Chapter 31: Invitations extended beyond the first month of the lunar calendar; winter coats were still needed…
After the first month of the lunar calendar, the winter cotton-padded clothes were still on. Qiu Yuruo took Su Yunting to the county to get two months' worth of medicine, and the money she had saved before the new year was almost gone.
Fortunately, Yun Che had already paid his tuition for spring, and Su Yunting would have to go to the county to get medicine two months later.
However, the temperature has not yet warmed up, and the food stalls are not doing very well. Qiu Yuru is glad that there are no other major expenses in the past two months, otherwise she would have to use her savings.
Half of February has passed, and the temperature is slowly rising, finally bringing a feeling of spring warmth and blooming flowers.
There were more pedestrians on the official road, and the food stalls gradually started to do better business.
The weather was fine that day. In the middle of the morning, a luxurious carriage came onto the official road, accompanied by mounted guards.
With such a grand display, it's clear that they are either very rich or very powerful.
When Qiu Yuru first started her stall, she thought she could make money off these wealthy people. But after running the stall for a while, she realized that if she relied on the wealthy to make money, her small food stall probably wouldn't be able to support her family.
Because people who look extremely wealthy rarely stop at roadside stalls to drink tea and eat. At most, they might borrow a place to rest, and even if they drink tea, they don't use their own stove.
They borrowed the place, used some firewood at most, and then complained that the firewood was no good, and that the water boiled with this kind of firewood tasted better.
However, they were also generous, giving away three or five coins of silver when they left, which would amount to three or five hundred copper coins.
Such situations are rare, so whenever Qiu Yuruo sees such a luxurious carriage coming by, she just looks at it and doesn't think they will stop to spend money.
She continued doing what she was doing, but the mounted guard came over first, looked over the stall, and then asked Qiu Yuruo, "Shopkeeper, may I borrow your place for a while?"
Qiu Yuruo smiled and said, "There's nothing wrong with that. It's just that the place is simple and it's a shame that you're not comfortable here."
The man politely replied, "You're too kind, boss."
Qiu Yuruo told the guards that there were hitching posts ahead, and then instructed Ping An: "Use that newly cut, unused cloth to wipe the tables and chairs."
For a business that can generate several hundred coins in revenue with just two pieces of firewood, Qiu Yuruo focuses on providing the best possible service.
The guards returned with their horses tied up, and the carriage arrived right in front of the stall. The driver set up a dismount stool, and a young woman stepped down from the carriage first. Her attire was even more impressive than that of the daughter of the restaurant owner in town.
But if Qiu Yu knew that the girl dressed so elegantly was actually just a maid in a wealthy family.
The girl came down and, like the guards, first looked at the stall.
Before closing her stall every day, Qiu Yuruo would scald the tables, chairs, and stove with boiling water, so even though the food stall had been operating for more than half a year, the items she used were completely free of grease.
Seeing that the food at the food stall was clean, and that a young man was wiping it with a clean cloth, the girl was reasonably satisfied.
Then he said to the people inside the carriage, "It's quite clean here, young master, please get out and rest."
After she finished speaking, the carriage door reopened, and another girl stepped out.
After wiping the table, Ping An stared blankly as two girls helped a young man down from the carriage.
Qiu Yuruo gently tugged at him, and Ping An snapped out of his daze and quickly lowered his head.
Ping An was actually quite clever, but he had never seen a man who needed a woman's support before. In his mind, even if a man was unwell and needed support, it should be a guard or a coachman who would support him, not a woman!
The little boy's values were challenged.
Qiu Yuruo's reading of literature and television in her previous life was not for nothing. Although she was from the lower class in her previous life, her knowledge and experience were beyond what people in this era could imagine.
She saw that the young master, being helped by the maid, didn't seem surprised at all, and calmly added two more pieces of firewood to the stove.
The young man got off the carriage, and because he was weak, the first girl to get off was helped by him. Another girl went back to the carriage to get a cushion, and came to the shed first. She placed the cushion on the main seat of the table in the center, and then wiped the table with her own handkerchief.
They were serving the young master, while the coachman had already taken their own stoves down from the back of the carriage.
If Qiu Yu were to take out the already lit firewood from under the stove and give them a bucket of unused water, they wouldn't have to do anything else.
The maid came over to boil water and make tea for their young master. Qiu Yuruo listened to the maid's complaints and thought to herself, "Maybe I should prepare some of the kind of firewood they mentioned in the future. If I provide good service, maybe they'll just throw me a silver ingot, like they did on TV in my past life."
As she was thinking about her good fortune, a burly man came from the other side of town and called out from afar, "Miss Qiu, make me a big bowl of noodles first."
Everyone in the surrounding villages knew that Qiu Yu was the wife of the unconscious scholar Su, but they also knew that Su was unlikely to wake up.
Everyone thought that such a good girl shouldn't be kept by that blind scholar for the rest of her life. Based on certain thoughts that are not easy to talk about now, the people in the surrounding villages all called Qiu Yu Ruo Qiu Girl.
The burly man was from the village behind and worked as a bodyguard in the county. Every time he returned from a mission, he would eat two bowls of noodles at Qiu Yuruo's food stall before going home.
When business came in, Qiu Yuruo instantly snapped out of her daydream, responded, and asked Ping An to boil water in a small pot. She then removed the cloth covering the cutting board from the dust and began rolling out noodles.
The burly man arrived at the stall, where Qiu Yuruo had already rolled out the noodles. Hot water was always kept in the large pot, and the hot water was ladled into a small pot and heated under the stove to boil.
Qiu Yuruo opened the pot lid, and Ping An added warm water to the basin for washing hands. The burly man washed his hands and said to Qiu Yuruo, "Add two spoonfuls of meat sauce to this bowl, and roll out another bowl for me when it's done."
Qiu Yu Ruo agreed, and the two chatted until the noodles were cooked. Qiu Yu Ruo scooped out the noodles, poured on bone broth, and added two generous spoonfuls of meat sauce.
The burly man didn't need her to carry the bowl; he took it himself, went to a table next to the shed, picked up the noodles, blew on them, and started eating them in big mouthfuls.
The aroma of bone broth noodles quickly spread throughout the stall. At the next table, the listless young master, who hadn't wanted to eat for several days, suddenly wanted to try the noodles to see what they tasted like.
The maids who could serve by their master's side were far more adept at reading people's expressions than ordinary people. When they saw a slight change in their master's expression, they hesitated for a moment.
Although the food outside might not be clean, the young master hasn't eaten much for several days, so it's rare that he has a bit of an appetite...
The maid was still hesitating when the young master spoke first: "The noodles at this shop smell pretty good. Let's ask the shopkeeper to make a bowl for us to try."
Since the young master has made his decision, the maid should no longer be sad or conflicted, and went directly to the stove.
Qiu Yuruo was cooking the second bowl of noodles for the burly man when the young master's maid came over. She first carefully examined the ingredients and the stove, and then watched Qiu Yuruo cook the noodles.
After confirming that there was nothing unclean about the place, Qiu Yuruo scooped out the strong man's noodles, poured bone broth and meat sauce over them, and asked Ping An to take them to him.
The maid then asked Qiu Yuruo to roll out the noodles, and then she told her about various taboos.
Qiu Yuru listened patiently to her finish speaking, then had Ping An wash her hands with water before starting to roll out the noodles.
The maid was quite satisfied with Qiu Yuruo washing her hands again, unaware that Qiu Yuruo had actually been complaining endlessly in her heart.
We've never seen how wealthy and powerful families live in our lives, but we watched TV in our past lives. In our time, everyone knew how the Stone family lived!
You're being so particular about this and that when you just go out. Actually, your big kitchens aren't that different from our ordinary homes, and they might not even be as clean as my food stall!
Despite her inner complaints, Qiu Yuruo was meticulous in her actions, avoiding all the taboos she had mentioned.
Once the noodles were cooked, another maid brought over their own bowls.
The bowl could only hold half the amount of a small bowl from a food stall. It was then topped with bone broth, but no meat sauce was added, and that was how the young master's noodles were made.
By the time the young master began to taste the noodles, the burly man had already finished both bowls. Qiu Yuruo then collected the money at the discounted price.
After tasting the noodles, the young master's appetite, which had been stagnant for several days, slowly began to stir. He took another bite, looked up and savored it carefully, and saw the burly man who had eaten two large bowls of noodles counting out more than twenty copper coins to pay Qiu Yuruo's bill.
The young master savored the noodles, which tasted even better than those made by his own cook. Seeing that Qiu Yuruo's two large bowls of noodles only cost twenty-odd coins, he was as shocked as Ping An was when he saw him being helped out of the carriage by two girls.
The maidservant serving him noticed that he had stopped chewing and asked, "Young master, is it not to your liking?"
The young master swallowed the noodles in his mouth and smiled slightly, "It tastes very good."
He slowly ate most of the bowl of noodles, and then stopped eating.
Even though he only ate half a bowl, the people serving him were already overjoyed.
The first maid to get off the carriage said, "We must thank the innkeeper properly today."
The young master found Qiu Yuruo's noodles delicious and remembered that his grandmother always said the noodles made by the cook at home weren't tasty enough. He then had the idea of inviting her home to be his noodle cook.
He gestured to the maid to call Qiu Yuru over.
Qiu Yuruo's food stall had served wealthy people twice before, but this was the first time they had asked her to speak.
Qiu Yuruo wasn't nervous at all. She followed the maid to the table where the young master was sitting, gave a curtsy, and said, "Greetings, young master."
Qiu Yuruo was dressed in coarse cloth and had a headscarf wrapped around her head, looking every bit like a village girl. Fortunately, she was quite pretty and had a natural demeanor, unlike other rural people who would shrink back in front of a "noble person".
Seeing Qiu Yuruo's performance, the young master was even more satisfied and asked her, "How much is the profit from your stall here, young lady?"
Qiu Yuruo didn't expect him to inquire about her profits first. She wouldn't tell the truth to the villagers, but she didn't care about competing with such a wealthy person.
She answered directly: "In ordinary months, if the weather is good and it's market day, I can earn one or two thousand coins. But such good luck is rare; it's good if I can have it once or twice a month."
In ordinary months, I can earn enough to cover the family's expenses. The rest of the year depends entirely on the busy farming season and the Lunar New Year, when business is good and I can save a little something.
The young master roughly calculated in his mind that she could only earn five or six taels of silver a month in an ordinary month, and seven or eight taels if she was lucky.
Knowing Qiu Yuruo's earnings, he made a comparison in his mind and once again said something unexpected to her: "Miss, your noodles taste very good. I live in the prefecture and my family is short of a noodle cook. The monthly salary is ten taels of silver, plus three sets of clothes for each season, and a bonus of one month's salary for the holidays. I wonder if you would be willing to work in the prefecture?"
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
