He thought about Wen Yan and wanted to make money quickly, at least he needed to redeem his old house first. This place where he lived was too shabby and he couldn’t bear to ask Wen Yan and their baby to suffer here with him.
Fortunately, the sponge cake business was smooth. Lu Dalang would come with the eggs every day and took back the sponge cake from him to sell according to their agreement. The rest of his production was handover to Uncle Yu so he could sell them on the boat.
As time went by, everyone around him knew that Jiang Zhou had recovered his broken head and started a business. The sponge cake was soft and delicious, it also tasted great. The price wasn’t expensive so many people would buy it.
Villagers from Xiaohe Village would come directly into Jiang Zhou’s house to buy instead of waiting in Uncle Yu’s boat. Among them was the kind-hearted Aunt Lu, she was happy when she visited Jiang Zhou. She wanted to share the good news.
“The autumn harvest festival will be held in a while. There will be a market in the town, don’t you want to take this sponge cake there? You could make a small stall.”
The autumn harvest festival was about the great harvest. During these few days, there would be a market in the town and everyone would visit it. This market was very lively with various stalls and vendors, it was also a good time to make money.
Even ordinary farmers would take out some things to sell. In the past, many people sold household supplies using barter system.
Aunt Lu saw that he was woke up and his business also good. She reminded him to seize this opportunity, he could make a lot of money during the festival.
Jiang Zhou naturally knew about it and had already made his own plans. But he still felt grateful for Aunt Lu, he remembered her help when he just woke up the first time. He ended up gave her two sponge cakes.
When Jiang Zhou was done making the sponge cake batch. He started to prepare things for the autumn harvest festival.
Just a sponge cake wouldn’t be enough. He wouldn’t make much money from one product. Now that his reputation had established as a good cook, he wanted to make more delicious food.
In order to upgrade the quantity for his sponge cake, Jiang Zhou asked a carpenter to make another steamer. It was the largest one the carpenter had ever made in his life; Jiang Zhou also asked him to add several layers. This steamer would be used for the festival.
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The autumn harvest festival soon arrived. Jiang Zhou borrowed an ox cart from Uncle Zhang in advance and moved his things to the market place.
The people around him didn’t recognize him, they had never met this man. Jiang Zhou said hello to them and set up his stove.
He put water on the big pot and covered it with a steamer. In front of it, Jiang Zhou set up two long tables. One side was to put his products and the other was for the stove.
When it was finally dawn, the market became lively.
If you could see the river, there were many boats came with countless people gathered together. They all went to the market and dispersed to each stall they were interested.
Jiang Zhou used his strength to open the huge steamer when he saw the crowds passing by. In an instant, the fragrant came out with the overwhelming sweet smells of sponge cake. It was spread all around the street.
Some people who already tasted Jiang Zhou’s sponge cake felt hungry when they remembered the sweet taste. They felt very familiar with the smells and brough their families who hadn’t try it yet.
There were some people who didn’t know about sponge cake but interested to try. This festival held for a whole day and they went out early with little breakfast, if they wanted to eat in the restaurant. There might be no seat left or the price would go up at this certain event. They thought this food smells great, might as well tried them first.
The man who finally made up his mind, approached Jiang Zhou’s stall.
Everyone always interested to see a crowd. If something had gathered many people, they would be noisy enough to join the fun. So, after a while, there were a crowd gathered around Jiang Zhou’s stall. They were all asking question about Jiang Zhou.
Those who had eaten the sponge cake told them, “Boss, is this the same sponge cake from Jiang Da’ family? How much is one piece?”
“Hey, who is this Jiang Da? What is sponge cake?” some people weren’t familiar with the name.
Other people pointed at the things on the table and asked one by one, “What is this? Can it be eaten too?”
“Yes, I made this cake. I’m Jiang Da. This cake is three wens a piece, the price won’t increase.” Jiang Zhou answered patiently with a smile.
Jiang Zhou showed off other things he had been prepared, such as rice cakes dyed with vegetables juice. There was green, red, orange and yellow. They were cut into smaller pieces and arranged into a flower shape which looked beautiful and children always loved colorful things.
There was a steamed pumpkin, the small pumpkins were bought from the villagers. He cut the stem and peeled it off before he cleaned up the seed inside. Then he stuffed diced bamboo shoots and mushrooms into the pumpkin. There was a layer of potato puree in the bottom.
Jiang Zhou had long expected today’s business would bloom greatly. People wouldn’t buy food that could satiated their hunger, instead they would fill their stomach with various snacks. So, he didn’t make anything big but chose small shapes snacks.
In addition, he prepared sushi according to the traveler’s memory. He fried the meat, added shrimp and cucumber slices. It wasn’t as delicate like the real sushi but it was good and unique dish in here.
There were so many things on his stall, all of them were novel things which attracted a lot of people. He had to pass the bowl around to collect the money. Jiang Zhou didn’t even had time to eat lunch, he was really too busy. He stuffed two rice cakes inside his mouth to satisfy his hunger.
He was so busy; he didn’t even see Wen Yan who wasn’t far away from him. Wen Yan stood there holding a small baby and looked at him for a while. He seemed to think of something then turned around and left.
This market place would go on for several days. Jiang Zhou planned to come every day and put up his stalls. He had a good idea to set up stall first then he would try to have fixed location and maybe he could open a shop in near time.
He thought happily and his movements were much faster.
He was diligent and willing to endure hardships. When it was almost evening; he made a rough calculation about his earning, it seemed that he made around two taels for today.
Everything on the stall was almost sold out, there was a lantern festival at night so he didn’t plan to continue his business. He cleaned up the stall and planned to shop a little bit.
As soon as he turned around the corner and about to cross the alley. He saw Wen Yan held a child and was being blocked not far in the alley.
The man who blocked looked at Wen Yan arrogantly and teased Wen Yan with a bad smile, “Hey… why are here all alone?”