It was market day today. Although Sister-in-law Yao wasn't going, Xia Tian encountered several familiar aunties along the way.
Aunt Chun noticed her carrying both a table and buckets, and asked curiously, "Girl, where are you going with all this? What's inside? It smells surprisingly good."
Xia Tian smiled sheepishly. "I've marinated some pork intestines and thought I'd set up a stall to try and earn some household money."
"Well, the aroma is quite enticing," the aunties remarked tactfully, refraining from peeking inside.
"Once we reach town, I'd like you all to sample some," Xia Tian said openly. Being from the same village, they were bound to find out anyway.
By the time they reached town around seven in the morning, the streets were already bustling with people.
Since it was market day, ox-carts couldn't enter the town proper. Seeing Xia Tian struggling with her load, Aunt Chun and the others helped carry her things to the stall location.
After repeatedly thanking them, Xia Tian asked the aunties to wait momentarily.
She set up the table, placed a wooden basin on it, and transferred portions of the marinated pork intestines, pig trotters, and dried tofu from the buckets into the basin.
From another wooden bucket, she retrieved two wooden bowls, filling them separately with bite-sized pieces of pork intestines and dried tofu. She inserted the toothpicks Shen Nian had whittled yesterday and offered samples to the aunties.
"Oh, this is delicious! No foul odor at all."
"Indeed, it's pleasantly chewy."
"Who knew you had such skills, girl!"
The aunties praised enthusiastically after tasting.
"Girl, how much are you selling these for? I'd like some—it's even tastier than meat!" Aunt Chun immediately wanted to purchase.
"A piece this long costs one coin," Xia Tian said, using chopsticks to hold up a roughly twenty-centimeter segment of intestine for the aunties to see.
She and Shen Nian had settled on the pricing last night.
After marinating, a fresh set of pork intestines would shrink by about twenty percent in length.
Typically, pork intestines measured twelve to fifteen meters long; after marinating, they'd reduce to ten to thirteen meters.
Cut into twenty-centimeter segments, one set could yield about fifty pieces. At one coin per piece, customers would find it affordable, and the profit would be substantial.
For convenience, Xia Tian had pre-cut them last night.
Pig trotters were sold individually at fifteen coins each. Dried tofu cost five coins per jin (approximately ten pieces). Since Xia Tian had marinated hers, she sold them at one coin per piece.
Aunt Chun found the prices reasonable and immediately reserved five segments of pork intestines, asking Xia Tian to set them aside while she finished her shopping.
The other aunties also said they'd return later.
In the meantime, several people had gathered around.
They'd overheard Xia Tian's conversation with the aunties.
After Aunt Chun and the others left, an uncle stepped forward and asked, "Is this really pork intestines?"
"Feel free to sample some, folks. No obligation to buy," Xia Tian said cheerfully, offering toothpicks from the bowl to the crowd for on-the-spot tasting.
"It's truly delicious."
"No unpleasant smell at all."
"How much are they?"
After sampling, customers inquired about prices, and Xia Tian patiently repeated the details.
The uncle who'd asked first bought five coins' worth. Xia Tian wrapped them in oil paper.
Seeing someone make a purchase, others followed suit and bought some as well.
Compared to the pork intestines, not a single piece of dried tofu had been sold yet.
After all, at the same price, pork intestines—being meat—were undoubtedly a better deal.
Today was market day, and with the large crowds, Xia Tian didn't need to do much shouting. Customers kept coming steadily, and within less than two hours, all the pork intestines were sold out.
Only six pieces of dried tofu remained, and one pig trotter had been sold.
Seeing that most items were sold, Xia Tian decided to pack up.
She would keep the leftovers for herself.
First, she carried the table and other items to Uncle Liu San's ox cart to store them.
Then she shouldered her back basket to go purchase ingredients.
Judging by today's sales, pork intestines were clearly more popular.
Xia Tian went directly to the meat stall, where she bought three more portions of pork intestines and one jin of pork belly. The shopkeeper threw in a large pork bone for free.
At the tofu stall, she bought ten jin of dried tofu. She planned to braise it all at once and store it in her Space to sell gradually.
She intended to focus on selling pork intestines for a few days first. If business remained good, she would consider adding other varieties later.
The main hassle was transporting the table and other items back and forth daily. Other aspects were manageable—after all, she now had Spiritual Spring Water to drink and never lacked energy.
But carrying the table and such was troublesome.
Hiring Uncle Liu San's ox cart every day would cost dozens of wen in fare, which wasn't cost-effective.
However, she could use a carrying pole tomorrow, start early, and store the items in her Space when no one was around on the road.
Having made her plan, Xia Tian went to find Aunt Chun and the others. For the portions of pork intestines she had reserved for them, she added an extra piece to each. They had also helped her move things earlier.
Maintaining good relationships made village life easier.
Soon, Aunt Chun and the others arrived, and they all headed together to the ox cart.
They asked her, "Sold out so quickly?"
"A few pieces of dried tofu are left." Xia Tian took out the oil paper-wrapped dried tofu and shared it with the aunties.
"This is for selling—keep it for yourself."
"It's fine, it won't be fresh tomorrow. Please try some, aunties."
Seeing Xia Tian's insistence, the aunties didn't refuse further.
By the time they reached home, it was almost one o'clock. Shen Nian, seeing her return, proactively poured her a cup of water.
Xia Tian took out the buns she had bought on the way and gave them to Shen Nian to eat first, then hurried to prepare lunch.
She quickly stir-fried some greens, made twice-cooked pork, prepared a cold bamboo shoot salad, and reheated the steamed buns before serving the meal.
Shen Nian must have been hungry—he ate three large buns and finished all the dishes clean.
After the meal, Xia Tian took out her purse and with a "clatter," poured all the copper coins onto the table.
Her eyes sparkled at the sight of the small pile of coins—this was the first money she had earned herself since arriving here.
Though not much, it didn't dampen her good mood.
Xia Tian counted them: one hundred thirty-two copper coins in total.
"The dried tofu brought in twelve wen, the pig trotter fifteen wen, and the rest were all from pork intestines.
Calculating this way, aside from what we ate ourselves, the customer samples, and the portions given to Aunt Chun and the other three, the two portions of pork intestines netted a pure profit of one hundred five wen.
After deducting costs, today's income is about eighty wen.
If every day goes like this, monthly earnings could reach two or three taels."
Xia Tian analyzed aloud while muttering to herself.
This was actually quite decent—for comparison, when Xia Yang and others worked in town, they only earned three to four hundred wen per month.
Besides, today was just a trial, and she hadn't prepared much braised food.
Shen Nian watched her money-loving expression, a smile touching his eyes. "Not bad at all."
"Only, coming back every day will be a bit late, so I won't be able to make lunch for you on time."
If you keep leaving early and returning late like this every day, Shen Nian won't even be able to have proper lunch.
Xia Tian couldn't just focus on making money either—there was still the head of the household waiting to be fed.
"No problem," Shen Nian replied without any dissatisfaction.
"Then I'll try setting up the stall for a few days first. If sales go well, I'll see if I can find someone to help out."
Xia Tian had made up her mind—she needed to run the stall daily. Relying only on market days wouldn't bring in much income.
"Alright, whatever you decide," Shen Nian nodded.
Seeing Shen Nian's gentle expression and confirming he truly wasn't upset, Xia Tian felt relieved.
Just as she was about to leave, she noticed the teapot on the table and asked Shen Nian, "Brother Shen, have you been drinking your Dandelion Water every day?"
"Yes."
"Are you feeling better recently?"
"Mm, much better."
"That's good. You need to keep drinking it consistently. It seems the Dandelion Water is effective. I'll pick more later and dry extra so we'll have enough for winter too."
She thought she had concealed her intentions perfectly and mentally patted herself on the back for her cleverness!
"Alright," Shen Nian watched her poorly disguised act but didn't expose her, softly agreeing instead.
After chatting for a while, Xia Tian fetched two buckets of water from the well and sat in the yard to clean the pork intestines.
While profitable, cleaning pork intestines was incredibly laborious.
By the time she finished stewing the pork intestines and dried tofu, it was almost four in the afternoon.
Just as she was about to rest before preparing dinner, Sister-in-law Yao came looking for her at the gate.