Chapter 109: Laughing at the Scholar's Fanning of Fire is Different
Song Jin promised to make lunch for Ji Shubai and cook fish for him.
Who knew that when he entered the kitchen, he saw that Mother Chen had also bought fresh chestnuts. It was too late to stew chicken with chestnuts, so she offered to make him braised pork with chestnuts.
While Song Jin was talking in the kitchen, Ji Shubai leaned against the door frame with his arms folded across his chest as he watched her direct Mother Chen to help while she talked to herself about what dish she was going to cook for him. It was a very lively scene.
"I'll eat whatever you cook, just don't make it too much trouble."
Song Jin cut the chestnut shells with a knife and said without raising his head, "No trouble."
Song Jin was busy cooking, it was something she was used to doing. Ji Shubai didn't leave either, but leaned against the door frame, talking to her while watching her cook.
Mother Chen couldn't stand it and thought the kitchen was not clean. She chased him away several times but he refused to leave. Finally, she had no choice but to let him go.
At noon that day, Song Jin made two dishes for Ji Shubai that he had never made before, one was braised pork with chestnuts, and the other was fish in water.
The method of soaking fish is simple. She only cut the belly of the sea bass from both sides.
Pour water into the pot and bring it to a boil, add salt to season, then put in the chopped fish belly. At the same time, turn off the heat and cover the pot. Use the residual heat of the boiling water to slowly cook the fish. It will be ready in about a cup of tea.
After scooping up the fish meat, put it on a plate, add the same seasoning as steamed fish, cover it with shredded ginger and green onion, pour a spoonful of hot oil, and finally add some soy sauce and it's done.
As for the chestnut roast pork, it would be delicious with pork belly.
Cut the pork belly into small pieces, put it in a hot pan and fry it slowly over low heat to release the oil, to avoid it being too greasy. After frying, serve it, leave the oil in the bottom of the pan to fry the rock sugar, fry it over low heat until the sugar color comes out, then add the pork belly and stir-fry to color it, add scallion segments, ginger slices, aniseed, cinnamon and stir-fry evenly, then serve it in a clay pot, add boiling water and a few pieces of rock sugar, and a handful of peeled chestnuts, and simmer it slowly on the stove over low heat.
The stove was placed in the patio. Song Jin brought a small stool and squatted there, slowly fanning the fire. The boiling water stewed the meat, emitting an aroma. She supported her chin and slowly fanned the fire.
Ji Shubai found it interesting, so he moved a cross stool and sat beside her, resting his chin on his hand and watching her fan the fire.
"Why are you squatting here watching people fan the fire? Aren't you hot?"
Ji Shubai smiled and said nothing, so Song Jin had no choice but to follow his lead.
"Let me tell you, when the chestnuts are stewed until they are soft and sticky, with a meaty aroma, take a bite while they are still hot, and you will taste the sweetness, saltiness, and powderiness in your mouth. It is so delicious."
Ji Shubai still held his chin up and smiled at her. Song Jin thought he was a little silly, but couldn't stand the look in his eyes, so she simply shoved the fan into his hand and said, "Don't be idle, fan the fire for me. Don't fan it too high, otherwise the water will dry up and stick to the pot, and it won't taste good. You can fan it a little higher when you collect the sauce at the end."
Ji Shubai was assigned the job inexplicably, and now he had no choice but to sit there and help. Mother Chen felt sorry for him and reached out to grab the fan in his hand.
"How can you ask the young master to work? Go inside and take a rest. The food will be ready soon."
"It's okay, Mommy Chen. I'm just sitting around doing nothing."
"You can read a book, drink tea, or do anything else when you have free time. There is no point in working."
After hearing these words, Song Jin stopped busying himself and leaned against the door to look at him. He couldn't help thinking: This spoiled boy, no matter how poor he was, he was still a spoiled boy.
She also wants to be spoiled, but unfortunately, different people have different fates.
Ji Shubai probably felt the gaze coming from behind, and when he turned around he saw Song Jin looking at him with a slightly unfriendly smile, and he was even more unwilling to let go.
"Mother Chen, please ask me to try."
He refused to let go, so Mother Chen had no choice but to let him do it. She just stayed beside him and reminded him not to let the wind be too strong and to stop when the charcoal fire got too strong, otherwise it would burn out in a while and the charcoal would be wasted.
Ji Shubai responded with "hmm-hmm", which made Song Jin laugh. To order one person to do a job, he had to have someone accompany him. This job was really delicate.
Song Jin found it funny in his heart. He turned around and did not let Ji Shubai go. He picked up a piece of meat with chopsticks and put it into his mouth, praising him repeatedly:
"The meat is delicious, and the chestnuts are delicious too. The fire that this Jinshi fanned is different. The meat is more fragrant than that of others."
Ji Shubai held a mouthful of chestnut in his mouth and was almost choked by her sarcastic words.
"Why do you talk like that?"
Song Jin smiled: "It's just a joke."
“Not funny.”
Song Jin restrained his smile: "Okay, I won't laugh at you anymore. The main reason is that this is the first time I've seen someone fan a fire and have someone serve by his side. It's new."
Ji Shubai had a mouthful of food in his mouth and didn't say anything. He just stared at her, with one side of his cheek bulging like a hamster hiding food. Song Jin wanted to laugh even more.
"My Lord, you are kind of cute."
Ji Shubai didn't think this was a compliment. He put the bowl and chopsticks heavily on the table and said angrily, "I won't eat anymore."
"If you don't eat it, I can't finish it by myself. You can't ask me to be like Dongfang Shuo and take off my clothes and pack them up to take away. My clothes were cut for me by adults, I can't bear to part with them."
Ji Shubai made her laugh out loud: "Why can't you learn to be a good person? One by one, you either uproot the weeping willows or lose your flesh and clothes." [1]
Song Jin said: "Then I will come to your place more often in the future, and you will teach me how to learn well."
Ji Shubai picked up his bowl and chopsticks again, muttering, "I can't teach you. A stupid student can be taught with patience. You are a bad student who always goes against the teacher. I am so angry about you."
Song Jin chuckled: "My Lord, you should have more confidence in yourself. You are so capable, you will definitely be able to teach me."
Ji Shubai turned his face away, not wanting Song Jin to see the smile on his face.
That afternoon, Song Jin hesitated for a long time before he was ready to go back. Ji Shubai sent him to the door for the first time. It was not until Song Jin said he was leaving that he pretended to ask casually, "Don't you have anything to say to me?"
"What?"
Ji Shubai put his hands behind his back, took a step closer and smiled: "You asked the officer if I came back, was it really just to make me Li Meng cake?"
Song Jin lowered his head uncomfortably: "I said, please don't laugh at me, sir."
"you say."
Song Jin kicked the floor tiles with her toes, but Ji Shubai was patient, waiting for her to speak.
"I'm a little scared." The voice was very low.
"Afraid? What are you afraid of? Who bullied you?"
Song Jin raised his head, his expression no longer playful, but rather a tearful look: "Hong Xing asked her parents to marry someone to bring good luck, so I'm afraid."
When Ji Shubai heard about Hong Xing getting married for a while, he was stunned for a moment. He remembered that this girl was the one brought out by Song Jin.
"I'm afraid that in the future my parents will marry me to a man they don't know, a man I don't like. I don't want to marry a man I've never even met..."
Song Jin started to cry as she spoke: "I wanted to ask you the other day, if one day in the future my father also married me to someone I didn't want to marry, and I came to ask you for help, would you help me?"
"How do you want me to help you?"
Song Jin lowered his head, and a tear fell on the tip of his shoe.
How to help? What position does he have to help? Should he marry her?
"I don't know, so I want to ask you, sir, is this embarrassing for you?"
She heard Ji Shubai sigh. How could he help?
To be honest, the power of the Tongzhi is not small, but he has no right to interfere with other people's father's daughter's marriage without reason, unless...
"I was afraid that Chunyun would encounter something similar, so I bought her marriage certificate without telling my father. Her future is now decided by me."
When Ji Shubai heard this, he roughly understood what she meant.
"Don't worry, if that day comes and you come to me for help, I will definitely help you."
Song Jin then raised his head and asked seriously, "Sir, I can trust you, right?"
"able."
Song Jin's face finally relaxed.
"Are you happy to be at my house?"
"Happy?" She smiled.
"Is it... as happy as a book boy coming home from school?"
Song Jin's face suddenly turned red, and he bit his lip and said, "A little bit."
Now it was Ji Shubai's turn to smile: "Then I'll treat you next time, will you come?"
"Yes."
Ji Shubai seemed very satisfied with her answer. He sneered and said he would arrange a sedan chair to send her back, but Song Jin refused.
"No, your sedan chair is so conspicuous that if others see it, they will gossip and make trouble. I will just walk back by myself."
After hearing her say this, Ji Shubai didn't want to force her. He just stood in the patio and watched Song Jin leave. He turned around dejectedly until the door closed.
The hall became quiet, the yard became quiet, and the study became quiet.
Ji Shubai sat in the armchair, picked up a book at random, and without turning a page for a long while, simply threw it aside and stared out the window in a daze.
When is the next day off?
In ten days.
Song Jin trotted all the way back to the restaurant, joy written all over her face. The waiter in the restaurant couldn't help but teasing her when he saw her like this.
"Oh, shopkeeper, what good news must have happened today that makes you so happy."
Song Jin laughed out loud: "We didn't meet a happy event, but we met a cotton seller. Let's prepare to make winter clothes."
"Winter clothes?" When Song Jin said he wanted to make winter clothes, the two guys came over and asked, "Do we have any?"
"Everyone has a share," he said, patting the two men on the shoulders and solemnly admonishing them, "But you must work hard."
"Okay, boss, don't worry, we will make sure your shop is clean and tidy, and the customers are well served."
Song Jin ran in with a smile on his face.
It is true for making winter clothes and it is also true for making bedding. Song Jin doesn't want to sleep on bedding that has cotton wool clumping together anymore.
She estimated that one tael of silk cotton would cost about a hundred coins. Her parents, as well as the shop assistants and maids, would need to make long coats and quilts, plus the fabric and the tailor's wages. A single coat would cost one tael of silver. Add in the quilts, and the cost of clothes and sleeping this winter would probably be no less than twenty taels.
Oh my God, he bought three or four acres of dry land. For the first time, Song Jin had the idea of "why not treat them harshly?"
When thinking of this, Song Jin could no longer laugh, and pulled A Rong to calculate the most profitable business this summer.
There are two things in total. One is mosquito coils, which are in great demand. We add spices and sell them to rich people's homes, but it is a bit tiring and the sales time is short. However, if we have our own moxa next year, the cost will be reduced immediately. Overall, it is a good business.
The other thing was milk tea. Her main customers were people in the government office who were rich and could afford the expense. The cost of sugar and milk alone meant that her sales were limited.
In short, you can make money, but you can't sell it.
Secondly, Li Menggao also makes money, but it’s tiring. Everyone in a shop is tired, and it’s very expensive, so it can only be sold on a small scale.
Song Jin realized that as long as she didn't treat the people in the shop as human beings, her profits would increase exponentially, and it would be easy to add ten acres of land next year.
If she continues like this for a few years, she will easily own a hundred acres of land and become a small landlord. Then tenants will come to rent the land and she can just lie at home and collect rent without doing anything.
No wonder those uncles in feudal novels spend their days eating, drinking, playing and pretending to be cultured, not doing their work, and even keeping some idle guests to play with them. She used to think that those uncles simply had too much money to burn, but now it seems that they do have a lot of money but are idle, so much so that they keep some people around to make them happy, and they are idle enough to spend their days in debauchery.
The way to get rich is so simple, just exploit humans. As long as it is not illegal, you can live a carefree life.
When Song Jin figured this out, she was stunned. According to her way of life, this amount of money would be a lot to spend, but if she treated servants like they were in feudal society, she couldn't get over the hurdle in her heart.
The damn nobleness of modern scholars will never allow themselves to degenerate into the dog masters who exploit people in feudal society.
So Song Jin lied to her father that she wanted to make winter clothes and beddings, and deducted the money from the workers' wages, which made her father pull A Rong aside to count the money one by one.
A servant's daily wage was thirty wen, which was the highest salary. That was nine hundred wen a month, and the cost of food had to be deducted. An adult man earned half a dan of rice a month, which was four hundred wen, leaving five hundred wen.
A winter coat costs nine cents, and two quilts cost two taels. The cost is deducted from the workers, and they don’t have to pay them for half a year.
The guys were unhappy when they heard this and would rather sleep on old bedding. Old Lu was not done yet and the food prices had to be raised.
The food provided by Song Jin was so good that her father was quite dissatisfied. How could he include the cost of rice when calculating the money?
The cost of meat and vegetables must be included in the calculation, otherwise everyone can go home to eat.
The guys came here just to eat, so naturally they didn't want to go home and eat such vegetarian food, so they had no choice but to let Lao Lu increase the food expenses.
This time Song Jin did not stop him and let her father raise the price, otherwise she would not be able to afford it.
Having lived in modern times for too long, she happened to meet the foodie Chai Heng after she came here, and gave him rewards as much as his appetite, so that Song Jin felt that making money was too easy, so she only focused on improving her living standards and never thought that what she provided was far beyond the average level of this era.
Let her father be the bad guy. She has been labeled as someone forced by her father. Now this is a chance for her to get out of trouble. If she doesn't take the initiative to get out, will she just wait for her father to kick her out?
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