"It’s good that you didn’t go; the brick factory is so tough. It’s perfect timing, the bean sprouts I grew, the ones we ate yesterday, how were they? If we took them to market, could we make some money off of them?" Xu Nianhua thought about it when she was growing the bean sprouts. She and Xu Nian’an still needed to go to school, so they would need to find someone to handle the bean sprout business.
"Bean sprouts?" Xu Nianji recalled the crunchy sprouts they had eaten the previous day, which were quite tasty. He said, "They were delicious, but does anyone else sell them?"
"It doesn’t matter if others sell them. Look at all the different kinds of shops around; there are so many. You can’t expect only one person to be selling any given item. With so many people, there is a lot of demand for everything," Nianhua explained.
"There’s also mung bean jelly. When second brother and I first started selling it, no one else did. Now, there are plenty of people selling it, but the mung bean jelly we make every day still sells out," she said.
Xu Nianhua had an optimistic perspective—the entire county had a large population, and bean sprouts were a common dish that were inexpensive, so there would be many buyers.
"You always think so fast," Xu Nianji praised, his gaze falling on Xu Nianhua. She had the same familiar face, but the confidence and calm in her eyes were different from before.
Could it be because of the setback in her college entrance exams? Had that changed her somehow?
Xu Nianhua felt uncomfortable under his stare, her eyes flickered as she touched her face, and said, "Big brother, do I have something on my face?"
"No," Xu Nianji said with a laugh. "Little sister, you are still as pretty as ever, but you seem different from before."
Xu Nianhua’s heart skipped a beat.
Xu Nianji continued to praise her, "Little sister, you seem more lively than before, which is great. You used to be too quiet."
Xu Nianhua’s heart sank a little, and she lifted the corners of her lips into a smile, saying, "Big brother, people have to grow up."
"Brother Cheng, this batch of herbs, they all sold overseas. The foreigners seem to really like our herbs and want to establish a long-term partnership with us," Ling Dong thought about the recent collaboration with the foreigners and was still very excited.
In this era, foreigners were not common.
"It’s fine to establish a business partnership, but we can’t budge on the price," Pei Yicheng warned. "Did you forget something?"
"What?" Ling Dong looked at Pei Yicheng, puzzled.
He was an orphan who, after getting injured while hunting, was saved by Pei Yicheng, and had been following him ever since.
After Pei Yicheng’s incident, Ling Dong followed him to Gaoliang County.
Initially, Pei Yicheng had no desire to do business—in fact, he didn’t want to do anything and was very dejected. But one day, he had a change of heart, he started a business selling herbal medicines, using what was available locally.
Now that they had sold this batch of herbs and received the payment, and the partnership with Mr. Angel was set, all that was left was to get Mr. Angel’s contract translated!
Ling Dong thought hard but couldn’t think of what he might have forgotten.
Pei Yicheng cleared his throat and said, "Mung bean jelly."
Ling Dong was supposed to bring him a bowl of mung bean jelly every day, but today he came empty-handed.
Ling Dong slapped his forehead. These days, Pei Yicheng had him buy several bowls of mung bean jelly to bring back. Ling Dong had been so preoccupied with Mr. Angel’s contract that he’d forgotten all about it.
"Today, the Xu family didn’t sell mung bean jelly," Ling Dong said somewhat puzzled. "They come almost every day. I’m not sure why they didn’t come today, so I didn’t buy any."