Chapter 30 – Harvest Storm
Their family is busy selling at the stall every day, and Wei Cheng thought that it was about time that the business would start cooling off.
The business at their stall is stable but still- when customers eat, they complain about the hot weather. It is enjoyable to eat, but the hot weather is very annoying.
Wei Cheng thought of iced drinks.
Ice is the best thing for relieving the summer heat, but ice is a rare thing in ancient times, and the families who can use it are either rich or extremely powerful.
Saltpeter can make ice, and the cost is not high, but it is too eye-catching, and he has no backer,if he does reveal it then he would only be calculated against. Even if the formula is sold in the end, as long as he knows the formula then he won’t be able to have a day of peace, he doesn’t want to face a bunch of plots and calculations, he just wants to live a peaceful life with his wife.
He can do his best to be as successful as he could but there are some things he would not risk.
He has the ability to make a fortune and settle down, but he absolutely does not have the ability to plot and calculate for power and profit.
Of course, making a small amount of ice is also possible as long as it is within a measurable range.
Then he’ll add sour plum soup to cool off the heat, and then put a small amount of ice on it- a little bit of coolness can cool off the heat.
Wei Cheng bought the ingredients for making sour plum soup, but he didn’t buy hawthorn. He was afraid that some pregnant woman would accidentally drink it and he knew that ancient medicine was still backward.
He also bought some saltpeter, and let the workers go home- after only he and his wife were left, he then fetched a basin of water. Zhou Yuan didn’t know what his husband was doing, so he leaned over to have a look.
Wei Cheng: “I’ll give you a surprise.”
Under Zhou Yuan’s anticipation, he threw the saltpeter into the water, and after a while, the water gradually turned into ice.
Zhou Yuan’s eyes widened, he was so startled that his mouth opened slightly and became round.
“This, this is ice!”
“That’s right, is it cool?”
“It’s so cool!” Zhou Yuan asked, “Husband, you are so good, you can also make ice. Shall we use ice for food?”
Wei Cheng smiled and said, “Make sour plum soup and add new food to the stall.”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Then he took him to the kitchen to cook sour plum soup. After cooking the sour plum soup, they let it cool down a little, and then added ice to the sour plum soup to cool down, he then passed it to for his wife to taste.
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Wei Cheng didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, “Yuan Yuan, you don’t need to make a sound, you act like a child.”
Zhou Yuan murmured, “I didn’t act like a child.” He didn’t even know how to act like a child.
He said that he didn’t act like a child but his cheeks were full of flesh, and with the cute little expression of muttering, Wei Cheng couldn’t resist and leaned over to take a bite from his wife and watched him blush, his skin was really thin.
Only then did Wei Cheng go to take more sour plum soup and hand it to him while saying: “After drinking this bowl, we should rest, remember to brush your teeth after drinking.”
In ancient times, there were already teeth-brushing tools, including tooth-brushing powder and toothpaste, and the business of shops selling tooth-brushing tools was very good. The price was moderate, and even families in the county could afford them, but the taste was bland.
Zhou Yuan never used brushing tools at home, he always brushed his teeth with branches. At first, he muttered that it was a waste of money, but he gradually got used to it.
Zhou Yuan obediently responded.
After the two returned to their room, Wei Cheng did not forget to tell his wife that while their family could make ice, he couldn’t tell the outside world that they made their added ice themselves, just say that he bought it from the inner county.
Anyway, there are ice sellers in the inner county, and there are ice buckets for storing ice, so he’ll really have to buy an ice bucket, so that he won’t worry about the ice melting prematurely.
At night, Wei Cheng put some ice cubes in the room, and the two had a comfortable sleep.
*
The next day.
The morning market ended and before the afternoon market opened.
When the morning market ended early, Wei Cheng went to the pier market alone, where things that came from all over the world were sold, and there were also foreign and local fish sold at the pier market.
He went there to see if there is any suitable seafood to add food options for the family.
There wasn’t much time so Wei Cheng wandered around casually and found some fish. He accidentally saw someone selling shrimps, but no one cared about them.
He recalled that there was little shrimp and crab meat, and they were all ingredients that had no market.
“How do you sell this shrimp?”
A half-grown child in rough clothes, thin and small, his clothes look dry, his face dirty, full of mud, and when he heard someone asking him, his eyes lit up. His tone is timid and stuttering, “Customer, do you want to buy some? My family’s shrimp costs two wen a catty.”
Wei Cheng felt that some ancient food prices were ridiculously expensive, and some were ridiculously cheap.
The five-centimeter shrimp is quite big, and it costs two wen a catty. This is the price of modern cabbage.
Visually, there are about seven or eight catties in the barrel.
Wei Cheng looked at the half-grown child in front of him, he originally planned to buy a catty or two of it for food for home, but he ended up buying it all..
Fried Shrimp Rice Tepanyaki is also good, and he can also make fresh shrimp paste if they are not sold out.
Thinking about opening the lunch market, he asked the child if he could help peel the shrimp shells, and he’ll give him an extra five wen for labor costs. When the child was puzzled about what he was saying, he demonstrated it once.
The kid immediately nodded in agreement, the customer was willing to buy the shrimp, even if he had to peel it manually, he would’ve done so- not to mention the extra five wen.
The child was happy to follow Wei Cheng with a bucket, but Wei Cheng didn’t help to carry it. He knew that some people lived in hardships in ancient times but was the child not afraid of being tricked into being a coolie, or being trafficked and sold as a slave?
Wei Cheng learned the age and name of the child. He was a child from a small fishing village. He was only thirteen years old, and he was also an only child.
Heizi was happy, but he didn’t know that Wei Cheng was thinking about his sake. Indeed, if he had met bad people, something awful would have happened to Heizi.
Heizi is the only child in the family. The family lives in a mud house in a small fishing village. The family makes a living by fishing. There is no other source of income for the family. Several families will rent other people’s boats to go to sea. To cover the cost, they can catch a few fish when they go to sea, and if they are lucky, they can sell dozens of fish a day.
The family has no land, and the whole family relies on fishing for a living, and their life is already very poor. The location of the fishing village is humid, and their bodies are soaked in sea water for many years. The people in the fishing village suffer from constant ailments and rheumatism. Due to having to take medicine, the people in the fishing village become even poorer.
In that small fishing village, half of the village is poor like Heizi’s family.
Both his grandfather and father suffered from rheumatism, and the rheumatism made them unable to go fishing. The family had no money to buy medicine.
As a young man in the family, he has to take care of their livelihood. He is too young to go out to sea to fish, so he catches small fish at the seaside and sells them for some money. But the small fishes are not easy to catch so when he saw shrimps, he prayed in his heart that maybe someone will be willing to buy it, so he got some shrimp to sell them in the county.
It took a wen to go to the county, which was the last coin he had, but when no one bought shrimps, he didn’t know what to do, and his family was still waiting for him to go home. No matter how strong Heizi is, he was still a child. He was actually a little scared to go to the county by himself. Now that he has not sold anything while he thought about his situation, he was on the verge of tears.
Fortunately, he finally waited for someone to buy it. Heizi thought it was a dream when the man bought it all at once. Someone actually bought shrimp. Heizi didn’t think about his safety when the customer asked him to go, so he just followed him with a bucket. He didn’t care if he was hungry all morning.
Wei Cheng took him to the stall and asked him to peel the shrimps in the stall.
Zhou Yuan approached him and asked, “Husband, isn’t this a shrimp? What do you buy shrimp for?” Shrimp has no meat, and it smells fishy when fried with salt. Few people buy it to eat.
Wei Cheng said, “I bought the prawns to make shrimp fried rice, and I will fry a plate for lunch later.” Then he started to prepare the ingredients for their lunch.
Would it be delicious to make fried rice out of shrimp?
Zhou Yuan and Wei Lei were very puzzled.
The shrimps were peeled well. Wei Cheng took some shrimps and diced them to make fried rice. First, he fried the shrimp until it was fragrant, then added some other ingredients and fried them together, then put the rice under the rice sauce and stir-fried them. After a while, the fried rice will taste salty and fresh. When the smell floats out, the aroma was smelled by others from far away, and the people closest to the stall swallow their saliva when they smell it, it’s so fragrant!
People with ample cash want to wait for the stall to open to buy a portion, while those with tight cash can only drool with black faces, unable to eat, and look envious of the good business.
They don’t have to try it, they know it’s delicious when they smell it.
Even Heizi who was still peeling the shells could smell it, it was so fragrant, he couldn’t help swallowing, his stomach was even more hungry.
After Wei Cheng fried the rice, he also fried a plate of green vegetables before starting to eat lunch.
A plate of shrimp fried rice, needless to say, was appreciated by all parties.
Heizi huddled in a corner to work, Wei Cheng and the others sat and ate deliciously, causing Zhou Yuan to look at Wei Cheng frequently. Wei Cheng knew that his wife was soft-hearted, and said, “Wife, Heizi is here to work so your husband will pay him for it. Of course, lunch is also included, he can have lunch after finishing his work, now you can have lunch at ease.” He had heard the child’s stomach rumble a long time ago.
Only then did Zhou Yuan feel relieved to eat, he knew that his husband was good, since the helper at home had meals every day.
Wei Cheng and the others finished their meal, and Heizi finished peeling the shrimp.
After paying him his wages, Wei Cheng stuffed two sheets of pancakes and packed a bowl of fried rice with the pancake for the child, and gave another ten wen as a deposit.
“Send some more shrimp tomorrow morning. If there are 20 or 30 catties, I will buy them all. If not, send as many as you can.” Heizi made an appointment with him for tomorrow’s prawns, but they must be peeled well. The prawn meat will be given separately, and the wages will be given accordingly.
Heizi was embarrassed to take what Wei Cheng gave. It was pancakes, made of white flour, and he could smell the aroma from the oil bag. It was the fried rice just now.
Knowing that it was the boss’s kindness, Heizi took what Wei Cheng gave him with wet eyes, and thanked him, “Thank you boss, I will definitely deliver tomorrow.”
Then, he started hurrying back home, Heizi wanted to take the food home for the family to taste, and he also wanted to tell the family that he had met a good boss.
Wei Cheng is a kind man. Thank you for this chapter 🙏🙏🙏
Is this 30.1 and 30.2 or are you missing a chapter?
Aww, poor baby. I want to protect him 😭
This novel is so good, I love the helping others trajectory it has.
Thanks for the chapter!
Shrimp is yummy!
Thanks for the chapter 🥰
Another one to the team! So happy for this kid and his family (=^w^=)/ I’m hungry too, give me some TTwTT
Thank You for the new chapter (๑ơ ₃ ơ)♥
Thanks for the chapter! That kid was lucky…
Thanks for the chapter!