Bab 14: Shocked Everyone
Editor: Henyee Translations
After coming out of the White Jade Restaurant, Yu Feng was in a bad mood.
White Jade Restaurant did not charge them for their meals, so they saved three taels of silver. If they could enter the mountain again tomorrow, they would have two taels of silver. They only needed to sell fifteen taels of salt to gather twenty taels.
That was Yu Feng's plan. Even so, he still felt that the price of fifteen taels was too high, but he had underestimated this girl's courage.
"Fifty taels… You… What are you thinking!"
...
"That's right, fifty taels, what are you thinking!" In the White Jade Restaurant, the shopkeeper also complained to Miss Bai. "Even tribute salt isn't that expensive!"
Ms. Bai glared at him. "Then you buy it for me!"
The shopkeeper choked.
Tribute salt was something only the Prince's mansion and the Imperial Palace could eat. As merchants, let alone buying it, they didn't even have the means to see it.
Yu Wan first went to the street market to buy gauze and a few dozen catties of soybeans before returning to the village with Yu Feng.
When they reached home, Yu Wan plunged into the kitchen. Yu Feng finally understood why she let him carry the water and chop the firewood.
Yu Wan first boiled a large pot of hot water and poured all the salt in the first wooden bucket into it. "Big Brother, is there any grinder in the old residence? Can you help me grind the soybeans into soy milk?"
Yu Feng did not ask why and left without another word.
In ancient times, the taste of salt was terrible mainly because there were too many impurities in it. As long as these impurities were removed, the taste would rise to a new level. This sounded easy, but it was a time-consuming and energy-consuming skill.
After Yu Wan boiled the salt, she used the gauze to filter it once. At this time, she filtered out the rougher impurities, but there were more delicate ones that needed other mediums.
Yu Wan poured the filtered salt back into the pot.
"The soy milk is here!" Yu Feng walked in with two large buckets of soy milk.
Yu Wan poured the raw soy milk into the salt water. After a while, some dregs floated up. Yu Wan scooped out the floating dregs and poured the raw soybean milk into the pot again. This process was repeated three to five times until she could no longer scoop out any dirty things from the salt water. At this time, the color of the salt water had become very clear, and its weight had also decreased by half.
Yu Feng stared at the salt in the pot with his mouth agape. He had never known that soy milk could be used like this.
Yu Wan panted slightly. "When the water in the pot is dry, the salt will come out."
It was freezing cold, but beads of sweat appeared on her forehead. Yu Feng's expression was slightly complicated. He wanted to find something to help her wipe her sweat, but he was not a delicate little girl that would carry a handkerchief with him.
He pinched his sleeve. It was still considered clean. Before he could do anything, Yu Wan put down the pot lid and said, "Big Brother, help me take a look. I'll go fetch Bruiser."
Yu Feng hurriedly put down his stiff arm. "Got it. You can go now."
Yu Wan went to Uncle Yu's house to bring back Little Bruiser, who was sweating profusely from playing. She gave him a bath and also bathed Madam Jiang. After Little Bruiser fell asleep, Yu Wan returned to the stove. There was still a lot of salt that Miss Bai had given her. She could not finish cooking it all in one go.
Yu Feng stayed behind to help. The siblings worked until dawn before they finally succeeded in purifying all the salt. The two of them did not have time to rest. They quickly rented an ox cart in the village and sent the salt to White Jade Restaurant.
Bai Tang had been waiting in the lobby since early in the morning. Fifty taels was not a small amount. Yesterday, she took the initiative because her father wasn't around. But now, her father was already on his way back. If he knew that she used fifty taels to buy salt that she didn't know if she could make…
Bai Tang didn't dare to think further!
After the salt had been purified, the large and irregular pieces of bluish-gray salt had turned into tiny crystalline salt particles. The quantity had also shrunk by more than half.
The shopkeeper could not help but frown. "Why did it become so little? Is this salt?"
The chefs of White Jade Restaurant also surrounded them. Among them was Chef Lu, who had met Yu Wan at the market.
Chef Lu had never seen such salt before. However, he recognized Yu Wan, the little girl who even made the fish soup wrongly. Would such a person know how to make salt? He snickered.
The remaining chefs and workers also laughed.
Only Bai Tang didn't smile.
Bai Tang wasn't a little businesswoman who hadn't seen the world. People only knew that her father was a merchant, but they didn't know that her mother was originally a court lady in the Capital. When she followed her mother back to the Capital, she had really seen and tasted this snowflake-like salt with her own eyes.
When Yu Wan placed the salt in front of her, she was so shocked that she was speechless. Was it because she was surprised to see snowflake salt again in her lifetime, or was it because a village girl actually made snowflake salt? No one knew. However, there was no guarantee that it was only similar. The taste might be worlds apart!
Bai Tang glanced at Yu Wan arrogantly. "I'll be blunt first. If the taste doesn't satisfy me, I won't give you a single copper coin!"
Yu Wan smiled lightly. "Okay."
"What's so good about it? She's going back on her word," Yu Feng said calmly.
Bai Tang glared at him. "Who's going back on their words?!"
Yu Feng was too lazy to talk to her.
Bai Tang gritted her teeth in anger. If it wasn't for the salt, she would have thrown this annoying fellow out right now!
The chef of White Jade Restaurant used Yu Wan's salt to make a home-cooked dish—Cabbage Braised Pork.
In the past, in order to suppress the astringent taste in the salt, they had to put in a large amount of sauce and add some white sugar to make it more fresh. Today, they deliberately made things difficult for Yu Wan, so they only put in salt. However, no one expected that the stir-fried cabbage would actually be sweeter than any other time. This sweet taste invaded the streaky pork, perfectly removing the greasy taste of fat. The lean meat was even more tender, but it was not the least bit matchless. It melted in the mouth as soon as it was eaten, and oil flowed out of the mouth.
Bai Tang originally thought that no matter how good the taste was, she had to pretend that it was hard to swallow. This way, she could lower the price with her. Who knew that she couldn't stop eating.
"Miss Bai, are you satisfied?" Yu Wan looked at the plate that was eaten by Bai Tang and asked with a smile.
Bai Tang touched her stomach and burped. Uh… Is it too late to say that she's not satisfied?
...
The siblings took the bank notes and went to the pharmacy.
How could the worker in the pharmacy have expected that the two of them would really gather all the money? He had already sent someone to report to yamen, but now he hurriedly got an errand boy to chase that person back.
"I say, don't tell me your banknotes have unknown origins?" The shop assistant asked suspiciously.
He could not be blamed for thinking too much. It was just that this family had started to visit him two years ago. He knew their family's situation very well. If they really had the ability to earn money, they would not have owed him until today.
Yu Wan smiled. "Don't worry. The money we earn with our own abilities is clean."
She was so amiable that the shop assistant felt embarrassed. The shop assistant coughed lightly. "Wait here, I'll return the IOU to you now."
Hadiah
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