Chapter 263: Those who learn from me will live, those who imitate me will die
"Actually... there is another choice..." Liu Mao glanced at her expression, hesitating whether to continue.
Sang Yu was stunned. There was another choice. What was it?
Having said that, Liu Mao simply said, "In the city, there are occasionally a group of young female slaves who come from nowhere..."
He stopped talking here, and Sang Yu understood instantly.
They were not slaves who came from nowhere, they were clearly sent from Qingxi Village.
Liu Mao may not have known where that group of people came from at first, but he should have understood it when he went to Qingxi Village for the first time.
"Where are they usually sent?" Sang Yu asked, but in fact she already had a guess in her mind.
"The young and beautiful ones were picked out and sent to the mansions of wealthy families. The remaining ones with decent looks were sold to brothels, and the rest were sold to traffickers."
When talking about them, Liu Mao sighed.
He had always thought that all slaves were spoils of war captured from border countries and people punished for their crimes, but he never thought that there were also people who forced decent women to live there.
Sure enough, it was exactly as she guessed. Sang Yu sighed and said, "Let's put this matter aside for now. Please help me find a few skilled agents, both men and women."
She had no ability to retrieve the people who had been sold before, and there had been no one at the entrance to the canyon recently, so naturally there would be no slaves being sold.
"Okay." Liu Mao nodded in agreement.
After making an appointment to meet again at Shen Shichu, Sang Yu asked Liu Mao to help close the door panel, locked the door, and walked towards Zhong's Teahouse.
Seeing her from afar, Sang Xingjia took the initiative to greet her and asked with concern: "Little sister, you're back! How is Liu Mao...?"
Being afraid that he would develop feelings for his younger sister was one thing, worrying about his life was another. He always knew his place in the big things.
Sang Yu, who was lost in thought, came to her senses when she heard his words: "Him? He apologized to me when we just met, and he pushed the matter aside yesterday."
"Oh, that's good, that's good." Sang Xingjia immediately breathed a sigh of relief, but then looked behind her with some confusion.
Not seeing Liu Mao, he asked again, "Where is he? Why didn't you bring him here if you saw him?"
"I just went with him to look at the shop that Madam Zhong gave me. I asked him to help find a dealer and some shop assistants. I'll go back at 3 p.m."
Sang Yu briefly recounted how she had just run into Liu Mao, how they had made an appointment to go see the shop together, and what happened afterwards.
"If we hire a servant, won't the secret recipe be leaked out?" Sang Xingjia's mind worked quickly and he immediately thought of this.
"Hehe, where did that secret recipe come from?" Sang Yu was amused by him.
There is no secret recipe for sweet drinks like milk tea. It’s just the right ratio of milk, tea and water.
At most, we can add some control of the heat and the sweetness. It may not be possible to replicate it in a short period of time, but with more experiments, we can always make the taste similar.
After all, back then, there was no such technology and hard work as in later generations, which could enhance the aroma and flavor, and required carefully controlled proportions. With limited ingredients, it was hard to make anything fancy.
"Ah? No secret recipe? Wouldn't it be learned by others soon?"
Sang Xingjia suddenly became nervous. He was still thinking about how to prevent the shop assistants from stealing his skills, but it turned out that there was nothing to steal at all.
Sang Yu was not at all flustered, she just smiled at him and said, "Brother, many people have learned how to make skewers and oden, so does that mean Liu Mao's business will no longer continue?"
Sang Xingjia had seen Liu Mao selling skewers when he followed Sang Yu to buy vegetables. Although his business was not as good as before, it was still booming.
What she said made sense, but he still didn't understand.
"Why?"
"Brother, I think there's a saying that goes, 'Those who imitate me will live, those who imitate me will die.' If you simply imitate and follow trends without researching your own unique characteristics and selling points, it's useless even if the taste is similar."
The competition among milk tea brands in later generations is so fierce that many newly emerging milk tea shops will be copied and imitated by other followers in the blink of an eye, and in the end those copycats will often die miserably.
Sang Yu has never been afraid of others following her trend or imitating her. The fact that someone is imitating her just shows that her fame has spread and her market recognition has been expanded.
She can launch new products with stable flavors at any time. Can those who follow her do the same?
Besides, it might be a good thing for her that these people imitated her. Now she didn't have enough funds and could only run one store.
When her business grows and she has sufficient funds, she can even directly acquire those stores. With ready-made skilled employees and tools, it will save her a lot of trouble.
Sang Xingjia nodded thoughtfully, roughly understanding what she meant.
This is just like when he was learning calligraphy as a child. He had to learn the structure and spirit of the master's calligraphy. He could not just imitate blindly, but had to develop his own style to be considered successful.
"Little sister, you always have the best ideas. I believe you." He first affirmed Sang Yu's idea, and then asked, "It's still a long time before Shenshi. What should we do?"
Sang Yu said as a matter of course: "Let's go to the teahouse to listen to books and sell milk tea by the way."
Zhong Xueru is a man of action. After getting the first two chapters of Journey to the West from her, she immediately asked the storyteller to start reading, which she had to do in the afternoon.
Teahouse patrons have a high tolerance for stories being told for the first time. As long as your story is good enough, even if they haven't memorized it by heart, they will still listen to it by reading the storybook.
Therefore, as long as the storyteller is familiar with the story before going on stage and does not stumble when telling it, he can get started right away.
Even storytellers in other teahouses can do this, so it goes without saying that working in Zhong's Teahouse, where the salary is well paid, is even better.
Zhongjia Teahouse has three long-term storytellers. Generally, there is a show in the morning and afternoon every day. The three of them take turns and have some time to rest.
But that's the general situation. If there's a hot new story or something big happens, there will be additional performances, with three people taking turns to speak on stage every day.
The situation in "Journey to the West" this time is similar to the previous one but also somewhat different.
Although Sang Yu has great confidence in this storybook, almost every creator has this confidence, and the specific arrangement depends on the preferences of the audience.
Sang Yu carelessly brought Sang Yongjing and Sang Xingjia into the teahouse carrying things. The burly shopkeeper, who knew that she had reached a cooperative relationship with his young lady, did not even blink and continued to busy himself with the work at hand.
Sang Yongjing, who was originally worried, finally felt relieved when he saw that the waiter did not stop him, and his back straightened a little.
There was no rush to sell milk tea. Seeing the storyteller surnamed Chen coming on stage with a thread-bound copy of "Journey to the West", Sang Yu asked the two of them to sit down at an empty table.
First listen to what he can say, and then see the reactions of the audience around him.
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