Chapter 16: Opening the Way
The soybeans were soaked in warm water overnight, and each one became plump.
Use a colander to scoop out a basket of soybeans and drain the water. Then cover them with a wet cloth and place them in a corner of the stove away from light, waiting for them to germinate.
In the next few days, just rinse the beans with clean water every day to prevent them from rotting and stinking. After five days, you will have a full basket of soybean sprouts.
Busy days always pass quickly.
Chen Yao watched with her own eyes as her aunt's three acres of land took more than ten days to plow, and this was when all four members of the family had to work in the fields.
Other farmers who do not have as many people as my aunt's family are still busy in the fields.
As agreed, Tian Baolai and Tian Baozhu, brother and sister, followed the path opened by the butcher to lead them to the Shen family.
Today, my cousin not only has to take them to carry tofu and sell it from village to village, but also has to help them find their way.
It would be a lie to say that they were not worried. Before leaving, the brother and sister encouraged each other.
When the two arrived at Shen's house, before they even left the house, an aunt from the same village came over with a bowl of soybeans to exchange for tofu.
Just as Yang Wenying was about to take it, Tian Baozhu got there first.
"Sister Wenying, let me try." Tian Baozhu lifted the wooden board and carefully took out a piece of tofu with a bamboo slip. The four corners were intact and not broken.
Tian Baozhu was just about to breathe a sigh of relief when she glanced over and saw that other people's bowls were still not empty, but she had already served the tofu.
"Brother, please open the sack and put the beans in it." Tian Baozhu's cheeks were hot, and she opened her mouth to order her brother without any hesitation.
Tian Baolai scratched his head and took out a sack from another basket.
The woman smiled and poured the soybeans into the bag. As she held out the bowl to him, she asked, "Ayao, are these your cousins here to help you sell tofu?"
"Yes, they will take over from us in the future, and we'll have to rely on you, aunt, to take care of them." Chen Yao smiled and sent them out the door.
The woman held the tofu in her hands and said with a smile, "What do you mean by taking care of me? We're all from the same village. Thanks to your tofu, I don't have to work so hard in the kitchen, and I have more time to help out in the fields. I just hope we can finish turning the soil quickly before it rains."
After seeing the woman off, Chen Yao asked Yang Wenying to stay at home to make bean curd sheets, while she and her cousins carried the load and walked out of the village.
Huang Dongsheng was wielding a hoe in his own field, watching his two cousins leave the village, and he worked without any soul.
Miao laughed at him, saying that he had become wild after being away for a few days and was no longer the boy who followed her around all day and called her mother all the time.
Chen Yao led the two along the way and shared her experience with them.
In Xiahe Village, the brother and sister were still a little reserved, but when they returned to Shanghe Village, everyone knew them. After buying and exchanging items a few times, they became very adept at it.
Everyone found it unbelievable when they learned that Chen Yao would have to carry a load of tofu into the city to sell it.
After all, in their eyes, this business was just a small fight between three children. If they couldn't sell the goods in the city, it would be a real loss-making business!
To enter the city, you have to pay a head tax of one penny.
In response to other people's criticisms, Chen Yao just smiled and advised her cousins not to take it to heart. She took the two of them to Shahe Township to get familiar with the place.
In fact, no one cared whether it was Chen Yao or someone else who picked the tofu to sell. As long as they didn't charge for it and could exchange it for soybeans, it was fine.
Tian Baolai was carrying the load at the back, silently memorizing the route while listening to his cousin and sister talk about the old people in Wanhe Township. He felt heavy in his heart.
They are all miserable people!
After listening to this, Tian Baozhu frowned and reminded Chen Yao: "Cousin, you'd better make a written agreement on this matter, so as to avoid being entangled in it in the future. Instead of accomplishing a good deed, you might end up getting yourself into trouble."
"My cousin and I are on the same page. However, there's no rush for this matter right now. We need to earn money and buy writing materials before signing the agreement." Chen Yao took Tian Baozhu's arm, glanced back at her cousin, and said, "We siblings also have to settle accounts."
"Ayao, we are not outsiders." Tian Baozhu didn't like to hear this.
Mother said that A Yao was close to them, but she had always kept a clear distinction between them, and asked her to listen to Chen Yao more. Today, it turned out that what mother said was true.
"Cousin, we didn't make any money before, and everything was a mess. But now that we can make money, we naturally have to come up with a plan. After all, we have Wenying to help us at home." Chen Yao lowered her head and whispered in Tian Baozhu's ear.
Tian Baozhu's pretty face flushed slightly, and she raised her hand to poke Chen Yao's eyebrows: "You are so disrespectful. Then tell me, what are your plans?"
"One way is to pay wages. No matter how many blocks of tofu you sell, each person gets three cents a day. The other way is to take commissions. For every block of tofu sold by two people, you get one cent."
Chen Yao watched her cousin counting on her fingers, then bent down to pick up a lot of dead branches. Even Tian Baolai behind her was muttering to himself, not in a hurry.
After Tian Baozhu and Tian Baolai had settled the accounts and reported the amount to her, Chen Yao's heart finally settled down.
Although the two of them calculated slowly, it was fine as long as they understood the answer.
"Ayao, you don't have to pay us such a high wage. In the village, we all trade tofu for soybeans. We haven't earned any money for you, so how can we let you pay out?"
Tian Baozhu calculated that whether she earned a fixed salary of ninety cents a month or calculated it based on commission, it would be a considerable expense every month.
"Baozhu is right. Ayao, if you feel bad about it, just give us three cents a day. This is already the maximum wage." Tian Baolai walked to the two girls with a load on his shoulder.
Seeing that her cousins were really thinking about her, Chen Yao held one of them in each hand and said, "Don't worry, cousins, I won't lose money on this business. How about you do the same as Wenying and take the commission?"
"No, if we in the village follow your proposed commission, we'd be taking advantage of you. What kind of people would we be then?"
Tian Baozhu flatly rejected her proposal. "Ayao, most villagers are exchanging beans for tofu. Let alone four boards, even if we pick up six boards, as long as we are diligent, we can exchange them for you by visiting several villages."
Tian Baolai nodded vigorously beside him. That's right, that's right. "Cousin, don't be so silly. What is Yang Wenying thinking..."
So deep!
Before Tian Baolai could utter the last three words, he was glared back by his sister.
"Cousin, cousin, Wenying wants to save more money to redeem her brother. She has changed a lot these days. She and cousin Dongsheng have helped me a lot."
"Okay, as long as you know what's going on, just give us three cents a day, and it will be enough in a month."
As they were almost at Wanhe Township, everyone stopped arguing about the matter.
Chen Yao introduced her cousins to Grandma Goudan and several elderly people.
Tian Baozhu and Shen Yao went into the silkworm room with the grandmothers and saw five winnowing baskets stacked from top to bottom on the silkworm rack. The silkworms inside were all fat and white.
Grandma Goudan, leaning on her cane, held the two children's hands and said, "I knew you were coming today, so I packed some silkworm manure for you. You've probably finished plowing the land at home, so it's perfect to take it back and use it as fertilizer."
"Thank you, grandma." Chen Yao looked at the bag of silkworm feces. Before she could do anything, Tian Baolai, who was helping to pull out the big iron pot outside, came into the house after hearing the sound.
Seeing his hands covered in black ash, Tian Baozhu said to the elders, "My brother and I will come to the village often in the future. If the grandparents need to move anything, please let my brother come directly and don't be polite to us."
"Okay, okay, take these mulberries home to eat. Your Grandpa Song picked them early in the morning. They are fresh and sweet." Grandma Song picked up two baskets and handed them to the two children.
They couldn't offer any decent food right now, and this was the only thing that could satisfy the children.
The basket is padded with green mulberry leaves, and the purple mulberries are mouth-watering just by looking at them.
Chen Yao reached out and took one and put it in her mouth: "It's so sweet, cousin, you can try it too."
Tian Baozhu not only ate one herself, but also fed one to her brother. She chatted with the elders and then returned home carrying her load.
"Ayao, don't come with me tomorrow. We have written down the route after today's trip." After handing the basket of mulberries to her mother, Tian Baozhu said to Chen Yao while standing at the door.
"Okay, then my cousins will be responsible for guarding my rear." Chen Yao waved goodbye to her aunt and cousin, followed her cousin onto the stone bridge and returned to Xiahe Village.
Tian Baolai sent his cousin home, put down his burden, said goodbye to the elders in the yard, turned around and left. No matter how Huang Xing called him, he refused to stay for dinner.
"Why is this child running so fast? We have plenty of soybeans at home now, enough to fill our stomach." Huang Xing sighed, holding the door frame.
Chen Yao smiled and helped her back to the house to sit down, "Mom, my cousin is afraid that if he continues to serve our family's food, my aunt will beat him again when he goes back."
As soon as he finished speaking, everyone in the room laughed.
Chen Yao's eyes fell on the eight sacks stacked in the room. Now that she had hundreds of kilograms of soybeans, she was no longer the person who had to carefully calculate how much soybeans to eat.
When Yang Wenying brought the cooked bean rice into the house, Chen Yao's raised mouth corners became a little uncomfortable. The bean rice was not tasty, and she still wanted to eat meat and rice.
"Wenying, how many dried bean curd sheets do you have at home?" Chen Yao didn't dare to chew the bean rice in the bowl carefully, as if if she swallowed it whole, the bean smell would not linger in her mouth for a long time.
After taking two mouthfuls of bean rice, Yang Wenying replied, "I've already saved eighty sticks of good quality, and fifteen of poor quality. Do you want to take a look?"
As he said this, he was about to put down his bowl to get it.
Chen Yao raised her hand and asked her to sit down and eat. Now the child no longer followed the old rules of not talking while eating in her home.
Yang Wenying held the bowl of rice and continued to eat. She was really hungry.
Today she was so busy around the stove making bean curd sheets that she didn't care about anything. If she hadn't run out of firewood at home and had to go out to collect some, she would have stayed in the kitchen all day.
After finishing her meal, Chen Yao put down her bowl and chopsticks and said, "Dad, Mom, Wenying and I will go to the village head Zhao's house in a while and ask him to open the way for us. We will enter the city tomorrow."
Shen Qingshan and Huang Xing had an idea in their minds, after all, their daughter had shown them the sprouted bean sprouts last night.
However, Yang Wenying, who had been waiting for so long, was obviously frightened when she suddenly heard Chen Yao say that she was going into the city, and she kept coughing because of choking.
"Wenying, drink some water and relax." Huang Xing glanced at her daughter and saw how scared she was.
Yang Wenying felt better after drinking the water, "Thank you, Auntie!"
After saying thank you, he stood up to clear the dishes on the table.
Huang Xing stopped her and said, "You and A Yao should take some dried bean curd sheets to the village head's house before it gets dark. I'll take care of these things."
Yang Wenying looked at Chen Yao, only to see Chen Yao walking around the bench towards her and taking her arm.
"If you want to ask someone to do something for you, then we'll take five."
Yang Wenying felt visibly heartbroken after hearing this.
Two cents a stick, and I’ve lost ten cents before even entering the city.
During this period of time, Yang Wenying understood a truth, that is, money is easy to use, but hard to earn!
It was not until Chen Yao entered her room, lifted the dust cloth covering the basket, and took out five bean curd sticks that were not of very good quality that her heart ached less.
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