Su Xiaoqi, with a stern face and holding her breath, arrived at Meng Ji Realty.
She inquired about the price of the shop with a front and back courtyard: one hundred diao.
Su Xiaoqi quietly counted the money in her pocket.
The thirty taels of silver from the grain shop’s dividends were still there, as was the five taels given by Shen Yun.
Coupled with the twenty diao earned from selling fish, it was enough to buy a small shop.
But it was still half of what she needed for the front and back courtyard she wanted to purchase.
She hesitated after thinking for a moment.
Mr. Meng, the realtor, was an extremely patient man.
Seeing her hesitation, he didn’t say anything to provoke her.
He merely mentioned that the shop was near his own storefront and suggested taking her to see it.
When she first came in, she thought he looked rather ordinary.
A middle-aged man in his thirties, plump and fair-skinned, with small eyes and a large mouth, a bit overweight.
He loved to smile, and when he did, his eyes would narrow into slits.
It made Su Xiaoqi want to pry his eyelids open several times.
But undeniably, his way of greeting customers was completely different from the Cao Ji Realty across the street.
She nodded in agreement.
In less than a quarter of an hour, they arrived at the small shop facing the street that was for sale.
Su Xiaoqi first surveyed the street.
It was separated from the main street by an alley.
It was said that during market days, it would be very bustling here.
But on normal days, the foot traffic would definitely not compare to the main street.
The previous owner of the shop sold cloth, but their business was not good, and they could no longer sustain it.
So, they decided to sell the shop and pursue a different livelihood.
Su Xiaoqi inquired about the distance from here to Chen Jinniang's shop in the west of the city.
She learned that it would take at least two quarters of an hour to walk between the two shops.
Her opening a grain shop here would not have a significant impact.
Seeing that she seemed interested, Mr. Meng proactively took out his key and unlocked the door, letting her in to take a look.
Although called a small shop, it wasn't small.
It was about thirty square meters.
It was square and regular, but there was still some fabric left inside that hadn't been dealt with.
Just as Su Xiaoqi pointed to it and was about to ask,
Mr. Meng quickly said, "No problem, no problem. If you buy it, I will have someone move it immediately, move it to my home."
Unexpectedly, Su Xiaoqi smiled and shook her head, saying, "No need, why move it? You name a price. Let it stay here."
Su Xiaoqi was still thinking about her idea of opening a modern-style supermarket here.
The cloth looked new in color and was still well-preserved. Since it was a sale of the shop, the price was likely not high.
After discussing with Mr. Meng, he happily quoted a price on the spot.
There were twenty bolts of coarse cloth here, one hundred and fifty wen per bolt, totaling three thousand wen.
Twenty bolts of fine cotton cloth, two hundred and fifty wen per bolt, totaling five thousand wen.
Ten bolts of silk cloth, three hundred and fifty wen per bolt, totaling three thousand five hundred wen.
And two bolts of high-quality woven gold silk, which were expensive. They were priced by taels of silver, ten taels per bolt, totaling twenty taels of silver.
The total, when converted to silver, was about thirty taels.
Because it was a clearance sale, he could also offer a discount of twenty percent, which came down to twenty-five taels of silver.
Still too much, Su Xiaoqi gasped.
If she had nearly eighty taels of silver, she wouldn't buy this shop and would instead buy the front and back courtyard.
Of course, this was what she thought in her heart, but she couldn't say it out loud.
She thought for a moment and, recalling her cooperation with Chen Jinniang, she tentatively asked,
"What do you plan to do with these fabrics if I don't take them?"
She remembered that Mr. Meng had promised to move them earlier.
Mr. Meng said he hadn't thought of it yet.
"How about this, I'll buy this shop, and I won't haggle over the price.
You can keep these fabrics here for now.
I'll sell them for you, and if they sell, I'll pay you for the cloth.
If they really don't sell, then you can figure out how to settle them."
Mr. Meng readily agreed.
It was because he was a realtor, skilled at selling houses and land.
Selling these fabrics was completely outside his expertise; he couldn't sell them, had no connections, and no time.
But the owner of the shop was his own brother, so he had to help.
The two agreed, and immediately signed the sales agreement.
They went to the county yamen together to transfer the ownership.
After paying one diao in transfer tax and one diao as a broker fee, Su Xiaoqi successfully acquired her first shop in this era.
The county yamen was near the county school.
Su Xiaoqi figured Shen Yun had been gone for a good while and should be coming out soon.
Taking the keys, she declined Mr. Meng's offer to escort her back to the shop.
Su Xiaoqi found a tea stall and inquired. All the students who came to the county school to seek apprenticeship today had not yet emerged.
So she sat down, ordered a cup of tea, and planned to wait for Shen Yun to come out here.
The tea served at the entrance was bitter, and she didn't know what kind of tea it was.
Su Xiaoqi held up the rough porcelain teacup and glanced at it.
She saw a few curled, pale leaves floating on the water.
They hadn't been roasted, just plucked from the tea tree, dried, and then used to make tea.
Su Xiaoqi couldn't drink it anymore; she still thought her buckwheat tea tasted better.
After sitting for a while, feeling thirsty, she thought about it, took out buckwheat tea from her spatial dimension, asked for a pot of plain boiled water, and brewed it herself.
"Huh, what kind of tea is this? Why is it so yellow, like..." like urine.
The tea stall was run by a middle-aged couple. The woman, Mrs. Ping, who came to chat, was curiously staring at Su Xiaoqi's teacup.
"Buckwheat," Su Xiaoqi said after drinking two large bowls, finally recovering.
"What buckwheat?" Mrs. Ping had never heard this name before.
Su Xiaoqi was too lazy to explain and directly gave her a teacup and poured her a bowl to try.
Mrs. Ping, half-believing, took a sip, then another, then a third.
Soon, the bowl was empty.
"Is this also tea? It's quite delicious." Mrs. Ping smacked her lips, looking at the empty bowl, feeling a bit unsatisfied.
The aroma of this tea, how to describe it? Rich yet subtle.
It had the most ordinary feeling, but it made people like it.
Before Su Xiaoqi could reply, she heard Mrs. Ping say again,
"Where can I buy this tea?"
Su Xiaoqi tapped the thick tabletop with her fingers, paused for a moment, and pointed to the shop she had just bought.
"Look, see? It's down that alley, it used to be called Meng Ji Cloth Shop."
"Oh, oh, I know that place, I know." Mrs. Ping immediately called her husband.
Telling him to go buy some immediately.
Brewing tea with this would surely attract business from those newly enrolled students.
Seeing her so eager, Su Xiaoqi quickly stopped her.
And told her that the shop had just been bought.
She hadn't stocked it yet, and if she really wanted it, she had this tea on hand.
She could sell it to her, however much she wanted.
"Then, then give me ten jin, how much is it?" Mrs. Ping said, pouring herself a bowl.
It was delicious, really delicious.
Fragrant and thirst-quenching.
Su Xiaoqi thought for a moment and said, "Thirty wen per jin, three hundred wen for ten jin."
Mrs. Ping was also a straightforward person and immediately settled the bill.
While they weren't paying attention, Su Xiaoqi took out the cloth bag containing buckwheat from her spatial dimension and placed it on the ground.
Then she pretended they had been on the ground all along and handed them to Mrs. Ping.
In just a short quarter of an hour after sitting down, a deal was made.
The key point was that Su Xiaoqi found another way to make money.
There was plenty of such buckwheat in the deep mountains of Yuanbao.
As soon as she returned today, she would have Shen Yun take the family to pick it.
Just as she was thinking this, the gate of the county school opened.
Everyone filed out.
Su Xiaoqi looked for familiar figures inside.
But Zhao Liushun had already come out, yet Shen Yun was nowhere to be seen.
"Uncle," Su Xiaoqi called out to Zhao Liushun, inviting him to sit and have some tea while they waited.
By the time the crowd dispersed, Shen Yun finally appeared at the entrance.
However, he wasn't alone; a charming and graceful figure accompanied him.
The two walked side-by-side, talking and laughing, the scene extremely harmonious.