Seeing that it was getting late, Li Mai and Zhou Quan decided not to go to the shop and let Xiao Tao train at her own pace, since they had been taking care of her for many days already.
The two of them went to the west courtyard to have tea and chat with Yun Chang, hoping to cultivate their relationship.
Yun Chang was serious about this brother-sister relationship, Li Mai was serious about it, and Zhou Quan completely respected Li Mai's decision.
These are people who have lost their parents and siblings, and they all yearn for a family with whom they share a bond of kinship.
In the following days, Li Mai and Zhou Quan occasionally accompanied Yun Chang and sometimes went to the shop to work.
Yesterday they went back to the village for a day to see how the others were doing, collect the clothes they had made, and give them some clothes or small trinkets.
The people making clothes for Limai in the village are still the same five she selected before. She also added four other girls from the village who were rejected in the last screening, and had them make cloth bags, sachets, and handkerchiefs.
The important thing is that each item has to be embroidered with a name; these are all free gifts.
Zhao went back to the village with them yesterday. From now on, the women in the village will deliver their work to her after they finish their tasks. After Zhao checks and approves the work, she will take it back, pay them, and then assign them more tasks.
The women and girls working in Limai were very happy because they could earn money with their skills to supplement their family income.
Other women who didn't know how to embroider also started going to town to buy silk thread and learn to embroider at home, hoping that after they learned, they could go to Zhou Quan's house to get work.
Now, in the cupboard at Old Man Zhou's and Mrs. Zhao's house, there is a large box containing a lot of copper coins and silver coins that Zhou Quan specially exchanged for them, which they would distribute to the villagers who needed money.
And you know what? The things Zhou Quan's family did, like building a dye shop and making clothes, actually helped quite a few families gradually start accumulating savings.
Some people work for ten days or a month before receiving their pay. In order to receive the money, some people will work for a few days, then stop working if they have something else to do, and collect their previous pay.
Anyway, Old Man Zhou has all the account books. He remembers very clearly whoever received the money will put their fingerprint on the book. He's not afraid that some illiterate people will refuse to pay and claim they didn't receive the money.
The men in the village, as long as they are hardworking, can earn money by working at the dye shop.
Women can earn money by doing needlework carefully, and they don't even have to leave the village to make money, which makes people very happy.
Several other women who knew how to weave also set up looms at home and began weaving, waiting for the dye house in Limai to be built so that they could collect the cloth they had woven.
Of course, there were also those who were not diligent, or who did not want to work for Zhou Quan's family, and who only buried themselves in cultivating the few plots of land they had.
When faced with such situations, Zhou Quan and Li Mai were unable to help, so they left it to the clan chief to find a way to assist, as he only helped those willing to contribute their labor.
Some people even asked Old Man Zhou for money when they needed to send their children to school or when they were sick, and they didn't have enough money of their own. Old Man Zhou lent them money without hesitation.
In another ledger, there was a record of everyone who had borrowed money from him, and they had also put their fingerprints on it. He could just deduct the money from their wages gradually.
The couple spent a day making arrangements at home, and stayed overnight with Zhuzhu in their small courtyard before returning to town the next day.
When Zhou Quan and Li Mai brought Zhu Zhu back to the shop, Zhou Tao said that someone had come looking for her sister-in-law that morning and left a visiting card.
When Li Mai accepted the visiting card from Zhou Tao, it was from Jiang Wenhan, the head of the Jiang family.
Did he know he owned the business?
Seeing the address on the invitation, Li Mai nodded and asked them how yesterday went. Zhou Tao said it went well; they sold nine pieces of clothing and placed orders for five more.
Li Mai went upstairs again to take a look. The embroiderers were making clothes ordered by customers. Li Mai nodded and went downstairs with Zhou Quan to find Jiang Wenhan.
The Jiang family did not operate their own cloth shop in Qingshi Town. Other cloth shops either sourced their cloth from the Jiang family or from the Zhang family.
In the past few days, because the pomegranate skirt launched by Li Mai's shop became a hit in Qing Shi Town, several other fabric shops that had purchased pomegranate red fabric from Zhang's family also saw their businesses boom.
Because people discovered that the color of their pomegranate-red fabric was exactly the same as the skirt sold at the pomegranate-red ...
Meanwhile, on the Zhang family's side, thanks to Li Mai's pomegranate skirt, more and more fabric merchants were coming to his house to buy pomegranate red fabric.
Zhang Ang's stockpiled inventory from this period has resurfaced, so he quickly arranged for more fabric and silk thread to be dyed pomegranate red.
After dyeing the fine thread, we still need to weave brocade, which is very slow.
Zhang Ang knew, of course, that Red Pomegranate was Li Mai's shop. Seeing how Li Mai had made the pomegranate red fabric so popular, he was extremely glad that he had signed this one-year bet agreement with Li Mai.
He already knew that he could definitely fulfill his bet, and that the pomegranate red color would be his starting next year.
Zhang Ang was happy.
However, Zhang Ang has not yet seen how the Zhang family will cooperate with Li Mai in the future. He is confident that Li Mai will definitely give him another chance to make a difference next year.
He admired Li Mai's abilities.
However, Zhang Ang's confidence made him unable to see the future path of the Zhang family, but Jiang Wenhan, an experienced businessman, saw it.
Moreover, Jiang Wenhan was fully aware of the contents of the agreement between Li Mai and Zhang Ang, so he came to find Li Mai.
He really liked Li Mai's ability; no matter what she did, it seemed like she could do it well. Working with her meant there was no need to worry about failure or losing money.
He actually knew this from the first time he met Li Mai.
However, because he was careless at the time and did not pay much attention to Li Mai, thinking that she only knew how to tidy up and draw, he did not discuss the cooperation with her in depth, which made Li Mai not trust him very much, so she went to the Zhang family.
Through the Zhang family's affair, he realized that he had missed a great opportunity. Afterwards, he kept looking for opportunities to make up for it and hoped to establish a cooperative relationship with Li Mai.
Before Li Mai opened her shop, she went out to buy goods and purchased several types of fabrics from his shop, but she did not go to Yongzhou City.
It was only later, when he was inspecting the shops in Xiabei Town, that he learned from the shopkeeper that Li Mai had used their materials.
This time, he met with Li Mai to discuss and see if they could collaborate on something.
Following the address, Li Mai and Zhou Quan arrived at a courtyard in the town.
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