Chapter 143: Chapter 143: Closing a Small Deal
Translator: 549690339
“More than just chicken feet?” Upon hearing this, Shopkeeper Zhou quickly said, “Miss Qiao, how about this, I’ll give you some chickens and ducks, you prepare them however you want, and then bring them to me, how does that sound?”
“What’s the meaning?” Qiao Xiaomai asked, intrigued.
“Well, 1 mean 1 won’t charge you for these items. After you finish preparing them, bring them to me and 1’11 pay you in silver for your effort. Does that sound good?” Shopkeeper Zhou explained.
Qiao Xiaomai responded with a long, understanding “Oh”. She realized she only needed to do the cooking, since the supplies were provided by the Zuixian Building.
In all honesty, she didn’t have a lot of silver on hand. She’d need to hire quite some workers when it’s time to harvest from the 300 acres of wheat field, and the expenses would be quite substantial.
She had been contemplating how to quickly earn more silver these past few days. Shopkeeper Zhou’s proposition was exactly what she needed.
“How would you calculate my labor fee?” she asked.
“Um…how about five wen for a chicken?” Shopkeeper Zhou considered before offering a price.
“Prepare a chicken for five wen?” Qiao Xiaomai asked.
“Yes.”
“That’s a bit low. Those spices are expensive. How about six wen?” Qiao Xiaomai haggled.
Spices like cardamom, anise, cassia bark, brown sugar, Sichuan pepper, star anise and so forth were quite pricey. Everyone knew adding these spices made food taste better, but not many were willing to purchase them.
When she cooked, she used all kinds of seasonings; even with reused marinade, plus the cost of firewood and transportation, five wen was a bit too low.
“Deal.” Shopkeeper Zhou agreed readily, it was only a wen- minor expenses for the Zuixian Building.
“Well then, I’ll give miss ten chickens and ten ducks for today. Also, miss, you don’t need to buy these chicken feet, just bring them tomorrow. A wen for each chicken foot, how does that sound?” Shopkeeper Zhou said.
“How much would you sell each chicken foot for?” Qiao Xiaomai asked.
“I plan to sell them like tofu and bean curd, only for the wealthy.” Shopkeeper Zhou said with a smug smile.
At a wen each, they’d sell like hotcakes. But for the Zuixian Building, it wouldn’t bring in much profit.
Anyway, they were a scarce commodity. Naturally, the rarer the item, the higher it can sell for.
“Well, that puts me at a disadvantage.” Qiao Xiaomai blinked her dewy eyes at Shopkeeper Zhou.
“Oh, Miss Qiao, even if I set a high price, how much could chicken feet be?” Shopkeeper Zhou said.
“What about the chicken and duck? You can sell these for a high price, right?” Qiao Xiaomai asked again.
Obviously, she was providing the key technology here. Even if she didn’t split the profits with Zuixian Building, she shouldn’t be given less than deserved, right?
“Fair enough. How about we raise it to seven wen for each chicken and two wen for each chicken foot?” Shopkeeper Zhou said with a pained expression, “Miss Qiao, everyone knows the price of chicken meat. Even if I sell it at a high price, it can’t be outrageous.”
This wasn’t like tofu and bean curd. Everybody knew they were made from soybeans. But if it came to the technique, aside from Miss Qiao, nobody knew, so Zuixian Building and Extreme Taste Residence could name their price.
But braised meat was a different story. At the end of the day, it was still chicken. Plus, he let his chef taste the marinated chicken feet, and the chef had been researching these past few days – the flavor was not nearly as good as Qiao Xiaomai’s, but not far behind either.
So, when it came to price, he really didn’t want to go too high.
Qiao Xiaomai understood this and nodded, “Then we’ll go by this price.”
So, it was settled. Qiao Xiaomai left the Zuixian Building with ten chickens, ten ducks, and more than five hundred chicken feet.
As the family of three was about to head to the livestock market, a man appeared in front of the donkey cart. His round face beamed a friendly smile, it was Yuan Ding.
“Miss Qiao, the boss is waiting for you at Extreme Taste Residence. He said he has some pear saplings for you..”