Auntie, want to buy chicks? Six coins each!" The man selling chickens was spitting as he spoke. "These chicks of ours are all very strong and healthy, all hens that can lay eggs. When they grow up, they become roosters, which you can bring back for a refund. If they die, I can give you ten times the money back..."
Before the man could finish his words, a chick in the cage fell down with a thud.
Cheng Wanwan: "..."
The weather is too hot and the chicks' lives are too fragile.
Fortunately, there is no shortage of water in Dahe Village now, so we can buy ducklings and raise them.
Each duckling was six cents. Cheng Wanwan selected twenty ducklings that looked energetic and put them into the backpack. The ducklings quacked, and her mood became inexplicably happy.
She had only just bought cloth and ducks, and her two hundred copper coins were almost gone.
Cheng Wanwan returned to the alley early and bought staple food at the mall.
The grain she bought with the money she had earned from selling silver hairpins last time had long been eaten up. If she hadn't replenished it from time to time, the whole family would probably have starved to death long ago. Wu Huiniang asked several times how the family still had grain, but she always brushed her off.
Luckily, I made some money today, otherwise I really wouldn't know how to continue to deceive her naive eldest daughter-in-law.
I bought 30 kilograms of the most common corn, 20 kilograms of rice, 20 kilograms of white flour, and 10 kilograms of each of black flour, buckwheat flour, corn flour, etc.
She also bought some snacks, a few bars of bath soap, a wooden comb, and a pair of rather rustic-looking cloth shoes...
After squandering her ill-gotten gains like this, Cheng Wanwan still had more than 118 taels left.
When Zhao Dashan and Zhao Sanniu returned, they saw grain, cloth, and even twenty quacking ducklings on the ground.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
