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Chapter 25: 卖 ( to sell)
Translator: LittleYen
When they arrived at the entrance of the town, Zhao Er Shu’s carriage could not be driven inside and could only be left outside, Zhao Er Shu (Second Uncle Zhao) uneasily also stayed outside the town to keep watch.
Zhong Ziqi and Zhao Zheng’an took off their outer clothes to reveal the rag clothes inside,messed up their hair a bit, then they went inside the city with their heads down. The look was very common in the town, as the beggars also appear like this. As the result, the others stayed away from them when they saw them.
Jin Hua Restaurant is easy to find, as it is a large restaurant with a high ceiling, so you can see it at first glance, just walk in that direction. Luckily, Chang Shun Restaurant and Jin Hua are separated by a street, so they don’t run into each other.
It was midday, the Jin Hua Restaurant was bustling with people, very crowded. Zhong Ziqi stood at the entrance, watched for a while before dragging Zhao Zheng’an inside.
“Guest, this is your first time coming here, right? What would you like to order?”
The shopkeeper greeted the two with a decent smile on his face, not looking down on Zhong Ziqi and Zhao Zheng’an because they were dressed in rags. Zhong Ziqi was satisfied with this: “Where is your owner? I want to talk to him about something.”
The waiter looked at him for a moment before shouting inside, “Boss, someone is looking for you.”
“Coming!” In a short while, the figure of Boss Jin slowly appeared in front of the crowd: “Who is looking for me?”
The shopkeeper pointed his finger towards Zhong Ziqi and Zhao Zheng’an, then turned to greet the other customers.
Jin Sheng’s eyes narrowed, “You are?”
“Master Jin, you’re a noble man who forgets things, not long ago,we just met.” Zhong Ziqi said neither too fast nor too slow.
When he heard the voice, he thought it sounded familiar, when he looked closely, he finally remembered who it was: “It’s you, look at my memory, come in! By the way, I don’t know what I should call both of you.” In fact, it was no wonder that Boss Jin didn’t remember them, as it had been many days since they last met. He also had thought that the other party was not happy to sell, so he had forgotten about it. Today, when they first appeared, moreover, they were dressed like this, so it was strange if he could recognize them.
“My name is Zhong Ziqi, this is my husband( 夫君)Zhao Zheng’an.”
Jin Sheng took the two of them to a single room on the second floor, ordered the waiter to serve some tea before coming over to sit down. He looked at the two men’s attire up and down, between laughter and tears, “Why are you two dressed like this?” He didn’t think that Zhong Ziqi had no money to buy clothes, as he knew his business hit really well, that’s not even possible right?
Zhong Ziqi smiled bitterly, “It’s hard to explain in a few words.” With a sigh, Zhong Ziqi recounted the events of Chang Shun Restaurant.Boss Jin was not surprised at all, this kind of thing happened all the time so he was used to it. What interested him was that this ger was very special and felt very different.
[一言難盡 / yī yán nán jìn :
hard to explain in a few words (idiom); complicated and not easy to express succinctly]
“So you,have you agreed to my offer by finding this place today?” Master Jin asked.
Zhong Ziqi smiled bitterly, “I’m afraid there is nothing I can do if I don’t agree, if only that Boss Jin can agree to my one request, then, I can also sell the two other dish recipes too which I guarantee that you don’t have.” This was the only bargaining chip he had, and a useful one too.
“What’s the condition?”
“Let Chang Shun Restaurant stop bothering us!”
Boss Jin laughed: “Behind Chang Shun Restaurant, is the county governor of Feng Yang City, how can I ……”
Zhong Ziqi interrupted him, “Master Jin is joking, who doesn’t know that behind Jin Hua restaurant is a more mysterious power? if Boss Jin doesn’t agree, it’s also fine, no big deal, the worst possibility I’ll stop doing business, sell the recipe to other restaurants, at least I could make quite a lot of money, right?” Zhong Ziqi poured a cup of tea for Zhao Zheng’an as he watched him frown and drank it in one gulp, Zhong Ziqi played with the cup, smelled it, knowing that it was poor quality tea.
Jin Sheng didn’t say a word, his hand on the table, tapping one by one.It was just like Zhong Ziqi had said,they didn’t give a damn regarding this County Grand Master of Feng Yang City. If they moved his lips, the other party would not dare to interfere for sure. But according to their young master’s words, if it was something with no value, then it would not be worthy of their help, it was too high profile! Yet, in front of him, this young white and delicate ger, his value was …… well, he admitted, he could not understand him, but the request he made was quite tempting to him, so be it.
“Good, I promise you and I hope you will do as you say.”
Zhong Ziqi secretly sighed in relief with a smile on his face, “Don’t worry, Boss Jin, I won’t let you down!”
Boss Jin got up to ask the waiter to bring a pen and paper, Zhong Ziqi was not pretentious so he picked up the pen and started to write the recipe. This was a surprise to Boss Jin who thought he couldn’t write! He didn’t expect that he could read and write.
The writing in this world is not too difficult, just a little bit complicated,many of the characters are similar to modern ones. Besides, he had the memories of the original body so before his mind could figure it out, his hand had already written it efficiently.
“Here’s my recipe for two kinds of noodles with a bonus recipe for sour bamboo shoots.How’s that, not a bad deal right? ”
Zhong Ziqi looked as if ‘I was being generous’.
When he picked up the two recipes, he saw that it was written in a beautiful and impressive calligraphic style that didn’t look like something a country ger would write. After he looked at the contents, he was even more impressed because they were so simple! He didn’t know how he came up with it.
He put down the recipe and said sincerely, “Very impressive!”
Zhong Ziqi laughed modestly; “Nowhere, not at all! Usually, it’s just something I’ve been working on foolishly.”
Boss Jin also did not pretend as he took out silvers from his pocket: “This is ten taels of silver, the remaining two prescriptions will be counted separately.”
Zhong Ziqi felt quite strange to see silver for the first time, ten taels of silver was quite a lot, he believed that Boss Jin’s person would not press the price. In this country, one tael of silver was two Guan, that was two thousand copper coins, which showed how profitable the recipes were. He had been selling them for so long, but he had only managed to get close to that amount.
“Boss Jin, could you exchange some coins for me? It’s convenient to spend the money this way.”Zhong Ziqi was embarrassed to say that holding a large silver ingot was too conspicuous, it was like telling people that I had money.
“It was my poor consideration, Qin Zi?” Boss Jin shouted again.
The shopkeeper came in, “Boss.”
“Go get five taels of broken silver, plus ten Guan of money, send it over!”
“Yes.” The shopkeeper opened the door and went out, came back after a short while later with a tray covered with a cloth in his hand before he placed it on the table.
Boss Jin waved his hand as a gesture for him to go down, lifted the cloth, and the exchange money was placed inside. Boss Jin pushed it towards Zhong Ziqi, “You keep it! Those two how would you write it?”
Zhong Ziqi carefully put it in his pocket in his arms and thought about it, “Tomorrow, I will come here in the morning.” After saying this Zhong Ziqi pulled Zhao Zheng’an up, “I’ll go back first, I hope that Master Jin takes my affairs to heart.”
Master Jin smiled, “Don’t worry. I, Jin, am a man of my word.”
Zhong Ziqi was satisfied, pulling Zhao Zheng’an downstairs, the whole restaurant was enveloped in an aroma, he saw Zhao Zheng’an’s eyes staring at those delicious food, stroking his head: “I’ll buy you something delicious.” (Tl: Oh my… it was not bad for Shou to show love first to the Gong. Love this )
Zhao Zheng’an immediately looked at his wife with joy.
The food in the restaurant was too expensive.Besides that, Zhong Ziqi knew how to cook those dishes, so if Zhao Zheng’an wanted to eat it, he could just buy the ingredients and cook for him. He went into a pastry shop to buy a packet of pastries, which cost him ten wen, which was genuinely very expensive. Luckily, it tasted good, so he didn’t bother with that anymore.
After he left the door, he went to the clothing shop, bought two clothes for each of them. The ready-made clothes were expensive, half the price of the material, but Zhong Ziqi gritted his teeth yet he had to buy it, because he couldn’t make the clothes.
The moment he handed out the money, Zhong Ziqi couldn’t help but think, should he learn how to make clothes or not?