When Shao Qing left Song Jiyun’s place, it was almost time for dinner.
The autumn wind whistled fiercely.
Shao Qing wrapped himself in his clothes and jogged towards the Yinyu Hall.
The garden’s flowers and trees were tousled to and fro by the wind, making a loud rustling noise.
Surprisingly, Yuan Yunzhong was standing under the eaves, straight as a pine.
As if he was waiting for him.
Shao Qing quickly shook his head, dispelling that thought, and said, "Young master, what are you doing standing here? Where’s the servant boy? You should hurry inside. I have a feeling that the weather will turn, and it might get colder by tomorrow."
Yuan Yunzhong just hummed in response without paying him much attention, but instead asked, "How is Miss Song doing over there?"
Shao Qing was embarrassed to say he had eaten several shrimp crisp cakes and had several cups of Biluochun tea, so he laughed awkwardly and replied, "Miss Song is doing quite well! She’s making some monochrome porcelain, called Alum-Red. It turns out to be an orange color, very, very beautiful. Miss Song has racked her brains but has never been satisfied with the results. I saw her fretting, flipping through books, burning the ashes, and mixing the glaze, so busy that her eyebrows were covered with ash. So, I stayed for a while to help her out."
Yuan Yunzhong frowned: "Burning ashes?"
"Yes, yes!" Shao Qing, who had always followed Yuan Yunzhong since he was young, knew just how clever Yuan Yunzhong was. Afraid that Yuan Yunzhong wouldn’t believe him, he eagerly explained what he had just learned from Song Jiyun, "It’s about the glaze ash. When you calcine limestone and dissolve it in water, you get slaked lime, and then add the ash of burned reed grass, you obtain glaze ash. It’s used for mixing the glaze. This batch of porcelain is particularly hard to fire. Miss Song said she doesn’t trust anyone else with it, from throwing the clay to mixing the glaze, and onto the firing—she’s done it all single-handedly."
"Really?" Yuan Yunzhong said, with a corner of his mouth raised as if he didn’t quite believe it, "Didn’t they say that all the porcelain ordered by Prince Huai’s Mansion has been handed over? Why does she need to mix the glaze and fire it herself?"
Shao Qing hastened to reply, "What’s the stuff for Prince Huai’s Mansion compared to this? Miss Song finished those in a single kiln firing. The next seven kilns have all been firing that Alum-Red Porcelain. If you don’t believe it, you can go check out Miss Song’s workshop. Otherwise, how come she hasn’t got it right after eight kiln firings?"
Yuan Yunzhong didn’t ask any further and turned back to his study.
Shao Qing breathed a sigh of relief and took off running.
He had eaten plenty of pastries at Miss Song’s place that afternoon, and if he had dinner with Yuan Yunzhong, he would surely give himself away.
At the time of lighting lamps, a heavy rain began to pour.
The rain loudly washed over everything, carving little trenches on the ground.
But Song Jiyun, watching the fire at the kiln, felt waves of coolness washing over her.
She went to close the window lattices of the east wing room, which she used as a studio, and then checked the storage room in the backyard where the pine firewood was kept.
On her return, she noticed that the hexagonal box already fired and placed on the shelf of the east wing room seemed as if someone had tampered with it.
She called to the apprentice on duty in the small workshop, "Has anyone been here?"
"No!" The apprentice was a direct disciple of Luo Zixing, talented and honest, "I’ve been right here the whole time and haven’t seen anyone come by."
Perhaps she had seen wrong.
Song Jiyun didn’t take it seriously.
Yet, Shao Qing noticed that the hem of Yuan Yunzhong’s robe was a bit wet when he took it off.
He asked Yuan Yunzhong, "Did you go out? With such heavy rain, where did you go?"
Yuan Yunzhong, who was tying the sash of his undergarment, paused and said with downcast eyes, "With such heavy rain, what would I go out for?"
In the dim yellow light, Shao Qing didn’t notice.
He uttered an "oh" and took Yuan Yunzhong’s clothes out of the inner room.
*
Yuan Yunzhong really seems to have bad luck with her Alum-Red Porcelain!
Song Jiyun looked at the two hexagonal boxes on the table and sighed deeply.
She had put in forty hexagonal porcelain blanks and fired only two!!
Of the twenty Fairness Cups she had put in, only eight had been fired successfully!!
And that’s not even mentioning the blue and white porcelain. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞
They all turned out perfectly!
Should she fire another kiln?
Song Jiyun hesitated.
Zhou Zheng came with the apprentices to deliver pine wood.
As he helped Song Jiyun fill the storeroom used for pine wood in the small workshop, he said, "Are you going to continue firing Alum-Red?"
His tone sounded like something had happened.
Indeed, he told Song Jiyun with a frown, "Liangyu Kiln Factory has dropped its prices for blue and white porcelain, a third cheaper than ours."
That is to say, they were offering a discount of around thirty to forty percent.
The extent of it was quite significant.
Song Jiyun couldn’t help but frown upon hearing this.
The porcelain of Jingde Town never cuts prices.
And defective goods are cheaper than mud.
They make a living by craftsmanship.
Lowering prices would only decrease their value.
Moreover, it was blue and white, fired by every household in Jingde Town and having the widest market.
With Song Tao’s price cut, all the families firing blue and white would be affected.
"Our kiln factory’s business has also begun to suffer these past few days," Zhou Zheng said with concern. "I sent someone to check out Liangyu Kiln Factory, and not only were there long queues, but also a lot of people were drawn there by the news. In front of some small workshops, there were hardly any people. The merchants who come to our place to stock up are also clamoring for us to lower our prices too."
Implicitly, he was asking Song Jiyun whether they should also lower their prices.
After all, they fired in a dragon kiln and their yield rate was high, so their costs were much lower than other families’ to start with.
If Liangyu Kiln Factory could afford to lower prices, so could they.
But when Song Jiyun heard this, without a second thought, she said, "We’re not lowering our prices! Go tell those merchants that everything we sell is flawless and genuine; it’s impossible for us to lower our prices."
"But..." Zhou Zheng hesitated to say.
Isn’t the porcelain that everyone sells also flawless and genuine?
Song Jiyun said, "Don’t worry. A new toilet smells fresh for three days, let alone something like a price cut, which has never happened before in Jingde Town. Just you wait and see, the firmer we stand, the more hesitant those merchants will become. Sometimes, what you sell isn’t just the item itself but also its premium value."
Zhou Zheng didn’t understand.
Song Jiyun smiled and said, "Trust me, we can wait a few more days before deciding."
In the end, she reassured him, "If it really doesn’t work out, we’ll just fire another batch in the dragon kiln, and that will solve everything!"
Upon hearing this, Zhou Zheng’s eyes lit up.
Indeed! As long as their owner was willing to take action, who could have lower costs than their family?
He left in high spirits.
Song Jiyun fired the ninth kiln.
This time, she placed sixty Alum-Red hexagonal boxes!
Besides that, she also placed over a hundred Alum-Red cups of various designs.
In this way, she could also put a few Fairness Cups and Three Talents Cups to use and fire a few sets of tea sets!
However, if she couldn’t successfully fire the hexagonal boxes this time, she wouldn’t attempt it again.
And she wouldn’t have time to do so anyway.
She had to prepare for the Imperial Kiln Factory’s bidding.
But before she had time to open the kiln, Zhou Zheng came to her with a worried look, "These past few days, the business at Liangyu Kiln Factory has been booming. Our kiln factory hasn’t seen much improvement, and the other kiln factories are even worse off, almost deserted.
"A few of our kiln factory’s regular customers are starting to get restless. They’ve come to me privately to discuss, not asking to lower prices by a third like Liangyu Kiln Factory, but to lower them slightly as a gesture.
"Owner, we can’t go on like this!
"You still need to think of a solution!"
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