Chapter 52: She was very accurate

Translator: Dragon Boat Translation  Editor: Dragon Boat Translation

Bai Xu gained interest in her words.

But he didn’t act rashly.

“You’ll have to wait for me to taste the tofu you mentioned first.”

He asked again, “Are there other reasons for me to take up this deal? If it’s just tofu, it’s not enough.”

Even if the tofu was really good, the tofu dish would only give them a head start.

Soon, other restaurants would follow suit.

Of course, many times, gaining a head start required an opportunity too.

Their family also owned a small restaurant in the capital.

If the tofu dish was good, they could try to sell it in the capital too.

Shi Qingluo replied, “Of course there is.

“I can also raise some rare and precious flowers, such as ink chrysanthemum, black peony, a few stalks of coloured chrysanthemum, coloured peony, coloured tea flower, and so on.

“With just a stalk of chrysanthemum, I can cultivate many varieties that you haven’t seen before.

“And the tulips that you treat as treasure, I can also cultivate them in many different colours as well.”

She was already an expert in cultivating grafted flowers.

And now she also had the blessing of that spring water.

Bai Xu didn’t really believe it. “Really?”

Shi Qingluo looked at him with a look of disbelief. “If you don’t believe me, that means your taste is poor and you will miss out on many opportunities.”

Bai Xu remained silent and thought to himself, doubting her means that your taste is poor. This woman is unbelievable.

How could Shi Qingluo not know what he was thinking? “If you don’t believe me, then just wait for me to make you envious.

“When the time comes, I will nurture all kinds of rare and precious flowers and I will work with others to sell them. This will make you very anxious!”

If it weren’t for the fact that there were only two biggest businessmen in Nanxi county and the Wu family had some grudges against them, she wouldn’t have caught Bai Xu in such a situation.

Of course, it was Bai Xu’s luck to be caught by her.

Bai Xu was speechless.

He wanted to laugh at her.

But he held it in.

If this woman really managed to nurture any rare and famous flower, he would definitely be envious.

He asked Shi Qingluo, “How’s my flower?”

Shi Qingluo replied, “It has come back to life. You can visit it at any time. It misses you too.”

Bai Xu was speechless. Why did she make it sound like he was going to see his little lover?

She was so poisonous.

He raised his eyebrows. “Are you sure it’s alive? It won’t wither after I bring it back, right?”

Shi Qingluo shook her head. “Of course not.

“If you don’t trust me, you can ask my husband. You should trust his words, right?” She pulled Xiao Hanzheng out as the guarantor again.

Xiao Hanzheng testified, “Your purple chrysanthemum has really come back to life.”

Bai Xu still trusted Xiao Hanzheng.

She nodded and said to Shi Qingluo, “You seem to be very good at treating flowers. I’ll go and see it tomorrow.”

Shi Qingluo smiled and said, “Actually, you can go and see it today. I think it really wants to see you.”

This way, she didn’t have to take that slow ox-cart back.

The main reason was that she had to buy a lot of things.

Otherwise, she would rather walk than sit in the ox-cart.

Now that she could ride on the horse-cart, she definitely wouldn’t let it go.

Bai Xu uttered under his breath, you obviously wanted to hop on my horse-cart. Don’t think that I don’t know that.

He put on a fake smile and said, “It’s the same if I go tomorrow too.”

Shi Qingluo played with her teacup. “Then you’ll only be able to taste the tofu tomorrow, and you’ll have to promote this dish in the restaurant later.

“Time is money.

“You might even miss out on my homemade sugar.”

After bringing the beet home yesterday, she brought Mother Xiao and the others to make the sugar.

Bai Xu raised her eyebrows. “You know how to make sugar?” Why didn’t you say that you could go up to the sky with your master too?

Seeing that he didn’t believe her, Shi Qingluo took out some white granulated sugar wrapped in paper from the cloth bag she was carrying.

After opening it, he saw the pure white sugar on the paper.

She snorted arrogantly. “I told you that you would be slapped in the face, but you didn’t believe me.”

Bai Xu looked at the thing on the paper in astonishment. “This is sugar?”

“That’s right!” Shi Qingluo nodded.

He asked again, “What kind of sugar is it?”

Shi Qingluo replied, “It’s similar to the yellow sugar on the market, just purer.”

The white sugar here was called yellow sugar.

Since decolourisation hadn’t been invented yet, the sugar produced from sugarcane was either reddish brown or yellowish.

Brown sugar was still called brown sugar.

Bai Xu was a little doubtful. “How could yellow sugar be so white? Can I try it?”

He had never seen sugar that was so white before.

Shi Qingluo knew that the sugar here hadn’t been whitened, so Bai Xu’s reaction was within her expectations.

She grabbed some from the paper bag and put it into her mouth. “Sure, I’ll give you a taste first.”

This was something edible, so it was better for her to try it first.

In fact, Bai Xu regretted it the moment he said that he wanted to try it.

After all, he wasn’t familiar with the two of them.

What if this was poisonous?

Although the possibility wasn’t high, it was better to be a little more careful.

But now that Shi Qingluo tasted it, he reached out to grab some and put it into his mouth.

The surprise in his eyes intensified and his face hurt. “This sugar tastes purer and sweeter than the yellow sugar.”

He didn’t expect this woman to know how to make sugar.

He asked curiously, “How did you make it?”

Shi Qingluo habitually threw the blame. “My master taught me!”

Bai Xu sighed, your master is really awesome. He knows everything.

He asked, “What I mean is, how do I make this sugar?”

He was very curious how to make sugar that was so white.

The Bai clan has a large sugarcane farm that specialised in making brown sugar and yellow sugar for sale.

The profits were huge.

It was a pity that their clan controlled the sugarcane seeds and didn’t allow other Bai families to enjoy more benefits.

Their family wasn’t able to get involved in this sugar market.

He hadn’t seen any sugarcane in Nanxi county, so he believed that this woman’s sugar wasn’t made from sugarcane.

That puzzled him more.

Shi Qingluo shot him a meaningful glance. “Do you think I’ll share this secret with you?”

Bai Xu was speechless.

That’s right. If it were him, he wouldn’t have told her about it.

Just now, he couldn’t help but ask out of curiosity.

“Are you selling this sugar?” He saw a huge business opportunity.

Be it in terms of appearance, quality, or texture, this was better than the sugar that he knew.

If he intentionally packaged it and raised its quality, he could focus on doing business with the rich and powerful.

The profits looked optimistic.

That being said, this woman was really accurate in making decisions.

Shi Qingluo gave a silly look. “If I make it and don’t sell it, am I going to eat it? I can’t finish so much!”

Bai Xu felt that he had been misunderstood.

For the sake of money, he decided to not argue with her. “Then how much do you have? If I want to buy it, how will you sell it?”

Shi Qingluo replied, “I’ll sell you as much as you want.”

She could also decolourise yellow sugar bought from the market into white sugar with yellow soil (this technique, huang ni shui lin fa 黄泥水淋糖法 is developed by the ancient Chinese).

Bai Xu thought for a moment and asked, “You are so ambitious. You can’t possibly turn yellow sugar into this kind of white sugar, right?”

Otherwise, how could she produce them in such a huge quantity? Nanxi county didn’t have any sugarcane plantations.

Footnote:

huang ni shui lin fa 黄泥水淋糖法 – a technique developed by the ancient Chinese that causes yellow sugar to decolourise in yellow soil