192, portrait
192, portrait
“Dongdongdong——”
When the people in Kyoto heard the familiar sound of the evening drum, they knew that this was the sound of the city gates closing.
Their shop is on South Street, not far from the city gate, and the sound of the drums can be heard particularly clearly.
Once the city gates were closed, there were fewer people on South Street, but there were still people walking on the street.
Every evening, their braised food shop saw another peak in customer traffic. Soldiers who had been defending the city liked to eat there after their shifts, as did traveling merchants, hawkers who had finished their business, and shop owners who were nearby.
The main reason is that the food here is cheap. Ten cents in other places can barely fill your stomach, but here, with ten cents, you can not only fill your stomach, but also eat well. There is soup, rice, and both meat and vegetables. A bowl of braised pork rice for ten cents can make even a strong man feel full.
If you skip the refined rice and opt for whole grain rice, you can save another two wen. If you want to save even more, skip the meat and just have a bowl of whole grain rice with egg and stewed vegetables, it will only cost five wen per serving.
Some people who are reluctant to spend money like to eat whole grain braised rice. A bowl of rice costs only five cents. Outside, five cents is only enough to buy two meat buns, and it's still not enough to fill your stomach. But here at Lujia Braised Food Store, five cents can buy a bowl of braised rice soaked in braised meat sauce, and also a bowl of free bone soup.
After their braised food stall moved to the store, the price remained the same, the quantity did not decrease, and the taste did not change, so many old customers came back to eat there.
Liu Sanniang knew that although there were many people coming and going in Jingdu Prefecture, many of the people who came to eat at their restaurant every day were familiar faces, that is, old customers. Once the food in their restaurant was not good or the price was raised, these old customers would not come to eat at their restaurant.
If there are no repeat customers, they will close sooner or later. Only by maintaining these old customers and continuing to develop new customers can their store's business continue to be so good and make money.
Knowing this very well, after their family moved to the store to do business, Liu Sanniang still insisted on doing the same thing as before, and the food and prices in the store remained the same.
Facts have proved that her persistence was correct.
Today, the eldest son and husband are back. Liu Sanniang handed the front shop to the waiter and went back to the kitchen to cook a few dishes that her husband and children like.
In the afternoon, the pancake shop closed, and Xu Yue Niang also came to the braised food shop to help cook. Then the three of them stayed in the braised food shop for dinner.
"This braised duck is delicious and chewy, perfect for you to eat with wine." Today was the first time that Liu Sanniang had eaten the braised duck made in their workshop. She liked the taste very much after taking the first bite. It was chewier than the braised pork they sold, and the braised pork was more flavorful.
Xu Yueniang also nodded and asked how much braised duck was made in the workshop.
"There are seven or eight hundred of them," said Lu Qingfeng.
Thinking of something, Lu Mingfei asked, "Father, godfather, if we kill all the ducks in this batch, won't there be no ducks left?"
"We kept a group of laying ducks to raise, and some ducklings were hatched in the past two months. A while ago, I sent a group of ducklings back to the village and gave them to the village chief and our clan leader, asking them to distribute them to the villagers to raise." Lu Youtian said.
They all knew that if they raised ducks by themselves, there would definitely not be enough ducks. The best way was to let people from nearby villages raise ducks with them.
The first thing Lu Youtian thought of was their hometown village, so when ducks came out later, he sent some back to the village to the village chief and their own clan leader, intending to let the people in his village raise ducks with them first.
"Oh, that's good. How are the rabbits we sent back to the village before?" When he said this, Lu Mingfei remembered the dozens of rabbits that his family had asked Lu Chunping to bring back to the village.
"When I returned to the village, I went to see those rabbits. They are temporarily raised in the homes of the village chief and our clan leader. After they give birth to baby rabbits, they will be distributed to the villagers to raise." Lu Youtian was also concerned about this matter. One reason was that he had someone buy that batch of rabbits, and the second was that if the rabbits in the village grew up, they could be supplied to their two workshops.
While they were having dinner that day, Lu Mingfei asked his father and adoptive father about some matters concerning their family's two workshops. He suggested that his father and adoptive father could divide the work between them, with one in charge of inside and the other of outside. Otherwise, if both of them were outside the city, no one would take care of the affairs in the city.
Hearing this, Lu Youtian discussed with Lu Qingfeng, "I'm not good at business. Why don't you stay in the city and I go outside the city?"
"It's all fine, no problem for me." Lu Qingfeng said.
Afterwards, the two of them discussed their respective responsibilities and finalized some business arrangements going forward. The arrangement was that Lu Qingfeng would be responsible for handling external business, while Lu Youtian would be responsible for managing their current small village and two workshops.
Lu Mingfei felt that this arrangement was quite good. His father's personality was not suitable for dealing with people and doing business. It was appropriate to let his father be responsible for internal work and let his adoptive father be responsible for external business.
…
Today's meal took a long time.
The days are shorter and the nights are longer in winter, so by the time they finished their meal, it was already dark outside.
After dinner, seeing that it was getting late, Lu Qingfeng and Xu Yueniang said goodbye to Lu Youtian and his wife and their adopted son, and took their biological son home.
If we talk about what benefits Liu Sanniang and her family gained after moving into the store here, it is that their son, who had been living in the Lu family courtyard, finally agreed to go home and live with them. Occasionally, Lu Mingrui and Zhang Xiaobao would also come to live with them.
Xu Yueniang and Lu Qingfeng were very happy about this. They even cleaned up their son's room and replaced it with a large bunk bed for their son and the little guests who came to their house to sleep together.
After his adoptive father and mother took his younger brother home, Lu Mingfei saw that it was getting late, so he told his father and mother to go back to Chunxi Road.
"Okay, then you go back and let your father take you back." Seeing that it was already dark outside, Liu Sanniang was worried about the two boys walking at night, so she asked her husband to take the two children back to Chunxi Road to sleep.
"Mom, that's not necessary. We can just go back together." Lu Mingfei didn't want to trouble his father to send them there and then come back alone.
However, Lu Youtian didn't care what his eldest son said and insisted on sending him away.
Unable to persuade his father and mother, Lu Mingfei had no choice but to let his father send him off.
Seeing his brother was leaving, Lu Mingrui also wanted to go back with him, "Brother, I want to go too."
"Okay, it's just right that you and your brother can go back and stay there tonight, and your brother will check your homework by the way." Lu Mingfei said with a wicked smile on his face.
"..." Lu Mingrui's expression froze, and he immediately changed his tone and said, "Brother, I'm not going."
"Why, you're not going again?" Lu Mingfei looked at the boy and asked, "Why did you change your mind?"
"A real man should keep his word. How can he go back on his word?" Lu Mingfei teased the boy deliberately. He obviously had never beaten this brat, so why had this brat been afraid of him since he was a child?
Lu Mingfei also found this very strange.
Lu Mingrui was so scared that he ran to A Niang's side and said pitifully, "I want to be with A Niang."
"You kid, others want your brother to teach you, but they haven't had the chance yet. Why don't you want your brother to teach you?" Liu Sanniang looked at her little son who was hugging her thighs, with a face that was both amusing and helpless.
Seeing that it was getting late, and not wanting her younger son to delay her eldest son's rest, Liu Sanniang had to let her husband take her eldest son back to Chunxi Road to sleep, while she took care of her younger son in the store here.
When Lu Mingfei and his father walked out, there were still customers sitting inside their store eating.
On the way back to Chunxi Road, the father and son chatted about some arrangements at the workshop and some plans for next year.
After sending them back to Chunxi Road, his father left.
After watching the adults leave, Zhang Qi followed his elder brother into the yard and closed the door. "Brother, go and have a rest. I'll boil some hot water for you to take a bath."
"Okay, boil some water for me."
"OK."
Someone took care of these trivial matters, so Lu Mingfei came into the study and casually placed the shoulder bag he was carrying on the desk by the window.
There are three tables in his study. The desk by the window is the one he often uses. The other two tables were added later when Zhang Lingxuan and Ye Zhuoran came to study with him.
However, later on, Ye Zhuoran and Zhang Lingxuan no longer came to their house to study, and the two tables in his study were not moved away, but were left for the other three children in the family to study.
Seeing some paper and pens on the table next to him, some of which had words written on them, Lu Mingfei picked them up, took a look at them, and then put them down.
You can tell at first glance that the big characters were written by those guys, but the characters are quite ugly.
It seems that he has to catch those guys' handwriting later. When he is not watching, they write randomly in order to speed up!
He took out the books he had brought back from his bag and placed them on the table one by one.
Seeing his sketchbook, Lu Mingfei sat down on the chair and picked up the sketchbook to look through it. It contained his recent paintings, most of which were plain, with paintings of flowers, plants, insects, fish, and portraits.
When he turned to the portrait, Lu Mingfei's hand paused. This was a half-painted portrait.
When he was painting this picture that day, he was interrupted halfway through, so this portrait has been stuck here and not finished.
After taking a look, Lu Mingfei picked up his homemade charcoal pencil and began to fill in the remaining parts.
After a while, he heard footsteps approaching. Lu Mingfei looked up and saw Zhang Qi standing outside with a hesitant look on his face. He knew that Zhang Qi was here to ask him if he wanted to take a shower.
"You go take a shower first. I'll take a shower after I'm done."
"good."
Zhang Qi knew that this meant that he should not disturb them, so he took a teapot and filled it with hot water and brought it to the study. He also poured a cup of hot water and placed it on the edge of the table. Then he turned around and went out, returned to his room to get his clothes, and filled a bucket of hot water to go to the bathroom to take a shower.
When he came out of the shower, he saw the person in the study still concentrating on painting something, so he went back to the main room to sleep.
It was unknown how much time had passed, but after he finished the painting, Lu Mingfei finally showed a smile on his face.
Suddenly, a familiar voice sounded behind him, asking him: "Is that me in this painting?"
"..." It was too late for Lu Mingfei to cover the painting in his hand. When he turned around, he met a pair of eyes looking at him with interest.
Can he say no? Author's words: Thank you Bole 9492239 (9492239) for your support, mua! To know more exciting content, please leave me a message on Liancheng Reading
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