The bookbags sold like hotcakes in the shop, much to Wan Tie’s delight. For servants who had signed slave contracts like them, their quality of life was closely tied to their masters.
Lu Lin and Chen Xiaomi seemed like decent people who probably wouldn’t beat them randomly, which made Wan Tie secretly sigh in relief. What worried Wan Tie was that if the masters had no money, they certainly couldn’t afford to pay their wages, and perhaps they wouldn’t even have enough for a proper meal. If the masters had money, then getting by shouldn’t be difficult.
Before, his son had suffered greatly under the young master, so Wan Tie’s expectations for life weren’t high. He only hoped his son could grow up safely.
When Lu Lin returned home, he saw Chen Xiaomi studying some designs. Lu Lin drew a lot of bag designs for Chen Xiaomi, but this era had no zippers, so many styles couldn’t be made. The two often huddled together, brainstorming alternatives.
“The bookbags have been selling really well lately,” said Chen Xiaomi. Lu Lin had stockpiled a batch of bookbags before starting to sell them.
Even so, the few dozen bookbags that were put on display sold out instantly. From what he knew, people from their town were buying them, and some were even purchasing bookbags to sell in other places.
Lu Lin nodded and said, “Yeah.”
Lu Lin had previously taught Chen Xiaomi the multiplication table, which Chen Xiaomi mastered very quickly. He also taught him addition and subtraction, and his arithmetic was quite good. Although the business was handed over to Wan Tie, Chen Xiaomi checked the account books every night to both understand the business profits and sharpen his math skills.
Chen Xiaomi worked the abacus and said, “These past few days, we’ve sold two hundred and ten bags. After paying the seamstresses, our net income is forty taels.”
Looking at the silver in hand, Chen Xiaomi secretly sighed in relief. They had been spending money like water lately with barely any income, which made him anxious. Now that they had revenue, Chen Xiaomi could finally relax.
“The bookbags are selling well now, but I doubt it’ll last,” Chen Xiaomi said.
Lu Lin nodded, “That’s possible.”
There were only so many rich people in the small town. Once they all had bookbags, sales would likely stall. When the bookbags first went on sale, business was booming, but recently it had started to cool down.
“If we keep releasing new bag designs, we should still be able to sell them,” Lu Lin said.
Chen Xiaomi sketched on paper with his pen, “Maybe we could design some bags suitable for wealthy ladies.”
Lu Lin nodded, “That’s worth considering. Women’s money is always easy to earn. There are many wealthy ladies here who spend their days playing cards and watching operas. They seem quite rich.”
“Let’s take it slow,” he said. They had just launched the bookbags. There was no need to rush. They just needed to stabilize it first.
Now that the business had stabilized, Lu Lin planned to take Xiaocai and Xiaomai back to the village for a visit.
Lu Lin figured some vegetables in their garden should be ready for harvest by now, and it was good to save where they could.
Many of Xiaocai and Xiaomai’s playmates were also in the village. Although the two hadn’t mentioned it, Lu Lin could tell they occasionally wanted to go home.
When Lu Lin decided to return to the village, he took Wan Xiaofan along too.
It wasn’t that he was petty, but he had to be cautious. If they all left and only the Wan family were left in town, should this family secretly run away, his twenty taels of silver would be wasted.
Chen Xiaomi’s home was in a remote location, so when he went to town for several days, few people noticed he was gone.
“Lin-ge, you’re back!” Shen Chi said excitedly when he saw Lu Lin and the others.
Chen Xiaocai and Chen Xiaomai had been gone for many days, and Shen Chi, who was used to playing with them, really missed them.
“Lin-ge, I’ve been keeping your chickens and ducks at my place. Would you like me to bring them over?” Shen Chi asked.
Lu Lin blinked. After buying a house in town, he had been preoccupied with moving. The relocation had been somewhat rushed. He secretly stored his family’s grain in the convenience store and moved it to town. However, it wasn’t so easy to transport live animals.
During the busy farming season, noticing Grandma Shen struggling with her fields due to her age, Lu Lin had lent her their mule. In the chaos of moving, with no time to handle the remaining animals, he’d left them all in Grandma Shen’s care along with some grain.
When Lu Lin moved, he hadn’t expected to stay in town for almost twenty days. His livestock had been in Grandma Shen’s care for over twenty days now.
Lu Lin felt somewhat embarrassed. Poultry ate a lot, and the feed he’d left must have run out long ago.
He made a trip to their house and found that his chickens, ducks, and geese were all being raised in pens and looked well cared for. It was obvious the caretaker had been very attentive.
Lu Lin gave Grandma Shen a chicken and a goose as gifts. He slaughtered two that were of similar size and planned to move the rest to town to raise there.
The children quickly started playing together. Xiaocai asked Shen Chi about what had happened in the village, while Shen Chi asked about interesting things in town.
The Lu family recently held two wedding celebrations. Lu Chengyu’s wedding was lively and bustling, while Lu Tong’s was a quite event, something people had gossiped about for quite some time.
“Da-ge, Shen Chi said the Lu family had a huge fight the other day. Something about Shen Fangyue’s brother,” Chen Xiaocai reported.
Chen Xiaomi nodded and said “Oh,” not particularly surprised.
Earlier, when Chen Xiaomi had gone to the restaurant, she happened to run into Li Hong who was treating guests to a meal, likely spending the betrothal gifts from the Lu family. he man had taken their money while badmouthing them behind their backs. Chen Xiaomi guessed that those insults must have reached the ears of the Lu family.
Just as Chen Xiaomi had predicted, Tang prepared so many betrothal gifts hoping that Li Fangyue would bring more back with her. When the engagement was first arranged, the matchmaker had implied that since the Li family lived in town and owned a shop, they had plenty of silver and wouldn’t take advantage of the Lu family. The silver was just a formality, to make things look good.
The matchmaker said many nice things, and Tang had too much confidence in her son, so she believed it all. As a result, Li Fangyue only brought back a few taels of silver. Feeling cheated, Tang became instantly displeased with her new daughter-in-law. If it had been a daughter-in-law from an ordinary family, Tang would have flown into a rage long ago. However, Li Fangyue had a powerful brother-in-law backing her, so Tang didn’t dare go too far.
Lu Chengyu had previously failed to pass the imperial examination to become a Xiucai, which had somewhat obsessed him. He kept dreaming of rising quickly through the ranks.
After marrying Li Fangyue, he hadn’t been able to establish connections with the Chief Clerk as expected, leaving Lu Chengyu deeply disappointed.
Li Fangyue was plain-looking. Not only did Tang regret the match, but Lu Chengyu himself was full of regret.
Lu Chengyu was dissatisfied but he agreed to the marriage himself, and he couldn’t go back on his word without losing face. While Tang didn’t dare beat or scold Li Fangyue, she wasn’t afraid to order her around.
Li Fangyue knew she was in the wrong, and as a daughter-in-law, she had no choice but to do the work. Tang was accustomed to exploiting people, and with pent-up anger, she assigned a lot of chored to Li Fangyue. Unlike Lu Lin’s mother, when Li Fangyue fought back, constantly threatening to return to her family and have her brother-in-law intervene.
Tang had no choice but to ease up.
At this point, Li Hong’s words in town reached the Lu family’s ears. Tang nearly coughed up blood in anger. The Li family received so much silver from them, married off a money-losing daughter to them, and still looked down on them as country bumpkins. All the silver they had given went straight into Li Hong’s belly and those of his group of cronies.
Tang, who prided herself on being tough, almost choked on her anger when she learned the truth.
Lu Lin couldn’t help but gloat when he heard about the Lu family’s recent troubles.
He then approached Grandma Shen with a proposal. Explaining that he now worked in town and needed a manager, he invited her to manage things. The old woman was stunned.
Village folk who went to work in town were often looked down upon by their employers. She never expected that Lu Lin would ask an old woman like herself to come manage dozens of seamstresses.
The bag-making business was currently managed by Yun Niang.
When Lu Lin bought servants, he wanted to find someone who could cook. After all, men who frequently entered the kitchen were often criticized in this era.
Yun Niang was quite skilled in cooking, but she was busy making bags all day, which left no one to handle the cooking.
When they were really short-handed, Lu Lin would cook a meal himself.
Wan Tie would always make a fuss whenever he saw Lu Lin cooking, feeling terribly uncomfortable about it.
The Chen family was originally very poor, so cooking wasn’t a big deal. However, now that he was somewhat of a wealthy landowner, it wasn’t appropriate for him to be cooking daily. However, Lu Lin didn’t trust just anyone with their kitchen, and buying another servant felt wasteful.
After considering his options, Lu Lin set his sights on Grandma Shen. It wasn’t easy for Grandma Shen to raise a little boy on her own, and they had cooperated a few times already. Besides, Grandma Shen’s needlework was also excellent.
Grandma Shen packed her belongings and followed Lu Lin to town. Yun Niang welcomed Grandma Shen’s arrival. She had been handling the final assembly alone, which was quite a heavy workload.
Other workers might have considered learning the skills and then leaving for another job, but Yun Niang had signed a slave contract, so naturally she wouldn’t have such thoughts.
Grandma Shen was very curious about the residence where Lu Lin and Chen Xiaomi lived. There were three servants’ quarters in total. Except for the Wan family, the other female workers lived nearby and mostly went home after work. Grandma Shen and Shen Chi were also assigned a room.
Shen Chi was a Shuang’er[mfn]Yes, the term used here is 哥儿 (ger). Ger and Shuang’er essentially refer to the same concept. Interestingly, the word ‘ger’ only appears five times throughout the entire novel, and always in reference to either Xiaomi or Shen Chi. So, it’s possible the author either made a typo in those five instances or used ger intentionally. As a descriptor in Xiaomi’s case, or to refer to a younger Shuang’er in Shen Chi’s case. I will keep referring to them as Shuang’er even in these instances, for consistency. Honestly, I don’t even know why I’m overexplaining this, hahaha.[/mfn], and in this world, young Shuang’ers were expected to learn needlework, as it was considered one of their valuable skills.
Grandma Shen agreed to come work partly with the intention of having Shen Chi learn some needlework.
Grandma Shen was very curious about the bags they were making, but she didn’t ask too many questions.
With Yun Niang’s guidance, Grandma Shen quickly got the hang of it.
Lu Lin had originally worried that if they made too many bags, they wouldn’t be able to sell them all. However, his concerns proved unnecessary. Some wealthy families in town bought large quantities of bags to give to people in other towns. As word spread, more and more people came to buy bags, forcing Lu Lin to hire several more people to expand production.
Lu Lin had recently developed a new type of hemp bag. Unlike the bags sold to students, which emphasized style and aesthetics, this type prioritized practicality.
These bags were fairly priced at just eighty wen each, had a very large capacity, and were sturdy. They were mainly sold to traveling merchants who went from street to street. Although the profit margin on these bags was smaller, they made up for it in volume.
With the business doing well, Chen Xiaomi was in a very good mood.
He’d now fully mastered the arithmetic methods Lu Lin taught him, applying them with effortless ease.
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