Chapter 45: The Small Cart
"A few days ago I went to find managers at several nearby restaurants like Young Master Ning said, but they said no one's eaten this before, and it sells for too much. They won't put it on their counters to sell."
After all, productivity was insufficient in this era, and foods like rice and grains belonged to the concept of filling hunger, so prices were cheaper. Meat and eggs sold somewhat expensively. By proportion, if a two-wen pancake could be seen as one yuan RMB1, a ten-wen salted egg would be five yuan each, while century eggs sold for twenty wen at Ning Yi's suggestion—this already approached luxury item status. In this era when middle-class families only occasionally ate meat and eggs, such things were naturally hard to sell.
Of course, there were still many rich people around Jiangning. Speaking of brothels, for popular girls, entering cost three strings2—that is, three taels of silver, three thousand wen. Singing and dancing cost three strings, going to bed three strings—nine strings total per visit, four thousand five hundred yuan per time. Girls who sold themselves at even higher prices were extreme exceptions. For those who didn't sell themselves, like Yuan Jin'er, Lu Caicai, Qilan, and formerly Nie Yunzhu, prices were even higher. There was no fixed rate for them, but anyway a whole group waited to throw money. If you were stingy, you couldn't even enter. If still stingy after entering, naturally they'd ignore you next time. Like how Su Tan'er's brothers extorted dozens of taels of silver from her each time—already a huge sum for ordinary families. But to really show off, calling a bunch of friends, it was just a matter of once or twice.
People willing to spend nine thousand wen on girls might not eat twenty-wen century eggs at roadside stalls, but it at least proved this purchasing power existed in Jiangning.
To sell at twenty wen, they needed to find nearby high-end places, famous teahouses and restaurants, having them help with consignment sales, but this was a new thing after all. You say you're selling eggs for twenty wen each, please help—they weren't charities either. Nie Yunzhu's various talents were naturally formidable before, beautiful and counting as a talented woman, but these skills naturally couldn't be used in straightforward business negotiations. This twenty-wen salted egg consignment hadn't worked out. Two restaurant managers basically didn't talk with her. One saw she was beautiful but selling pancakes and wanted to get handsy—she just left directly.
For Nie Yunzhu who wholeheartedly wanted to shed her former identity and earn money living like ordinary people, this was naturally a blow, but she was stubborn too. Ordinary people encountering such things might consider not selling century eggs anymore, but she showed no such plans. Ning Yi was now running, sweating profusely, playing with a copper coin in his hand, then smiled: "Speaking of which, I recently made a bet with someone that these century eggs could sell well within a month."
"Sell well?"
"Mm, need to sell at least twenty or thirty per day."
"...Uh." Nie Yunzhu thought, then smiled. "I'll work hard to sell thirty. Actually... maybe I could place a batch at Golden Wind Tower..."
Nie Yunzhu had obviously hesitated a long while before saying this. What she was thinking was clearly different from Ning Yi. To her, Ning Yi had good character and was an independent, humorous great talent, but probably unrelated to business. He'd now invented these century eggs, asking her to help sell them. Perhaps he'd boasted to someone—this was human nature. If she couldn't sell that many, he'd lose face. If not truly without options, she probably wouldn't consider Golden Wind Tower again. Though the madam there kept her contract and hadn't forced anything more, to say she was truly kind-hearted wasn't necessarily true either. Owing favors was hard to repay. But regardless, using such connections was probably the only method she could think of now.
Ning Yi hearing her mention Golden Wind Tower was slightly stunned, then understood: "No need for that." He shook his head and pointed at the shed where the cart was parked. "Close the stall early this noon. Package the cart—it's too simple like this now, can't sell for twenty wen."
"Package?"
"Uh... just decorate it casually."
Nie Yunzhu nodded, showing understanding with a puzzled gaze...
At noon after school, Ning Yi went to the market to eat, then bought various paints, brushes of different sizes, and came to Nie Yunzhu's place, and only then did Nie Yunzhu know what he wanted to do. In the afternoon after washing the cart clean, Ning Yi made simple sketches with chalk. After contemplating a while, he finally brought a low stool to sit down and start painting.
Nie Yunzhu couldn't help at this time, just occasionally squatting beside to watch for a while. Going back to the room and seeing Hutao, Hutao said: "Young Master Ning wants to paint on the cart to sell century eggs?"
"Seems so."
"But can paint make good paintings..."
"Many lacquerware items also use lacquer for paintings. Young Master Ning... must have some knowledge in this area..."
Nie Yunzhu was actually slightly worried, for music, chess, calligraphy and painting were refined arts. Whether Ning Yi's painting skills were good was another matter, but with his current reputation, painting on such a small cart just to sell century eggs—if people found out, it might bring him criticism again. The better he painted, the greater this risk might be.
On the other hand, Hutao's mood wasn't good either, as she'd been worrying for her mistress recently. Since confirming on the Lantern Festival that this Ning Yi her mistress associated with was that number one talent and truly talented, her worry had been increasing daily. To her, though she also wanted to marry Er Niu soon, if her mistress had no destination, she couldn't feel at ease. Now her mistress seemed to have feelings for this person, but what kind of situation was this? Like her mistress said: can't marry.
The other party was a live-in son-in-law. Even if her mistress liked him, there'd be no result. The higher his talent, the deeper her mistress might sink, unable to like others instead. The Su family was big and powerful. If his wife ever found out about this and came knocking, what could they do? Thinking this way, she grew more anxious.
Midway through, Ning Yi also called Nie Yunzhu out once, asking whether this stall should be called "Nie's" or "Zhu's"3, and Nie Yunzhu thought and chose Zhu's.
By evening, sunset shone from one side of the Qinhuai River bend, and the cart's decoration was finally complete. When Nie Yunzhu went to look, she felt somewhat stunned: she'd never seen this painting style before!
Not that the painting was too poor, but too good, too bizarre—the composition of the painting on the cart was three-dimensional.
This era had paint, naturally also having various lacquerware pattern styles, either delicate or bold. But this small cart before her was absolutely unique in the entire era. The painting was actually simple—just a few bamboo stalks symbolizing a corner of bamboo forest after rain, hidden in mist. One side showed a century egg cut into four pieces, though not particularly lifelike. The characters "Zhu's Century Eggs" floated on the image—yet the painting was three-dimensional.
For Ning Yi, it was just simple technique, controlling the unbalanced proportions of different parts to achieve the effect of bamboo forest inserting into the field of view. The five characters "Zhu's Century Eggs" combined with floating shadows had an effect of falling or drifting in the mist. Just that the century egg was painted barely satisfactorily—he couldn't mix very pretty and fitting colors at the moment, so could only make it look as pretty as possible. Since mixed paint would appear blurry, Ning Yi carefully added clear black lines to the edges of different patterns. This instead more obviously created conflict and three-dimensionality. If this cart was pushed out, it would absolutely catch passersby's eyes immediately. And since it differed from mainstream paintings, others would just think it was a merchant's gimmick, not some talent's carefully painted scroll.
Conditions were limited, but looking at her surprised expression, overall Ning Yi was satisfied with the results, and probably remembering Ning Yi's strange musical tastes, Nie Yunzhu said: "Liheng's painting is actually so... uh, so strange. This style, Yunzhu has never seen before. It's almost like it wants to grow out from the cart wall..."
With paintings, if going for a more realistic style, the first glance impact was simple and direct. This differed from musical taste. Nie Yunzhu almost wanted to reach out and touch that pillar. Ning Yi smiled and stopped her, then pointed at the canopy above.
"The paint isn't dry, can't touch it. The canopy above should be changed. I'll buy one tomorrow. These few days while the paint dries, you can't do business either. Uh... we need to prepare some things. Pretty small bowls and plates, various sauces and seasonings, vinegar, tofu—many different ways to eat it. Must look clean and pretty. Mm, this is the first step..." Ning Yi calculated. "After finishing these things, we'll solve those stubborn restaurant problems..."
The next few days' afternoons, things proceeded methodically—pretty bowls and plates, purchasing various sauces, matching various eating methods. Ning Yi came over every afternoon. Nie Yunzhu also seemed happy, just that Hutao was unhappy. At night she complained to her mistress: "Miss, purchasing those things isn't worth it at all..."
Ning Yi chose very pretty bowls and plates. In ordinary people's eyes, not very practical and expensive too. Though half these things were paid for by Ning Yi, saying it counted as investment, to Hutao it seemed meaningless. They didn't have much money at home. Saving and using it, her mistress could still use it for quite a while. But like this now, it was simply that Ning Yi taking things for granted and wasting money, while her mistress didn't want to refuse, could only go along. When Young Master Ning didn't care about wasting money, what could her mistress do? Wouldn't she spend her last savings too?
"If Hutao may say, that Young Master Ning's talent is definitely formidable—no denying that. But he might not understand business. We're just setting up a small stall, why so many requirements? Miss, you can't fool around with him! We can't afford to fool around..."
"Young Master Ning has real talent. Since he's so confident, I naturally believe him. Before the end, Hutao, how do you know he has no methods?" Actually Nie Yunzhu had no confidence either, but naturally could only say this to Hutao.
"Has Miss seen few talented people?" Hutao retorted. "Talent is talent, business is business. Don't those talented people still gamble away fortunes, ending up penniless? Hutao doesn't understand, but has seen plenty. So many small stall vendors on the street, all like this. Those big restaurants or brothels are completely different. Miss, that Young Master Ning married into a merchant family. I heard his wife manages things very capably in the Su family. Maybe he can't swallow this pride and is using Miss as an experiment..."
"Shut up!" Nie Yunzhu's gaze hardened, cutting off her words.
Hutao stood there pursing her lips for a long time. Tears rolled down from her eyes. Then she gritted her teeth, choking: "Miss knows too—you can't marry Young Master Ning. If Miss could marry him, then Hutao wouldn't speak..."
After these words, the room was quiet for a long time without sound, and Nie Yunzhu sat on the bedside, leaning against the bed frame beside her, gaze occasionally shifting. After a long while, the lamplight flickered. She forcefully closed her eyes: "I know..." Opening them again, she smiled slightly.
"Hutao, you go sleep too. It's late..."
(End of Chapter)