swear not to be concubine

Chapter 46

After Qingzhu returned to Ningcuixuan, she naturally wanted to report to Xu Zhongxuan and Xu Miaojin what she saw and heard at Jian Yan's place one by one, but Jian Yan's sudden question made her inadvertently miss some clues. The words are omitted.

"...When the servant went, Miss Jian was eating on the kang. It was nothing more than a plate of stir-fried peas, a plate of cold bean sprouts, and half a bowl of white rice. The servant followed the order of the eldest son, just said These meals and pastries were ordered by our girl, and they were brought to Miss Jian. Miss Jian said that I would come back and tell her that she accepted our girl’s wishes. The servant girl gave this to the servant girl."

After finishing speaking, he handed out the purse he had been holding in his hand for Xu Zhongxuan and Xu Miaojin to see.

Xu Zhongxuan glanced at the purse with her hand, and then said: "Since she rewarded you, then you can keep it."

After hesitating for a while, Yin asked again: "When you went there just now and saw Miss Jane, was she okay?"

He always kept in mind what Jian Yan said, that I am not in good health today.

Qingzhu then replied: "The slave girl looks at Miss Jian is okay, talking and laughing, her complexion is pink and white, like the cherry blossoms in the spring, she doesn't seem to be in bad health."

Xu Zhongxuan listened, on the one hand he finally let go of his heart, thinking, it's okay, the statement that I'm not well today is really an excuse, on the other hand, he felt a little dull in his heart, thinking, the original sentence Well, if I'm not in good health today, it's really an excuse. After all, she's still avoiding him on purpose.

At this time, Qingzhu was heard talking again: "My maidservant has thought of something. Earlier, my maidservant went to Miss Jian's place, and met Qingya, the servant girl next to the third girl, and the little servant girl next to Miss Jian. Siyue said that the third girl invited Miss Jian to her room to teach her how to play the piano and embroider after lunch."

As soon as Xu Zhongxuan heard it, he immediately felt that all the depression in his heart disappeared.So he ate this meal much faster than usual.

After the meal, he chatted with Xu Miaojin for a while, and seeing that Xu Miaojin was still talking about things in a slow manner, finally he couldn't bear it any longer, so he asked directly: "What are you talking about today?" Aren't you going to play with Ning'er in the afternoon?"

Xu Miaojin was intentionally teasing him, wanting to see him anxious.It's just that although he was anxious in his heart, he didn't show it on his face, on the contrary, he said something like this out of a corner.

So Xu Miaojin just pretended that she didn't understand the meaning of his words, because she asked: "I went to play with my third sister, do you want to go too?"

Seeing Xu Zhongxuan nodded, he said in a serious manner: "I haven't seen my third sister for a few days, it's good to go and see her."

Xu Miaojin laughed out loud.I just think that such an awkward and face-saving big brother is really interesting.But she didn't tease Xu Zhongxuan any more, she just stood up and said with a smile: "Since this is the case, brother, let's go and see Third Sister together."

On the surface it was just to see Xu Miaoning, but in fact it was still for Jian Yan?
And when the two of them arrived at the Xikuan courtyard where Xu Miaoning lived, but just stepped through the screen door, they saw Xu Miaoning playing shuttlecock with Jian Yan at a glance.

There is a camphor tree in Xu Miaoning's west yard.It was late spring and early summer, and the original dark green leaves on the tree had long been replaced by a batch of new yellow-green leaves, and yellow-green, dotted small flowers bloomed. Fragrance.

At this moment, Jian Yan was kicking the shuttlecock under the camphor tree, while Xu Miaoning was standing aside, clapping her hands while counting to ten for her.

They were having so much fun, and the maids in the yard were also happily watching her kick the shuttlecock, no one noticed him and Xu Miaojin's arrival at all.

Xu Zhongxuan didn't make a sound, just stood at the gate of the courtyard, watching Jian Yan kick the shuttlecock quietly.

Her movement of kicking the shuttlecock is very flexible, it can be seen that she often kicked it in the past.Xu Zhongxuan was thinking in his heart, how many skills does Jian Yan have that he doesn't know?Such delicate and elegant lowercase letters with hairpin flowers, unrestrained paintings, unrestrained and unrestrained cursive, and today she is kicking shuttlecock here in the form of such a little girl.

But in fact, Jian Yan thinks that she has many skills.For example, she thinks she can serve instant noodles, play plants vs. zombies, etc., but these skills can only be talked about now.

There are no raw materials, how can you let her show her skills?

It's just that she has been really happy these days.Because of Zhou Lin's inadvertent words, she saw unlimited business opportunities.

Zhou Lin would come to see Bai Wei after a while, tell her about the store, and ask Jian Yan if she had any instructions.Zhou Lin and Bai Wei talked about it that day, and said that Jian Yan asked him to burn those lucky cats and put one on the counter in the shop. Even these days, many people come to buy them every day The woolen customer asked what this lucky cat was, and how much would he sell it for?He explained, saying that this is called a lucky cat.See its raised right hand?This is what it means to attract money.But as long as there is such a lucky cat in the shop or at home, it will definitely bring a lot of money.And the shopkeeper in the shop next to him heard about the Lucky Cat, and thought it was a good meaning, so he also sent a clerk to ask Zhou Lin if there were any Lucky Cats?Are you willing to sell it?How much silver do you want for one?After all, this lucky cat was ordered by Jian Yan to be fired, and a total of one hundred were fired, and three were given to Jian Yan, and another one was placed in her shop. Now there is only one in the warehouse. There are only 96 pieces left, so should I sell it or not?If it is sold, how much silver will one be sold for?So today he specially came here to ask for Jian Yan's instructions, asked her what she meant, and said that he would come back tomorrow to ask for a reply.

When Bai Wei came back, she took Zhou Lin's words as a joke and told Jian Yan.After all, in her opinion, this lucky cat is only fired in a folk kiln. Although it is cute and cute, the material is really not very good. Even if it is really sold, how much money can one sell for?
It's just that hearing these words in Jian Yan's ears, she only had a feeling of enlightenment.

These days, she is just worrying day and night, she only has less than 1000 taels of silver on hand, what kind of business can she do, without spending too much capital, and can make money very quickly What about silver?But she didn't know that there was a way to make money in front of her long ago, but she didn't realize it.

It was night, and Jian Yan was lying on the kang table, writing and drawing, and spent half the night working out a detailed plan.

Early the next morning, she called Bai Wei over and handed her a piece of paper.

Bai Wei took a look and saw that although the painting on the paper was a beckoning cat, it was somewhat different from the beckoning cat that was placed on the table right now.

The beckoning cat on the kang table raised its right hand, but this one raised its left hand.Although the chests are the same, there is a small golden bell tied with a braided red rope, but the lucky cat on the kang case has a black pen writing the word fortune on its chest, but this lucky cat has a black pen on its chest. It's a black pen with the word "Fu" written on it.

Bai Wei was a little surprised, so she raised her head and asked Jian Yan: "Girl, this, is this also a beckoning cat?"

Jian Yan nodded, and then explained to her: "You can also call it a lucky cat."

"The Lucky Cat?" Bai Wei thought for a while, then couldn't help it, and asked again, "Then there are also the Lucky Cat, the Lucky Cat?"

Jian Yan was startled for a moment, then laughed, and said, "This is a good idea. Maybe we can actually make some lucky cats and lucky cats later on."

After the two were joking, Jian Yan said to Bai Wei seriously: "You will go to see Brother Zhou later, and tell him to ask him to take out all the liquid funds that can be moved at hand and go to the prosperous capital of the capital. Look for a shop in the same location. It should be bigger, more spacious, and more elegantly decorated, but don't look shabby. As for the name of the shop, it should be called Shijing Pavilion. There are some famous people's calligraphy and paintings inside, burnt sandalwood Fragrant. Then buy more shelves, don’t be fancy, and the material should not be bad, just rosewood black lacquer and gold-painted shelves. Don’t put too many, too many people feel that our lucky cats and beckoning cats are all It’s quite a large amount. Then you ask Brother Zhou to take the money and find that folk kiln, and burn another [-] lucky cats like the one before, and the lucky cat drawn on the paper in your hand is also burned. Five hundred came. But there is no need to fill the shelves with beckoning cats and beckoning cats, and also put some other decorations, so that people can look at them and feel that they are high-end at first glance."

Bai Wei listened carefully, and finally asked: "Miss, do you mean that when a customer enters our shop, you don't teach him to see many beckoning cats and beckoning cats at a glance? Otherwise, we think these things are too If there are too many, the price will naturally not be able to sell?"

Jian Yan nodded approvingly: "Yes. That's it. Let me tell Brother Zhou again, there is a big red mat under every lucky cat and lucky cat. Lucky cats are mostly white. With red color, when someone enters our shop and sees it, they will feel good about it.”

Bai Wei carefully wrote down these words one by one, and then asked: "Girl, how much money will we sell for this lucky cat like ours?"

That's the most important thing, isn't it?

There was a smile on Jian Yan's face, and there was a small smile in her eyes.

"50 taels." She said slowly, with a very firm tone.

After hearing her answer, Bai Wei couldn't help being surprised.

It is necessary to know that the annual expenses of a small family are only a dozen taels of silver, but such a lucky cat and lucky cat are sold for 50 taels of silver. It takes two or three years to buy such a lucky cat, or a lucky cat?
Bai Wei said this, and said: "Girl, how much is the porcelain fired by Ding Kiln and Ru Kiln? What's more, our Lucky Cat and Lucky Cat are only made by folk kilns. That's all. How many small families are willing to spend such a large amount of money to buy a cat like this? The girl must have set a lower price."

Jian Yan took the teacup and was drinking tea with her head down.Hearing this, she raised her head and smiled and said, "I didn't plan to sell these beckoning cats and beckoning cats to small families. It was just something for fun. How much silver can a small family save in a year? So what? Will you take it out and buy this thing that is not suitable for eating or drinking? Go back and look at it? No matter how low I set the price, I am afraid that there will not be many small families to buy it. But then the big families will not buy it. It's the same. They don't lack money in their hands. Looking at the lucky cat, the lucky cat is a rare item. Rare things are more expensive, and they have a good fortune. Why don't they buy them? Our shop is decorated elegantly They came in and took a look, they only thought our lucky cat and lucky cat were some good things, and they recruited two talking jobs, and they flattered him desperately, maybe when the time comes he My brain got hot, not only did I buy one for myself, but I also bought a few more to distribute to relatives and friends. Even if this lucky cat is only fired in a folk kiln, what does it matter? Who cares about that?"

After a pause, she smiled again: "Aren't we just starting now? We just want to find people from Ding Kiln and Ru Kiln to help us make Lucky Cats and Lucky Cats. I'm afraid they may not agree. Wait. If our business grows bigger and we find someone to cooperate with, they will agree. When the quality of our Lucky Cat improves, the price will naturally go up."

Bai Wei was skeptical, but she was always convinced by Jian Yan's words, so she didn't say anything more at the moment, but just told Zhou Lin these words as she said, and gave Zhou Lin the piece of paper with the lucky cat drawn on it.

Zhou Lin is a very efficient person.Immediately, he got up and went to look at the shop in the capital, and invited craftsmen to decorate and make shelves as Jian Yan said.In short, it must be to make people feel that the shop is extremely high-end, grand, and high-grade at the first sight when they enter the shop. Some things are not bad, but it is full of elegance and simplicity.On the one hand, they searched for the folk kiln from last time, and asked them to burn another [-] lucky cats and [-] lucky cats each.Both sides are rushing to work, and soon everything will be ready.So I found an auspicious day, and officially opened the door to do business.

On the day when the door was opened, according to Jian Yan's instructions, he specially invited two lion dance teams to come, set off firecrackers, and made a great noise.According to what Zhou Lin told Bai Wei and Jian Yan later, on the day they officially opened for business, people from a street were attracted by the loud noise and came to see it, and only the front of the door was crowded, which was extremely lively. .And at that time, many people went to the shop to see it.Although those people were stunned when they heard the prices of Lucky Cats and Lucky Cats at that time, and they didn't sell a few of them in a day, but since the next day, many people came to ask, and compared with the previous day I sold a few more every day.Gradually, more and more are sold every day.So Zhou Linyin asked again, the number of beckoning cats and beckoning cats burned last time was not enough to sell, and asked if he should burn more beckoning cats and beckoning cats at once?
After hearing this, Jian Yan asked him to burn two hundred Lucky Cats and two hundred Lucky Cats each.Zhou Lin said that these are probably too few, and they may be sold out if they are sold for a while, so it is better to burn more at a time, wouldn't it be better?But Jian Yan listened, smiled and said nothing, thinking in her heart, if these four hundred lucky cats and beckoning cats can be sold out, it would be pretty good, how can I burn more of these?By that time, I am afraid that all of them will be stored in the warehouse and cannot be sold.

At the same time, she ordered Bai Wei to hand over to Zhou Lin the newly drawn patterns of Lucky Cats and Lucky Cats, and asked him to burn [-] of them each.He also carefully drew a black lacquer and gold box with a cluster of wild orchids painted on it, and asked Zhou Lin to hire someone to make more boxes like this according to the pattern drawn on the paper.Then he asked him to engrave a seal with the words Shijinge on it, saying that in the future, whenever someone bought a beckoning cat or beckoning cat in their Shijinge, they would put it in the box together with the big red mat , and then put the seal of their Shi Jing Ge on the bottom of the box.

She wants to create a brand effect so that when people see Lucky Cat in the future, they will think of them at Shijin Pavilion.

But a few days later, as Jian Yan had expected, the beckoning cats and beckoning cats they sold earlier were all over the street.

It turns out that Shijing Pavilion has sprung up suddenly, and it has gained a lot of fame in just a few days.People all over the capital are saying that there is a new shop called Shijinge, which is elegant and sells rare items that have never been seen before. It is called a beckoning cat, a beckoning cat. Is it a win?So those who were waiting for businessmen rushed over and bought lucky cats to put in their shops, and those who were waiting for officials rushed over and bought lucky cats for their homes.And because of the reputation and the price is not cheap, some people bought this lucky cat or lucky cat as a gift to give to others, so for a while, Shijin Pavilion only made a lot of money.

And there were those smart people who came into the Shijin Pavilion to have a look, and saw that the Lucky Cat and the Lucky Cat were not too difficult to make, so they simply bought one and found a civilian. In the kiln, let hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of them be fired according to this method, and then they will follow suit and sell them.

The Lucky Cat and the Lucky Cat were originally profiteering, and these people also knew that if they were sold at the same price as in Shijinge, who would come to him to buy them?So it simply lowered the price to sell.

If there is such a first person, there will be a second person and a third person immediately, and all the streets will be filled with lucky cats, and the price will be lower than the other.

As for the Shijin Pavilion, at this time, they no longer sell the lucky cats and lucky cats in the same style as before.So all of a sudden, people flocked to Shijin Pavilion to buy new styles.And this time it is different from the past, when you buy a Lucky Cat or a Lucky Cat, the staff will carefully pack it for you, put it in a very exquisite and gorgeous box, and stamp their Shijin Pavilion seal on the bottom, Then hand it to you with a smile on your face.

In such a round of PK between Shijin Pavilion and those merchants, Shijin Pavilion will always launch new styles in time when the old style starts to rot, so everyone is used to coming to Shijin Pavilion to buy these.

Who doesn't love a new style?And it's still in such an elegantly decorated store. After picking it up, the guy will pack it carefully for you, and then hand it to you with a smile on his face. It's better than buying it from a street vendor, isn't it?So later, when everyone saw that there was a beckoning cat or a beckoning cat in the local family, they would ask more questions first, is this from Shijin Pavilion?

Since then, Jian Yan's money has snowballed, how could she be unhappy?So yesterday she made this shuttlecock very leisurely and elegantly, thinking that kicking it in the yard when she was free was also meant to exercise her body.But today Xu Miaoning invited her to play in Xikuayuan, so she simply brought the shuttlecock over to play with Xu Miaoning.

When Jian Yan was young in her previous life, she also played shuttlecock with her children, and she developed a flexible kicking technique.Although I haven't played it in these years and it's a little rusty, but after playing for a while, I gradually become proficient.On the other hand, Xu Miaoning, because she is a girl from a wealthy family, has been paid attention to a lot since she was a child, and she is required to smile without showing her teeth, and whether she can put on a skirt, but she is not very good at kicking, so she can only look at Jian Yan enviously Kick the shuttlecock out of various tricks.

Jian Yan hadn't been this happy for a long time.When I'm happy, I can't help thinking about it, so I played solo for a while
Yan, for a while, kicked a mandarin duck again, and finally became more interested, and simply kicked a double flying swallow, a double mandarin duck.

It's just that extreme joy begets sorrow, when she kicked round and round, she suddenly saw people standing by the screen door, and when she took a closer look, one of them was Xu Miaojin, and the other was Xu Zhongxuan, both stood there watching her kick the shuttlecock.

The surprise in Jian Yan's heart was no small matter, how could she care about kicking the shuttlecock for a while?He hurriedly grabbed the falling shuttlecock and handed it to Bai Wei who was standing beside him.

Xu Miaoning didn't see Xu Miaojin and Xu Zhongxuan, she saw that Jian Yan stopped kicking, and asked very strangely: "Cousin, why don't you stop kicking?"

Jian Yan thought to herself, why didn't a servant girl inform Xu Zhongxuan when he came in?And why is the screen door of the west courtyard not closed?Most importantly, why did Xu Zhongxuan come here?

But all the doubts in his heart could only be temporarily suppressed, because Xu Zhongxuan already had a faint smile on his brows and eyes, and walked over with Xu Miaojin.

Jian Yan just kicked the shuttlecock for a long time, her breath was naturally a little unstable, and her face was red, but she still tried her best to calm down her breath, lowered her eyebrows, looked at Xu Zhongxuanfu like a lady. Liao Fu's body, he called out in a soft voice: "Elder Young Master."

Xu Zhongxuan saw that there was a little pink on her fair cheeks, like a crabapple flower that just bloomed on a branch, she looked a little more soft and vivid than before, so he couldn't help feeling a little dizzy.

He hurriedly lowered his eyes, took two deep breaths, and suppressed the sudden thoughts in his heart.After a while, he just raised his eyes, but with a serious face, he said to Jian Yan solemnly: "You have sweat on your forehead and the tip of your nose, wipe it off quickly."

Jane Yan: ...

Xu Shilang, can you not care about the sweat on my forehead and the tip of my nose?You have said that, how can I maintain a dignified and elegant appearance in front of you in the future.

(End of this chapter)