407 Money
“It should be fine in the morning, but it will melt a lot later in the day.”
“Not completely, right? Can I understand it that way?” Shopkeeper Qiao immediately asked. “As long as it isn’t completely melted, there would be a huge profit.”
“Sure,” Xue Yan said.
“That’s fine,” Shopkeeper Qiao smiled again. “When the time comes, you only need to send a hundred and twenty kilograms of ice to our restaurant in the town. I will send a carriage to your house to get the other half. If the carriage is fast, it should be able to reach the county in two hours. That way, it should not melt much.”
“Sure, but the quilts and wooden boxes are charged separately.”
“Of course,” Shopkeeper Qiao replied with a smile. “Bring me a pen and paper,” he ordered a waiter.
The waiter immediately went to get it.
Shopkeeper Qiao trusted Xue Yan and Jiang Yue, so he didn’t make other clauses to ensure the ice gets transported. Instead, he paid everything in one go — a total of 480 silver was handed over. As for the quilt and wooden boxes, he said that he would pay for them later.
The document clearly stated all of this. After that, both Shopkeeper Qiao and Xue Yan signed and stamped their thumbprints on it. Then, they each had a copy of the document.
Seeing that the ink on the document had dried, Xue Yan folded it and put it in his arms.
The 480 pieces of silver were four notes worth 100 of silver and four silver ingots worth 20 of silver. The silver notes were enough to keep close to her chest, but the silver ingots were not easy to keep. They were too big in Jiang Yue’s purse-like pocket, so she decided to put them in a small wooden box, which now had space because they sold the popsicles.
After leaving Lakshmi Restaurant, Jiang Yue and Xue Yan didn’t go around the corner to continue selling popsicles on the other street, but went back to the stall first.
THey had to tell Sifu about their recent business. “If someone else comes to order ice, limit the amount. We can’t make that much ice in a day.”
When Jiang Yue and Xue Yan returned to their stall, they found that their family had borrowed Tian’s ox cart and delivered a large box of ice and another bucket of sour plum juice.
They were carrying the large wooden box from the ox cart and placing it under the sunshade of their stall.
The bucket of sour plum juice was also taken down. They found another basin and put the sour plum juice together with the bucket into the basin. Then, he put three small basins of ice in the basin and covered it with a wooden board.
Xue Sifu, Xue Erfu, and Xue Sanfu were slowly and steadily putting down the wooden box of ice when they saw their two precious children return. He immediately smiled and asked,”Why are you back so soon? Did you sell everything?”
“No, we didn’t,” Jiang Yue said. “But Shopkeeper Qiao wants to buy ice, and Xue Yan has already signed a contract with him.”
Xue Yan took out the documents and the money from his pocket and handed them to Xue Sifu, “For the next two months, Lakshmi Restaurant will need two hundred and forty kilograms of ice every day. Shopkeeper Qiao has already paid for the ice. The cost of the quilts and wooden boxes will be calculated separately, which is also written in the document. The money is in the wooden box and some is from here.”
When Xue Yan said this, Jiang Yue had already opened the small wooden box and took out four silver ingots outside the quilt. She gave them all to Xue Sifu.
The cold and aloof Xue Sanfu was stunned. It was as if this was the first time he realized how easy it was to earn money.
Xue Erfu’s eyes widened, “Our family broke even that quickly?”
Xue Sifu had expected that the ice’s business would turn out good, but he didn’t think that Shopkeeper Qiao would directly pay him everything on the first day.