The spring rain has stopped, and in the morning in the capital, some people are still lying drunk on the beauty's knees, while others have already pulled the bellows and sold one batch of breakfast food after another.
Even the Waterwheel Alley, which usually has few pedestrians, was packed with people and sold a lot of breakfast food. After all, Waterwheel Alley is the place closest to the Grand Canal. In order to get the job earlier, some porters would spend an extra ten cents to fill their stomachs first.
A year's plan begins with spring. Spring is warm and the ice is breaking. Several huge cargo ships loaded with goods from the south slowly dock at the pier. Thousands of porters carry the goods down in an endless stream.
Starting from February until November, cargo ships from Southland will continue to deliver goods. In other words, it is possible to do business for ten months just by relying on the dock.
What happened to make Waterwheel Alley so depressed?
No matter how sleepy his mind was and how tired his body was, Qin Xiangxiang started to struggle.
The foot shop is about to open, but the store has not been arranged yet. In Dasheng, a foot shop of her size is not high-end, but it needs to be registered with Kaifeng Prefecture. Otherwise, how will it pay taxes?
There were a lot of things in his mind. Qin Xiangxiang leaned against the bedside and felt dizzy for a while. After getting out of bed, he washed himself with cold water and suddenly became more awake.
The little lady in the mirror had bruises on her eyelids and a pale complexion. She wasn't stunning in the first place, and she was even worse looking now. Qin Xiang thought for a while, took out the lipstick that had not been used for a long time, took a sip, and then slapped his cheeks hard, so that there was only half a trace of blood.
This hard slap on the cheek made him cough again.
After coughing for a long time, the half of the blood that had just been gone was gone again.
She had no choice but to choose a modest, slightly goose-yellow underskirt to wear. She also carefully drew her eyebrows, picked a velvet flower of the same color from the makeup box and inserted it. Finally, there were a few more people in the mirror. vivid.
Qin Xiangxiang went out of the room, but it was still quiet outside.
Moving late at night makes the elderly, weak, sick and disabled very tired.
Yes, you have to make breakfast yourself.
Qin Xiangxiang didn't wake anyone up. He rolled up his sleeves and started a fire to boil water quickly. The flames licked the bottom of the pot, and there was finally a little warmth in the kitchen.
When Qin Xiangxiang kneaded the dough, Hong Xiu quietly entered the kitchen: "Good morning, Madam. Madam, please come and light the fire."
Qin Xiangxiang glanced at Hongxiu, and she saw that beauty is beauty. Not long after she rested, her lips were red and her teeth were white, without any loss of beauty.
"good."
Qin Xiangxiang used the available ingredients to make easy-to-eat flat food, more than twenty soft and fragrant scallion pancakes, and a pot of spicy spicy soup.
He also ordered Hongxiu to stew a pot of porridge on a small red clay stove. After all, there are still two seriously injured patients, so the porridge must be cooked.
While Hongxiu was washing rice, Qin Xiangxiang wanted to move the fire to the small stove, but Hongxiu stopped her: "Madam, please rest first. You are still sick. I just heard that you are still coughing. You had a cough last night." You should ask the doctor to prescribe more medicine for you."
Qin Xiangxiang said, "We'll talk about it later when we go to the Kaifeng government office and pass by the medical center."
Not being idle at all, she took out a clean small bamboo basket, piled more than ten scallion pancakes in it, put a few bowls and chopsticks, covered it tightly with a cloth, and found a clay pot to put the Hu Pour more than half of the spicy soup inside, seal it tightly, and put it into the anti-fall bamboo basket.
Hongxiu was really smart, and asked Qin Xiangxiang in a low voice: "But are you going to send it to Mu Langjun and the others?"
Qin Xiangxiang was not wary of Hongxiu and nodded: "They live next door."
The house next door is also an unoccupied dilapidated building.
Fragrant, so fragrant.
A few men next door were quietly boxing in the morning, absentmindedly, and swallowing saliva again and again.
Fragrant, so fragrant.
Yao Erlang secretly looked at his young master. The young master looked calm, and his boxing performance was still as good as before. He was not attracted by the fragrance at all. The young master is indeed the young master.
The boxing practice was almost complete, and when he was finally collecting his breath, a good-looking face suddenly appeared from the wall.
Yao Erlang recognized that this was Hongxiu, the most beautiful maid beside Mrs. Qin.
This wall is quite high. How did Hong Xiu climb up?
Hongxiu waved to Yao Erlang. Yao Erlang glanced at the young master. The young master nodded slightly. Yao Erlang hurried over: "What do you want me to do, young lady?"
Hong Xiu lifted up a bamboo basket covered with blue cloth and only smiled: "Go on!"
Yao Erlang caught the bamboo basket. The moment the bamboo basket was in his arms, it smelled delicious.
"There's more." Hong Xiu picked up another bamboo basket.
Zhu Sanlang rushed over and caught the bamboo basket.
Hongxiu was neat and tidy, and he disappeared after throwing things away.
Lifting the cover of the bamboo basket, you will find fragrant scallion pancakes and a small paper roll.
Yao Erlang respectfully handed the small scroll to Mu Ting.
On the small scroll of paper was written: "Now that I have received my food allowance, I will never break my promise." The writing was crooked and not very pretty.
Mu Ting raised his eyebrows. Madam Qin was very interesting.
His men looked at him longingly.
"Eat." Mu Ting opened his mouth. Although the man under his command was hungry, he still politely divided his portion and then ate up all the remaining food in a storm.
Mrs. Qin’s craftsmanship is not bad. If you have no other skills and cannot marry a good man, you can temporarily open a foot shop to make a living, and you can be regarded as an independent and self-reliant young lady.
Mu Ting thought to himself.
Dasheng has always encouraged merchants to open stores, so Qin Xiangxiang and Hongxiu were treated politely at the Kaifeng government office. Although they were two young ladies, the clerk did not show contempt. After all, the prosperity of Kyoto does not depend solely on men. There are many prostitutes in Kyoto who make money with their beauty, but there are many young ladies who make money with their hard work. What's more, like the foot shop opened by Qin Xiangxiang, the tax is thirty to one, and the government can make money, so why not do it?
But when he heard that the restaurant was located in the waterwheel alley, the official who signed the seal felt a little regretful, but he quickly disappeared.
Qin Xiangxiang asked clearly that their shop can make wine by itself, but the wine must be purchased from the government. The government also provided all the distilled yeast to Tianxiang Tower. Qin Xiang wanted to buy distilled yeast and had to go to Tianxiang Tower.
Liquor koji is not cheap, and the grain for brewing is also a big expense in early spring. Qin Xiang thought about it again and again, and finally decided not to make wine for the time being.
Let’s get the foot shop’s name out there first.
Qin Xiangxiang led Hong Xiu into a high-end-looking bookstore and spent two hundred dollars on an invitation that looked very high-end.
This invitation is addressed to Nangong Wenyue.
Qin Xiangxiang didn't write it himself, it was still written by Hongxiu.
Qin Xiangxiang thought about it carefully: "Just write, the east wind has no power to turn the clouds and snow, and after the rain, the sky is blue and you can see the small lotus."
Hong Xiu complied, and finally landed the title of Qin's restaurant.
But in Waterwheel Alley, the signboard of Qin's Restaurant has not been put up yet.
Qin Xiangxiang said: "Hang it up when you get back. Hand out the invitation and hang the plaque at the same time. It's just right."
The book boy in the bookstore is also responsible for helping deliver invitations and running errands for fifty yuan a time.
After settling the matter, Qin Xiangxiang led Hong Xiu through various markets and bought a lot of ingredients.
Just to feed the dozen or so people in the family costs a lot of money every day.
Qin Xiangxiang's money bag was visibly deflated.
