CH 30

Since Mo Ling had already bought the pork intestines, Mrs. Liang chopped them into extremely thin slices as well.

Then, the postman who had bought a wrap from them last time passed by again. When he saw their wheelbarrow, he immediately came over, “I’d like a meat wrap, but with a salted egg instead of a fried egg please.”

Mrs. Liang quickly assembled a wrap, adding the smoked meat, sauce and chopped onions to the flatbread. Mo Ling had already peeled the salted egg, which Mrs. Liang cut in half. Finally, she put the wrap in straw paper and gave it to him.

“Thirteen dollars.”

The postman fished out some money from his wallet, which Mo Feng took. “That’s exactly thirteen dollars. Thank you for your patronage, sir, and have a nice day!”

Wait, Mo Feng actually learnt how to speak politely! Mrs. Liang, Mo Ling and Mo Yan all looked at him as he put the money in his wallet. “What are you looking at? This is how the books say you’re supposed to speak, right?”

“That’s right!” Mo Ling couldn’t help but smile. He was her younger brother, so she always hoped that he would do well. Even though he matured late, as long as he carried on like this and worked hard, she would be happy.

The traffic by the road increased, and they quickly sold more wraps.

The Mo family saw a person running over here from the market; it was a short and fat man. They thought he was delivering a message in a hurry, but then he ran towards where they had set up shop.

“One wrap, please!”

Mo Ling instantly recognised him as the person who sold her the meat. His store didn’t just sell raw meat, but also smoked meat.

“Sir, you don’t need to buy this, you already have a lot of smoked meat in your shop! You just need to buy a piece of flatbread to wrap the meat in!”

The man shook his head, “How could that compare to one of your wraps? Besides, if I did that, you wouldn’t be able to do business.”

He looked at the pork intestines and smoked meat on the chopping board, “Mrs., your knife work isn’t bad. I’ll have a meat wrap with a salted egg.”

Mrs. Liang cut the salted egg in half as always, and a little golden-yellow oil from the egg yolk dripped down onto the chopping board.

The man licked his lips, “This looks delicious. Mrs., are you selling these salted eggs?”

Mrs. Liang immediately replied, “I am, but I don’t have many left. Salting these takes a lot of time.”

He took a large bite in a part of the wrap with salted egg and raised his thumb, “Good, this tastes really good.”

He obviously wanted to buy these salted eggs to eat!

Mrs. Liang smiled, “Feel free to buy a few from us.”

“No problem. One should never hesitate to buy good things, after all. I’ll buy a few to let my wife and kids back home try them.”

This man immediately thought of his wife and kids when he found something delicious. He was a good man, easily better than Mrs. Liang’s.

Mrs. Liang looked at the remaining salted eggs and said, “I only brought twenty-odd salted eggs with me today. I can’t sell all of them to you, so take five!”

“Alright, how much does this cost?”

She had never truly sold salted eggs before, so she didn’t know how much one should cost. However, a regular chicken egg costs only a dollar or two, so a salted egg must be more expensive than that. It was profitable enough to have one only be a dollar more expensive than a regular chicken egg; after all, she still had to factor in the salt and the cost of the ingredients! Salted eggs cracking when being steamed would also cost a loss in profits.

She discreetly raised four fingers at Mo Ling, who nodded. Mrs. Liang tested the waters, “It’s four dollars for a salted egg.”

They all looked at the man and observed how he would act. The man said, “Deal. Bring a few more for me next time!”

He turned back and was leaving when he added, “Next time you want to buy meat from my store, I’ll offer you a discount.”

Mrs. Liang and Mo Ling responded in the affirmative and they felt overjoyed. If even the person who sold them the meat said their wrap tasted good, they wouldn’t have to worry about not being able to sell wraps.

The people travelling along the road were numerous. As a wrap with meat and eggs would only cost them ten-odd dollars, and even the people with large appetites would be sated after two wraps, they naturally sold well.

Mrs. Liang lamented, “It’s unfortunate we don’t have any more salted eggs. If we wanted to salt some now, it’d take twenty days!”

It was Mo Yan who piped up again, “We could sell tea eggs instead!”

“What are those?”

“After cooking eggs and cracking them, you put them in a pot filled with tea and other ingredients. They’re done after soaking in there for one night.”

“But we don’t have many chicken eggs at home left.”

This time, even Mo Feng knew the answer, “Just buy some!”

At noon, Mo Ling hung the oil tarp on the sticks attached to the wheelbarrow to give some shade to the rest of the Mo family.

The flatbread they had made had long been sold out, and Mo Yan wanted to try making fried pancakes. She had bought them often in her past life and saw the lady selling them make them all the time. However, watching was completely different from doing.

However, she wasn’t even strong enough to make the dough. Mo Ling saw her struggling and took over from her, while Mo Yan gave her sister instructions from the side.

She had to roll it into a long strip, brush some oil onto it, then roll it into the shape of a pancake again to fry.

Mo Ling made one while following her instructions. It was quick to make. She tore the fried pancakes into four portions, one for each member of the Mo family, and each said that it tasted better than the flatbread they used for the wraps.

Then, a traveller with a bag passed by and asked, “What smells so good?”

Mo Yan raised the piece of fried pancake in her hand, “Fried pancakes!”

Mo Ling helped sell the product from the side, “You can add meat or eggs to it.”

The person looked at the pork intestines on the chopping board, “I’ll have a fried pancake with some pork intestines, please.”

Mrs. Liang said, “Twelve dollars. Pork intestines are less expensive than smoked meat.”

As she was saying that, Mo Ling was already making another fried pancake, with Mo Yan helping to keep the flames strong.

The traveller had probably walked a long way and was ravenous. After impatiently waiting for the fried pancake to be cooked and the wrap to be assembled, he immediately started eating. He had already eaten half of it when Mrs. Liang realised he hadn’t paid yet.

He fished out some money as he said, “I’ll have another.”

Mo Ling started frying another pancake in a hurry when Mo Yan said from the side, “You can make a few beforehand. If they think it’s too cold, just heat it up.”

“That’s a good idea!”

Seeing that they had a grasp on things, Mrs. Liang took off her apron and said, “I’ll go back first. I still need to make lunch for the Lu family; after all, they haven’t said they don’t want me to cook for them anymore.”

When she left, Mo Ling said to Mo Feng, “Feng’er, it’s hot, you should go too! We’ll leave a bit after you.”

She made a wrap with a fried pancake and the pork intestines and handed it to him, “Here, you’ve worked hard. Have something to eat.”

Mo Feng was about to turn to leave when Mo Ling stopped him, “Wait a second! Leave the money behind. We’re going to buy some eggs after we close shop. I’ll also buy you something to eat from the market.”

After a moment of hesitation, he handed his wallet over to Mo Ling, who opened it. “We earned a lot of money, even after factoring in all our expenses!”

Mo Yan also came over to see, “That’s a really large sum! If we earn more, we can afford to buy livestock to fertilise barren land, and grow medicinal herbs.”

“What after that?”

“Sis, we’ll get you a good dowry, and we’ll help brother build a new house and marry a good wife.”

Mo Ling smiled at her brother, “See? Your younger sister’s even thinking about helping you marry a good wife! You should go back and take a rest. We’ll be back soon.”

Post-edit notes: Are they going to be doing more business and pocketing some of the money? That’s devious.