She had only made spice blends with five ingredients before, but this ti she added three more, buying a total of eight kinds of spice raw materials.
Gu Jinli planned to create three types of spice blends with these eight ingredients: one was the original blend she sold, which she nad Five Blessings Spices; one was Six Blessings Spices; and another was Ba Fu Spices.
As to why there weren’t Seven Blessings Spices, ancient people considered the number seven unlucky, so she didn’t use it.
The flavors of the three spice blends were different, with the Ba Fu Spices tasting the best and costing the most to produce, hence it was the most expensive to sell.
As she needed a lot of spice materials and was familiar with Xuanhu Fang, Brother Mu Tong personally followed the cart to deliver them.
"The dicinal materials are all here, please inspect them," said Mu Tong as he and two attendants opened bags filled with dicinal materials.
Gu Jinli, as usual, took out so materials from each bag, sniffing and chewing a few pieces from each, and after carefully tasting for a while, she nodded in confirmation, "Uncle Mu Tong, the cardamom is fine."
Hearing this, Mu Tong wrote a ’pass’ next to the cardamom entry in a booklet.
Gu Jinli then moved to another bag, took out so cardamom, put it in her mouth, and after a while, confird it was all right and told Mu Tong.
A quarter of an hour later, she had thoroughly inspected all eight types of dicinal materials.
Mu Tong reported to them, "This ti, you have purchased eight types of dicinal materials, fifty jin of each type, totaling four hundred jin. The average cost per jin is 140 cents, amounting to a total of 56 taels of silver."
As he said this, Mu Tong handed a piece of yellow paper filled with dense characters to Gu Dashan, "The detailed prices of each dicinal material are listed here, Brother Gu, please have a look."
Gu Dashan took the yellow paper and passed it to Gu Jinli, with a smile he said, "Xiao Yu can read."
Mrs. Cui had also taught him to read, but he had been busy making money to support the family and hadn’t learned much, only so simple characters. For instance, among the nas of the dicinal materials written on the yellow paper, there were eight out of ten words he couldn’t recognize.
Gu Jinli took the yellow paper, gave it a look, put it away, and said, "Uncle Mu Tong, the account is correct."
Upon hearing this, Gu Dashan took out a bag of silver and handed it to Mu Tong with both hands, "Brother Mu Tong, please count it."
This bag of silver was pooled together by several families. In accordance with the profit-sharing sche, their family had to contribute forty percent of the capital, and the other six families each contributed ten percent.
Mu Tong took the silver, first weighing it to make sure there was no fraud. After opening the bag and counting, he said, "The amount is correct, exactly 56 taels."
Then, looking at Gu Jinli, he said with a smile, "Only you would think to use dicinal herbs for cooking, and the flavor of those spices is indeed excellent."
Even better, all the dicinal materials she used were beneficial to health, so even those with illnesses could eat them without any adverse effects.
Gu Jinli said, "Uncle Mu Tong, this is our family’s secret; you must help us keep it confidential between our families."
Mu Tong knew she was joking. Spice blends, just like dicinal recipes, even if one knew all the ingredients, without the correct asurents, one could not replicate the desired effect. Therefore, the Gu Family’s use of dicinal materials to make spice blends was not a secret that needed to be kept.
Knowing that the Gu Family had been busy lately, after exchanging a few words, Mu Tong took his leave, "We’ll be going back now, you go ahead with your work."
"Brother Mu, take care," said Gu Dashan as he went to see Mu Tong off. After returning, he moved the dicinal materials back to their family’s main house.
While they were moving the dicinal herbs, Elder Qin and Qin San Lang took the people from the kiln back to the end of the village.
"Right here, move down the water jars and pottery jars. Put the water jars in the room on the left, and the pottery jars in the main room," Elder Qin stood in the courtyard of the workshop, pointing to the room on the left and then the main room, instructing the kiln workers.
"Alright, got it," the kiln foreman said to the workers who ca to move the goods. "Hurry up, be agile. Ba Zi, go move the pottery jars, the rest of you, co with to lift the water jars, and be careful. If you break one, you’ll have to pay for it out of your own pocket."
"Alright, got it, Boss Fang," the workers responded, forming a group of five, one moving pottery jars, while the remaining four lifted the water jars in pairs.
The water jars purchased by Elder Qin were one ter in diater and one and a half ters tall, which made them quite difficult to handle. Under Foreman Fang’s careful supervision, it took them 30 minutes to finish moving all four large water jars.
Everyone was exhausted, but moving the goods ant making money, so it was worth it.
After taking a short break and catching his breath, Foreman Fang said to Elder Qin, "Elder Qin, your family bought four large water jars, ten pottery jars weighing five pounds each, thirty weighing one pound each, and fifty weighing half a pound each. That cos to a total of three taels and six hundred fifty cents. You’ve paid the kiln three taels of silver; now you still owe six hundred fifty cents for the pottery jars and two hundred sixty cents for the transport fees."
The goods were too heavy and the journey was long, which made transporting them laborious, so they had to pay each person fifty cents for the transport fee, and being a foreman, he should receive an additional ten cents.
Elder Qin knew they were all working hard for their pay and would not withhold their hard-earned money. After Qin San Lang checked the water jars and pottery jars inside the house to ensure there was no damage, Elder Qin took out one tael of silver and handed it to Foreman Fang.
Foreman Fang happily accepted it and gave Elder Qin ninety cents in change: "Please take this, our job here is done."
Elder Qin nodded, "Thanks for your hard work, have a safe journey."
After receiving the money, Foreman Fang and his n loaded the delivery cart and left Da Feng Village.
In the afternoon, when Third Grandpa and the others ca back from the stall, Village Chief He led He Laoguo and others to sign the contract, which was necessary before they could work in the Gu Family Workshop.
The activities of the Qin, Gu, and Luotian families throughout the day caused quite a stir in the village, and everyone looked on with envy.
But no amount of envy was of any use, as Village Chief He said that the Gu Family could hire whoever they wanted to work, and they couldn’t make a fuss about it. If they wanted to work for the Gu Family Workshop, they had to wait.
There was no choice but to wait eagerly, hoping that once the business of the Qin, Gu, and Luotian families grew and they needed more hands, they would be allowed to work in the workshop.
The Lu Family People also envied them greatly, with many wanting to work for the Gu Family Workshop, but they had seriously offended the Gu Family, so there was no chance they would be hired.
Thinking about the high wages offered by the Gu Family, the Lu Family People were in pain, and they cursed Old Master Lu: "That cursed Lu Zhudan, this old wretch who only knows luxury when his family prospers, and when his family is in trouble, he drags us down too! What bad karma have we wrought!"
The several households of the Gu Jinli family didn’t care how much the He Family People envied them or how the Lu Family People cursed, they were busy for three days, and finally, the 16th of March arrived.
On that day, families rose before dawn, slaughtered chickens and stewed at, prepared offerings, changed into cotton-made new clothes, and hung up the signboard gifted by Scholar Shang above the courtyard gate.
"Dashan, set up the altar."
"Da Gui, go see how your wife is doing with the bean dregs cakes? Tell her not to skimp on them since there are many people in the village; make all the bean dregs into cakes, otherwise, it won’t look good if there’s not enough to go around."
Today, they were not setting up a stall, only selling white tofu, and all the bean dregs were reserved to make bean dregs cakes, which were to be given to the villagers in celebration of the workshop’s opening.
"Alright, I’m on it," Gu Dagui ran back ho and relayed Third Grandma’s ssage to Mrs. Chen.
Mrs. Chen didn’t think much of it, feeling it would be better to sell the bean dregs cakes for money; but since they still had to live in the village and it was customary to share with the community during happy occasions, they had to distribute so to everyone.
User Comments
0 comments from readers