Chapter 19 Sausage Grill: Men's Words Are Liars
Cheng Niangzi was observant and noticed that the coal stove Yao Ruyi had drawn was different from the one they usually used.
Old Han noticed it too. He slammed the bowl on the ground and licked his teeth. "Young lady, have you never burned coal briquettes before? Why is this stove so deep? Coal briquettes are only this big." He glanced at Yao Ruyi, noticing her fair complexion and delicate skin, and seemed to think she was a pampered young lady who had never burned coal briquettes at home. He gestured with his palm to make a flat circle: "A deep stove wastes coal and doesn't retain heat."
Listening to Old Han ramble on about the coal briquettes from Hedong, Shanxi, Yao Ruyi thought to herself, just as she had guessed, that ordinary people in Bianjing with a little extra money were already using coal! However, the coal briquettes at that time were of different sizes. To save money, ordinary people would buy coal ash, mix it with mud, and make their own briquettes. Therefore, most of them were hand-shaped into flat, round shapes, unlike the standardized coal briquettes produced by coal shops. As a result, the coal stoves commonly used in people's homes were usually made shallower and wider.
Unlike later coal stoves, which were cylindrical.
After thinking about it, Yao Ruyi decided to have it made according to her own measurements.
She also planned to make the coal briquettes herself.
Before my grandmother opened her own shop at the town's middle school, she and my grandmother lived in a village with rugged mountain roads. Unlike in town where everyone used gas stoves, the village still used coal stoves. To save money, my grandmother would take coal molds and mix soil and coal ash to make her own briquettes, which she would then lay out in the front and back yards to dry. My grandmother was stingy; she always mixed in too much soil, which meant that the coal briquettes she made would crumble easily when pinched with tongs after burning, making them extremely difficult to clean, but it saved her a lot of money.
Back then, there were people who rode tricycles through villages selling coal briquettes for 50 cents each, while the cost of making them was only 20 cents.
A stingy grandmother raises a stingy granddaughter, who is naturally stingy as well. Yao Ruyi was also trying to save money. Making coal briquettes wasn't difficult; she helped her grandmother with the coal every year and didn't think it required any advanced skills.
Winter is approaching, and heavy snow is expected in the Central Plains region.
Stockpiling firewood, charcoal, and coal briquettes is something that must be done before winter arrives.
However, she was short of money. Grandpa Yao's twenty or so strings of cash were definitely going to be saved to pay off the debt to Xingguo Temple. All she had was the one string of cash she had earned from selling eggs and soup dumplings early in the morning these past few days. Besides ordering the stove, she also had to make cabinets. She had to stretch this money in two.
So she cautiously inquired about the price.
Old Han squatted on the ground and sighed, "A stove, four plates, and a pot will cost you four hundred and sixty coins. Young lady, these items all need to be fired separately, taking up a lot of kiln space! Square pieces are especially difficult to fire. If they are damaged, they have to be remade and fired again. I would have to sell my pants to make up the loss. If you hadn't been a regular customer who brought you here, I would have insisted on eight hundred coins."
Old Han looked so worried, as if he had already suffered a huge loss by asking for this price.
"So expensive!" Yao Ruyi patted her purse. She roughly calculated that her budget for making the stove was at most three hundred coins, leaving her some money to buy eggs. But what the other person said also seemed to make sense; firing pottery is a skill that requires time and effort…
Madam Cheng crossed her arms and snorted coldly: "Old Han, don't try to fool her because she's young and doesn't know any better! What's so expensive about a clay kiln? A kiln can fire hundreds of pieces, how much space do these few plates take up? Why don't you say they take up space when you fire other people's large plum vases? Stop arguing, two hundred coins a set, plus six bowls and plates as a bonus! Otherwise, we'll go to Zhang's Kiln to have them made!"
Old Han cried out that he was wronged, and started arguing with Cheng Niangzi, pulling and tugging at each other. One said he was losing money, and the other said he was poor and his family was suffering. Finally, under Yao Ruyi's dumbfounded expression, the two sides tested each other's bottom line and finally settled on a deal for 266 coins.
"That's...that's amazing!" Yao Ruyi quickly replied, "No need to send plates, just send me two 3.4-inch deep ceramic basins." She could use them as molds for making coal briquettes.
Old Han's elaborate singing and acting failed to stop Cheng Niangzi from talking, and she reluctantly agreed.
Only then did Madam Cheng show some satisfaction.
After paying the deposit and signing a written agreement to deliver the goods five days later, Old Han still followed behind them, lamenting, "Sigh, I really didn't make a penny on this deal, but consider it making friends with you, young lady. If you do well in the future and someone asks about me, please spread the word about me!"
Yao Ruyi saw his tattered clothes, dark skin, and bare feet, and felt a pang of pity. The pottery kiln looked dilapidated, and she thought that he was earning his money through hard work, yet she was still so ruthless in haggling over the price... But she had no choice; she was almost starving herself and really wanted to save as much money as possible. Sigh.
Madam Cheng pulled her a few steps closer and whispered in her ear, "Don't believe his complaints about being poor! This old man earns seventy or eighty strings of cash a month, more than the monthly salary of the Imperial Academy's Chancellor Feng! Think about it carefully, making pottery really only requires three things: coal, clay, and labor. A hundred catties of clay only costs a few dozen coins, and even the good stuff only costs a few hundred. How many catties of clay can your kiln use? So the cost of the clay is only a few coins. As for coal, one kiln can fire hundreds or thousands of pieces, so how much of that is going to you? And the labor costs, a master craftsman only earns four or five hundred coins a day. Even if your work is more difficult, if you only get fifty coins a day, Old Han will still earn two hundred coins from you with tears in his eyes!"
With that, he grabbed Yao Ruyi and pulled her away.
"You feel sorry for him? You should feel sorry for yourself instead. He just bought a big house in Zhouqiao last year and has three beautiful concubines! He's dressing like this on purpose. Men's words are deceitful! But Old Han is very skilled. When he was young, he studied under a master craftsman from the official kiln. No one can match his skill in refining clay. The vessels he makes won't crack even if the fire is very strong. Otherwise, with his slippery nature, I would never have asked you to come here."
Yao Ruyi: "..." I've learned something.
She also reflected on herself slightly. She was indeed a person who lacked common sense in many aspects. Being sick deprived her of the right to experience life and go to school to learn. The hospital seemed to only be able to teach her how to face life and death.
Now I have gained new insights.
It's wonderful. In this world, although the absence of her grandmother makes her a little sad, she seems to be able to enjoy life as freely as a normal, healthy person. Yao Ruyi became happy again for no reason, took Cheng Niangzi's arm, and leaned against her affectionately: "Sister-in-law, thank you for teaching me. I am also very grateful to you today. Otherwise, all the money I worked hard to earn in the past two or three days would have been easily tricked out of me."
Cheng Niangzi gently patted her arm and encouraged her, "You're still young and kind-hearted, which is a good thing. You'll understand as you go. Don't be afraid, your sister-in-law is here for you. If you don't understand something, just come and discuss it with us neighbors. You don't have to carry it all alone."
A sour feeling welled up in Yao Ruyi's eyes, and she gave a heavy "hmm".
After deciding on the oven, she went with Madam Cheng to buy embroidery thread and find a carpenter.
This carpentry shop in the outer city has no name; it's just a small shop in a corner. The carpenter inside is a young man named Zhou Jumu. He fled from the north with his family and his Luban box during the frequent wars a few years ago. Perhaps because the shop he rented was too remote and he was young, his business wasn't very good.
In front of the shop were piles of finished wooden buckets, basins, tables, chairs, and benches, with sawdust and wood chips scattered everywhere, along with various kinds of wood. But even on market day, there were hardly any customers. With no business coming in, Zhou Jumu first moved a bamboo reclining chair to his wife Hexiang in the warm sunshine, poured her a pot of hot tea, peeled a full plate of pine nuts and peanuts, pitted the dates, and then went inside to find two storybooks and placed them beside her.
Seeing his wife comfortably basking in the warm sunshine, sipping tea, eating fruit, and flipping through her storybook, he squatted down and began tapping the stool leg in silence.
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[Sunglasses] It was the same when my mom and I went to the furniture store to order furniture; both the buyer and seller were putting on a show of acting skills, lol.
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