I played as an assistant in ancient times

"I have nothing to be ashamed of, and I am open and aboveboard." Taoist Master Hengxi imitated her, pouring the fruit tea from the large ceramic bowl into the bamboo cup, and then taking a sip through a specially made thin bamboo tube. "It has a unique taste. Did you learn how to make ice with Glauber's salt from your grandfather?"

"It's in the ancient books, don't change the subject." Shen Xiaoye added more water to the pot and boiled it, preparing to slaughter the pheasant later.

The Taoist priest asked again: "Is that shovel also made according to the ancient book? It seems to be sharper." It can cut open the belly of a wild boar.

“It’s just that it’s forged for a longer time and polished to a sharper edge, which makes it easier to dig and protect yourself.

Taoist priest, we accidentally saved a person on the way to the county town and were questioned by the Guard Bureau on the same day.

This matter was kept secret from my grandmother." Shen Xiaoye played straight, and she spoke the second half of the sentence in a very low voice.

Taoist Priest Hengxi sipped his tea and pondered for a moment, then said in the same low voice: "When the general was on the northern expedition, my friends Jie Chen and I sneaked into Wuzhong County and mixed in with the city guards, preparing to open the city gates at night.

Then I met the team of the man in the main room, and together we destroyed the enemy and opened the city."

"A chivalrous hero." Shen Xiaoye's eyes lit up. The Great Zhou was founded to drive out the foreign invaders and recover the mountains and rivers, which won the hearts of the people. The flashes of swords and sabers were passed over by his plain words "night open" and "shoulder to shoulder". "The Taoist priest is so righteous."

"Hey, they are just ordinary people. They were sent by the general, and Jie Chen and I are just outsiders who know some ordinary medical knowledge.

Do you understand?" Taoist Master Hengxi looked at her with a smile.

Shen Xiaoye nodded in agreement. Many people who had shed blood for their country did not seek fame or fortune.

She raised her glass: "Master, I'll use tea instead of wine to toast you!"

Shen Xiaoye pulled out the thin bamboo tube from the cup and drank it all in one gulp.

"Oh, I dare not drink too much." Taoist Master Hengxi continued to sip one sip at a time for fun.

The guests in the main room did not stay too long. After two cups of tea, they said goodbye and left, and the accompanying guests also went out to see them off.

The Lin mother-in-law and daughter-in-law stopped at the gate and returned, and Shen Xiaoye slipped back behind the door again.

But my grandmother's voice sounded immediately. "Xiaoye, isn't the kitchen hot?"

Shen Xiaoye waved his hand at the Taoist priest, "It's hot, but the Taoist priest is teaching me another way to make red date, white chrysanthemum and honey tea."

"Thank you for teaching me, Taoist priest." As expected, when it came to secret techniques, Lin only thanked him outside the kitchen and told her not to tire the Taoist priest out.

After the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law entered the main hall, Taoist Master Hengxi asked, "You have planted a lot of safflower and madder in the open space to the east of your house. Do you plan to continue using safflower as a dye or sell it as a medicinal herb?"

"For making dyes, medical clinics and drug stores have no shortage of high-quality safflower." Shen Xiaoye wanted to make them into safflower cakes so that they would be readily available.

It just so happened that the vacant land on the east side was the wasteland left by her grandfather for her uncle to build a house in the future. If she didn't work hard to grow melons and vegetables and fertilize the land, there would be no profit, so she picked up some land and sowed medicinal seeds.

Don’t ask where it comes from. The only answer is that I bought it from a herbal medicine store or picked it from the mountains.

Taoist Priest Hengxi said bluntly: "I have a batch of two or three hundred kilograms of Su wood, and the price is 50% lower than the market price. Do you want it?

It is definitely legitimate, my senior brother bought it from the south." In fact, my senior brother was cheated, as his Taixu Temple did not need hundreds of kilograms of Su wood.

"The cheapest one tael of Sumu in the pharmacy is about thirty wen, and half price is fifteen wen. Three hundred jins converted into silver would be seventy-two taels of silver.

I charge one to five cents for a piece of coarse white cotton cloth. If I use one pound of sumac to dye a piece of cloth, the cost is three to six cents. After all the dyeing, I sell it for four cents. I don't make any profit.

Taoist priest, I can’t afford it.” Shen Xiaoye grows the grass himself to keep costs down. If safflower is used as a dye, it can be used repeatedly.

And so far, she has only received coarse cloth from Aunt Tang and Erniu's family to make clothes and quilts for her own use. Due to the limitations of northern technology, the production of fine cotton white cloth is low and the purchase price is close to that of Songjiang cloth, which saves the shipping cost.

A piece of cloth is about 10.8 to 13.2 meters long and 60 to 80 centimeters wide. She doesn't plan to use such an expensive dye as sumac to dye cloth in large quantities.

"You are talking about the price inside the Great Wall. If you dye it and sell it on the grasslands outside the Great Wall, a piece of cloth marked 18 feet long can be exchanged for a fat castrated sheep.

Furthermore, you sell by the foot, and the local cotton cloth is 40 feet long and 2 feet 5 inches wide, which is 40 feet. You can't calculate it based on the medium-sized loom cloth that is less than 20 feet long that is popular in the south. "Master Hengxi understands the market.

Shen Xiaoye shook his head: "The seller is not stupid, I received the standard cloth prescribed by Taizu, which is 32 feet long and 18 feet wide, but the density is low and it is impossible to weigh 3 kilograms.

You are talking about the local area. It is not uncommon to exchange a piece of cloth for a horse on the grassland.

I only sell it for twelve cents a foot, and I earn twenty-four cents for a piece of cloth dyed with sumac, which is too thin. "

“But I only charge you 120 coins for a pound of sumac, so the cost of each piece of cloth is 240 coins. Even if you add labor and alum, it will not exceed 280 coins.

One hundred coins for a piece of cloth, is that too little? You should know that if you dye with safflower, the color will be gone after washing with plant ash twice, but the color of hematite will not fade so quickly. "Master Hengxi was very sincere and gave a price lower than the purchase price of the drugstore.

But Shen Xiaoye still shook his head: "First of all, I don't have thirty-six taels of silver, and secondly, I don't have any cloth."

There is real profit to be made. This deal is just a lonely one. Money, money.

"I'll give it to you for thirty taels." Taoist Hengxi was having a big sale. Don't underestimate thirty taels of silver. The annual salary of a seventh-rank county magistrate was only ninety dan of rice (one dan of rice was about five cents in the capital), which was equivalent to forty-five taels of silver.

Why? Shen Xiaoye looked at him with a strange look in his eyes, "You can go to a few more counties and sell it to drugstores."

No, she had to ask her uncle to come over to entertain the Taoist priest. Her heart moved as she went. She took two or three steps out of the kitchen and saw her uncle and cousin returning from seeing off the guests appear outside the door. "Fourth uncle, come quickly."

"Hey, little girl, you're still worried that I'm lying." Taoist Master Hengxi also came out of the kitchen.

Shen Cungeng blinked, "Master, I just ran into Li Zi and asked you where you were?"

"Is her milk fully awake?" The Taoist priest no longer cared about the business and left quickly.

"He woke up and said his stomach and neck hurt."

"Lying down for too long."

"Can I go and see?"

"bring it on."

After a few words, Shen Cungeng and the Taoist priest could no longer be seen outside the courtyard wall, and even his uncle, who had not been able to speak, left.

Shen Xiaoye scratched his cheek, turned off the fire, and walked into the main room with the remaining fruit tea.

"Drink less cold drinks." Aunt Huang confiscated it directly.

Grandma Lin patted the cloth beside her. She was still waiting for her son to explain, "Why did your fourth uncle leave again?"

"Grandma Xia is awake." Shen Xiaoye didn't move a stool to sit with her grandmother as usual. Alas, why did her great-grandmother come home just now? If she were here, her grandmother would never look serious.

Lin glanced at her and said, "Tell me, they have tea, wine, sweets, cakes, cloth, writing brushes, and medicinal materials. Why do they give you these valuable things? Tell me in detail. I'm not in a hurry."

"It was the day we came back late from the county town..." Shen Xiaoye told the story obediently from beginning to end, and her aunt even poured her tea in the middle.

Because her grandmother asked so many detailed questions, she was so focused that she didn't even look back to see who her aunt was talking to in the yard.