Chapter 27: A Leopard Can’t Change Its Spots
“Uncle, you’re such a good person. No wonder your tofu business is thriving. They say good people are rewarded, and your business will surely be booming in the future.”
Everyone loves to hear nice words, especially when they’re spoken by a pretty young woman with a sweet and pleasant voice. The tofu vendor smiled broadly and said, “Thank you for your kind words.”
After securing the tofu and tidying up their two bamboo baskets, Su Mulan exchanged a few words with the tofu vendor and the peach seller aunt before leaving with Bai Shuiliu.
When they reached a deserted area, Su Mulan took the money pouch tied around her waist and counted the coins.
They dried over twenty pounds of sweet potatoes. After accounting for samples and extras given during sales, they made a total of sixty-two coins.
“Not bad, it’s about what we expected,” Su Mulan said, organizing the money pouch before securing it around her waist.
Bai Shuiliu, knowing they earned so much, was extremely excited.
The twenty pounds of dried sweet potatoes used about a hundred pounds of raw sweet potatoes. Raw sweet potatoes aren’t worth much; if they were sold raw, they would only fetch around twenty coins at best.
However, just by steaming and drying them while doing farm work, their income multiplied several times over, earning a good amount of money.
Bai Shuiliu grinned happily, “Mom, next time I’ll help you dry more dried sweet potatoes.”
“Alright,” Su Mulan nodded. “Let’s go, we’ll buy some things.”
Having earned some silver coins, the radishes at home had all been quite helpful. They needed to take care of the little radishes’ health.
Su Mulan led Bai Shuiliu all the way to the butcher’s shop.
Pork belly was six coins per pound, while sitting on pork was a bit cheaper at five coins, with more lean meat.
Su Mulan selected a piece with slightly more fat and bought about a pound of meat. Then she went to a nearby shop and bought some salt.
With their shopping done, Su Mulan and Bai Shuiliu didn’t linger in town and headed straight home.
The sun was high, and it was already very hot.
Bai Lixia wiped the sweat from her forehead and looked at the almost cleared field of grass. She called out to Bai Zhuye and Bai Midou, “That’s about it. It’s getting hot. Let’s head home.”
“Alright.” Bai Zhuye and Bai Midou straightened out the harvested grass, tore off some corn leaves, and prepared to tie the grass into bundles to bring back home and chop up to feed the chickens.
With everything tidied up, the three young ones carried a large bundle of grass towards home.
On the way, they encountered many villagers who had also finished their work in the fields and were heading home.
Zhang, who was among them, saw Bai Lixia and the others sweating profusely. She smirked and said, “They say a leopard can’t change its spots. It’s true. That Su, pretending to work hard in the fields for a couple of days just to gain a good reputation, then immediately getting lazy and staying home.”
“I knew it. That Su is just lazy, putting on a show outside. It’s ridiculous that some people actually believe she’s turned over a new leaf. They must be blind,” she added.
Zhang was the village gossip, always stirring up trouble, and many people disliked her. Seeing her sarcastic remarks now, others avoided talking to her.
However, as they looked around and saw Bai Lixia and her siblings, sweaty and carrying a large bundle of grass on their backs, they sighed when they realized Su Mulan wasn’t around.
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Additional Explanation:
The pricing system is approximately based on 1 wen = 3 yuan. In modern times, sweet potato chips are about 12 to 15 yuan per jin, and pork is about 10 to 12 yuan per jin. Considering that sweet potatoes were more abundant in ancient times and pork was not as mass-produced as it is now, pork would be five to six wen per jin, while sweet potato chips would be three wen per jin. When setting other prices, the rarity of items is also taken into account, so please don’t be too particular about it. Everything is for the sake of the plot~