Figuring out the Details

When they took the chestnuts from Liu Xiaolan, the people from the Tao family might be a little confused, but once they tried them, shock filled their faces.

Old Master Tao and Old Madam Tao both looked at each other and smiled. They might be a little old, but they still can understand some simple facts. With the taste of these chestnuts, they can understand that it shouldn't be too hard to sell them in the city.

At least they can initially agree that Liu Xiaolan didn't come to their home today to make fun of them, but truly was interested in doing some business.

Liu Xiaolan looked at the faces of the people from the Tao family and smiled. Well, once someone tries the chestnuts she makes they can understand why she's able to sell them well in the city.

Tao Liang chewed on some chestnuts and asked, "Girl Liu, why do they taste so different when compared to their normal taste?"

"Tao Liang, these chestnuts are specially prepared by me and my husband, so that they don't taste bitter like usually, but have a savoury taste when you chew them. Otherwise how would people from Shenyang bother to buy them from me?" Liu Xiaolan said with a smile.

Tao Liang listened to her and was disappointed. Of course he knew that they must have been prepared in a different way, but he's interested in how exactly was Liu Xiaolan preparing them so they can taste in such a good way, completely different from their normal, bitter taste.

Qiao Meying looked at her husband and could already tell what was going through his head. She grabbed his sleeve and whispered to him, "Don't be stupid, how can she tell you her secret? If she told you exactly how they prepare the chestnuts, where would she earn money from?"

Qiao Meying sighed. Although her husband is a good person and takes good care of their family, sometimes his mind is a little too simple. Even though she knew that he wasn't malicious wanting to ask Liu Xiaolan's secret way of preparing chestnuts, but girl Liu didn't know that.

What if he offended Liu Xiaolan by an accident?

"Girl Liu, these chestnuts really taste nice. How much are you selling them for now?" Qiao Meying asked with a smile. With how they taste, the price shouldn't be too low, right?

Liu Xiaolan thought about it and decided to tell the truth. If they were to cooperate, it's better to go clean now than have to explain her lies later on…

"Well, we sell them in special wooden buckets that we buy from a Wood Workshop in the city. Each bucket is sold at a price of 150 copper coins…"

Liu Xiaolan sighed a little. It's really hard in the ancient times, with no way to know weight of her products. How was she supposed to explain how much chestnuts could go in into a single wooden bucket of hers?

Tao Liang listened to Liu Xiaolan and was shocked. He stood up, went to another room and after a moment came back carrying a normal size wooden bucket. "You can sell a bucket of chestnuts, like this one, for 150 copper coins?"

Everyone from the Tao family looked at Liu Xiaolan's face and wanted to see if she's joking. Chestnuts are basically free, and with just a little change of their taste, they can sell for so much money? Isn't this a joke, if it's so easy to make money, why do they farm land? It's better to go to the city to sell chestnuts…

Liu Xiaolan knew that they misunderstood. A little hesitant, she said, "Well, the buckets we use are specially made and are smaller. Like they could carry maybe a little less than half of your bucket?"

Qiao Meying's eyes shined. If she can do this business with Liu Xiaolan, the future of her family can be guaranteed. At least she should be able to earn enough money to marry a wife to each of her sons, maybe even expand their current house so that her sons could each have their own rooms…

But after thinking about it for a moment, Qiao Meying was a little worried. Is there something wrong here? If the business is really so good and it makes so much money, why would Liu Xiaolan come and split her income with them?

"Girl Liu, it all sounds nice, but why do you want to share your business with us? Even if you and your husband have no land currently, just by selling your chestnuts you can earn a lot more than a normal family in our village…" She asked, puzzled.

Liu Xiaolan listened to the question and smiled. It seems that Madam Tao is interested in doing this business, otherwise where would she ask about it?

"It's a good business, but it's too tiring to do it all by ourselves. It's just me and my husband, and we need to collect chestnuts from nearby forests, cook and prepare them for sale, go to the city and then do the actual sale, it takes a lot of time if we do it alone…"

She took a breath and continued, "But if we share the business with another family, we can just be in charge of preparing the chestnuts and leave everything else to our business partner. Although we will earn less, but we will save a lot of our time…"

Tao Liang listened to her explanation and agreed with what she said. "Girl, so we would need to take care of selling them in the city? How much can we earn doing it for you?"

Liu Xiaolan answered, "Selling them in the city is correct, but before that you'd also need to collect chestnuts and bring them to my house so that I can prepare them."

"About the money, how about this, for every bucket of chestnuts that you sell, I will give you 10 copper coins. Right now we're selling almost 200 buckets daily, so you could earn 2 silver coins each day. What do you think about it?" She asked with a smile on her face.