Chapter 68 A Myriad of Clever Tricks [Part 1]
Organizing such a gathering is no easy task.
Where should it be held? How should it be organized? What about manpower? How many people can attend? How much stuff should be prepared? And so on.
Lin Xiushui resolved all these problems one by one.
If the tailor shop can't do it, then go out and do it. Many things can be rented in town: wine vessels, curtains and furnishings, dishes, funeral items, wedding items, and so on, especially houses.
Lin Xiushui already had experience. She had rented houses before and wanted to buy shops. She would often wander around after work and see rental notices posted on some walls.
All kinds of properties are available, including bankrupt academies. There used to be three academies next to the tailor shop. Two moved away, and one closed down due to losses, and no one is willing to take it over to this day.
The academy is good; it has many classrooms and tables, enough to seat hundreds of people. Lin Xiushui asked the landlord to rent it for a day for two hundred coins, but there was a lot of dust inside, so it needed to be cleaned.
Five strings of cash were given for organizing the event. Lin Xiushui went to the accounting department and, in addition to sending the table curtains that had been sewn up by the mending shop, she also sought help from Zhang Xiaosi through connections.
"There's a whole bunch of tables and chairs that need cleaning. Among your four departments and six bureaus, the Arrangement Office isn't the one that specializes in this, so I thought I'd come and ask if you could give me a discount?"
The arranging office was responsible for tasks such as flower arranging, hanging paintings, and wiping tables and chairs. It had several hundred people under its command. Lin Xiushui knew this very well, but she was just greedy for cheap things and would save money wherever she could.
After thinking for a moment, Zhang Xiaosi said, "I'll go ask around for you and keep the lowest price for you. It'll definitely be three hundred coins."
“Then your tent-setting department will build us a tent. There are tents for the Qiqiao Festival, but we don’t want the Qiqiao Festival tents. We want the Qiqiao tents,” Lin Xiushui said, bowing her head and taking out a piece of paper from her bag with her right hand. It had a picture of a pointed tent on it.
The tent-setting office also had craftsmen who could build all sorts of tents. Zhang Xiaosi took a look and laughed, "Alright, I'll give you a discount. You can provide the cloth yourself, but if you want to tie it up, the cost including the wood is six hundred coins."
"We'll dismantle it the day after we finish building it, and we'll return the timber to you. How about we give you some money back?" Lin Xiushui bargained, asking who wanted to keep the shed overnight.
Every time Zhang Xiaosi negotiated business with Lin Xiushui, he had to be wary of her saying two things: first, "Make it cheaper," and second, "This price isn't enough, make it higher."
The former refers to her going to the accounting office to discuss business, where she wanted cheap goods; the latter refers to the accounting office negotiating business with her, where they acted like tailors, not giving up an inch of fabric.
"Alright, alright, I'll give you two hundred coins back. Don't say anything more, that's a really honest price," Zhang Xiaosi muttered. If it weren't for the fact that Lin Xiushui was truly responsible, always completing the work quickly and well for the sewing department without requiring the accounting department to urge her repeatedly, and often helping the accounting department repair difficult items, there would be no reason to give her money back after dismantling the wood.
Lin Xiushui was barely satisfied. With the arrangement bureau and accounting department handling things, she didn't have to worry about renting a place. She preferred to spend money rather than have a tailor work as a tailor and help her after a hard day's work.
This isn't helping, it's making an enemy.
As for the rest, there was no shortage of manpower that day. Lin Xiushui asked everyone in the covered walkway to help with the bamboo materials for making the bamboo nets, and Grandpa Zhou asked his son and daughter to make bamboo round frames, tentatively five hundred in total.
Lin Xiushui bought the hemp from the hemp shop. She used to run a hemp sack dyeing business and had frequent dealings with them. She bought several buckets of hemp rope and the business went very smoothly. The hemp rope was thin and of good quality.
The next day at noon, while the tailor was eating, a woman asked him with concern, "A meeting is being held at this border crossing. Are you sure you can handle it?"
"Yes, if there's anything I can help with, just let me know."
Lin Xiushui had been waiting for these words. She ate a couple of bites of rice before saying, "I've finished everything else, but there's one more thing."
"You finished in just one day?"
"My God, are you really done?"
“Yes, I’ve already told Madam Gu,” Lin Xiushui said, starving. She quickly ate a few bites of food. “I still have something I need your help with.”
She took out a large stack of colored paper from her pocket, named it "skill paper," and stood up to distribute it to everyone. "Everyone, go out and hand it out. This is paper cut from the paper used to make silkworm flowers. It was offered in front of the Silkworm Flower Goddess Temple. It's called skill paper. If anyone around you wants to come and weave a skill paper, give them a sheet and bring it over."
Lin Xiushui doesn't just distribute the people the women in the tailor shop know; she also distributes them in Qiqiao City.
Every year from the first day of the seventh lunar month to the Qixi Festival, various stalls selling Qixi Festival items gather near the Xiaonanmen Gate, forming a bustling market with a constant flow of people and vehicles. Of course, there are no horses or dragons, only many donkeys.
Lin Xiushui was going to set up a stall to earn money and organize the weaving fair. She wanted to do both without neglecting either.
It was a bit difficult to grab a stall. Wang Yuelan and Sang Ying held hands and squeezed their way into the crowd. The longer their hands could stretch, the bigger their stall could be.
Xiao He, huffing and puffing, carried a large bag of hair ties and swayed behind Lin Xiushui. As she walked, she shook her head and muttered, "Do we have to kowtow? Where do we kowtow?"
Others talked about the Qiqiao Festival, but she thought it meant begging.
She also packed a broken bowl in her bag. Although she didn't know why she had to beg when her family was eating so well, she listened to everything Lin Xiushui said and made up her mind to give all the money she begged to her older sister.
Lin Xiushui had no idea what Chen Jiuchuan was thinking. She was carrying all sorts of items she wanted to buy and sell when she saw Chen Jiuchuan carrying a table in one hand and heavy sewing tools in the other, squeezing into the crowd. These days, it was rare to see someone willing to do manual labor.
The market was bustling with women. Chen Jiuchuan set up his things, stood straight against the wall, and said, "I want to leave."
"I didn't stop you from leaving," Lin Xiushui looked up at him, "What are you doing standing against the wall? Trying to scale the walls?"
"I think."
Chen Jiuchuan decided to leave first and hid on the boat.
Lin Xiushui glanced at him briefly, but didn't have time to pay attention to him; she really needed to make money.
The market was packed with people, and there were so many women coming and going. Lin Xiushui made a lot of hair ties and headbands, as well as various silk dolls and cat dolls. In addition to distributing paper crafts, she also planned to take on some clothing making work. She could do both at the same time and couldn't miss this good opportunity.
She placed a small shelf on the table and arranged hairbands and hair ties in various colors such as pink and green, yellow and blue, purple and yellow, pink and white, red and black, and orange-red and blue on it.
Wang Yuelan was sweating profusely. She glanced to the side and whispered, "I checked this out. On the left are vendors selling lifelike flowers and hair ornaments, and on the right are vendors selling all sorts of toys. They're shouting enthusiastically on both sides, so we can save our energy."
"We got all that free publicity from others."
Lin Xiushui glanced to both sides. Actually, even without shouting, people would still be able to see her coming over. After all, it's rare to see so many people, as dense as raindrops in a light drizzle.
"What's this?" A young woman ran over excitedly, bending down to look at the shelf. "Is it a hair accessory? Can I wear it?"
Lin Xiushui first looked her over. She had a round face, her hair was styled in a tassel bun with only two orange-red ribbons, and she wore a white gauze jacket, an orange-red bodice, and a purple skirt. She smiled and said, "Of course, I have a photo here. You can take a picture later."
The young woman fiddled with her hair tie, unable to find the color she wanted, but liking its unique style. Lin Xiushui then took out a long orange-red cloth and said, "I can make one for you right now, ten coins apiece."
"Ah? This can be made fresh?" The round-faced young woman was surprised. She covered her mouth with her hand, looked around, and whispered, "I'm sorry, I thought this was purchased from Lin'an Prefecture. It turns out you made it yourself."
Lin Xiushui smiled at her and pointed to her sewing box, "Yes, I'm a tailor, and I made all of this myself."
He then gave her a piece of orange-red embroidery paper. "This is embroidery paper. I hope you have good luck. It's a free gift. If you want to come to our Gu Family Tailor Shop to weave embroidery nets, you can bring this paper over."
"We have a weaving competition this year. The first seven people who can weave different patterns and get a lot of clever paper can come to our tailor shop and earn two strings of cash a month."
"If you don't receive many clever paper items, we will give you clever fruit, clever rope, clever flowers, etc."
The young woman's eyes widened slightly upon hearing this. "Really? You two happen to be sending gifts too?"
She wasn't very skillful with her hands, and every year she would go to the Qiqiao Market just to pick out the best spider to take home. Even though she was terrified of spiders, she always hoped that the spider could spin a round web so that she wouldn't be nagged by her mother every day for the rest of the year.
“Yes,” Lin Xiushui said, taking out a hair tie pattern, glancing at her hair bun, selecting a large one, and cutting the fabric as she bent down. “When it comes to skill, being clever is skill, getting a clever pattern is skill, making a clever net yourself is skill, how can it not be skillful? Of course, there are gifts to give.”
"I want to go, can you give me a few more tickets?" the round-faced young woman squatted down and whispered, "I have a few sisters, we're going too."
She sighed, "I'd say the few of us are the kind of people even ghosts fear on Qixi Festival."
"Others want to send away the God of Poverty, but we're a little different. We want to send away all the spiders in the world, all of them. What's this 'Daughters' Festival'? That's a festival for unlucky people to suffer for nothing."
Lin Xiushui chuckled, and Sang Ying squatted down and said, "Yes, I used to dislike Qixi Festival too. Who likes spiders? Just because they spin silk doesn't mean they're like the Weaver Girl. If I were the Weaver Girl, I would sue everyone."
The two became more and more passionate as they talked. One said he would pack up the Qixi Spider and throw it far away, while the other said he would file a complaint with the emperor, starting with the previous dynasty.
During this time, Lin Xiushui sold ten hair ties, distributed twenty-six pieces of clever paper, and sewed up the orange-red hair ties. The young woman squatted until her legs went numb and she couldn't stand up. She cursed a lot, but she felt relieved both verbally and in her heart.
She put on the hair tie, and Lin Xiushui reached out to adjust it for her, trimmed the dangling ribbon, and then handed her a mirror. The round-faced young woman shook her head and exclaimed in surprise, "Oh, this looks so nice! I thought the gathered hair tie would look strange, but it made my hair bun look a bit fluffy in the front."
"I want this color again. Can you make me a few more? Where can I find you?"
The stalls here are not located in fixed places; it's all about grabbing one. So, Lin Xiushui doesn't know where she'll set up her stall tomorrow.
Lin Xiushui lowered her head and wrote on the paper, "If you want me to do it, come to Sangqiao Ferry and Sangshukou in the morning. After you see the covered walkway and the old mulberry tree, go in and it's the second house."
"I can not only make hair ties, but I can also make clothes. If you want orange-red, I can make a pleated skirt. As for a strapless dress, I have orange fabric with a square knot pattern. If you want it, you have to come to the vicinity of Chenshi (around 5-7 AM) in the morning."
Lin Xiushui wanted to attract business for herself and also wanted others to wear clothes in their favorite colors.
The round-faced young lady liked orange, but there weren't many orange clothes on the market, and they didn't fit her well. She was a bit short, and if the skirt was long, it would drag on the ground.
She exclaimed in surprise, "Really? I trust you. You look beautiful!"
Lin Xiushui wore a blue top and a skirt made of blue gauze over yellow gauze, layered on top of each other, tied with a long green gauze ribbon. She also tied her hair with blue and yellow ribbons, which was very eye-catching and made people believe in her aesthetic sense.
She gained another long-term customer who came from across two alleys and three rivers to find her.
Business was good at the market, and Lin Xiushui sold her goods quickly. She sold most of them before dark. She didn't count how much money she made, but she estimated it to be more than one or two strings of cash.
About a hundred sheets of paper were given out. Among them were two middle-aged women who said they wanted to ask for one for their daughters, but then said they were too old.
Lin Xiushui gave out a few more, saying, "Our meeting is open to all ages; teenagers and people in their thirties and forties can come."
"We have many people in our tailoring workshop who are in their thirties or forties. It's just a matter of whether you want to come or not. There's no shame in it."
"We can go too?" The middle-aged woman rubbed the sweat from her hands. "I make vinegar in the vinegar workshop, and in June I also go to dry soy sauce and dried fish. We're considered rough people. Even if we can sew and mend clothes, we're still rough people."
Lin Xiushui said simply, "We'll send not only Qiaoguo (巧果), but also Qiaodan (巧蛋) as gifts."
She made a last-minute decision: she was going to fleece Li Xixian; she wanted eggs and duck eggs.
"Sending eggs and Qiaoguo (a type of pastry)?"
The two middle-aged women said in unison, "What's there to be ashamed of? Let's go first and talk about it later."
After all, there's no way to refuse an egg.
"Anyone can attend the weaving skills competition in your tailor's workshop?" A woman who looked to be in her thirties came forward. She had been listening for a long time before coming over to ask this question.
She touched her hands, which had some thick calluses, and wanted to take a look. She used to be someone who loved to join in the fun, but she was afraid that they wouldn't let her into their line of work.
“I make paper money, you know, the kind that makes paper money,” the thin woman said.
Lin Xiushui asked her to sit down. "Do you need an iron chisel? I have one too, but it's a round-hole one. I use it to chisel holes in cloth. Chiseling paper money must be tiring too."
“Not tired at all,” the woman’s face immediately lit up. “I’m the best at chiseling paper money in our trade. Our iron chisels have a copper coin-shaped bottom. I can chisel a hundred pieces of paper money at once, and I guarantee that every single one of them will have a hole punched in it.”
"That's amazing," Lin Xiushui said sincerely. Even if a hundred sheets of paper money are thin, they are still as wide as four fingers put together, quite thick. To be able to chisel them through in one go requires skill and hard work.
She immediately said, "We are weaving not only weaving skillful nets, but also taking this opportunity to bring together all kinds of skilled craftsmen. This is called the Skillful Weaving Gathering."
"My wife, you must come over. Your ability isn't shown on your face, it's all in your hands."
The woman was quite pleased by what she said. No one had ever recognized her skills before. After all, chiseling paper money was a very small job. Even if hundreds or thousands of pieces of paper money were burned to ashes, no one would care. The holes on them were chiseled out one by one by people.
They only care about what kind of work they do. Although chiseling paper money is a small task, it took a lot of practice to be able to chisele hundreds of pieces at a time.
After the woman left, Lin Xiushui met another woman with a neatly tied bun. She also approached her, saying that she was a female doctor who could cure diseases that ordinary people wouldn't get.
"What is it?" Lin Xiushui asked curiously.
She smiled slightly and said, "It's about stitching up a cleft lip and cutting off zygomatic fingers."
They can use needles, knives, tweezers, and hooks to sew up missing lip flaps and cut off extra fingers.
Lin Xiushui was shocked; this was truly a master of sewing.
It was while delivering paper crafts that she walked out of Sangqiao Ferry and into this more crowded place that she realized many people were engaged in many small, unnoticed jobs.
There are funerary objects, obstetric items, items for performing rituals for the deceased, as well as items for making cricket pots, plum wine, and the world's most delicious fried dough, etc.
The Weaving Skills Association brings everyone together so that they can share their unique stories of skill and tell other young women that there are countless kinds of skill.
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