After selling all the geese from his own stock to Li Yao, Old Man Kang began his work as promised, traveling through the village to help her procure more. To his shock, he hit a brick wall at the very first house.
“24 wen a catty is too cheap. I’m not selling.”
“Old Man Kang, you’re being far too naive. Do you have any idea how much money that Li woman in He-wan Village makes off a single braised goose? Paying you 24 wen a catty? Are you trying to cheat yourself?”
“If she doesn’t have our geese, her business will collapse. She’ll be forced to raise the price eventually. Let’s just wait and see.”
…
Old Man Kang heard the same refrain throughout the entire village. It sent him into a panic. He had pounded his chest and promised Li Yao he would handle this task perfectly, and he stood to make 10 wen in commission per goose—a fortune for him. Now that no one would sell, how was he supposed to answer to her?
In a desperate bid to save face, he managed to convince a relative to sell him three geese, but only after paying an extra 30 wen out of his own pocket. He delivered them to Li Yao with a heavy heart.
“Lady Li, I am truly sorry,” he said, head bowed. “I wanted to help, but I suspect I can’t get the job done.”
“It’s not your fault. Why apologize?”
“But… but if you have no geese, how can you continue your business?”
“Have you heard rumors of anyone else in your village trying to buy geese?” Li Yao asked.
Old Man Kang frowned, pondering this. “…Now that you mention it, I did hear someone whisper that someone else was offering 27 wen a catty. I was so anxious at the time, I didn’t pay much attention.”
That explains it.
The villagers refused to sell for only two reasons: either they wanted to drive up the price, or there was someone sabotaging her from behind the scenes. It was clearly the latter. And the culprits could be none other than the managers or owners of the other three restaurants in the market; they were jealous of He’s Restaurant’s success and were resorting to dirty tricks. If they couldn’t have it, no one would.
There was only one way to solve this once and for all.
“Old Man Kang,” Li Yao asked, “do you know of any other places where people raise geese?”
“Well… yes, there are places, but they are very far away, and they don’t have as many as our village.”
“Very well, then,” Li Yao said. “From today on, you will travel to collect geese for me wherever you can find them. Don’t worry about a fixed price—match the market rate. I will pay you an additional 1 wen per catty as a commission for your trouble. How does that sound?”
“That much?”
If he could find three geese a day, that would be over 30 wen in income—nearly 1,000 wen a month. For an old man who had one foot in the grave, how could he possibly earn so much? He had failed the task she gave him, yet she didn’t blame him and instead offered him an even better deal.
“Lady Li, you are a fairy descended from the heavens!”
“I will need a large volume in the future, and you’ll have to do a lot of traveling, so an extra 1 wen isn’t much,” Li Yao said. “But you must ensure the geese you buy are of high quality.”
Old Man Kang patted his chest. “Lady Li, you have my word! Whatever I promise you, I will deliver!”
“I know a few goose farmers in Huanghua Village. I’m going there right now to buy them!”
Li Yao handed him 2,000 wen as working capital and another 500 wen to buy goslings or eggs that could be hatched. Buying from others indefinitely wasn’t a sustainable strategy; she planned to start her own farm.
…
At Zhang’s Restaurant, Proprietor Zhang Guangsheng sipped his tea and asked the new manager.
“Is the task done?”
“Yes,” Manager Wu replied. “Every family in Baiyun Village has taken our 10 wen deposit. They won’t sell a single goose to that Li woman. But I am worried that if she raises her offer, they might…”
“If she raises her price, we raise ours,” Zhang Guangsheng said coldly. “Those poor, miserly villagers—as long as you promise them just half a wen more per catty, they’ll hold onto their stock for dear life.”
“But we aren’t actually buying the birds. If this drags on too long, won’t the villagers eventually sell to her anyway?”
“Are you stupid?” Zhang Guangsheng sneered. “We paid a deposit. With the terms set, who would dare sell? As long as we drag this out for ten days or a fortnight, He’s Restaurant will have no geese to sell, and the business will flow right back to us.”
“Proprietor, you are brilliant.”
Through the window, Zhang Guangsheng looked toward the nearby He’s Restaurant, a smug smile on his face. Sometimes, all it took was a little bit of silver to accomplish a great goal.
Just then, a waiter burst in, breathless. “Pro… Proprietor! It’s—it’s terrible!”
“What is there to panic about?”
“He’s Restaurant… they have braised goose on the menu today, too!”
“So what? It’s definitely just leftover stock from yesterday.”
But Zhang Guangsheng did not expect that the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that, He’s Restaurant would continue to serve braised goose every single day. Not only that, but Li Yao had also secured partnerships with restaurants in three neighboring districts! Meanwhile, the geese in Baiyun Village remained unsold, sitting in the farmers’ yards.
“Where is she getting her geese from?”
“I’ve asked around. She hired an old man to contract the supply from several neighboring counties.”
Zhang Guangsheng felt a sharp pain in his chest. He had assumed that Li Yao, being a simple village woman with narrow vision, would be helpless once she couldn’t buy the geese from Baiyun Village. As it turned out, he was the only clown in this story.
“Proprietor,” Manager Wu suggested, “how about we hire a few men to teach that old man a lesson?”
“What kind of moronic idea is that?” Zhang Guangsheng barked. “So what if you kill that old man? Do you think she won’t just hire another? Besides, the new county magistrate is currently eager to show his authority—don’t you dare cause trouble for me!”
“Yes, yes, of course. But what about the deposits in Baiyun Village?”
What else could they do? They had to accept that the money was as good as thrown into the river.
“There aren’t that many geese in the neighboring counties either. Let’s see what she does when she runs out!”
Old Man Kang had traveled to several counties. He didn’t manage to buy any goslings, but he did return with two large baskets of goose eggs.
He Xiaoya looked at them with a worried expression. “Mother, we only have one old hen at home. How are we supposed to hatch this many eggs?”
Li Yao smiled. “We don’t need a hen. We’ll hatch them ourselves.”
He Xiaoya was stunned. Mother must have lost her mind today. How can a human hatch a gosling? Am I supposed to sleep in bed with them for a month?
In this era, the hardest part of artificial incubation was precise temperature control. Li Yao pondered for a long time before deciding to use a heated earthen bed, or kang, to hatch them. She bought a large amount of wood, had the village chief saw it into planks, and built a double-walled, double-roofed room stuffed with dried grass to act as an incubator.
Building the incubation bed was the difficult part. To ensure even heat distribution, Li Yao spent a small fortune to have a blacksmith forge a flat iron vat, one meter square and fifteen centimeters thick, propped up by a circle of adobe bricks. She filled the iron vat with hot water, then layered wood ash, fabric, and thin quilts on top. Beneath it, she lit several oil lamps to maintain a steady, constant temperature.
The preparations were finally complete. If this succeeded, she could hatch chickens and ducks later on, too.
Once the incubator reached the same temperature as a human body, she laid the cleaned goose eggs out one by one and covered them with two thick quilts. The task of guarding them fell to He Xiaoya.
“Check the temperature every half-hour,” Li Yao instructed solemnly. “If it feels the same as your own skin, the temperature is perfect. If it’s too hot, remove an oil lamp; if too cold, add one. Also, turn the eggs every two hours and swap the center and edge eggs every three days.”
“I understand, Mother. I will make sure they all hatch successfully.”
These were two hundred goose eggs—if they spoiled, it would be a significant loss. He Xiaoya practically moved into the incubation room, clutching a goose egg against her chest every thirty minutes to test the temperature and adjusting the lamps accordingly.
Five days later, Li Yao held the eggs under an oil lamp to check them; any egg without visible blood vessels was unfertilized. The fifty or so clear eggs she pulled out were turned into spiced tea eggs and sent to He’s Restaurant. To her surprise, they were an unexpected hit.
The news that Li Yao could hatch goslings without a hen soon spread throughout the village.
“There’s nothing that woman doesn’t dare to think or do.”
“If she really pulls this off, won’t she be able to hatch hundreds or even thousands at a time?”
“She’s daydreaming! If she’s really that capable, I’ll read my name backward: I’ll call myself Gui-you Zhu!”
While waiting for the goslings to hatch, the sales of the braised goose stabilized. With four markets and four restaurants, they sold ten geese a day, bringing in a profit of about 4,000 wen. Added to the offal stalls, the total daily profit reached 6,600 wen.
Li Yao now had 50 taels of silver in her hands, firmly establishing her as the wealthiest woman in He-wan Village. With this stable income, she finally had the time to turn her attention to researching her medicinal herbal balm.