Zhao Fen was not very satisfied with Qin Xiaozhou's tendency to cause trouble, but she had a soft temper and eventually obeyed her arrangements. The next morning, Qin Xiaozhou asked them to cook the red and green beans separately until soft, and then mash them until they were smooth and sticky. She then took the money to order milk.
Upon hearing her purpose, Li Xiang was first shocked, then overjoyed and wept, "Girl, you really use three buckets of milk a day?"
Qin Xiaozhou nodded, "Yes, three buckets a day, but we need them early, delivered to the county town at 7:45 AM. I only want the freshest milk."
That means her shop has to open at 7:30 or 9:00 in the morning. Milk is not easy to preserve, and it's best not to leave the finished desserts overnight. So she can only make and sell them fresh every morning. If it's the middle of summer, the milk might spoil by the afternoon, so she has to find a way to preserve it.
As she spoke, she gave Li Xiang a slip of paper with the shop's address written on it. It took half an hour to get from Lijia Dam to the county town by boat, which meant that Li Xiang had to get up to milk cows around six o'clock every day.
This is hard work; it all depends on whether Li Xiang is willing to do it.
However, Li Xiang didn't feel tired at all; instead, he was very excited. He took the note and looked at the address. He had also studied for two years, not for the imperial examinations, but because his family had a business, being able to write and keep accounts was extremely important. So his father sent him to learn to read for two years. "This alley is nice."
After agreeing on the price, time, and quantity, Qin Xiaozhou bought ten more kilograms of milk and went home. There were two newly recruited apprentices at home who were also waiting to use the milk.
Li Xiang saw her to the door, then went back and told her about it. He then discussed it with his wife, saying, "Three buckets a day is about our daily output. Once the supply stabilizes, we won't do the work of hauling them out for individual sales. We can just wait for people who want them to come to us to buy them themselves, which will save us a lot of trouble."
Li Qiuyue was pleased to hear this, but after thinking about it, she said, "It's just a bit too early. It won't be easy for you to travel to the county town in the future. When the family divided the boat, it was given to my second brother. If you had a boat, things would be much smoother."
“It’s alright. As long as we can sell them, it’s not too early. After spring, the days will gradually get longer. It’ll be just the right time to get up at this hour. This is the boat we need. Honey, why don’t we rent one too? Once this business is stable in a month or two, we can just buy a boat. It’ll be more convenient to get in and out.”
Li Qiuyue was worried. Her family wouldn't starve, but they wouldn't get rich either. If they bought the boat, they would probably have to tighten their belts for the next year or two. She didn't say anything for a moment.
Li Xiang didn't urge him, though he was also feeling uneasy. He sighed, "The Lu family is back on its feet. I remember it clearly: the eldest brother of the Lu family came to buy milk for the first time half a year ago. He came all the way from far away and said he wanted to buy two catties. He searched through his pockets and only found eight coins. In the end, he had no choice but to say he wanted eight coins. I saw that the young man was so embarrassed that he was practically smoking. I didn't make things difficult for him. I heard that he was so poor that he couldn't even get a wife and had to be married off by the government. Look at them now, they've started doing business in the county town."
Qin Xiaozhou was unaware of Li Xiang's envy and sighs. Upon returning home, she immediately began teaching Zhao Fen and Lu Yu. Green bean cake and red bean cake were not difficult to make, and the two learned them in just one try.
Zhao Fen gave a small piece to her youngest son to try, and she also ate one. It tasted good, just not as good as Qin Xiaozhou's, but this gave her a lot of confidence. "Daughter-in-law, are we selling this?"
Qin Xiaozhou sat to the side, skimming milk and whipping butter. "Of course not. Red bean cake and mung bean cake are sold in the county town. They're not rare. The towel roll cake we're going to sell is something that people in the county town have never seen before. It will be in high demand in the future."
She then taught the two how to make towel rolls. Without a frying pan, the resulting pancakes were uneven and heated unevenly. Fortunately, she had drawn a frying pan diagram for Lu Yunfeng yesterday, and he should have already gone to the county town this morning to have a blacksmith make one. Although it was only for the Lu family to eat, for Qin Xiaozhou, who was a perfectionist when it came to desserts, looking at the hemispherical pancakes was a bit disheartening. However, given the limited resources, this was all she could do. The most important thing was to teach the two of them how to make the rolls.
The cake and the crepe rolls are not difficult to make, but the difficult part is whipping the cream and extracting the butter, which takes a lot of arm strength. She wants to research and develop a machine that can whip cream by foot.
Lu Yan returned home crying at noon, sobbing so hard she almost fainted. "Sister-in-law, the eagle! The eagle snatched two chicks away!"
"Waaaaaahh ...
Qin Xiaozhou patted her back to help her catch her breath, "Alright, alright, don't cry. Here, have a bowl of milk."
A chick costs two coins, and they had raised it for two and a half months. If they were to buy a new one, it would cost seven or eight coins. Losing two chicks at once was heartbreaking for Lu Yan and Wang Lan.
Lu Yan burped, "I'm sorry, sister-in-law, I didn't keep a good eye on the chicks."
The orchard covers dozens of acres, with two hundred chickens running around everywhere. How could an eight-year-old child possibly take care of them all? Qin Xiaozhou squatted down and told her, "It's not your fault. It's because your sister-in-law didn't plan things out properly and assigned you more work than one person could handle. So, you can stay here this afternoon and watch the chickens for another day. We won't let the chickens out tomorrow or the day after. The grass in the orchard has been eaten up, so it's good to let them out for some peace and quiet. We'll let the chicks out again when your second brother comes back."
However, if the chickens aren't let out, their food intake will increase, so we can only feed them vegetable leaves for now. The corners of the fence in the yard are full of lush green vegetables, especially cabbage, which grows very fast. If you pull them up and sow the seeds, they will sprout in two or three days, and you can eat them in ten or twenty days. We can't even finish eating all the vegetable leaves in the garden in the yard and behind the house during this period. "I'm going to tidy up the vegetable garden and feed the chickens."
Lu Yan was quickly appeased, and she was even happier with two more pieces of mung bean cake. Qin Xiaozhou put two plates of mung bean cake into a basket and gave it to Wang Lan, "Grandma, here are two portions of snacks for the village chief's family and your great-uncle's family. We need you to deliver them. We're waiting for you to eat."
Although they didn't like Li Fengxian, they were going to the county town to do business in a few days and would be away from home for a long time. The family consisted of the elderly, women, and children. Lu Yunxing was timid and not capable of handling things, so they still needed to ask the village chief and Wang Gui to keep an eye on him and prevent him from being bullied by the villagers.
Wang Lan took the basket and patted Qin Xiaozhou's hand with satisfaction, "You're a good strategist."
She naturally already knew Qin Xiaozhou's intention in asking her to deliver these snacks.
Wang Lan first went to the village chief's house to deliver the gift. No matter what it was, it was a token of goodwill. The village chief happily accepted it and said a few words, roughly about how the Lu family were from out of town and that the village chief should take good care of them.
When the village chief's wife saw that the gift was actually mung bean cake, she was surprised and wondered what Wang Lan was up to. "Sister, have you run into some trouble?"
Otherwise, why would someone send such expensive gifts for no reason, and in such large quantities? Although mung beans aren't expensive, they need to be mixed with white sugar, and white sugar isn't cheap. Does sending these gifts mean they have some important matter to ask the head of the household for help? If the matter is too big and the head of the household can't or won't be able to handle it, wouldn't that embarrass the head of the household?
So for a moment she didn't know whether to return the pastry or not, and felt a pang of discomfort in her heart.
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