On the second day of autumn harvest festival, Jiang Zhou got up very early. He thought Wen Yan wouldn’t go to Sanshu Alley at this time, so he went to the market first to sell his things.

Before he prepared his cakes on the table, some customers already lined up in front of his stall waiting for him to open it. Jiang Zhou was embarrassed to let them wait for so long, he speeded up.

When he was done and about to sell the things, the queue was disrupted. Two servants he had seen before, pushed the crowd and squeezed in; they kept shouting that they brought all the cakes from Jiang Zhou.

Most of the people in the town were simple and honest. They never did anything bad and liked to live well, they were very shocked to see domineering behaviors.

Jiang Zhou raised his eyebrows at them.

The two servants pushed away the crowd and glanced around the table. They felt happy that the task was completed easily this time. The next, they looked up at the seller and the smiles on their faces wiped away, the two of them called out in a strained voice,

“You… why are you here?”

Jiang Zhou smiled at them, “If you want to buy something, you must queue up from the back.”

One of the servants wanted to refuse him but was stopped by the other, “Don’t be stupid. What should we so if he didn’t sell it to us? The young master was clamoring to eat these cakes. If we can’t buy it back, we will get scolded!”

The man thought about it and felt he was right, so he turned around to queue up in despair.

Jiang Zhou clapped his hands when he saw the people were calming down, “The number of cakes I bring today is limited. Each person could only buy five wens!”

There were many people who came for Jiang Zhou’s cakes and the queue was moving up quickly.

The two servants stood on their tiptoes and watched for a long time. They saw the cakes were getting less and less, they became anxious, they yelled from the back, “Save some! Save some for us!”

However, no matter how they shouted, the cakes continued to decrease. When it was their turns, there was only one cake left on the table and another person was waiting in front of them.

It was a scholar wearing old washed white clothes, he stood there hesitated in front the table.

Jiang Zhou treated everyone equally, “This is mung bean cake. The only one left, do you want it?”

Just as the scholar about to speak, the two servants grabbed him; one on the left and one on the right. They turned the scholar towards them, “Give us this cake. We will pay you twice, okay?”

The scholar hesitates. The servants looked at each other and said again, “Thrice the price. No more.”

“Deal!” the scholar immediately agreed.

Jiang Zhou didn’t say anything, he wrapped the cake and handed it to them.

The two servants carried it away and almost ran into Lu Dalang who came to take a look.

Lu Dalang glanced at them carefully and walked to Jiang Zhou, “I think those two people look familiar.”

“They are the servants from newly rich family. I met the young master yesterday.”

Lu Dalang wondered, “Hmm… I haven’t heard about it.”

Jiang Zhou shook his head and said he didn’t know.

Lu Dalang put the matter aside and said to him, “I have considered what you told me last night, it seemed feasible. I went to see the tea house owner and he said to talk there.”

What Lu Dalang talking about was the matter about the bleak scene in the tea house yesterday. Jiang Zhou knew that there weren’t many people who like tea in the house.

And this tea house was a money losing business. He heard the tea house had been opened for many years and was half-dead. The owner was considering to give up the place but this business was passed down from his ancestor to the generation of his father and grandfather. It could even be traced to the war period.

If he wanted to give up, he couldn’t bear to part with it. So, the owner had been procrastinated about it until now.

The two were walking and talking until they arrived in the tea house. This tea house was called Fengtai House, the boss right now wasn’t named Fengtai but a man surnamed Lu. It was Lu Dexing.

Lu Dexing had been waiting at the door, the tea house wasn’t open today and the door were left half-open waiting for them.

Lu Dexing led the two around the tea house and recounting his suffering all these times.

In fact, Lu Dexing had given up at and planned to find an opportunity to sell this tea house but he couldn’t find a suitable candidate. He postponed until now, but he heard from Lu Dalang that his place could be saved, so he wanted to give it a try.

He thought it was another desperate struggle, if it didn’t work out then he would sell this place.

Jiang Zhou followed the man and looked around the place. Last time, he only saw the general layout, now he wanted to see it better.

It was obvious that this place was once a glorious tea house. It had two floors, there was a lobby downstairs with a counter for the shopkeeper. There was a small door which led to the backyard.

Jiang Zhou opened it and took a look; inside was a room with more than a dozen drawers contained tea. There was an open space for tea leaves to dry and a very deep well.

The handrail of the stairs led to private rooms on the second floors. Each room were made from the past and had been damaged a lot since then. The paint was mottled and revealed the original color of the wood inside.

The scenery inside the private room was quite good. When you looked out from the window sill, you could see the river and villages around the bank. If you look down the street, there was lively crowd of people moving here and there. There was a market not faraway which was full of people and vendors.

Lu Dexing was very anxious, he saw that Jiang Zhou didn’t say anything. He asked with worried tone, “Lu Dalang told me that you have a way to bring my tea house back to life. Is it true?”

Jiang Zhou didn’t bother with him and said directly, “I have a way.”

Lu Dexing was overjoyed, “As long as it can be back. No matter what the conditions, I will gladly do it for you!”

He saw the confident look on Jiang Zhou’s face, he looked at the shabby place of his tea house and gritted his teeth, “I will follow whatever you said. If my tea house income could be doubled, I will share 20% profit, wait, 30% with you!”

He gestured with three fingers to Jiang Zhou, his eyes were shining bright as if he had found a last hope. Anyway, no matter how bad it could be, the least he would suffer was bankruptcy which weren’t far from his state right now.

The worst, he would just gamble it for now. Even if he lost money, it didn’t matter. Business was about profit and loss. He heard about Jiang Zhou last year but he didn’t care much about it.

Anyway, there was Lu Dalang as a guarantee. He had nothing to worry or lose.

Jiang Zhou and Lu Dalang looked at each other and without hesitation, they laid down their plans.

“The reason why your tea house can’t make profit is because your customer target is wrong. People in our town like to drink tea. But why do they go to small tea stalls? Their tea is the crudest and didn’t taste good but it was cheap for common people. Your tea here is finer and processed well, hence the price isn’t cheap. But your tea house building is too simple and the snacks are little cheap things. Now, these combinations aren’t good and the profit from small snacks are too little. The expensive tea and simple snacks aren’t suitable.”

How could Lu Dexing didn’t know it? But he was unable to make other choice.

Jiang Zhou smiled at him, “Since you can’t make choice. Why don’t we change our mind and find other ways to satisfy both of us?”

“How to do it?”

Jiang Zhou said closely to his ear, “You do this… and then…”

Lu Dexing listened and clapped his hands fiercely, “Okay, okay. Let’s treat it as my last chance. I will give it a try!”