Feng Yue watched Yan Xi take out a stack of paper, and though a little surprised she said nothing. This was Little Sister’s own thing, as long as she thought it was all right, it was all right.
Yan Xi opened out the paper. There were twelve patterns in all, and she pushed them all across in front of Yun Niang. A thing has to be shown to someone before you can talk about what comes next.
Yun Niang took them and looked and was immediately drawn in. The pictures on them were all ones she had never seen. There were monkeys and chickens, and tigers too, and every one of them charmingly simple.
At first glance they didn’t actually look like the animals, each one was round and plump, with a big head and a small body, but from the picture you could tell what animal it was. The colors were bold, which added to the cuteness.
Watching Yun Niang unable to put them down, Yan Xi knew it was settled. She wasn’t in a hurry, she drank her tea slowly and waited for Yun Niang to speak first. In a negotiation, whoever can hold steady has the say.
After about the time of a stick of incense, Yun Niang raised her head and said, “For these patterns I’ll offer five hundred wen each. What does Miss think?”
Yan Xi said nothing and went on drinking her tea.
Seeing how it was, Yun Niang gritted her teeth and said, “One tael each, and my Jinxiu Shop will take all of them.”
Only then did Yan Xi speak. “Madam Yun, we’re both straightforward people, so I won’t beat around the bush with you. You’ve seen all these patterns. What do you think of them?”
Yun Niang couldn’t say against her conscience that they were ordinary, so she still said they were well drawn.
Yan Xi went on, “Then do you think these patterns of mine could be sold elsewhere?”
Yun Niang knew she couldn’t let this chance slip. If Yan Xi really did sell the patterns to the rival, that would be a blow to the Jinxiu Shop too. She could only go on raising her stake. “Two taels of silver each. Miss must not sell these patterns to anyone else, and if you have other patterns later, the Jinxiu Shop is to have first consideration.”
Yan Xi didn’t let anything show on her face, but inside she had long since been thrilled. She had been in this Tianqi dynasty a good few days, and at last she had earned her first pot of money. So she stopped holding out and said directly, “That goes without saying. These twelve patterns, once sold to the Jinxiu Shop, naturally belong to the Jinxiu Shop, and later patterns can also go to the Jinxiu Shop first. But I can’t promise to sell later patterns to the Jinxiu Shop only. In this Songshan Town, though, I can promise you that whenever I have a good pattern your Jinxiu Shop will have it first.”
Hearing this, Yun Niang let out a breath. As long as she was the only one in this Songshan Town, that was enough, as for the rest, she would talk it over in detail with Miss Yan when the young master arrived.
Yun Niang had Guixiang bring up the silver, twenty-four taels in all. Yan Xi asked for four five-tael ingots and one of two taels, and had the rest changed into copper coins.
When the three of them came downstairs, Yan Xi spotted colored cords behind the counter. On asking, she learned they were for braiding knotted cords, one wen for two strands. Yan Xi thought it over and bought fifty strands, spending 25 wen. She planned to try it at home first, and then have the women of the family learn to make them together, it would be an income too.
When Yan Xi was in high school there had been a spell when braiding bracelets and knotted cords was all the rage at school. The girls of a whole class would gather together between lessons learning all sorts of braiding methods, and Yan Xi was no exception. For what it was worth she had learned a dozen or so methods, and had even gone with classmates to set up a stall at the night market.
Coming out of the Jinxiu Shop, when they passed the Fengwei Restaurant Yan Xi saw it was getting late and wanted to take Feng Yue in for a meal. She had just earned silver anyway, and one meal wouldn’t cost much.
“Little Sister, the food at the Fengwei Restaurant is very expensive, we can’t afford it. Let’s go to the lane up ahead in a while, there’s a wonton stall run by an old couple, the prices aren’t high and the portions are big and filling. Your eldest brother took me there once.”