Chapter 1296 Bet You
Manbao was holding the bundle and was reluctant to give it to him, but Zhou Silang pulled it over firmly. He said, "One fox fur coat is enough. Winter isn't long, and the New Year is just around the corner. After that, it won't be so cold anymore."
Manbao heard this and didn't really want the fox fur, but he couldn't help but say, "Yizhou is much warmer than the capital."
"But they are richer than our family."
Manbao sighed and didn't fight with him. He just looked at the things piled in the yard and asked curiously, "So, Fourth Brother, are you going home?"
"That's right," Zhou Silang said as a matter of course, "Originally, I wanted to come here to replace Lao Wu, but I brought Sanzi and the others with me, and I can't just leave them in the capital, so I took other jobs. I think Lao Wu is doing well managing the restaurant now, so I took Sanzi and the others to take on some other jobs outside."
"Besides, there are more and more medicinal herbs growing on the mountain at home. This year, we even planted more than 20 jujube trees. So many medicinal herbs need to be transported here and sold. I will definitely have to go back and forth between home and the capital, so it's not appropriate for me to manage a restaurant."
In short, Zhou Silang's reasons were very convincing, and Manbao was convinced, but Zhou Wulang was not.
When he learned that his fourth brother was going home again and he had to stay in the capital, he was unhappy. "I have to go home. My wife is still at home. We originally agreed that I would stay for half a year and you would stay for half a year. How can you go back on your word?"
Zhou Silang said, "It takes nine or ten days to get from home to the capital on a good day. In this weather, it might take half a month. You make two round trips a year. Don't you mind wasting your time?"
"My wife and children are still at home. I haven't seen them for half a year."
Zhou Silang was so disappointed that he said, "Can you stop thinking about your wife and children and think more about making money?"
Zhou Wulang disagreed, "You just left home, of course you don't want to, and what's the point of making money? Isn't it for your wife, children... and parents?"
"You have the ability to put your parents before your wife and children."
Zhou Wulang turned to Manbao and said, "Manbao, look at him being unreasonable."
Manbao also missed his parents, so he understood his fifth brother and comforted him, "It's okay, fifth brother. After Bai Shan and the others finish their exams, we will go home for the New Year."
Zhou Silang hesitated for a moment, "Will the palace let you go?"
Manbao didn't care. "It's okay. The Queen's condition has stabilized, and the Prince's condition isn't an emergency. I'll just prescribe some medicine for him and have Doctor Liu and the others give them acupuncture regularly."
Zhou Silang heard her say it so easily that he believed it.
Zhou Liulang was worried, "What about the shop?"
Zhou Wulang thought without hesitation, "Just lock him up, and we'll go home for the New Year."
Zhou Liulang was reluctant to leave, "Business is very good during the Chinese New Year."
Zhou Silang said, "It would be great if you two brothers could just balance your temperaments."
One is not so obsessed with his wife, and the other is not so obsessed with running away.
Manbao said, "Fourth brother, it would be better if you were half as honest as third brother."
Zhou Wulang: "That's right, it would be better if Third Brother was half as cunning as you."
Zhou Lizhong and his younger children sat aside, eating and listening to the quarrels between their uncles and aunts, without taking it to heart at all.
But Manbao remembered something, "Fourth brother, where did you get the money for so many furs?"
"We sold all the two carts of medicinal herbs we brought, and my parents also asked me to take the silver that the capital gave you."
Manbao was still calculating in his head when Zhou Lijun, who was keeping the accounts, pulled over the abacus and made several adjustments. Then he looked up and said to Manbao, "Auntie, there's still a difference of one thousand taels."
Everyone immediately looked up at Zhou Silang.
Zhou Silang's eyes wandered for a moment before he said, "The remaining furs are on credit."
Zhou Wulang covered his chest and asked in a trembling voice, "Why should people give you credit?"
"I wrote the IOU, and they know we have a shop in the capital," Zhou Silang said, looking at Manbao. "So what I mean is, since Liu Lang doesn't really want to go back, why don't you stay and look after the shop? You can even hire a few more helpers later."
Zhou Liulang immediately looked at Manbao and said, "Look, Manbao, my fourth brother has taken me to Hu Shang."
The brothers and sisters pressed Zhou Silang down and were about to beat him, but Zhou Silang shouted, "We can definitely make money, you know? Furs sell well in Yizhou!"
Zhou Wulang had also worked as a buyer and was well-versed in the market. He pressed him and asked, "There's no shortage of markets for furs in the capital, so why are the foreign merchants willing to sell them on credit? How much interest do you give them?"
Zhou Lizhong couldn't help but say, "Fourth Uncle, the roads are not easy to travel in winter. If we set a time limit and miss the deadline, losing money is a small matter, but breaking our promise is a big deal."
"Oh, am I that stupid?" Zhou Silang pushed Zhou Wulang away from him and said, "This thousand taels of silver they owe me is both the price of their goods and a deposit for us."
He said, "These Hu merchants love tea very much. They know that we have tea in Mianzhou and Yizhou, so they ordered tea from me and we even negotiated the price."
Zhou Wulang and Zhou Liulang hesitantly let go of him. Zhou Silang said complacently, "So you see, I've made two deals this way, and I didn't lose anything."
Zhou Liulang was still a little hesitant, "What if you can't get any tea next year?"
"Pfft, pfft, pfft, don't be such a pessimist," Zhou Silang said. "When I was in Yizhou, I also carried tea bags for tea merchants. I know where they get their tea. Next year, I'll go there earlier than they do. I don't believe I won't be able to get any."
Manbao had seen similar introductions in some stories in the encyclopedia. It was said that in ancient times, people on the grasslands always ate meat and lacked vegetables, so their bodies lacked vitamins and they always suffered from abdominal distension and poor diet. However, with tea, these symptoms could be greatly alleviated, and people would live much longer.
Manbao: "Don't they have any requirements on the type of tea?"
Zhou Silang: "Yes, as long as it's tea."
Manbao breathed a sigh of relief and said to Zhou Wulang and Zhou Liulang, "It's okay. It doesn't matter if Fourth Brother really can't collect any tea. The tea the village chiefs and the others usually consume will be enough. By then, we can collect more from the nearby villages and that will be enough."
Thinking of the taste of the tea, Zhou Wulang and Zhou Liulang's faces turned bitter, with a look of disbelief, "Who would like such bitter tea?"
Zhou Silang was very skeptical.
Manbao said firmly: "Just like Fourth Brother doesn't care about the fur they give him, they won't care about the taste of the tea he gives them."
Zhou Silang denied this, "Who said I'm not particular? I carefully selected the furs. I picked out many of the rotten ones."
Meanwhile, in a small courtyard not far from their Zhouji Restaurant, several barbarian men dressed in furs huddled around a brazier, warming themselves by the fire. As they roasted, they said, "I didn't expect our furs would actually sell. Zhou Si wasn't particular, he even took all the furs with holes in them."
I've been studying the instructions for Tong Ren Tang's Yang Yin Qing Fei Wan for a long time, and I can finally confirm that you really need to take 60 pills at a time. 60 pills, oh my god...
PS: The next update will be around 9pm
(End of this chapter)
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