"Of course, the drinks will still cost money, but the dishes are free," An Jing added. "Also, it’s best if it’s free for three days. One day feels too short, three days should be about right."
Wang Youbao clapped his hands and said, "Let’s do as you say!"
Seeing Wang Youbao looking very confident, as if a lot of silver was about to wave at him, An Jing chuckled and said, "If you end up losing money, don’t blame me."
Wang Youbao immediately replied, "How could I? It was my decision. I think your idea is great. Even if I lose money, I am willing to accept it!"
If he didn’t lose money, that would mean earning a handful of silver, so of course, he was willing to take a risk and give it a try.
Since the cooks were all family servants of Wang Youbao’s house, the next day, An Jing went directly to Wang Youbao’s house to prepare the dishes. After the dishes were finished, she had a meal at Wang Yubao’s house before she and Xiao Changyi left the Wang Family.
Having come to the town, An Jing didn’t feel like going back just yet. Then, she and Xiao Changyi went shopping for some New Year goods at Sixteen Town.
In fact, they didn’t buy much. In addition to buying twenty pounds of meat intended to be made into cured meat, they also bought some firecrackers and red paper.
The red paper was for writing couplets.
Although An Jing and Xiao Changyi had always planned to buy brushes, ink, paper, and inkstones, they never did, and now, to write couplets, they needed these items. Since Su Chengyu had gifted them a wolf’s hair brush and an inkstone, An Jing and Xiao Changyi only needed to buy a stick of ink.
To make it convenient to carry around, there was no liquid ink for sale here, only ink sticks.
If you wanted to write with ink, you would take some ink stick, place it on the inkstone, add water, and grind it into ink.
Grind as much ink as you need for writing.
After some thought, An Jing decided to buy some more paper for writing, planning to write and draw when there was nothing else to do back at home.
The whitest paper here was all yellowish, without a pure white sheet in sight.
Not like modern times with bleaching agents.
Looking at the paper in her hands, An Jing’s thoughts drifted to the "King of Papers," Xuan paper. Even without the use of bleaching agents, it was white.
When she practiced calligraphy with her grandfather, they had used Xuan paper.
Although An Jing was not familiar with the specifics of the paper-making process, she knew that the raw materials for Xuan paper were solely Green Tania tree bark and rice straw. The reason there was no white paper here may be because they had yet to discover that combining Green Tania tree bark with rice straw could produce white paper.
Whether the paper for writing was white or not didn’t really matter to An Jing, so she didn’t dwell on the matter of Xuan paper too much.
In homes with doors, no matter what kind, it’s customary here to affix couplets to the doors on New Year’s Eve.
An Jing and Xiao Changyi had seven doors in their home, so they needed seven pairs of couplets.
If Xiao Changyi couldn’t write or his handwriting was unsightly, An Jing might have taken it upon herself to write the couplets, but since Xiao Changyi’s writing was free-flowing and bold, An Jing didn’t want to embarrass herself by trying, so she let Xiao Changyi do the writing.
She would grind the ink for him.
Red paper with black characters, extremely festive, seven pairs of couplets were left to dry the ink in the main room. Once the ink was dry, An Jing and Xiao Changyi folded the couplets neatly away, planning to take them out and paste them on the doors on New Year’s Eve.
However, before An Jing and Xiao Changyi could welcome New Year’s Eve, they were greeted by heavy snowfall, massive flakes that fell for an entire day.
Looking around, everything was a vast expanse of white, and looking back at the mountain, it was a breathtaking sight covered in silver and white robes.
This was the first snow An Jing had seen since coming here, and she was quite excited. Despite the cold weather, she still pulled Xiao Changyi to stand at the door of the main room and watch for a long time.