Little Miss Fortune: I Will Bring Prosperity to My Tang Family!-Chapter 33: A Good Beginning

Chapter 32

A Good Beginning

One early morning, the two uncle and niece woke up to open a jar of salted eggs, taking out two eggs. After cleaning them, one egg was cracked into a small bowl, and the other was given to Hui Ning to boil.

Xiaolin gazed at the beautiful lump of salted egg yolk with sparkling eyes, her mouth watering at the thought of a salted egg yolk salad.

"Right! I’ve never made a salad before. We have squid and shrimp too," she thought, swallowing her saliva.

"What salad?" Tianchen leaned in excitedly, sensing another delicious meal was coming. Xiaolin laughed merrily at his reaction.

"I’ll make it for you to eat. But after selling the squid, we need to collect more duck eggs to make extra salted eggs."

"Of course, if it’s delicious, I’ll put in my best effort!"

For breakfast, Xiaolin prepared a salad with boiled squid, spicy sauce, and sliced onions. She also requested her mother to make steamed lemon squid and boil five more salted eggs, allowing everyone to have one egg each.

Tianchen was puzzled at his first taste of the salted egg but continued eating. By the third, fourth, and fifth bite, he was hooked, only to find himself left with empty shells when he reached for more.

"Make a lot more of these salted eggs, Xiaolin."

"Then we’ll need mom to boil more saltwater. If we make too many of them, we definitely won’t have enough salt left," said Xiaolin, munching on the squid and fending off Tianchen’s attempts to sneak more of her salted eggs.

"Okay. Besides boiling saltwater, is there anything else you want? Are you still interested in making the sauce with clams?" Hui Ning cracked open a salted egg for her daughter, knowing how much the chubby-cheeked child enjoyed them.

"Yes, please. If you’ve got time, could you crack them for Xiaolin too?" The little mouth opened wide, chewing happily.

"Sure. I don’t need to constantly watch the saltwater. In the meantime, I’ll prepare the clams."

"Thank you."

"SOB!  Xiaolin’s round eyes glared at her young uncle, who was eyeing her beloved salted eggs.

"You’re just a child, you don’t need to have too many of them," Tianchen said with a broad smile before getting a knock on the head from his older brother. However, he passed the remaining salted eggs to his younger brother, who eagerly devoured them.

"Then I’ll go boil some saltwater to help. Honey, would you like to come too?" Zhang Ruo turned to ask her husband, who had been quietly eating his rice. Since yesterday, he had been so silent that it made her feel uneasy.

"You all go ahead. I’ll stay and watch over Xiao Zhong. But if he decides to leave the barn, I guess I’ll take him out to you."

"Alright then."

Xiaolin squinted at her grandfather, Hui Song, who gave his granddaughter a corner smile, amused by his playful antics.

Later in the morning, the uncle and niece loaded their cart, bringing two hundred skewered squids and a measure of dried squid.

Xiaolin intended to sell dried squid for three taels of silver per jin. Given the numerous steps involved in its preparation to become dried squid, she planned to grill some for tasting, paving the way for her small future business.

Upon reaching the Liu family home, Tianchen, they called out to Liu Hao. Xiaolin didn’t forget to tell her great-grandmother Liu that if she wanted to boil saltwater, she could find her mother. Miss Liu expressed her gratitude before blessing their business venture.

Arriving at a small tavern, Xiaolin greeted Song Li, who came out to help unload some items before going back to attend to customers. His tavern was bustling from morning till evening, despite its size, drawing customers throughout the day.

Before the stove was fully prepared, a familiar customer from the day before came in to order squid, then sat down to wait in the tavern. The first customer of the grilled squid stalls also came to place an order.

"Today, I’d like twenty skewers of grilled squid, please little merchant, with the sauce as well," he requested.

"Aren’t you drinking today, Uncle?" As soon as she finished speaking, the man with a long beard laughed out loud, leaving Xiaolin tilting her head in confusion.

"I’ll come by in the afternoon. In the morning, I have to work at the docks. I’m just stopping by to buy some grilled squid for my kids and wife," hearing this, Xiaolin nodded before suggesting a new product she brought.

"Today, we also have dried squid. You can grill it until it’s aromatic and it’s ready to eat. Plus, it can be stored as winter provisions," she said, pulling out a large piece of dried squid from a cloth bag, as big as her round face.

"Oh, it looks really good."

"I will grill some for you to taste first today. If you’re interested, you can place an order, and I will bring it to you tomorrow," the young girl proposed with eagerness.

"How do you sell it? If it can be kept as provisions, that seems quite beneficial," he looked at the dried squid in the young girl’s hands with interest. Xiaolin smiled broadly before responding.

"It’s three taels of silver per jin. Please don’t think it’s too expensive. To get dried squid like this, it goes through many steps and requires time to dry and be cared for properly," she explained.

Tianchen listened and looked at his niece with admiration. Indeed, obtaining the squid was a strenuous process, but it seemed curious how the little girl, who only looked after her bloated belly, could understand such hardships.

He truly respected her...

"For winter, this price isn’t considered expensive, little girl. It’s much cheaper than salted pig legs. A single leg costs thirty taels, more expensive than land outside the city, I suppose."

Hearing this, Xiaolin nodded, her cheeks puffing. The price of land in her village was only ten taels per mu. With the cost of a pig leg, one could buy three mu of land. She’d rather choose land.

"Looking at your dried squid, one catty could probably get you twenty pieces. It’s more worth it than salted pig legs."

"Would you be interested then, Uncle?" The round-cheeked girl looked at him hopefully. The man with the long beard laughed delightedly at her question.

"In that case, I’ll order five jin," he said, pulling out fifteen taels of silver and forty yi coins. Xiaolin’s eyes sparkled at the sight of the silver taels before she accepted them and replied in a clear voice.

"Right away! I will prepare them for you tomorrow. And for today, I’ll add two large grilled dried squids as a bonus."

 "Hehe, thank you very much."

The man with the long beard walked away with his grilled squid and grilled dried squid. Seeing him on good terms with Song Li, he mentioned he would return the plate later since his home wasn’t far. Xiaolin then generously drizzled the sauce over the squid.

“Haha, Rich, wealth!!" The little hands held the money tightly and raised it in a gesture of respect.

"You’re quite capable, Xiaolin, selling five jin of dried squid just like that," Liu Hao leaned down to speak with the young girl.

"I’m going to sell even more. Today, I will also pay wages to both of you, uncles, but not too much because I still need to pay for the dried squid to dad, mom grandpa, and grandma."

"I will take delicious food as payment," Liu Hao said with a gleeful squeeze of the round cheeks.

"Of course!"

Several days passed, and the small grilled squid business run by the chubby child was doing well, selling out so quickly that even preparing three hundred skewers a day wasn’t enough. Not to mention the dried squid and boiled salted eggs, which were favorites among the wives of drinkers, who sent their husbands to buy them almost every day.

The dried squid continued to sell steadily, moving several catties a day thanks to Tianrong’s friends, who brought back dozens of buckets of squid every night. They spent their days processing and their nights squid fishing, with their wives coming out to help since their husbands were not home. Tianrong paid them two hundred brass coins, a higher wage due to the risks of squid fishing at sea every night.

"Are there no salted eggs today, young merchant?" A middle-aged village woman asked, noticing the absence of the egg basket that was usually there every day.

"The salted eggs are always sold out very quickly, Auntie. They take a long time to make, so we don’t have any left for sale right now," the young merchant, dressed in layers that made her look puffed up, explained while dealing with customers. Her young assistants, Tianchen and Liu Hao, were busy grilling squid.

"It’s a pity. The ones I bought the other day were so delicious. They were a bit expensive, but I understand it’s because of the amount of salt needed," she said regretfully. Her family had greatly enjoyed them, but she had only bought three eggs.

"In three days, I will have them for sale again. This time, there will be a hundred eggs."

"That’s great. I’ll come back to buy more then."

Xiaolin smiled as she saw the customer off, then collapsed into a chair. The sales had been so good in recent days that they had to hire Grandpa Guo Wen’s cart to help transport goods.

She sold the salted eggs for three brass coins each because they required a lot of salt, which most customers understood and continued to buy steadily until there were none left.

Now, she had prepared several jars of salted eggs, using up all the prepared salt. She had to buy pans from Uncle Zheng’s shop to have her mother boil more salt, with the wives of her father’s friends helping to watch over it.

"Young merchant, do you have dried squid today?" An elderly man approached, whom Xiaolin remembered as a customer from a few days ago.

"Yes, we do. How many jin would you like, Grandpa?"

"Bring me ten jin, please, little girl. My friend asked me to buy them; I couldn’t possibly afford this much on my own," the elderly man said, laughing and showing his worn teeth.

"The reason Xiaolin sells it at a high price is because it goes through many steps in the process," the young girl said, placing the dried squid into a cloth bag. Dried squid was priced at three taels of silver per measure. It might be a bit expensive, but it was certainly worth it.

She saw that the small dried squid business, which had been promoted by the drunken men, was very successful. She bought some inexpensive fabric to bring back to her mother, who could sew it into bags for the dried squid.

"Besides dried squid and salted eggs, do you have anything else for sale? My friend from another town is visiting, and his wife enjoyed the dried food from your shop so much that he asked me to buy some."

"We have dried scallops and dried shrimp, but I only make them for my family’s consumption. I haven’t sold them before."

"Try selling it, little girl. I’ll tell you what, my friend is a merchant. If he likes your products, you could end up selling even more," the elderly man stroked his beard. He believed her quality products would sell well in the winter and thus recommended her to his friend, who seemed interested and had asked him to buy the dried squid first.

"Really?" Xiaolin perked up, and the elderly man chuckled approvingly.

"He’s not a merchant with a big shop, but he lives in Jiu Zhou, far from the sea. It’s hard to sell fresh seafood there, but you have dried seafood. Trying won’t hurt, right?"

Xiaolin thought it didn’t have to be a big merchant; just having more people know about her products was enough! This way, her shop could grow faster in the future.

Xiaolin accepted thirty taels of silver, watching the elderly man’s back as he said he would bring his friend tomorrow for her to prepare some samples.

The two young men, who had been eavesdropping, excitedly surrounded the chubby girl.

"Xiaolin, are we going to have another big trade?" Tianchen shook his niece’s arm.

"Should we start a shop then?" Liu Hao was excited too. Nowadays, he got paid one tael of silver per day for half a day’s work in the morning, and in the afternoon, he went back to teach Tianchen for a monthly salary of one tael of gold.

"Not yet. We have to wait and see if they will buy from us. If our sales increase, we might need to hire more workers."

Xiaolin already had some workers in mind. The first group was the Sue family. Initially, Hui Song had tried to persuade Shu Luo to work with them, but seeing it as just a small venture managed by a child, he didn’t want to trouble the Tang family to pay wages. He would be very wrong if the business failed but promised to work if it went well.

The second group was the friends of her grandmother, the group of Grandpa Yao, who liked to gather and gossip but weren’t of bad character. The chubby girl thought with a smile curling at her lips.

"Hehe, I’ll truly become wealthy this time."

The trade agreement with the merchant from Jiu Zhou went smoothly, with Liu Hao helping to check the contract. The elderly merchant was happy to accept the goods at the price Xiaolin sold in town because he could resell them at a higher price.

She could only prepare fifty catties of dried squid, twenty catties of dried scallops, and ten jin of dried shrimp for the first delivery. Xiaolin sold the scallops for one tael of silver per jin, and the dried shrimp for five taels, as they were rarer and required more intricate processing than the other two types of seafood.

"This much might only sell for a few days, but next month I will come to pick up more goods. I would like to order at least a hundred jin each next time. Is that possible?"

Xiaolin nudged her father playfully. She had told him everything he needed to say the night before and made sure he memorized it precisely. Tianrong looked down at his daughter with amusement before responding to the elderly merchant.

"We can manage the scallops and squid, but I can’t promise the shrimp. They’re harder to catch and more complicated to process."

"Then let’s settle for what we can get."

"In that case, please pay a deposit for the scallops and dried squid first."

After agreeing, they signed the sales contract. The elderly merchant left with the available goods to try selling them first.

Xiaolin looked at the money from today’s sales, totaling two taels of gold and twenty taels of silver. The deposit alone was half the price of all the goods, amounting to two taels of gold.

"This is less than what Xiaolin’s share from the pans agreement," Tianchen remarked, eyeing the taels scattered on the table.

"But it’s still an income, isn’t it? Imagine if that merchant comes back to order more than a hundred jin," Liu Hao chimed in, making Tianchen’s eyes widen.

"We might only get a hundred jin. Once it snows, we can’t go out to sea," the chubby girl sat with her arms crossed next to her father.

"Xiaolin is right. So, we need to prepare the goods the merchant ordered before it starts to snow."

"In that case , I will need to stop selling grilled squid for now. In two days, I’ll sell the last batch of the salted eggs. In the meantime, it’s better to make the sauce. We need to collect more coconuts too. Last time, we only got a few."

"Then let’s go today, Xiaolin. I’d love to drink some scented coconut water," Tianchen scooped up his niece and disappeared towards the back of the house.

"Are you coming too, A’Hao?" Tianrong turned to ask Liu Hao.

"I’ll go. I’m free and have nothing else to do. Let’s give Xiaochen a day off from his studies."

Before they could organize themselves, the cheerful noise of the two cousins reached them. One uncle was eager to reach the coconut garden quickly, so he rushed off with his niece and a large knife to the cart. Meanwhile, the nephew protested as his young uncle pushed the cart so fast that he nearly lost his balance.

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