The women were delighted, what's a little bustle to them? With their labor on this end, and men and children venturing into the mountains to fetch Jiji Grass, they could earn one to two hundred wen in a day, and five to six taels of silver in a month. Where else could they earn such money? Naturally, with money in hand, they craved a good meal. The braised meat they had refrained from buying before was now within reach, especially with the Mid-Autumn Festival approaching—it was time to make a purchase.
The day before Mid-Autumn, the shop had pre-sold over three hundred catties of braised meat. After consulting Xie Zhinuan, Xiaoyuan went first to order the pork, then set up several stoves in the backyard to braise the meat.
Xie Zhinuan was worried that Xiaoyuan and Dong Sheng would be too busy to cope, so she picked a few clean young men from the village to help out, offering them one hundred wen for just that day's work.
