Chapter 89: Business
Li Xiaonan finished a piece of smoked fish and reached out to take another, but Li Yin Zhu’s spindle tapped her hand.
“One piece is enough, you can’t have any more,” Li Yin Zhu stood up, covered the bowl of smoked fish, and placed it in the bamboo basket hanging from the beam.
“There’s so much,” Li Xiaonan licked the smoked fish juice from her fingers and mumbled.
“How can there be so much! There were thirteen pieces in total. You ate one, and the rest is exactly two pieces per person,” Li Yin Zhu sat down and continued spinning.
“Are we only stir-frying two vegetarian dishes for dinner?” Li Xiaonan glanced at Li Yin Zhu.
“There are two large pieces of smoked fish each! Stir-frying one vegetarian dish is enough, but you insisted on two,” Li Yin Zhu sighed.
A Nan is truly both lazy and greedy!
Li Xiaonan drooped her shoulders, sighed, and shuffled her small bamboo chair closer to Li Yin Zhu.
“Can’t you see I’m spinning? Don’t come over,” Li Yin Zhu raised her arm, drawing out a long, thin cotton thread.
“Third Sister, I went to see the weaving workshop today…”
“You’ve told me twice already.” When Li Yin Zhu heard about the weaving workshop, she thought of that six-harness loom and felt a bit sad.
She really wanted that loom.
“I mean, I want to do the business of weaving cloth,” Li Xiaonan propped her chin on her hands and looked at her Third Sister.
Third Sister wasn’t in a very good mood today.
“You want to open a weaving workshop?” Li Yin Zhu glanced at Li Xiaonan.
“We can’t open a weaving workshop, because opening one means paying taxes. Jacquard fine cloth is taxed at thirty percent, just like silk.
“I mean, for example, you, Third Sister, married into the Hong Family, so you don’t have to do housework and can weave cloth every day, right.
“You weave every day, and if you weave too much, you definitely won’t be able to wear it all, right? So I’ll buy the cloth you weave and resell it. Jacquard fine cloth is very expensive, and there’s a fifty percent profit in between.”
Li Yin Zhu paused, thought for a moment, and nodded, “That makes sense. Even if one needs to wear it, at most they’d wear fine cloth, definitely not jacquard fine cloth. However, the harness box and loom are too expensive; ordinary families can’t afford them.”
“What if we lend them money to buy looms and harness boxes? Let them use the jacquard fine cloth they weave to pay off the debt,” Li Xiaonan’s eyes sparkled.
“Where would you get the money?” Li Yin Zhu’s eyes widened.
“It’s just an example, a hypothetical example!” Li Xiaonan bit down hard on the words “hypothetical example.”
“You still need to know how to weave. With so many treadles, like one-three-two-six-five-four, if you make a few mistakes, a whole bolt of cloth is ruined. You also need steady hands. Jacquard fine cloth is almost like silk, and weaving silk is both difficult and slow,” Li Yin Zhu frowned.
“How many people do you think can learn?” Li Xiaonan asked.
“Second Sister can definitely do it, I think I can too, and Eldest Sister can definitely do it. As for others, in our Xiao Li Village, Eldest Sister-in-law can definitely do it, and Sister-in-law Daliang can too, and Auntie Wu can too. Auntie Gensheng’s eyesight isn’t good anymore, and then…”
Li Yin Zhu twisted her brows and slowly shook her head.
“It’s hard to say about others.”
Li Xiaonan let out a disappointed “Oh.”
There are fifty to sixty households in Xiao Li Village, and only these few people…
Hmm! It’s not that few either. A medium-sized village might have four or five, a large village seventy to eighty, and there are definitely more in town…
Li Xiaonan jumped up, got paper, brush, ink, and inkstone, spread the paper, and ground the ink.
“What are you going to write?” Li Yin Zhu leaned over.
“My business plan!” Li Xiaonan replied cheerfully. “That four-harness loom we saw last time costs nine thousand copper coins. Silver is eight hundred and sixty copper coins per tael of silver. A four-harness loom is about ten taels of silver, which is so expensive…”
Seeing Li Xiaonan write “four-harness loom, ten taels of silver” on the paper, Li Yin Zhu’s eyes widened, and she exclaimed, “This is the high-quality paper your Second Brother Hong sent! It’s very expensive, you can’t just scribble on it like this!”
“This is my business plan, not scribbling…” Li Xiaonan didn’t finish speaking before Li Yin Zhu snatched the paper away.
“What business plan? Do you have any silver? A loom costs ten taels of silver! How many copper coins do you have?” Li Yin Zhu glanced at Li Xiaonan and, as she spoke, put away the ink stick as well.
Li Xiaonan glared at Li Yin Zhu, lifted her chin, and snorted.
She had twenty-five taels of silver!
Li Xiaonan looked at the brush in her hand and the inkstone on the table. Forget it, she wouldn’t write it down. She would plan it in her heart.
Li Xiaonan pondered until the next morning, listing a long string of things to inquire about in her mind.
After breakfast, Li Xiaonan followed her Third Sister, watched her feed the chickens and water the vegetables, then watched Li Yin Zhu and Mei Jie wring out two bedsheets together. She stood under the loquat tree, looked up for a long time, and then walked out of the courtyard gate with her hands behind her back.
“Where are you going?” Li Yin Zhu asked hurriedly.
“To the paper-hanging shop in front, to see if I can pick up some scraps of paper,” Li Xiaonan replied and stepped out of the courtyard gate.
Li Xiaonan made a right-angle turn at the entrance of the paper-hanging shop and entered the tea house next door.
The shopkeeper hurried out to greet her.
“Is the young lady here for tea, or…?” the shopkeeper asked in a low voice, smiling obsequiously.
“Do you know Miss Wan Jing?” Li Xiaonan also lowered her voice.
“Yes, yes,” the shopkeeper nodded quickly.
“Then could you please send a message to Wan Jing, asking her to come find me when she has time, or I’ll go find her. I have something to tell her,” Li Xiaonan said softly.
“Yes! Don’t worry, young lady,” the shopkeeper agreed readily and crisply.
It was only a little over an hour later when Wan Jing’s voice sounded outside the courtyard gate.
Li Xiaonan leaped up and rushed to the courtyard entrance. Seeing Wan Jing, her face broke into a smile.
“You came so quickly, are you not on duty today?”
Wan Jing was stunned by Li Xiaonan’s question. “What do you mean I came so quickly? You knew I was coming? If I wasn’t on duty, I wouldn’t be standing here!”
“I asked you to come!” Li Xiaonan pointed to her own nose.
“Our Young Lord asked me to come. I’m not your maid!” Wan Jing gave Li Xiaonan a speechless, sideways glance.
“I mean, I went to that tea house and asked the shopkeeper to send you a message, asking you to come over, and you came. It was me, not your Young Lord,” Li Xiaonan patiently explained.
Wan Jing’s shoulders drooped, her whole body filled with speechlessness and weariness. “How could I have known you asked me to come? I came with our Young Lord! Let’s go, let’s go.”
Wan Jing grabbed Li Xiaonan’s arm and pulled her outside.
“I asked you to come so we could talk. Why did you bring your Young Lord?” Li Xiaonan turned to look at Wan Jing.
“Can I ask our Young Lord to come? You person! How many times have I told you, I can’t chat with you when I’m on duty, but you insist on talking to me, you have to talk, you have to talk!” Wan Jing let out a strange cry.
Wan Jing’s throat grew hoarse with anger.
“I didn’t…”
“Stop talking!”
They had already reached the alley entrance. Wan Jing paused, took a deep breath, lowered her head slightly, and walked forward with a serious expression.
“Hey!”
“Don’t talk!” Wan Jing tried not to move her lips and roared.
Li Xiaonan swallowed and followed behind Wan Jing into the tea house.
Is it really true that one doesn’t worry about having too many debts?
Absolutely not! I will definitely repay them tomorrow.
