Yan Xi listened to them chat for a while, and then the village head’s eldest son Yan Cheng came swaying up driving the ox cart. Seeing eight or nine people under the tree, he didn’t waste words but stopped the cart, let them get on and raised his ox whip, and the cart started moving again. Yan Xi sat between Zhou Ping and Feng Yue, squeezed until her eyes rolled.
There was nothing for it. A flatbed cart wasn’t very big to start with, and eight or nine people were sitting on it, plus a few back baskets, and some people had brought baskets with wild fruit picked in the hills, and what wouldn’t fit on the cart was hung off the sides.
The road into town was not good, all bumps and hollows, and one gust of wind filled the air with yellow dust. In these years they were all dirt roads, there was no asphalt or concrete or the like. Jolting the whole way, they finally reached the town, and Yan Xi got off the ox cart with a pale face, her insides all but shaken out of her. Yan Xi thought that when she had money later she would certainly build a better road, though thinking about that now was thinking for nothing, better to get her own family’s life in order first.
Yan Xi rested a while and went in with Feng Yue. First she went with Feng Yue to the Jinxiu Cloth Shop to hand in the embroidery. Handkerchiefs were ten wen apiece, scent pouches three wen apiece. Ten scent pouches, ten handkerchiefs. She received 130 wen in all. This time what Feng Yue handed in was all handkerchiefs and scent pouches, the cloth was supplied by the shop and the thread had to be bought herself, so working a whole month came to earning about a hundred wen.
Having handed in the embroidery, Feng Yue drew twenty more handkerchiefs. This time she didn’t plan to embroider scent pouches, they were quicker but earned too little. She also spent ten wen on some embroidery thread, and then was about to call Yan Xi to go out with her.
Yan Xi had first looked around inside the cloth shop and found that the designs on the ready-made clothes and the embroidery were all very much the same, mostly flowers and birds, with rather gaudy color schemes. They looked nice, but the styles were all much alike, and after seeing a lot of them you felt there was nothing new.
Having looked around, Yan Xi had an idea, and called to the proprietress, who was about to go and attend to the next customer. “Madam Yun, I see your embroidery shop does very good business, it’s just that these embroidery designs are a little few. I happen to have come by a few designs before. I wonder whether you would care to take a look?”
“Little girl, is what you say true?” Yun Niang said in delight.
Don’t be fooled by the Jinxiu Shop doing good business, theirs wasn’t the only cloth shop in this town. There was also a Yuxiu Cloth Shop doing good business, and the two shops were about the same size. If she really could get some other designs, wouldn’t business go up another level? She heard the young master would be coming on inspection to Songshan Town next month, if she made some showing, then this manager’s post could move up a step.
Thinking of this, the smile on Yun Niang’s face became more genuine. “Miss, have you brought the designs with you? Let us go up to the second floor and talk it over.” So saying, she was about to lead the two of them across the hall and upstairs.
Feng Yue was a bit uneasy. “Little Sister, do you really have designs? You know a farm family can’t afford to offend a cloth shop that big.”
“Don’t worry, Sister-in-law. If I had no preparation at all I wouldn’t dare say so, would I? Just let the manager have a look. If she likes them we’ll talk, if she doesn’t, there’s nothing lost.” So saying, Yan Xi went first, following Yun Niang’s steps.
“This way, honored guests. Guixiang, bring up some tea and refreshments!”
The three of them sat down at the table. Yan Xi didn’t stand on ceremony but took out a folded stack of paper from the small bag she carried. In fact it had come out of the space. The designs had been drawn by Yan Xi in the space last night. She had thought all night about how to make money, and in the end decided to take up her old trade and start with drawing.