114 Sales on Fire (1/2)
They both stopped short.
Ye Jiayao moved first and handed the box that contained the Wish Jade to him. ”This looks so precious, I don't think I should've taken it.”
Xia Chunyu opened the box and admired the stone inside. ”Your box doesn't match the Wish Jade. I will get you a better one tomorrow.”
”That's just a temporary box because I was afraid I'd break it,” Ye Jiayao explained.
”Look after it well, alright? This thing is rare. The whole Huai Song only has one.”
”Of course, I'll take care of it. But what do I do if a thief breaks into my house?” Ye Jiayao worried. She has two treasures now, the Crown Prince's calligraphy and the Wish Jade. Oh, scratch that! She has the recipes she wrote and the 600 silvers she earned. That was all that she had as well as her first bucket of gold.
There were no safe boxes these days. She couldn't even build a secret closet because she doesn't own the house she's living in.
”Uncle Jiang and Jiang Li are good at making gears. You should ask them for help,” Xia Chunyu suggested.
Ye Jiayao perked up. He's right. She could ask them to make a box that'd release poisonous gas or arrows if anyone tries to steal it.
”It is your turn now,” Ye Jiayao told him.
Xia Chunyu feigned innocence. ”Turn for what?”
Ye Jiayao rolled her eyes at him. ”Don't tell me that you asked Little Jing to invite Assistant Minister Mu to the banquet because you're just such good friends with him.”
Xia Chunyu's lips twitched. Yaoyao really was smart. ”That servant Lee was kicked out by your stepmother. I learned many things from her. For example, I learned that Wei Liujiang had a part in your abduction. I also knew that your second sister is very vain and showy. She wouldn't miss the chance to show up at a high profile party, so I set this up.”
Ye Jiayao was moved. Finding a servant who was kicked out from the Ye household all the way in Yang Zhou must've cost a lot of effort! It seemed that he's been at this for a long time.
”So you also arranged Lee's disappearance?” Ye Jiayao asked rhetorically. She already knew the answer. With Chunyu's power and connection with the Helian Royal Mansion, it was easy to get a person in and out soundlessly.
Xia Chunyu looked at her with a happy smile. ”Just wait, the good part is yet to come.”
The next day, the talk of Jin Ling City's was Heavenly Residence's ice cream mooncake.
The ice cream mooncake's debut yesterday was huge. Everyone in the banquet only had one, and it was not enough for them. No one had ever seen such novel and delicious dessert that they were clamoring for more.
So the next morning, people came to Heavenly Residence to get the famous ice cream mooncake.
Ye Jiayao had anticipated this so she prepared a sign to be put at the door.
Ice cream mooncake is five silvers each. Everyone can only buy five pieces. We'll start to sell it at 1 p.m. onwards until it's sold out. The ice cream mooncakes need to be kept in cold storage, so if you don't have an icebox at home, we sell them for 10 silvers each.
Ye Jiayao was happy about the deal with the icebox. When Shopkeeper Li came in the morning, he told her to sell the ice cubes for herself. He even suggested to price it at 10 silvers each.
Ye Jiayao was touched. Shopkeeper Li really was a good guy!
”Five silvers each? That's too much!”
”That's so expensive. My two months salary is worth one bite.”
”There really are so many rich people nowadays. We poor people are simply satisfied with rice.”
”Damn, limited purchase. Will it really kill you to make a few more?”
”Don't you want to make more money, dumbass…”
”What do you know? Good products are in short supply.”
”It makes people like us, who run errands, tired. Cold drinks made us run around so much, and now the mooncake? I'd probably have to line up here before dawn.”
”It would be too late before dawn. I am going to sleep over here tonight.”
A group of people gathered at Heavenly Residence's door, complaining about the price and the hassle, but no one left. They just found a cool place to sit down and waited. They were afraid that they'd miss the queue if they left. Most of them were ordered by their masters to buy this famous ice cream mooncake.
In the kitchen, Ye Jiayao and the others were working hard on making the mooncakes.
”Li Yao, people outside have objections about the limited purchase,” Manager Qian told her.
Ye Jiayao was compressing the material and said off-handedly, ”Limited purchase is just a trick. Only rich people could afford this and I'm certain that five pieces will not be enough for them. The harder it is to buy, the more valuable it'd seem.”
Manager Qian laughed. ”That's reasonable, but I think 500 would not be enough.”
”Then they'll just have to come again tomorrow.”
She only made a limited filling for the ice cream and could not make more. She also didn't want to tell anyone else how to make ice cream so she had to do it by herself at night and have Jiang Li bring it over when it was done.
As expected, the 500 ice cream mooncakes they made were sold within 30 minutes. They also sold about 80 iceboxes.