If you aren’t reading on lazysakuratranslations.com then these translations were stolen!
The man in red looked up at Niu Dong. His smile was full of understanding. His huge earlobes represented his rich figure. The man smiled and said, “You mean this? It’s watermelon. I got it at Lin’s Restaurant. It’s not far from here, in the corner over there. You can find it by asking someone. It’s even better to help cool off than herbal tea!”
“Really? Thank you for telling me.” Niu Dong was overjoyed. He saw the two of them eating watermelon. He was already excited about it. His heart was beating fast. He longed to taste a piece for himself. After approaching these two people, he felt the coldness of the melon skin and was amazed. How could there be such a magical thing in this small county town?
After asking a few more people, Niu Dong finally found Lin’s Restaurant those two men were talking about. It was a small shop. The tables and chairs were already full of people. In this weather, everyone was clustered together, but it didn’t feel hot. It was really amazing.
Just like everyone else, Niu Dong asked for a piece of watermelon and some snacks. Lin Lixuan used a knife to separate the melon skin and flesh for him. Niu Dong saw this. He remembered the two men from before and anxiously said, “I want the skin too.”
Lin Lixuan was surprised. He wanted the skin too? Even though he was surprised, he respected the customer’s wishes and cut the flesh for him. The crescent-shaped melon skin was placed on a smooth porcelain plate.
Niu Dong picked up the bamboo sticks from the bamboo tube on the table. Just like everyone else, he inserted a piece of delicious watermelon and put it in his mouth. It was very sweet and thirst-quenching. The heat of his body was instantly cooled by the food in his mouth.
His movements were very elegant at first, but then he started gobbling up the food. After eating this piece, he felt like it wasn’t enough and told the boss he wanted another piece. He said he didn’t need to cut it up. He held the large watermelon piece with both hands and nibbled it directly. It was very enjoyable.
He didn’t expect that there would be such a wonderful thing to relieve the heat in such a small county town. He looked at the boss, who was at the counter. In the reddish-brown wooden bar, big red pieces of watermelon were neatly placed inside. Watermelon in the shape of a crescent moon had a trace of cool air around them.
Underneath that, a thick quilt was spread out. Niu Dong guessed there was ice underneath the quilt. He didn’t know where this boss came from for him to have so much ice. He asked the boss, but the boss just smiled and didn’t answer.
After eating the watermelon, Niu Dong snacked on the melon seeds and joined the chatting All Water County residents inside the store.
They were talking about a book.
“Boss Niu, where are you from?”
“Beishan.”
“That’s a long way from here.”
“Yes, yes. It’s been a tough journey. It’s not as hot there as it is here.”
“Yes, yes. It’s too hot. Come, have a cup of herbal tea.”
“There’s a book you can flip through when you’re bored.”
Lin Lixuan was smart. He saw there were many businessmen who liked reading this book to relieve boredom, so he bought many copies of The Diaries of Scholar Yongyi from the bookstore and directly sold them at the store.
In the past few days, because of the hot weather, there were a lot of merchants who came to the store to buy watermelons. When they came to buy the watermelons, he would try to sell a book as well. Lin Lixuan would sell them—buy one get one free.
They didn’t need to thank him too much.
Lin Lixuan tore the book in half. He made the first half pretty, and placed it in the store so that the merchants could read it when they wanted. He didn’t force anyone to buy it. If they liked it, they could buy a copy to take him.
Generally, most of the people who read the book bought it. People who did business didn’t lack this money. The book was really interesting, and it could relieve their boredom and make them happy.
Those who didn’t were mostly illiterate. What Lin Lixuan found interesting was that some illiterate people still bought them, probably out of herd mentality. Lin Lixuan accepted their money and sighed in his heart. There were millions of people in this world, so there really were all kinds of people out there. There were every single type of person.
Niu Dong took the book. He was literate. He studied for a few years as a child. When he grew up, he became a bookkeeper, and later, he went into business. Although he didn’t need to read for his work, he could still recognize most of the words. To tell the truth, Niu Dong didn’t like reading when he was a child. He wouldn’t have chosen to be a businessman. Since he could read, he should have worked hard to take the imperial examination. But he didn’t have the patience to study the Four Classics and Six Arts.
For Niu Dong, reading was torturous.
The cover of the book was exquisite. It was wrapped in an unknown silk cloth and embroidered with a beautiful pattern. Niu Dong took a closer look. It turned out to not be a pattern but a kind of…drawing?
It wasn’t those ordinary drawings of landscape paintings. It was a drawing of a figure, but it was different from the ones he usually saw. This drawing, he couldn’t describe it, but it was strange and looked good. There was a scholar wearing a hat and holding a large jar that was bigger than anything he’d seen before.The scholar’s face had a bright smile. Niu Dong was curious about what he was smiling about. When he saw this smile, he couldn’t help smiling too.
Since he was bored, Niu Dong turned to the title page. There was a delicate sentence that said: Please don’t read while drinking or eating. Niu Dong was curious as he looked at The Diaries of Scholar Yongyi.
He was very curious, so he threw himself into it. The content was so funny that he couldn’t close his mouth. He laughed so much his stomach turned over. Adding on the fact that he’d eaten two watermelon pieces earlier, Niu Dong felt very uncomfortable. His laughter hammered inside his stomach. Although it was very uncomfortable, he couldn’t stop laughing. It was too funny.
“Hahahahahaha.” He made a series of noises. He couldn’t stop even if he wanted to.
“Hic.” Niu Dong burped, then looked shocked. His legs cramped. His face looked miserable. He panicked for a while before returning to look calm. He turned his head and asked the boss, “Excuse me, where is your bathroom?”
“Oh, over there.” Lin Lixuan quietly saw through the turbulent waves under his calm appearance. The boss had told many people that watermelon was full of water, so when you had too much, you shouldn’t laugh too much or else the consequences would be disastrous.
After Niu Dong returned, he not only bought the book he was reading earlier, he bought 30 copies. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to buy more, but Lin Lixuan’s store didn’t have any more.
“Wait, you can take the book, but you have to leave the cover.”
“…Oh. Boss, you don’t sell the book cover too?”
Lin Lixuan gave him a shy smile and said, “It’s not that I don’t sell it…but this one was embroidered by my husband.”
“…” The love between these two husbands really was good at winning affection.
But Niu Dong still couldn’t give it up. He liked the book cover very much, so he wanted it. He spoke again, “Boss, I really like this book. Look, I bought 30 copies, so can you sell me the cover as well…”
A trance of embarrassment and worry flashed on Lin Lixuan’s face. He frowned and said, “Dage, since you came from afar, and seeing how sincere you are, it’s not that I don’t want to give it to you…but this cover was hand-embroidered by my husband…”
Don’t worry, I’ll give you a good price for it,” Niu Dong stated.
Lin Lixuan calculated it. It was good. He sold another copy and this hand-embroidered book cover. It was hard to open a new channel of business, but they could embroider another one.
He opened the market for the two Shuang’ers.
Niu Dong, who was full of food and drinks, returned to the inn with a large sum of books and a free Snow skin mooncake Lin Lixuan gave him.
Characters like Niu Dong appeared in Lin’s Restaurant every so often. Lin’s Restaurant hurriedly asked people of Songyun Bookstore to work overtime to make books. He also asked the two people in the family to work overtime to make book covers.
An entire hot summer passed. The watermelon growth period wasn’t long. Once they picked one, a new one grew. The five mu of watermelon fields produced big watermelons one after another. Waiting for the scorching sun in the sky to calm down, Lin Lixuan’s watermelons sold out. In the end, the price of watermelons dropped. Even so, just from selling watermelons, he’d earned back the capital from buying fruit tree seedlings in the spring.
Everyone in Jade Creek Village, as well as the County Magistrate of All Water County, the Official Register, and the Shuishen and Huoda brothers were stunned by Lin Lixuan’s melon planting deeds. They didn’t expect the fruit planted by this scholar could earn this much money…Some villagers who saw this commotion secretly thought:Next year, I’ll grow watermelons like him.
Lin Lixuan’s purse was getting bigger and bigger. There was more and more silver in it. He estimated that it was enough money for a new house. But the autumn harvest was about to come. It wasn’t good to ask someone to build a house right now, so they would have to wait for the autumn harvest to pass before they could build their house. Their current house wasn’t big enough to live in.
Up till now, Zhao Liniang almost didn’t dare about the silver her son earned. She and Old Lady Ge have earned a lot of money too from raising chickens. They never could have imagined this before. She was now indulging in her own chicken raising business, completely ignoring her son’s wallet.
Everyone in the Lin family had their own way of earning money. Ger Yu relied on selling lanterns, bamboo umbrellas, handmade puppets, and hand-embroidered book covers…Gradually, his small pocket money had accumulated to 12 silver taels. The little Ger Yu snuggled up to his own brother with a bright smile. He had a beautiful thought. There were still 23 taels of silver before he could redeem himself. How great!
Perhaps he’d be able to buy his deed of sale next year.
Every time he mentioned the matter of earning 35 taels of silver, his brother-in-law would joke, “Our Ger Yu is saving a dowry for himself.”
Although Ger Yu didn’t plan on getting married, this dowry or whatever, he still had to save some just like his brother had told him.
