Carefree Farmwife: Training the Husband, Raising the Bun - Chapter 37

Liu Chuncao’s face lit up with joy as she looked at Ying Su with envy. “Cuihua, you really are capable…” Her words carried a faint trace of sourness. She hadn’t expected that the person she once looked down on would actually surpass her in every way.

Ying Su curved her lips into a faint smile. “This time it’s all thanks to your arrangements. The silver is also partly yours.” She was perceptive and understood the hidden meaning in Liu Chuncao’s words. Since she didn’t like owing favors, and both Li Dalang and Liu Chuncao had helped her with the wheelchair, she naturally wouldn’t keep all fifty taels of silver for herself.

She took out a silver ingot worth ten taels, then another five taels in loose silver, and placed the fifteen taels on the table. “This is for you.”

Deliberately ignoring her little bun’s pained expression, she took advantage of the moment and rubbed his small cheek when no one was looking.

Seeing the silver, Liu Chuncao’s face broke into a smile, and her heart felt much lighter. Laughing, she politely declined, “Dalang and I didn’t do much. How could we accept silver from you?”

Madam Li, with her age and experience, naturally knew her daughter-in-law had her eyes on the silver, but since it wasn’t convenient to say anything, she pretended not to hear and busied herself fiddling with the candied fruit.

“There’s no need to feel embarrassed.” Ying Su’s expression clearly said the matter was settled. She tucked the remaining thirty-five taels into her sleeve.

Li Dalang looked a little embarrassed and secretly glared at Liu Chuncao. Although he also felt hot desire in his heart looking at those fifteen taels of silver, the truth was he hadn’t done much at all. The cart had been entirely Cuihua’s work. Taking fifteen taels for nothing made him, a simple farming man, feel ashamed.

Liu Chuncao pouted but quickly turned back with a smile at Ying Su. “Stay for dinner tonight! I’ll cook. We’ll have pork crackling stewed with earth eggs!”

Ying Su was very curious about what this “earth egg” was, but asking might raise suspicion from Madam Li and Liu Chuncao. She didn’t dare claim she had forgotten, so she decided to wait until the food was served, she’d know then.

Dazhuang, who had been playing with Huzi at the side, immediately perked up when he heard this. He jumped up excitedly and cheered, “Wow! Tonight we’re having stewed earth eggs!”

Liu Chuncao laughed and scolded, “All you know is eating! Have you finished the homework your tutor assigned? No food until it’s done!”

Dazhuang made a funny face at her, then dragged the unhappy Huzi off to practice calligraphy.

Ying Su winked at him to make him laugh, but her little bun’s eyes stayed glued to the fifteen taels of silver on the table. His round little face was puffed up, full of gloom.

Ying Su secretly found it amusing. Knowing how stingy her little bun was, he’d probably be so distressed over the fifteen taels that he wouldn’t sleep tonight.

She turned back to Liu Chuncao. “Do you need me to help with the fire?”

Liu Chuncao shook her head with a smile. “No need. Why don’t you take a look at the candied fruit and see if it needs anything?”

Madam Li straightened up. “I’ll go help Chuncao with the fire. You rest for a while, you’ve been busy all day.”

Li Dalang leaned over the hawthorn fruit they had finished preparing, staring at it for a while before suddenly blurting out, “Hey, isn’t this candied fruit? It’s unbelievably expensive! Where did you get so much of it?”

Liu Chuncao, just about to head into the kitchen, stopped in her tracks, her face full of surprise and delight. “Dalang, you’ve seen this before? It’s called candied fruit? And it’s really that expensive?”

Li Dalang nodded. “I saw it at the master’s house, when the master’s youngest daughter had her birthday. She insisted on eating it, so the master specially went to Southeast Street to buy some. It was ridiculously expensive, just a small paper packet like this,”he gestured a tiny circle with both hands, “and it cost one whole tael of silver!”

He spoke with a pained expression, as if the memory still hurt.

At once, Liu Chuncao forgot all about cooking and quickly asked, “Dalang, what do you think of the candied fruit we made? Could it sell for a good price?”

“This is what you made?” Li Dalang had heard earlier that they were fussing with some fruit preserves, but he hadn’t thought much of it. After all, he had never thought highly of Shen Cuihua. But now things are different. Cuihua’s image in his heart had risen higher and higher!

Madam Li came out from the kitchen carrying firewood, her face showing a faint excitement. “Cuihua taught us how to make these. What do you think? Could they fetch a good price?”

Li Dalang looked at Ying Su with surprise again, still shocked at her endless resourcefulness, but his attention quickly returned to the hawthorn preserves.

“The candied fruit I saw before at the steward’s house didn’t look nearly this nice. Ours are so bright and vivid in color, they’ll definitely sell for a good price!”

Being a simple man who had never studied, Li Dalang didn’t know how to describe the glossy, jewel-like fruit before him. He only knew it looked beautiful and smelled of rich fruit fragrance. He couldn’t help swallowing his saliva.

“Try one?” Liu Chuncao asked expectantly.

Li Dalang carefully picked up a piece and put it in his mouth, chewing for a long while without speaking.

Liu Chuncao grew nervous. “Dalang, how does it taste?”

By then, Dazhuang and Huzi had wandered back and were staring wide-eyed at him.

Li Dalang finally came back to his senses, smacked his lips, and, meeting the hopeful eyes of his family, flushed dark red. “Delicious! I’ve never eaten fruit this tasty before!”

Hearing her husband’s praise, Liu Chuncao beamed with joy, already imagining a future of earning pots of money. She couldn’t stop smiling as she headed into the kitchen.

Seeing her son’s firm approval, Madam Li felt reassured. She said to Ying Su, “Tomorrow let’s go pick more from the mountain. There are still plenty of mountain berries up there!”

Of course they’d keep picking. Ying Su, however, wasn’t planning to hoard too many hawthorn preserves. First, the weather would soon turn hotter, and without vacuum packaging, spoilage was a real risk. Second, she thought candied hawthorn skewers would make money faster. They could be made fresh and sold fresh, without piling up inventory, and profits would come directly.

Still, the preserves they had already made had to be sold well. Since they had gone to so much effort, it was only right to earn back their worth.

“These candied fruits can’t just be left sitting around, it’ll make them harder to sell later. I want to put them into wooden boxes. If you’re free, can you help me make some?” Ying Su asked Li Dalang after some thought.

She had already imagined several designs for small, delicate boxes. As the saying goes, clothes make the man, and gold adorns the Buddha. In modern times, people often buy things just for the packaging. A trinket worth a few yuan could be sold for thousands once wrapped in upscale packaging. She believed the same principle applied here in ancient times.

The story of buying the box and discarding the pearl not only showed that the man from the story lacked judgment, but also proved just how important packaging was, so dazzling it could make the buyer forget about the pearl itself, caring only for the ornate box.