Chapter 58 Breach of Contract
"Then let him come out and explain clearly who he sold it to!" Song Yushu saw that the woman's eyes were evasive and realized that this was intentional.
"It's already sold, and they might not be willing to exchange it back..." Xu felt that the matter was settled, and how could she possibly take out the money she had already received? Thinking of the person who came to her house yesterday and offered a higher price, she gritted her teeth and made a perfunctory excuse.
"Bring Wei Xiaohu and Wei Yuan out! Since you don't keep your promise, there are plenty of people willing to give us the goods. Return the deposit to us, and we'll call it even!" Song Yushu didn't want to get entangled with these people. She had been busy all day, and she still needed to collect the snails for tomorrow. She just wanted to resolve this matter as soon as possible.
"We didn't do it on purpose! Why should we get our money back?" Xu Shi refused to admit it; it was a deposit of ten taels of silver!
"Do you really think we're stupid? We only agreed to buy your snails because of our good relationship, and now you're playing tricks on us! Either return the deposit, or we'll take this to the village head. There's no room for negotiation. Hurry up and choose!"
Sister-in-law Wei was furious with the family for having been tricked without her noticing.
"Pah! How is it us playing tricks! They said they'd take care of us, but my family has been picking snails every night, and look how exhausted Xiao Hu and A Yuan are! The price they offered wasn't even that high, and they still wanted to keep the best ones. They're shameless!"
Seeing that she couldn't hide the truth any longer, Xu decided to be blunt and confront the issue directly, since no one in the village could out-argue her.
"Go find the village head. It's a waste of time to talk to her. If the village head can't handle it, we'll report it to the authorities," Song Yushu stopped Wei Dasao from stepping forward.
"Hey! Keep arguing! What? You think you're in the wrong? You still dare to come up here asking for money! We haven't even asked you for compensation yet! From now on, we won't send our snails to your place anymore! Do you really think we're easy to bully? Even big restaurants are begging us to send them to them!"
Xu thought they were scared, and proudly showed off to the people around her.
"The village head is here!" someone shouted, and the crowd immediately fell silent.
"Such a big thing has happened, quickly call Wei Xiaohu out!" The village head ordered Xu Shi directly.
"Village head, it was clearly them..."
"You think you're so smart? You think others can't see through your little tricks! Go and call someone out right now!"
The village head was truly disappointed to see that she was so unrepentant. Originally, the two brothers, Wei Xiaohu and Wei Yuan, were both diligent, so how could they have suddenly become so foolish?
Xu had no choice but to dawdle as she went inside to call Wei Xiaohu out.
Wei Xiaohu was indeed not in good spirits. He came out with his head down and knelt down directly in front of Song Yushu and the others.
"Oh dear! What's going on? Get up right now, we don't owe them anything!" Madam Xu quickly pulled her youngest son to his feet.
"Mother! Please return the deposit! We've wronged them..." Wei Xiaohu's face burned with embarrassment as he knelt on the ground and honestly confessed everything.
Yesterday, he and his brother went to the fields to collect snails. Unexpectedly, his mother secretly signed a contract with Taixing Restaurant behind their backs. She didn't dare tell his brother and only dared to discuss it with him.
What could he do? If Taixing Restaurant breached the contract, they would have to pay one hundred taels of silver, and as for Song Yushu…
However, they knew that if his older brother found out, he would definitely go to Taixing Restaurant to break the contract. They had finally managed to live a good life, so Wei Xiaohu had no choice but to secretly switch the snails without telling him.
"You bastard!" After hearing the news, Wei Yuan was carrying snails home from the field when he overheard Wei Xiaohu's explanation. He rushed over and beat the man up.
"Stop! He's your own brother!" Madam Xu quickly stepped forward and pulled them apart.
"Refund the deposit! Now!" Wei Yuan shouted at Madam Xu.
After her husband left, Xu was most afraid of her eldest son, so she had no choice but to go inside and take out the ten taels of silver to return to Song Yushu.
"It was our fault..." Wei Yuan didn't know how to talk to them at this moment, after all, they were the ones who broke the contract first.
"That's settled then. From now on, our restaurant will no longer accept your snails. You can sell them to whomever you want, and we'll be even. Village head, could you ask around to see if anyone still has unsold snails? If they want to cooperate with our restaurant long-term, they can bring their snails over."
Song Yushu didn't want to get entangled with their family any further, so he turned around and asked the head of the household.
"I still have more! They're big. If you order our snails regularly, we absolutely won't sell you the inferior ones!"
"My family has one too? I heard from Madam Xu that your restaurant's prices are higher than most of the stalls in town. Is that true? If it is, we can leave our fingerprints with you!"
Xu's face was extremely ugly at this moment. She had previously thought that Song Yushu's restaurant would have difficulty getting good supplies without her son's supply, but she didn't expect that everyone in the village was watching her closely! However, now that her family's snails were selling for a higher price, she didn't care about any of this!
"Send the snails to my house first! We'll take a look and then make a decision!" Sister-in-law Wei finally breathed a sigh of relief.
It wasn't until dark that Song Yushu returned to town with the goods. After all that fuss, he was finally able to get a good night's sleep.
Meanwhile, at Taixing Restaurant, Manager Zhu was shocked to learn that stir-fried snails were served at the county magistrate's banquet. However, he realized that the snails would bring greater profits after the county magistrate's promotion, so he sent people to snatch the supply from Haowei Restaurant.
Watching the basins of uniformly sized snails being carried to the kitchen, he seemed to see boxes of silver flowing into his account. He only regretted that he had looked down on these small snails and hadn't sold them in the restaurant earlier. Now he had almost missed the opportunity to make money, but fortunately, it wasn't too late.
The following day, Taixing Restaurant also launched a dish called stir-fried snails, and even gave it a fancy name to attract customers.
This attracted many wealthy young men to patronize the restaurant. Although they enjoyed eating stir-fried snails, they considered themselves superior and did not want to squeeze into small shops with ordinary people. They would only send a servant to make the trip. Nowadays, they were happy to frequent places like Taixing Restaurant.
Manager Zhu was overjoyed to see the silver coming in, and he treated the group of young masters with utmost care and consideration.
Nowadays, there are stalls selling stir-fried snails everywhere in the town, and customers inevitably end up taking some. So Song Yushu simply introduced various snail stews.
For example, chicken feet stew and duck feet stew, with snails, pickled bamboo shoots and chili peppers, stew the meat until it is tender and falls off the bone with a slurp, and is full of flavor. Now, these customers no longer look at the stir-fried snails from other places, and everyone rushes to her restaurant to order a snail stew.
Good Taste Restaurant was doing better than ever before, earning 350 taels of silver in a month. Although it couldn't compare to large restaurants, it was enough to make Song Yushu feel much better, since she didn't have much money left after spending her money on the farmhouse restaurant.
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