Chapter 116 - The Prince (2/2)
“They’re selling them to the rich people! Thirty copper coins is enough to buy around ten catties of coarse grain! It was really cold this winter, so the price for grain has skyrocketed. It was already very fortunate that we didn’t die of starvation. We don’t have the spare money to eat such expensive food.”
……
There were a lot of onlookers, but very few bought anything. An hour had already passed, but Yu Hai and his daughter didn’t get another customer besides the fat matron.
“Cao’er, did we set the price a little too high? It’s also noon. If we can’t sell them, the vegetables are about to wilt. At that time, it would be difficult to sell them for a good price!” Yu Hai felt slightly worried as he looked at the vegetables in the basket.
His youngest daughter had put in a lot of painstaking effort to grow these vegetables. She watered and weeded it every day by herself without needing other people’s help. The temperature was low in early spring, so she covered the vegetable gardens with straw thatches in order to prevent them from dying from the cold. In the morning at dawn, she would lift the thatches up again. Every day, she wouldn’t miss either of these two steps.
In front of and behind the house, there would be vegetables planted in all the open spaces, which added up to about four or five mu [1]. Cao’er and the other children never said they were tired. They were so sensible that his heart ached for them.
His youngest daughter, in particular, personally took care of making braised food and planting crops. This little girl, whose height only reached up to his waist, had even more things to worry about than him, her father. Ay! If he had worked harder as the head of the family, they wouldn’t have to let a nine year old girl shoulder the burdens of the family at such a young age.
Yu Xiaocao didn’t know that her father had thought about so much within his heart in such a short time, but she still confidently said, “Don’t worry, Father! There’s a lot of rich people in Tanggu Town!! At this time, people might not even be able to buy our vegetables even if they have money!”
Her eyes swept across the crowd and saw a middle-aged man, who looked like a steward. She shouted loudly, “Hey, Uncle, do you want to buy some fresh vegetables? We’re the only one who sells them in the whole market!”
This man with a goatee was the steward for the second richest household in town after the Zhou Family—the Yao Household. Old Master Yao’s sixtieth birthday banquet was in two days, which happened to be at the time when the new crops weren’t ripe yet. It was easy to prepare the meat dishes, but the vegetable dishes were a more tricky matter to handle.
As a result of the blizzard this winter, Old Master Yao didn’t plan a big banquet and only invited a few close friends and family, who were all wealthy and respectable people. Thus, they could just serve radishes and cabbages, which were simple and humble, to these honorable guests.
The steward was so stressed out by the planning of the banquet dishes that several strands of his hair had turned white. When faced with the approaching date of the birthday banquet, he not only mobilized the servants under him, but he also personally went out to find a solution. He had browsed through most of the food market, but he still couldn’t find a solution to the problem. The steward scratched his head in distress!
As the saying goes: ‘Heaven never seals off all the exits.’ He hadn’t expected that there would be a light at the end of the tunnel, and a heavenly voice sounded in his ears.
The steward followed the voice and looked over to see baskets of verdant vegetables. They looked so fresh that he couldn’t even take his eyes off of them. The steward’s eyes brimmed with tears of joy—he was saved!
He immediately rushed towards Yu Hai and his daughter’s stall. Without asking for the price, he pointed at the bamboo basket and said eagerly, “I want all of these…”
“Oh, isn’t this Miss Yu!” A familiar voice interrupted Steward Yao’s words.
Yu Xiaocao looked over and saw that it was the apprentice of Head Chef Wang of Zhenxiu Restaurant. He was the worker in charge of collecting and purchasing ingredients, Qian Xiaoduo!
“Miss Yu, it’s been a long time since I have seen you deliver game to our restaurant. My teacher has been talking about you for days!” Qian Xiaoduo was surprised to see the baskets of green vegetables.
Even for a wealthy family like their boss’s, it wasn’t easy to be able to have several different vegetable dishes on the table during this season. They had to spend a large sum of money to build a greenhouse in order to grow the vegetables. How did the Yu Family grow fresh vegetables at this time?
“There were some things going on at home… We might not be able to send game to your restaurant anymore in the future. But Uncle Zhao and Brother Han are both skilled hunters. They will surely send enough game to your restaurant.”
In the past month or so, numerous things had been happening one after another in their family. First her father had gotten injured. Then, they separated from the main family and had to repair their new residence. After that, they worked on selling braised food at the docks. In addition, her older brother met with a mishap… After thinking about this, she realized that it really had been a long time since she visited Zhenxiu Restaurant.
“Miss Yu, you’re selling vegetables?!” Every family had their own problems, so Qian Xiaoduo didn’t ask about it anymore. He looked at the baskets of greens and said, “Seriously, what should I say about you! If you have such rare green vegetables, why didn’t you send them to Zhenxiu Restaurant? Our restaurant will take all the vegetables you have. There’s no need to set up a stall! Let’s go, let’s go! Take them all to our restaurant…”
[1] 1 mu (亩) = ~0.16474 acres = ~666.7 square meters