Chapter 173: Not Returning at Night
Translator: Dragon Boat Translation Editor: Dragon Boat Translation
As Su Ying walked down the street, she cleaned out all the grain shops. She also bought all the necessities that the Tiger Base couldn’t produce.
After making one round of shopping, she passed by a livestock stall when she was about to go back. She thought for a while and decided to go in. She eventually bought ten pigs and many chicks, ducklings, and goslings.
After she was satisfied with her purchases, she came out of the stall. As she looked at the remaining gold, she could not help but sigh. The prices of goods in this era were very affordable. She felt that she had almost bought an entire street, yet she still had quite a lot of gold left.
She asked all the shop assistants to deliver the goods to a dead-end alley. Once the goods arrived and the delivery people left, she quickly moved everything into the interspatial store.
By the time she returned to the restaurant, it had already been more than two hours.
Fortunately, before she left, she had informed the waiter in the restaurant that if Zhang Liang came back, she would be back soon. So when she returned, Zhang Liang was waiting in the private dining room.
Zhang Liang looked at the empty-handed Su Ying with a puzzled look. “Where did you go, Madam Su?”
“I went to buy some things. It’s getting late. Let’s go take a look at the goods first.”
“Alright.”
The two of them boarded Zhang Liang’s carriage, but as they neared the border pass, Su Ying hid under the horse carriage just in case.
However, the exit inspection was not as strict as when they entered, so they went through without any problem.
Tiger Might had been waiting outside the pass for Su Ying to appear. Just as he was getting anxious, he saw a horse carriage moving slowly in their direction.
Tiger Might immediately became wary.
The horse carriage stopped in front of their group, and Tiger Might saw Su Ying jump out from under the carriage.
“Madam Su, you are back.”
“Mm-hmm. I got someone to come over and take a look at the charcoal.”
Zhang Liang also got down from the horse carriage.
“Old Master Zhang, what do you think of my charcoal?”
Zhang Liang walked to the front of the carriage to check the quality of the charcoal. Initially, he wasn’t too optimistic about the quality of the charcoal. He just wanted to help Su Ying out. After all, she was his family’s savior. However, after taking a look, he realized that the quality of the charcoal was much better than he had imagined. Although it couldn’t be considered high-grade charcoal, it was good enough to sell to ordinary people.
Zhang Liang looked at the goods meticulously. He realized that some of these goods were of average quality, while some were much better. It was as if the producers gained experience slowly and the goods they produced got better with time.
“What do you think, Old Master Zhang?”
Zhang Liang smiled and said, “Not bad. Although the quality of the charcoal is not uniform, there are no defective products. I wonder what price Madam Su wants to sell them for?”
“You name your price. We’ll sell them if we think it’s acceptable.”
Zhang Liang took a bundle of charcoal and roughly estimated its weight. “How about this? I’ll give 4 taels of silver for this carriage, Madam Su. Is that acceptable to you?”
The price of 4 taels of silver was more than what she had expected. Su Ying felt that Zhang Liang might be returning her a favor, but since he wanted to repay her kindness and she lacked money, she was naturally happy to accept. “Yes, it’s acceptable.”
Tiger Might did not expect that this cart of charcoal would go from half a tael of silver to 4 taels of silver in just a few hours. This was nearly seven to eight times the amount!
“But I don’t have much silver on me. You guys may have to wait a little longer, Madam Su.”
“No rush. We’re not in a hurry to go back. I’ll follow you into the border pass later. We still have to buy many things.” What she had secretly stocked up was hidden. She hadn’t bought anything openly yet, so she would have to go back again.
“That’s good too. After you get the silver, I’ll bring you to buy whatever you want, Madam Su.”
Su Ying nodded and said to Tiger Might and the others, “You guys find a place to stay tonight. I’ll be out before dark tomorrow.”
Tiger Might was not as worried as before when he saw that Su Ying was fine after entering the border pass earlier. “Madam Su, you don’t have to worry about us. Take the list of supplies and silver. We will wait for you here.”
“Alright.”
After they agreed on their arrangement, Tiger Might and the others pulled the carriages of charcoal to the border pass. The Chu State had a clear rule that stated that taxes were not payable on border trade. After they arrived at the pass, Zhang Liang brought his friends and they pulled the carriages of charcoal in one by one.
Fortunately, he had brought quite a few people with him. Otherwise, it would be really difficult to pull so many carriages heavily loaded with charcoal.
Zhang Liang then brought Su Ying to a small courtyard dwelling that he had rented.
There weren’t many houses in the courtyard, but the courtyard was especially large and filled with charcoal. With the addition of Su Ying’s ten carriages, there were even more right now.
It was already late, so Zhang Liang arranged for Su Ying to stay in a room on the second floor and even assigned a maidservant to serve her.
“The sky is about to get dark, Madam Su. Why don’t you stay here for the night? If you need to buy anything, I will bring you to buy it tomorrow.”
Su Ying nodded. “Alright.”
Zhang Liang took out a bag of silver and handed it to Su Ying. “This is 40 taels of silver. Please keep it safe, Madam Su.”
Su Ying thanked him and put the silver away safely.
“Old Master Zhang, I wonder if you have any channels for us to buy grain here?”
Zhang Liang said, “Of course. We bought some goods from here before. Although it’s not much, we still have a supply.”
“I want 300 sacks of rice and 700 sacks of coarse grain, as well as 200 sacks of cornmeal and 200 sacks of tapioca flour. Old Master Zhang, do you think you can get them?”
A thousand sacks of grain was not a small amount.
“Madam Su, you want so much?”
Su Ying replied, “You know we have a lot of people. If it snowed heavily this winter, it won’t be so easy for us to come out.”
Zhang Liang nodded in realization. “That’s right. It’s right to stock up on more food. We have the goods. As long as Madam Su’s carriages can hold them, I’ll fill them up for you.”
“Alright.”
The sky was getting dark, and it was not appropriate for Zhang Liang to stay in Su Ying’s room for too long, so he took his leave.
Zhang Liang was afraid that the food he cooked wasn’t delicious enough, so he ordered someone to buy a table full of food back for Su Ying.
Su Ying didn’t stand on ceremony and gobbled down the entire table full of food.
When the maidservant entered the room to clear the table, she was stunned. She couldn’t believe that Su Ying, who looked so skinny and petite, could actually eat so much!
Su Ying was tired after running around for one whole day. After eating and drinking, she washed up and went to sleep.
The next morning, Su Ying woke up early.
She sat cross-legged on the bed and began to circulate her energy. After the true energy circulated around her body and made her whole body heat up, she slowly exhaled and opened both her eyes.
Su Ying opened the door. As she stood in the corridor, she saw Zhang Liang’s men carrying sacks of grain onto her carriage. The ten carriages were almost full, but the size of the carriages was limited. Ten carriages simply couldn’t fit a thousand sacks of grain.
When the maidservant saw that Su Ying had woken up, she brought some water to Su Ying for her to wash up.
Su Ying only went to the backyard after she was done cleaning up.
Zhang Liang turned around and saw Su Ying walking over. He smiled and greeted her, “Madam Su, you are up. Did you sleep well last night?”
“Pretty good. How many sacks of grain can these ten carriages hold?”
‘judging from the condition of the carriages, one carriage can only carry 20 to 30 sacks. So this round it can only take two to three hundred sacks at most.”
Two to three hundred sacks were too little..