Lin Wu frowned slightly, looking rather troubled. “So that’s the reason. Shopkeeper Li, in your estimation, when will the mung bean sheets be ready? Would it be all right if I came back at this time tomorrow? The sheets from your shop have always been good, so I know what I’m getting.”
Shopkeeper Li’s smile grew even more strained. “It’s hard to say. At least ten days to half a month. Shopkeeper Lin, why don’t you try somewhere else for the time being?”
“What? You…” Mrs. Sun immediately looked ready to argue. That customer had just bought a whole basketful moments ago—so why was it suddenly impossible when it came to them?
Lin Wu gently tugged at Mrs. Sun’s sleeve, stopping her.
She turned to Shopkeeper Li. “Shopkeeper Li, we’ve been working together for some time now. If the Double Wood Pastry Shop has done anything improperly, or if you have some other thoughts about the price of the sheets, there’s no need to hesitate. Just tell me plainly.”
Shopkeeper Li waved his hands repeatedly. “I wouldn’t dare, I wouldn’t dare… Shopkeeper Lin, please don’t take it the wrong way. It’s old Li who has wronged you and delayed your business.”
“If that’s the case, then I won’t put you in a difficult position. Let’s go.”
Lin Wu knew there was no point in asking further, so she said no more and turned to leave.
“What was that all about?” Once they had left the shop and reached a quiet spot, Mrs. Sun was still utterly bewildered. “Someone had just bought a huge basketful, so how come the beans suddenly went bad when it was our turn? Who would turn away business that came right to their door?”
“It’s fine,” Lin Wu said calmly. “There’s more than one place in Huzhou Prefecture City that sells mung bean sheets. Let’s look around the morning market. If we choose carefully, we’ll find something suitable.”
As she spoke, she headed toward the morning market. The streets were growing livelier by the minute, but Lin Wu was distracted, her thoughts circling restlessly.
The Double Wood Pastry Shop had expanded, added dine-in service, and begun selling hot foods and soups. Business was doing fairly well, which was bound to affect the other eateries nearby. She simply hadn’t expected trouble to come so soon. The shop had only expanded two days ago, and someone was already making a move against them.
But…
Shopkeeper Li had said the problem was with the beans. To make mung bean sheets, a shop needed to purchase beans, rice, and other ingredients from grain stores. Could it be that someone at the grain stores had given Shopkeeper Li a warning or otherwise made things difficult for him?
But what grudge could the Double Wood Pastry Shop possibly have with the grain stores? She was a regular customer herself, and every purchase of rice and flour had been paid for properly.
Unless this wasn’t the grain stores’ own idea, and someone else was behind it. Could that person have used the grain stores to pressure Shopkeeper Li?
Yet Lin Wu reconsidered. Could a mere grain store really interfere with someone like Shopkeeper Li, who had been in business for more than a decade? If this particular mung bean sheet shop was no longer available, she could simply find another one. After all these years in business, surely Shopkeeper Li had more than one familiar source for his grain.
At that thought, she changed direction and said to Mrs. Sun, “Sister-in-law Sun, let’s go that way. I remember there’s another, smaller shop selling mung bean sheets up ahead.”
They found the shop, and Lin Wu went forward and repeated her request to buy mung bean sheets.
The shopkeeper had originally greeted them with a warm smile, but the moment he recognized Lin Wu, that smile faded. He claimed that they had made only a small amount of sheets that day and that it had all been reserved, leaving nothing to spare.
Mrs. Sun nearly took the empty basket on her back and clapped it over the man’s head, but Lin Wu stopped her.
Lin Wu, on the other hand, became even calmer. She was beginning to see the outline of the matter.
For two mung bean sheet shops to give such similar answers, while Shopkeeper Li insisted that “the beans were no good,” the problem was probably neither the shops themselves nor any single grain store.
On the way back, Mrs. Sun grumbled indignantly, “What in the world is going on? They’re all acting as if they planned it together!”
“Most likely the grain guild is behind it,” Lin Wu said quietly.
The grain guild was the only explanation that fit. It could make Shopkeeper Li afraid to offend them, make the grain stores obey, and it was directly related to the “beans” Shopkeeper Li had mentioned.
“The grain guild?” Mrs. Sun was even more confused. “That mighty business, with influence everywhere—why would it target a little food shop like ours? How could selling a few pastries and bowls of noodles possibly affect their mountains of gold and silver?”
She truly couldn’t make sense of it. “Even if the grain guild really wanted to squeeze us, wouldn’t it be more straightforward to tell the grain stores we know not to sell us white flour or rice? Why take such a roundabout route and start with mung bean sheets?”
Lin Wu also felt that the matter was strange, but after thinking it over, she found some logic in it. “White flour and rice are different. Every household keeps some in storage, and our shop still has plenty. Even if the grain stores refuse to sell to us, we can always buy from the morning market or travel to the towns and villages outside the city. It would merely cost us more time and effort. But mung bean sheets are different. We need to buy them fresh every day. Once that supply is cut off, the shop will be at a complete loss.”
Mrs. Sun was usually the most even-tempered person, but even she felt her anger rising at that. Whoever was behind this had truly chosen the shop’s most vulnerable point. What kind of grudge could they possibly have?
Lin Wu, however, remained calm. “If we can confirm that the grain guild is behind this, it may actually be easier to deal with.”
There were many rules and hidden connections in the trades of the common marketplace. Beginning in the previous dynasty, the government had often grouped merchants in the same line of work together to make tax collection and the assignment of corvée labor more convenient. Over time, these groups came to be known as “guilds”—the meat guild, flower guild, tea guild, and so on. Each guild had a guild head, also called a guild elder, who set the rules, fixed prices, and kept the members in line.
Now that every trade was flourishing, there were even more kinds of guilds, each with its own collection of regulations. When Lin Wu had rented the Liang family’s shop and planned to open a pastry business, she had gone to register with the Wine and Food Guild before she could begin trading. Technically, taverns and eateries should have belonged to separate guilds, but the powerful Qi family, owners of Riverside Tower, had combined the two in Huzhou Prefecture City under a single name: the Wine and Food Guild.
For the moment, however, Lin Wu had no time to concern herself with such matters. They still had no source for the day’s mung bean sheets.
She and Mrs. Sun continued walking until they reached the morning market. After circling around half of it, they finally stopped in front of a mung bean sheet stall tucked along the edge.
The stall was kept clean and orderly. Two large bamboo baskets sat there, and through the gaps in their cloth covers, they could see stacks of mung bean sheets inside. Clean white homespun cloth had been laid beneath them. The sheets looked even, with a consistent thickness, their surfaces pale, glossy, and moist.
Two young people guarded the stall—a young woman and a young man. They were similar in height and appearance, making it difficult to tell whether they were brother and sister or simply siblings of another relation. They looked about the same age as Liang Peilan. One was bent over, arranging the sheets, while the other looked up and watched the passing crowd.
Lin Wu stopped and asked, “Excuse me, how much are these sheets?”
The young man’s eyes widened the moment he heard her ask the price. He hurriedly replied, “Shopkeeper, just take a look! We made all of these ourselves. We got up during the night to grind fresh mung bean milk! Every single bean was carefully sorted—there isn’t one spoiled bean among them. My elder sister and I steamed every sheet by hand, one at a time. They’re fresh and wonderfully smooth! Would you like to try some?”
He spoke quickly and enthusiastically.
The young woman beside him was quieter, but her hands were quick. She had already picked up a clean knife, cut a neat piece from the edge—nearly as large as her palm—and held it out to Lin Wu. Though she said nothing, her eyes were filled with expectation.
Lin Wu took it and put it in her mouth. The bean-sheet was soft and springy, with the distinctive fragrance of mung beans. It was indeed fresh, and its quality was in no way inferior to the sheets from Shopkeeper Li’s shop—in fact, the flavor of the beans was even purer.
However, when she glanced over the two bamboo baskets, she saw that although the sheets inside were neatly stacked, there weren’t many of them. Added together, the two baskets would barely be enough for a single day’s supply at the shop.
She asked again, “Do you only have mung bean sheets? Do you make rice sheets as well?”
The quiet young woman finally spoke in a soft voice. “We only brought mung bean sheets today. If you need rice sheets, Shopkeeper, we can go home and make them right away. Our home is in a nearby village, not far from here. My family makes tofu, so we already have a large stone mill. Once the rice is soaked, we can grind it and steam the batter. It won’t take long.”
Lin Wu calculated the time. Even if they went home now to soak the rice, grind it, and steam the sheets, there was no way they could finish before the shop opened today. But the mung bean sheets before her were excellent, and the brother and sister appeared honest and dependable.
“I’ll take all the mung bean sheets you brought today. Please wrap them up for me.”
“You’ll take them all?” the young lad exclaimed. Unable to contain his grin, he hurriedly added, “Wonderful! Thank you, Shopkeeper!”
The young woman thanked her as well and crouched down to retrieve the bean-sheets.
After buying all the mung bean sheets, Lin Wu and Mrs. Sun continued around the morning market, stopping by the other stalls that sold them. Most of the sheets at the other stalls looked somewhat dull in color, and their thickness was uneven. They were probably made with homegrown beans that hadn’t been sorted, or else the beans had not been ground finely enough. Though the prices were a little cheaper, Lin Wu took only one look before abandoning the idea.
It was the second day since the shop’s expansion, precisely when they were building their reputation. They couldn’t afford to compromise on ingredients. They certainly couldn’t ruin their own name.
But with the grain merchants blocking their way, all they could do was look at the bean-sheets made by nearby farmers. They could no longer count on the proper bean-sheet shops.
Just as she was thinking this, she saw the brother and sister from earlier. Each carried a bamboo basket on their back, and each held a piece of honey-fried sweetmeat, eating it happily. They had presumably bought it with the money Lin Wu had just paid them. The moment they spotted her, their eyes lit up. They quickly swallowed what was in their mouths and hurried over.
The young lad mustered his courage and called out in a clear voice, “Shopkeeper, will you still need bean-sheets tomorrow? If you do, we can make them and deliver them to your shop! I guarantee they’ll be just as fresh as today’s. My elder sister learned how to make them from our mother, and she’s incredibly skilled!”
He had probably guessed that Lin Wu ran a food shop or stall after seeing how much she had bought. The young woman beside him said nothing, but she nodded vigorously.
Lin Wu stopped and looked the two of them over carefully. They were both dressed in slightly worn coarse-cloth tunics. The garments had been washed until they were somewhat faded, but they were clean and free of patches. Their small faces were a little dark from the sun, which made their bright, lively eyes stand out all the more. Once they came closer, Lin Wu could smell the faint scent of beans clinging to both of them.
She found the siblings rather amusing. They looked so young, yet they already knew to rise early and work tirelessly to do business at the morning market. It certainly wasn’t easy. It was still early enough that Lin Jing was probably fast asleep in bed. Yet after earning some money, the first thing these two had done was buy honey-fried sweets to satisfy their cravings. One of them even held a paper bag in hand, though Lin Wu had no idea what sort of food it contained.
Lin Wu nodded. “That will be fine. As long as the quality remains as good as today’s, you may deliver them to my shop every day. The shop is called Twinwood Pastry Shop, at the far eastern end of Main Street. Deliver them around this time, just as you did today.”
The siblings seemed surprised that Lin Wu had agreed so readily. They stood stunned for a moment, then quickly recovered and began thanking her with bright smiles.
“We’ll deliver them on time every day. We’ll make sure you get only the best!”
Once their excitement had settled somewhat, Lin Wu continued, “However, our shop uses a considerable amount each day. This isn’t some small-scale operation. To prevent misunderstandings later—for instance, if you make the sheets and I suddenly decide I don’t want them, or if you’re temporarily unable to supply us and it affects our business—we should draw up a simple agreement. We’ll state clearly the types and quantities to be delivered each day, along with the delivery time and price. That way, we’ll both have peace of mind. What do you say?”
The siblings exchanged a glance, then quickly turned back and nodded together.
“That’s only right! We’ll do as you say, Shopkeeper!”
With that, they obediently followed Lin Wu and Mrs. Sun.
Lin Wu also bought some taro, fresh meat, and other ingredients. Only then did the group leave the morning market.
As they passed the bean-sheet shop, Mrs. Sun still couldn’t help muttering under her breath, “What a completely undeserved misfortune. Who knows what’s gotten into those people from the grain shop? They seem determined to make things difficult for us…”
The young woman, who had been quietly following them all this time, suddenly lowered her voice and spoke. “Shopkeeper Lin, is it true that all those bean-sheet shops refuse to sell to you now?”
Lin Wu’s steps paused briefly. She turned her head toward the girl and smiled.
“Oh? Now that you know I’m the Shopkeeper Lin of Twinwood Pastry Shop, have you changed your mind as well and decided not to sell us your bean-sheets?”
“No, no!” The young woman hurriedly shook her head and waved both hands. “We’ve already agreed, so of course we’ll make them for you. But…I think I know why.”
