Chapter 167 Reopening
Even though Shangguan Yu wanted to eat, he was still embarrassed and pushed the bowl back, "What I just ate is considered as Shaoqing using my firewood."
Su Xiangheng had a headache. This man still refused to take advantage of him. He smiled helplessly and said, "I came here to ask for your help."
"What's the matter?"
Su Xiangheng took out the draft, "One hundred copies."
Shangguan Yu took the draft and took a look. It turned out to be a business opening poster. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be Su Ji. Shao Bai seemed to have taken him there for breakfast. He heard that it was his brother's shop. "This is..."
"It's not a change of ownership." Su Xiangheng explained: "The young owner of Su Ji added tea and snacks and reopened."
So that's how it is. Shangguan Yu put the painting on the table and asked, "Where can I buy the noodles that Shaoqing brought?"
"It's sold out. This is a gift from my students." Su Xiangheng did not tell him that this was a snack made by Su Yanzu's niece. It would be better for Su Yanzu to tell Shangguan Yu himself about this matter.
He motioned Leng Mo to give the several bags of instant noodles in his bag to the other party, and took out half a tael of silver, "This is the fee for the draft. I don't ask for artistic conception, just smoothness. Come on, I'll come and get it tomorrow night."
Su Ji is the shop owned by Shao Bai's brother. Shangguan Yu shook his head and said, "I have nothing to do at home, so it's just a casual thing." He did not charge any money.
Su Xiangheng stopped insisting and took back the half tael of silver. After thinking for a while, he said to him, "The Mobao Library is short of a copyist. I wonder if Brother Yu wants one..."
Shangguan Yu quickly agreed, "Go, I'll go."
"The owner of the library told me that I will start work at chenshi every day and finish work at bingshi every day. I will get a lunch at noon, and I will have four days off a month. I will get two taels of silver a month. Is that okay?"
"That's great." Shangguan Yu thanked again.
Everything was settled, Su Xiangheng said goodbye.
Shangguan Yu looked up at the clear night sky. A crescent moon hung in the sky. The hazy moonlight poured down, shining on the courtyard and the fence, as if covered with a layer of phantom. Inspiration suddenly struck him, and he quickly turned around and went into the house. He spread out the rice paper, picked up the brush, dipped it in ink, and drew lightly and slowly. Within a few breaths, the farmyard, the fence, and the waxing moon in the sky appeared on the rice paper. With just a few strokes, he expressed his poetic feeling and profound artistic conception.
Perhaps because he was too focused, Shangguan Yu suddenly started coughing non-stop. In the end, he almost couldn't breathe. He quickly sat down, holding the armrest tightly with one hand and stroking his chest with the other hand. It took him a while to recover.
After staring at the beams for a long time, he came to his senses, as if he had escaped from the gates of hell again.
As the business was about to reopen, Su Ruojin decided not to return to the capital and lived directly in the small courtyard, and Hua Ping followed suit.
Su Dalang was afraid that his sister would be scared living alone, so after class in the afternoon, he also went down the mountain to live with his sister.
"Brother, how many have you drawn?" Su Ruojin planned to hire two boys tomorrow, one to stand at the intersection of Wenshan Street, and the other to stand at the intersection at the foot of Shuyuan Mountain to distribute posters and spread the word first.
Su Dalang took out hundreds of drawings that he and his classmates had made, and said, "There are still a hundred or so copies left. I'll bring them back to you tomorrow night."
Su Ruojin thought it was too little, but she didn't urge Su Dalang to paint. She took it with a smile and gave him as much as he had.
On the second day, Siping came with Ye Huaizhen and Shi Er to purchase things needed for the opening. Recently, Siping had been taking the two of them with him, whether it was purchasing or meeting people, to pave the way and build connections for Su Ji Procurement.
Needless to say, Ye Huaizhen was a daughter of an official family. She was literate and could do accounting. If it weren't for the changes in her family, she would probably be the mistress of a mansion in the capital now, and purchasing and managing affairs would be a piece of cake for her.
What surprised Su Ruojin was that after nearly a year of study, Shi Xiaoer had transformed from an illiterate man into a waiter who could write and calculate. The progress was huge, and she did not hesitate to praise Shi Er.
"Thanks to you, young master, it is because you are willing to pay this money that my boy has the opportunity to learn to write and calculate."
Su Ruojin did not find a proper teacher for the three brothers of the Shi family. Wenshan Street is located at the foot of Dongshan Academy. Apart from food and clothing, the whole street is related to book culture. There are fortune tellers on the street, people selling sour writings, and people selling their own calligraphy and paintings. Anyone of them has the talent of a scholar. So she hired a middle-aged fortune teller on the street and asked him to teach the three brothers of the Shi family for an hour every night, and paid him one or two taels of silver every month.
The unsuccessful scholar had already fallen to the point of fortune-telling for a living. When Su Ruojin sat down in front of the stall and asked him, he agreed without hesitation, "How long?"
"Three years." Su Ruojin said. The opportunity was given, and it depended on who among the three brothers would seize it. The result was that Shi Xiaoer - Shi Baogui seized it.
Although Shi Da and Shi Xiaosan have not made as much progress as Shi Xiaoer, they have managed to get rid of illiteracy and have no problem reading and writing menus, so they can finally stay in Su Ji.
In the afternoon, Siping brought Ye and Shi with him and pulled three carts full of things. All the things needed for the opening were ready, and they were waiting for the opening.
In the evening, Su Dalang brought back two or three hundred flyers. Su Ruojin asked with a smile, "Did you invite a lot of classmates today?"
Su Dalang shook his head, "We were still classmates."
"Then why are there so many more today than yesterday?"
"Master Su helped us draw more than a hundred copies."
Su Ruojin was surprised. She didn't expect Su Xiangheng to be so considerate. "It seems that I didn't steal your instant noodles in vain."
Su Dalang was amused by his sister, it was true.
Su Ruojin was curious and asked, "Were those painted by Master Su?" She wanted to find them and take a look.
Su Dalang blushed slightly, "The good paintings are all painted by Master."
"It's these, right?" No wonder it felt different from yesterday. He hurriedly moved to the oil lamp. The light was bright. It was clearly the same picture, but Master Su's painting was better than Su Dalang and others. Both the brushwork and the artistic conception were indeed good. Su Ruojin kept a copy for himself.
Seeing that everything is ready, they are just waiting to open on March 3rd, which is the day after tomorrow. On that day, Su Yanli took a leave and brought his family to attend the opening ceremony.
On the second day, Su Ruojin hired seven or eight children and asked them to go to intersections, alley entrances, bookstores, library, and pen and ink shops to give out gifts to everyone they met. In Wenshan Street and Dongshan Academy, almost everyone knew that Su's shop had expanded and reopened and was offering discounts.
That night, Su Yanli brought his whole family over. He had not been home for several days since he was busy with the shop. Su Ruojin felt like she was at home yesterday, but also like she had been away from home for a long time. She was so happy to see her parents coming early that she threw herself into the couple's arms.
"Dad, Mom..."
The couple both caught their eldest daughter's coquettish look and said, "Thank you for your hard work, Ah Jin."
Su Ruojin hugged her parents' arms and kept acting like a spoiled child, which made the couple's hearts melt. It turned out that no matter how capable their daughter was or how much she looked like an adult, she was still a child after all, and all her true colors were revealed when she saw the two of them.
After acting coquettishly, Su Ruojin took Su Sanlang and Su Silang with her parents to visit the morning tea room. Tables were separated by screens, making it look like a lobby but also private, and the layout was very novel.
Su Yanli watched and nodded, "If it was near my home, I would eat here every day."
"Isn't it?" Su Ruojin said with a proud smile, "When the time comes, the Su Ji in the capital will also change in this way."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
