Chapter 209 - Starch Jelly (2/2)
Yu Hai, who was quietly listening to his daughters’ discussion, decided to interject at this time, “Tomorrow, I’ll bring the materials over and I’ll craft a grass shack. As for the chopsticks, bowls, and spoons, there are shops at the docks that sell those. It’s only the tables and stools that might be difficult to get on short notice!”
Xiaolian suddenly thought of something and clapped her hands, “That’s right! Grandpa Liu mentioned that his son had made a bunch of money from doing business and was planning on having him move in so he could provide for his old father! They need to sell their noodles stand to someone. If we take it over, wouldn’t that solve our tables and stools problem?”
Xiaocao thought for a bit and then nodded, “Okay! Other than starch jelly, we can also sell cold noodles. I know a couple methods to make cold noodles, and they should taste pretty good. Tomorrow, Father can first build the awning. Grandpa Liu’s grass shack doesn’t let in the wind, which is fine in the winter, but in the summer, it gets a bit stuffy.”
“Okay! The sun is still up right now so I’ll go chop down some bamboo.” Yu Hai was the type of person to do what he said, so he promptly stood up.
Yu Hang followed him from behind and said, “I’ll go cut some long grass!”
With another way to make money, Yu Xiaolian became much more exhilarated and exclaimed in excitement, “Tomorrow, let’s take everything we need to the docks and shoot for an opening before noon!! That’s right! Tomorrow, we should go to the docks earlier. I need to buy bowls, chopsticks, and spoons from a store and you can start making the starch jelly! Since this business is a collaboration between us two, let’s split the money fifty-fifty. Is that okay?”
Naturally, Xiaocao wouldn’t refuse the proposition. However, it was likely that she and Xiaolian wouldn’t be able to handle making both the starch jelly and cold noodles. It might not be a bad idea to bring in their Eldest Maternal Aunt into the mix. Ever since the melon store closed, their eldest maternal aunt wasn’t able to find a suitable job, so she would only occasionally go to the docks and sell some food.
However, now her family had a bit more breathing room. When she was helping with the melon store for over a month, she found out she had more work than she could handle, so she also brought her oldest daughter over. Once it ended, Xiaocao simply stuffed fifty taels into her hand to show her gratitude in helping with such a tough job.
A healthy man in his prime doing hard labor in town wouldn’t be able to earn one tael for a month’s work. Madam Han felt that she didn’t have a difficult job working in the melon shop. All she had to do was move the melons to the shelves and man the cash box. When Xiaocao gave her fifty taels for her work, she was scared and astonished. How could she possibly take that much money?
That being said, Xiaocao’s Eldest Maternal Uncle also made a lot of money from selling watermelons in the prefectural city. All of this was a result of Xiaocao’s kindness and benevolence. As her family’s circumstances became better, she never forgot to help them either. Liu Pei and his brother had gone back and forth to the prefectural city at least ten times in the past month.
The first time they went to the prefectural city, they almost had an evil tyrant bully them out of their goods. Luckily, Fang Zizhen had quickly arrived to save them and caught the bully and his minions. The criminals were given to the authorities and Fang Zizhen also brought the two brothers to meet the prefectural magistrate. News traveled quickly, whether intentionally or not, among the wealthy and powerful families of the prefectural city. All of them soon knew that the Liu Brothers, who sold watermelons, were under the protection of the imperial envoy, General Fang. Naturally, from then on, no one tried to bully the two brothers with their wealth or status.
There were a lot more people with money in the prefectural city! As soon as a wagon full of watermelons arrived at the gates of the prefectural city, all of the melons were quickly sold out to the servants of these wealthy families. Even though the watermelons cost two times more than the ones sold in Tanggu Town, their sales never slowed down.
Within a month, the two brothers earned seven to eight hundred taels each. Prior to this, the Liu Family often didn’t even have seven to eight taels to take out, let alone seven to eight hundred taels. Now that they had a ‘monstrous sum’ of money on their hands, neither of them really knew what to do with it.
Later on, Xiaocao gave them some financial advice. The two brothers then decided to use their money to invest in the shops that were going to be built at the new harbor. Currently, more and more people were traveling through the presently crude docks. Once construction was finished on the new harbor, then real estate prices would definitely skyrocket!
With Xiaocao’s godfather around, they also didn’t need to fret about whether they’d be able to buy the shops in good locations. Originally, Xiaocao wanted to ask Third Young Master Zhou for help in buying the stores but she suddenly remembered she could give this task to her godfather. Her thought process was simple, ‘With my current income, buying ten shops wouldn’t be a problem now!’
Anyway, back to the topic! Thus, Xiaocao combined her money with the rest of her family’s and the next day Yu Hai took his two daughters along with two carts to the docks! Fang Zizhen rode his horse leisurely behind them. Yu Hai sat on the cart’s handle as he drove the horse cart that was piled high with the construction materials needed to build a shack. Xiaocao and her sister were on the donkey cart, which was piled up with pots, bowls, ladles, and basins. Baskets full of seaweed were also balanced on the cart.
That’s right, they were planning on making marine starch jelly first. After all, they didn’t have to spend any money on the raw ingredients. When they finished their supply of seaweed, they could consider making sweet potato starch jelly then. Mung bean starch jelly was deemed too difficult to produce on a mass scale and it was also the most expensive method too. Thus, the two sisters decided not to use mung beans!
Before they headed out this morning, Xiaocao especially visited the Zhou Family to have Zhou Shanhu help them pass the word along to the village children that the Yu Family was buying red marine algae in bulk for the long term. They set the price of one copper coin per catty of seaweed and there was no limit on how much you could sell to them. Yesterday they were able to gather a dozen or so baskets full of seaweed from that one place, so it was likely other stretches of beach also had more.
In this season, the village children usually had nothing to do. If they worked hard at gathering seaweed, even a half-grown child could gather more than a dozen catties of seaweed in a day. Nowadays, the people in Dongshan Village were no longer as poor as church mice, needing to scrimp and save every copper. Thus, the adults were now able to allow their kids to have a stash of a dozen or so copper coins for pocket money. Naturally, the village children were even more enthused at the prospect of gathering seaweed for more personal money!