Flowers in full bloom

After learning about the contract in Hua Lei's hand, Gui Jijiu once again looked at Hua Lei with admiration, especially after he gave her the exclusive sales rights for the engraved plates used for the imperial examinations in Dongcheng District. Not only did she hold on to it tightly, but she also went a step further and controlled the supply of engraved plates used for the imperial examinations in several other urban areas and private schools in the suburbs. He was even more surprised.

Now the first edition of the imperial examination books has just been published, targeting the level of Juren, and the contract effect in Hualei's hands may not appear yet. When the lowest level of the imperial examination books are printed, Hualei's contract effect in the private school will be prominent.

It is estimated that 70% to 80% of the sales volume will be in Hualei's hands, and the special sales points in the other three districts will probably be vacant. Gui Jijiu couldn't help but be shocked. Although the profit of the imperial examination bookstore was small, the volume was huge. He really didn't make a mistake. This girl is a bad person.

By then, even if the authorized sales points in other urban areas make a fuss, they will have no place to make a fuss. The government finds authorized sales points in each urban area to make it convenient for private schools and academies in each urban area to purchase the books on their own. As long as the contents of the imperial examination books are guaranteed to be authentic, there is no regulation on which bookstore to buy them. Even if you are a private school in Xicheng District, as long as the dean of the private school agrees, you can buy it at Huaji Bookstore in Dongcheng District.

Gui Jijiu couldn't help but worry about the bookstores in other districts. At the same time, he was secretly glad that this little girl's hands were not yet in the official school field, otherwise he might not be a match for her.

Thinking of this, he could not help but recall that he had gained a lot of face in front of the emperor since he proposed the idea of ​​using bookshops to engrave the imperial examination papers. Although he still stayed in his old position, last month his eldest son, Gui Yuanwen, who had originally worked in the Sinong Temple, was transferred from the seventh-rank Sinong Temple Secretary to the sixth-rank History Museum Editor in the Hanlin Academy.

Not only was he promoted two levels, but he also went from being a marginal person recording the feed of the Gyeonggi Province Animal Husbandry Supervisor to entering the Hanlin Academy, where everyone wants to enter. This made his son, who had always been depressed, feel refreshed. He also breathed a sigh of relief in his heart. It is not easy to get promoted in Shangjing City now. This is also an indirect benefit of Hualei.

Gui Jijiu's mind was slightly moved. His eldest grandson Gui Jingtian was already seventeen years old. His old wife and eldest daughter-in-law were looking for a girl recently. Hualei's age was suitable, but there was still a three-year mourning period. During this period, marriage was not allowed. However, after three years, Jingtian would be a little too old. If it didn't work out, it would delay his grandson. Gui Jijiu's mind was turning around, but Hualei was now focused on his own shop.

The peaches should be ready to be picked in half a month. The shop only has one month's worth of goods to sell. What to sell next? Hualei wanted to go to the farm to see if there were any new discoveries. The day before the holiday, after the girls' school was dismissed at noon, Hualei reported to Mrs. Pei and asked Uncle Fu to take her to Baihua Farm again.

When Hua Lei goes out to do her own things, she never brings Qingying and Qinglian with her. Although Madam Pei has told her more than once to take them with her when she goes out, on the one hand, Hua Lei is relatively independent and does not need the help of maids for dressing or eating. On the other hand, Qingying and Qinglian receive the monthly salary from the Marquis' Mansion after all, so Hua Lei is embarrassed to ask them to go out of the mansion to handle her private affairs, otherwise it would get to other rooms in the Marquis' Mansion and Hua Lei is afraid of gossip.

Moreover, several maids in Qihuayuan will help to repair the books, and Hualei has brought almost all the books to be repaired here, so they are basically busy. Of course, every month Hualei will give them some change based on the actual progress of the book repairs.

In the village, dozens of villagers from nearby villages were still busy helping out. Uncle Zhao led a dozen men to pick and transport peaches, while Aunt Zhao led the women to make peach syrup. They were all very busy. Brother Kong was helping to write production dates and statistics in the warehouse.

She carefully checked every part of the buds and found nothing wrong. Seeing that everyone was busy, she waved to a few kids on the farm to accompany her for a walk. The late rice in the rice fields had turned golden yellow in patches, and the rice ears were bent with maturity. It was estimated that it would be harvested on a large scale in four or five days.

Because all the land had been rented out, only Uncle Zheng and Brother Xiao Kong would be needed to look after it. Hualei didn't need to hire anyone or worry too much. So Hualei went around to the hillside behind, not far to the southeast, where a picking team led by Uncle Zhao was still working.

Hualei changed direction and walked to the northwest of the hillside, because the entire hillside of more than 30 acres was like a long sweet potato, lying horizontally in the southeast and northwest directions. The fruit trees were planted slowly from the southeast slope to the northwest slope. There were probably more than 20 acres of fruit trees planted. Now the slope in the northwest direction was much steeper than the slope in the southeast. Hualei was standing on the top of the relatively high slope and looked down. There were less than 10 acres of land, and more than half of them were planted with peppers. When I first bought them, the peppers were less than the size of a little finger, but now they are almost the length of an adult's palm, still green and hanging there one by one.

A breeze blew, and the pepper swayed slightly. Hualei bent down, pinched one off, and put it to the tip of her nose to smell it. The juice dripping from the pinched part made Hualei sneeze several times. So spicy? Hualei moved the pepper away and wiped her nose.

A thought suddenly occurred to me: we probably can’t eat all these peppers at home, and if we take them to the market to sell them retail, we might not be able to sell them all at once. So can we make them into chili sauce and sell it?

Hualei ran a steamed buns shop. When she was eating wontons, she looked for chili sauce but couldn't find it. She asked Aunt Song to look for it at the market but couldn't find it either. It can be seen that there are chili peppers now, but there are no derivative products of chili peppers.

If we make chili sauce at home, there should be a market. We asked a few little kids to pick some big chili peppers. Children nowadays really grow up early. Hualei didn't say anything when she waved to them to follow. But almost every child had some with sickles and baskets. When Hualei said that, several children immediately went into the chili field and carefully picked big chili peppers. After a while, they picked several large baskets.

Then they found a few wooden sticks nearby and carried several baskets of peppers back to the village in pairs. Hualei didn't need to do anything. When they got back to the village, the villagers who helped had already gone home. Aunt Zheng was finishing up. Aunt Zhao saw that Hualei had picked peppers and came back. She thought Hualei wanted to eat fried pork with peppers, so she took some peppers, washed them, and went to the kitchen.