As soon as the young woman said this, Mrs. Sun stopped in her tracks and hurriedly turned around. “Why’s that?”
“What? Why’s what?” the young lad beside her asked, his cheeks puffed out as he stuffed a sugar ball into his mouth. He stared over blankly.
They happened to be turning a street corner, where the number of pedestrians thinned considerably.
With several pairs of eyes fixed squarely on her, the young woman flushed a little. After hesitating for a moment, she lowered her voice to a whisper. “Yesterday, we were selling our starch sheets beside Stallholder Zhao’s food stall.”
“That’s right!” The young lad finally swallowed the sugar ball and immediately cut in. “That Zhao fellow has a rotten heart! We weren’t blocking his way, and we weren’t shouting to steal his customers, but he insisted on driving us off!”
Selling starch sheets was also a food business, so it was only natural for them to set up near a food stall. With all the people gathered there, business was usually better, too.
The young lad had been so angry at the time that he wanted to argue, but Stallholder Zhao had been running his food stall in the prefectural city for many years. The surrounding stallholders were all familiar with him and had joined in to back him up. As newcomers, the siblings hadn’t dared to confront them head-on. They had no choice but to swallow their anger and move elsewhere.
Only then did Lin Wu understand. No wonder they had been crouched at the edge of the morning market.
“You keep interrupting me. I haven’t finished yet.” The young woman lightly smacked her brother’s arm.
Their business the previous day had been nowhere near as good as it was today. They had not met a generous customer like Lin Wu, who had bought up nearly everything at once, and so they had only sold their starch sheets little by little.
By the time the morning market dispersed, a small portion still remained in their basket. Since they had come all this way, the siblings discussed it and decided to keep watch a little longer. They moved to the sides of the main street along with the stallholders who were in no hurry to pack up and go home.
Naturally, they set up alongside the food stalls, with Stallholder Zhao’s stall still beside them. But the main street was far more cramped than the morning market, and the stalls were packed tightly together.
As the sun climbed higher, they had nearly sold out of their starch sheets when a customer arrived. The man wore a respectable suit of fine cloth and looked like the owner of one of the nearby shops. The siblings had not visited the prefectural city of Huzhou often, so everything still seemed fresh and interesting to them. Even as they watched over their basket, they could not help glancing around.
The young lad had sharp eyes. He had noticed long ago that this man had gone in and out several times from a shop diagonally across the street, whose sign read “Liu Family Wontons.”
Master Liu stopped in front of their basket and lifted his eyelids. “You sell starch sheets?”
The young woman nodded. “Yes. They’re homemade mung bean starch sheets, fresh today.”
As usual, she cut off a small piece and held it out to him.
The man took it but did not taste it immediately. He merely pinched it between his fingertips and held it up to the light. Then he brought it close and sniffed it before putting it into his mouth. After chewing twice, he frowned.
“Tsk. You carried these all the way here from the countryside early this morning. Who knows how much dust they picked up on the road? And you’ve had them sitting by the roadside for most of the day. Flies have probably landed on them several times already, haven’t they? They certainly don’t look very clean.”
He did not say whether he intended to buy them or not, but simply continued picking faults. At the end, he asked, “You only have the mung bean kind? No rice starch sheets?”
The young woman suppressed her irritation and continued explaining politely. “We covered them carefully and carried them in a basket wrapped in three layers of clean coarse cloth, inside and out. I assure you, they’re clean. We only brought mung bean starch sheets today. If you want rice starch sheets, you’ll have to come back tomorrow.”
When Master Liu heard that there were no rice starch sheets, he lost what little interest he had left. “There’s hardly anything here. Give me a better price, and I’ll take it all.”
The siblings had quoted an honest price, already considerably lower than that of the Li family’s starch-sheet shop. The young woman immediately shook her head. “Master, this is already our lowest price. If we go any lower, we won’t even recover the cost of the beans. We might as well carry them home and eat them ourselves.”
Master Liu’s face fell. His tone grew even more caustic. “I was kindly taking pity on you because you’re young and have come out to make a living. That’s why I thought I’d help you out. You should ask around and find out what weight my Liu Family Wonton Shop carries on the main street. I’ve had longstanding relationships with all the grain merchants and starch-sheet shops. I know exactly how much your little goods cost to make. To be honest, I wouldn’t even give this stuff a second glance. I’m only showing a little kindness, and yet you have the nerve to act so high and mighty!”
At this, the young woman’s own pent-up frustration rose to the surface. Though she was still young and mild-tempered, her family had run a tofu workshop in their village for many years. They had encountered more than a few customers who bullied others and tried to take advantage of them.
Her voice remained soft. “If you think so little of them, then let’s leave it at that. This is a small business, but every bean was carefully selected, and we didn’t cut corners when grinding the beans or steaming the sheets. They’re worth this price.”
The young lad beside her had long since grown furious. He immediately raised his voice and chimed in, “That’s right! This is the price! We won’t take a single coin less!”
If the other party had spoken politely and negotiated in good faith, they would have been willing to haggle. But this was clearly an attempt to bully them. They would rather not do business with him at all.
Stallholder Zhao, who had been listening with his ears pricked up the whole time, saw that Master Liu’s expression was growing darker and immediately chimed in, “You two little brats—how can you be so ungrateful? Master Liu is only being kind and taking pity on you. You followed my stall all the way from the morning market to here, taking up this spot. I saw that you were only children and didn’t chase you away, letting you benefit a little from our business. And what do you do? Now that you’ve reached the main street, you’re acting as though you own the place!”
The young boy stiffened his neck and protested, “Why should you chase us away? We paid the city tax to enter the gates! There’s no sign here saying this place belongs to your family!”
“Tax?” Stallholder Zhao gave a scornful laugh. “Those few pitiful coins of yours are worth what? We who run our stalls every day pay the government taxes many times over what you do. When the tax collector comes, you can ask him yourself whether he’ll let you sell here, or whether he’ll make us old stallholders give up our spots for you.”
The young girl noticed that several nearby stallholders and passersby were craning their necks to watch. She knew that if they kept arguing, they would be the only ones to suffer. Pressing her lips together, she reached out and tugged hard at her brother’s sleeve. In a low voice, she said, “Forget it. Pack up. We’re leaving.”
Once the two children fell silent, they lowered their heads and quickly gathered up the little food and few bamboo baskets they had left. Their faint presence was soon drowned out by the bustle around the neighboring food stalls.
Master Liu felt that he had gained nothing from the exchange and had even lost face. His expression turned livid. With a snort, he turned and started back toward his own shop.
“Master Liu, calm down. Don’t quarrel with two little children,” Stallholder Zhao called after him, stopping him with a smile plastered across his face. “Ah, these days, it’s getting harder and harder for us small-time merchants to make a living. You only meant to lend those two children a hand because you saw how difficult things were for them. Who could have guessed they’d be so ungrateful and have no idea how to behave?”
Having been called back, Master Liu stopped as well. “Hmph! Lend them a hand? Two little brats who crawled out of who-knows-where, with no sense of their place, and they dare put on airs in front of me? Don’t they know what kind of signboard my Liu Family Wonton Shop is here in Huzhou Prefecture?”
“Exactly,” Stallholder Zhao picked up the thread. “Your wonton shop has had the steadiest business of all, thriving for more than a decade. Why? Because your flavor is one of a kind! Customers recognize that old familiar taste. They never tire of it and are always willing to pay. Unlike us stallholders—we make the same few things day in and day out, until our regular customers are practically sick of them. Now someone comes along with something fresh and novel, and—ha!—they draw all the customers away.”
His words only made Master Liu’s expression even uglier.
A nearby steamed-bun seller sighed as well. “Who can say otherwise? What new tricks can we come up with for steamed buns, stuffed buns, and these pastries? Everyone makes things more or less the same. In the end, it’s just a matter of whose food the customers are used to. But the Liu family’s wonton broth really is one of a kind.”
Several other stallholders nearby joined in.
“The Liu Family Wonton Shop is an old-established name in Huzhou. Other shops can try to imitate it, but they’ll never recreate that fresh flavor.”
“If you ask me, all those fancy new dishes are only good for fooling children. What do children know about what tastes good? They’re only interested in the novelty.”
But some people were more blunt and said outright, “I heard this morning that the Shuangmu Pastry Shop has expanded and started selling wontons too. I wonder how they taste?”
The moment those words were spoken, the whole group fell silent for a brief instant. Master Liu’s face turned positively livid.
“Ever since that pastry shop opened, everyone around here has been affected to some degree...” someone muttered.
“Affected or not, they have powerful connections! Haven’t you seen the young master of the Shen family and the young master of the Qi family? They’re both close with the little shopkeeper there. Otherwise, how could a widow from out of town, bringing her children with her, have managed to open a shop so securely in Huzhou Prefecture? Someone would have found trouble for her long ago.”
“Do you really think Huzhou Prefecture has no rules?” Stallholder Zhao sneered, taking up the argument again. “It’s only because everyone here has the good sense to give them a little leeway.”
“What real ability could they have? In my opinion, their wontons and rice noodles are definitely inferior to those at the Liu Family Wonton Shop! They’re only relying on a few young masters and young ladies to patronize them and sing their praises. Everyone else is simply joining in and making a fuss, judging people by their connections.”
Stallholder Zhao let out a long sigh. “Ah, the neighbors of Huzhou Prefecture are simply too kindhearted. They saw how difficult things were for that widow and her children, so they’ve looked after them in all sorts of ways. But if you ask me, how powerful could their backers really be? If they truly had some remarkable connection, would they have had to hide away in that little alley, renting a cramped little shop where one could barely turn around? They struggled there for so long before barely managing to expand it by this much.”
The more he spoke, the more convinced he became that he was right, and his voice rose accordingly. “If they really had a powerful backer, they should have opened their shop on the brightest, most spacious section of the main street long ago. If they had set up beside Jizhen Pavilion or Riverside Tower, then perhaps they might actually have been able to challenge an old-established name like the Liu Family Wonton Shop.”
“Old Zhao is right. In the end, it’s still Master Liu who runs his business fairly, relying entirely on honest ingredients and genuinely good flavor, without any of those empty tricks!”
The young woman and the young man crouched in the corner, silently listening to the whole stream of pointed gossip. At last, they understood: these people still did not dare offend the outsiders openly, so they could only whisper behind their backs about the “Double-Wood Pastry Shop” run by that family from out of town. It was much the same as refusing to let them sell their starch sheets nearby.
No—that was not quite right. Their starch-sheet stall was doing poorly, while the pastry shop sounded as though business was booming. Children all loved patronizing it, so the food must be especially delicious!
Mrs. Sun had listened to the young woman explain a long chain of events, but her brows only drew tighter. She still could not make head or tail of it.
“They’ve been gossiping behind our backs about the shop, but what does that have to do with anything? The more I listen, the more confused I get.”
Lin Wu had more or less grasped the situation. She looked at the clear-spoken young woman and asked, “That Liu family wonton shop—is it somehow connected to the grain merchants?”
The young woman nodded, just as expected. “When I saw you buying so many starch sheets from our little stall today, I had some guesses of my own. Then I heard this auntie mention the grain merchants…”
Her family ran a tofu workshop in the village. It was fairly substantial, and people from all the surrounding villages came to buy their goods. They also purchased soybeans regularly and had dealt with a few workers under the grain merchants. Naturally, they were not important enough to have dealings with the true powers within the grain trade, but they had heard their parents mention some of the connections and inside dealings from time to time.
She continued, “The Liu family’s wontons have always been famous for being both good and cheap. That’s because one of the shop owner’s relatives apparently has some influence in the grain trade. For the same rice and flour, he can probably get them cheaper than other shops, and the quality of his supplies is better too.”
The young man beside her finally understood as well. “So that’s how it is! That wonton shop must have seen that your—” He corrected himself hastily. “That Shopkeeper Lin’s business was doing so well and stealing the limelight from them. They were upset, so they used their relative in the grain trade to cause trouble! They pressured those starch-sheet stalls into cutting off your supplies. How underhanded!”
“What? That’s what happened?” Mrs. Sun finally understood, and her temper shot straight to her head. “That’s too much! How could they stab us in the back like that? Heavens above, is there no justice in this world?”
The group spoke in low voices as they continued walking, and soon they arrived back at the entrance of the Double-Wood Pastry Shop.
Yet Lin Wu was still puzzled. She stood at the shop entrance, gazing at the street as it gradually grew livelier, her brows faintly knitted.
Even if Stallholder Zhao had been deliberately sowing discord and hinting that she had no powerful backer and could be bullied with impunity, her shop had only four sets of tables and chairs. Its effect on an established business like the Liu family’s was limited. Why would the grain merchants go to such lengths, taking such a roundabout approach and ordering the starch-sheet stalls to pressure her?
Were they not afraid that the pastry shop might actually have some powerful support? The cost and risk hardly seemed worth it. The Liu family had been in business for more than a decade. Could they really be so short-sighted? If she were Master Liu, she would never make such a rash move. It simply was not worth it.
Though Lin Wu remained suspicious, she still invited the brother and sister inside. “Come in and sit for a while. Have some water. Wait a moment—I’ll fetch some ink and paper so we can draw up the contract.”
The young woman stood awkwardly beneath the shop’s awning and nodded. Her gaze followed Lin Wu’s figure, but she was suddenly distracted by a sound outside.
A carriage had stopped by the roadside not far from the shop. The curtain was lifted, and a small figure with a book bag on his back nimbly jumped down.
Lin Jing trotted over with light, quick steps. When he saw the unfamiliar brother and sister standing outside, he tilted his little head curiously and studied them with round, bright eyes. Then he craned his neck to peer into the shop.
“Mother, I’m here!”
The young woman looked at the carriage parked nearby.
It seemed familiar. Then she remembered the gossip from Stallholder Zhao and the others…
This was the Shen family’s carriage.
She lived in a village and hardly ever saw a carriage all year. She had therefore remembered the few times she had seen carriages traveling toward the Shen family’s estate from a distance. So…the relationship between the Shen family and the pastry shop was nothing like what Stallholder Zhao had claimed. They clearly had genuine dealings with one another. Even she could see that much. As for Master Liu…
When Lin Wu came out, the young woman explained, “I heard that the head of the grain merchants’ household has never gotten along with the Shen family’s eldest young master.”
This was not even a secret in Huzhou Prefecture. She had heard her parents mention it once or twice in casual conversation, but Shopkeeper Lin did not seem to know.
Lin Wu was taken aback, then gave a helpless, amused laugh.
So that was how it was.
Shen Guanting might not be in Huzhou, but he certainly had not lost his talent for stirring up trouble.
Then again, considering his temperament, it was hardly surprising that he had made enemies.
Fine. He could deal with the trouble in the capital. She would handle this matter herself.
