Tomorrow morning, Zhao Ce will have to prepare to leave for the city to exchange the raw sugar for money.
According to the previous exchange rate, the 400 wens of raw sugar can be estimated to fetch three or two more silver taels, which is simply a huge profit!
However, he cannot buy too much raw sugar at once in the grocery store, or it will arouse the suspicion of the shopkeeper. Zhao Ce plans to buy more sugar from the shop today, but this is not a sustainable solution.
It's too late to plant sugar beets now, and sugarcane can only be planted next month in August. However, he only has two acres of low-quality land at home, which cannot produce much sugarcane.
Before that, he needs to figure out a way to acquire more land. Zhao Ce fell asleep while pondering over these issues.
The next morning, he woke up early with his wife and found that the sugar he boiled yesterday might not have dried completely.
He and his wife ate a breakfast of rice porridge with plenty of greens, and his wife even made two cakes with the white flour he brought home yesterday.
Zhao Ce remembered the cute expression on the little girl's face when she tasted the white sugar the other day, so he kept a small bag of white sugar for her to drink with water.
After packing everything up, Zhao Ce set out for the city again. This time, he left even earlier due to his concerns about the drying time of the sugar.
The little girl saw him off at the door and reminded him to be careful on the dark roads. When he arrived at the grocery store, the store was still closed, but the staff was opening the door.
Zhao Ce decided to go to another grocery store in the city first, where he bought raw brown sugar with all the copper coins on him. After that, he returned to the first grocery store and made a deal with the shopkeeper.
The shopkeeper greeted him warmly and mentioned that he had given the white sugar from yesterday to his master and received a substantial reward.
"Young master, did you bring any sugar with you today?" Zhao Ce nodded and said, "I talked to my relative last night, and he thinks my proposal is good. He said he would go back and ask the sugar maker if he is willing to cooperate with us."
The shopkeeper was overjoyed and said with a smile, "I knew this would work. I'm not bragging, but we have the most reasonable prices in the city, so it must be our store." Zhao Ce also smiled and said, "Of course." "Otherwise, I wouldn't have thought to come to you in the first place." After the two of them complimented each other's businesses for a while, they began to talk about the main event of the day.
Zhao Ce took out a cloth bag from his hand and said, "Shopkeeper... these were originally gifts for other relatives, but I took them all." "This time, you have to give me a better price."
After pretending to be serious, Zhao Ce handed the cloth bag over. The shopkeeper took it and said with a smile, "The price is naturally reasonable." He weighed it and was quite satisfied with the weight.
Yesterday's sugar was good, but there was too little of it. Today, he weighed it and found that there was more than yesterday. As usual, he went to a place with good lighting and checked it again.
He even picked up two pieces and tasted them in his mouth before saying, "The quality is good." He took it back and weighed it. The shopkeeper thought for a moment and said, "It was originally four taels of silver and 600 coins, but since the young master is so straightforward, I'm willing to raise it to five taels of silver." "How about the young master leave us your name so that we can find you easily in the future?"
After saying that, the shopkeeper looked at Zhao Ce with shining eyes. They naturally wanted to have a unique source for such a good product. Even if the quantity was not large, they could accept it as long as this young man could supply them steadily.
Zhao Ce thought about it and realized that it was not appropriate to leave his real name at this time. After thinking for a moment, he said, "I am Su Yunan from Su Village." "So you are Young Master Su," the shopkeeper said. "My surname is Zhao, and others call me Zhao Shopkeeper." "Would Young Master Su please give us an approximate time?" Zhao Ce then said what he had planned to say.
"My relative said that if he leaves soon, we should receive news before the end of this month." Zhao Shopkeeper smiled and said, "Then we'll wait for Young Master Su's good news." Zhao Ce took the silver taels from him and replied, "I also wish your business prosperity." After that, he left the shop and went to another grocery store, saying that his family was planning a wedding and bought two taels of the silver worth of raw brown sugar.
He put the sugar in his box and then Zhao Ce thought about using the remaining silver to buy some good fabric to make clothes for the little girl who is still wearing tattered clothing. And went to the cloth shop.
Zhao Ce thought to himself and lifted his foot to walk towards the cloth shop. At that moment, a man who looked somewhat similar to Zhao Youcai in appearance, aged around 25 or 26, walked out of a restaurant in the city.
This man was Zhao Youcai's eldest son, Zhao Wenhua. He was the manager of a restaurant in the city and today was his day off. He was just about to go home and bring his wife and children back to the village when he saw Zhao Ce walking out of a grocery store from the other side.
He was a little puzzled and asked, "Zhao Ce? Yesterday was the school's day off. Why isn't he studying at the school at this time and instead going to the grocery store?" Zhao Wenhua thought for a moment and found a waiter at a restaurant, asking him to inquire about a student named Zhao Ce at the school.
However, there was no need to inquire at all, as the waiter quickly came back with an embarrassed expression and said, "Manager Zhao... The servant boy at Huang Xiusheng's door didn't even look at me. That Zhao Ce, I heard he was expelled by his teacher from the school." Then, he didn't see the unhappy expression on Zhao Wenhua's face and went on to say, "Sigh, this scholar has been expelled from the school. There won't be anyone in the city willing to take him in from now on."
After finishing, he didn't hear Zhao Wenhua say anything. The waiter then remembered that both of them were surnamed Zhao and asked, "Uh, is Zhao Ce a fellow villager of the second manager?"
However, Zhao Wenhua frowned and said, "Expelled from school... What could he have done to make his teacher expel him? Could he have been bullied in the city?"
The waiter looked at Zhao Wenhua in surprise and said, "Ah, this... He was expelled from school, shouldn't it be because Zhao Ce did something wrong? Why do you ask if he was bullied?" Zhao Wenhua gave the waiter a faint glance and directly asked him to pass a message to his wife and child before heading straight back to Shuiqiao Village.