Several people helped release the fish and shrimp from the bucket, and the shop manager, Lu Xinran, somewhat reservedly invited them inside for tea and snacks.
The guesthouse focuses on meditation, so it doesn't have a chef. Guests who come for meditation will have to try to pick their own vegetables and cook their own meals; this is Tang Xinlan's rule.
You've already gone into seclusion, are you still going to bring your driver and cook with you? You might as well stay at home!
However, considering that some of the big shots' cooking skills are questionable, when they hire people, they usually require two employees to be able to cook some simple home-style dishes. Right now, both employees are cooking in the kitchen. Seeing Lu Xinran's social anxiety flaring up, Jiang Xiaoman smiled and quickly called out to her—
"Xinran, you go ahead and do your thing. We'll just go upstairs for a bit and then come down."
"By the way, can we go into the guest rooms?"
"Yes, we can. The guests haven't arrived yet, and the guest rooms are all empty. Mr. Tang said that everyone should eat and drink well today. Don't worry if you drink too much, there are enough guest rooms upstairs for people to sleep in."
This is also a local custom when opening guesthouses or hotels. Before opening, they invite many relatives and friends with strong yang energy to come and visit, preferably to stay at the house for a couple of days to suppress the yin energy of the old house and its land. It would be even better if they could scare away some "good friends" (ghosts).
The two piglets and a brood of chicks that Jiang Xiaoman brought were also placed in the backyard.
The backyard of the Zen retreat homestay is different from the backyards of local families. Locals usually turn their backyards into vegetable gardens, but here the entire backyard is incorporated into the foundation according to the mountain slope, and then a paved area is built on top. In the middle of the paved area, there is a skylight made of transparent tempered glass.
Several open-air thatched huts were built on the ground floor, where people could brew tea, play chess, or meditate. The huts were surrounded by flowerpots made of carbonized wood, where fruits and vegetables were planted, creating a unique and charming atmosphere.
The underground section also holds a secret. The designer, taking into account the living needs of the mountain people, created several handicraft workshops here, including tofu grinding, woodworking, straw sandal and hat weaving, and even a complete set of papermaking tools!
Outside the workshop is a public activity space. When it's hot outside in the summer, you can move things like chessboards and tea tables here, and the breeze will make it cool and comfortable!
Jiang Xiaoman was extremely annoyed after seeing this.
If I had known, he would have built the house according to the style of a bed and breakfast. His father is afraid of the heat. If there were a cool and ventilated open space like this in the summer, his father wouldn't be afraid of getting sunburned when he works inside.
What's even more enviable is that the designer also took advantage of the mountain's terrain and built two flood diversion ditches with cement to bring down the spring water from the mountain.
On both sides of the elevated floor, artificial hills were used to create a pool, with babbling spring water, which is both beautiful and practical.
Most importantly, the water in the mountains now has a direction to flow, so it won't run around aimlessly during heavy rains, washing away soil and causing landslides.
Going up to the second floor, unlike the locals who want to enclose every inch of space in their rooms, there aren't many guest rooms on the second and third floors. Such a large floor only has four guest rooms!
The rest were turned into terraces or transparent sunrooms.
The large south-facing terrace on the second floor was completely opened up, and there was even a huge Tai Chi Bagua diagram made of black and white pebbles on the ground!
Without a doubt, this terrace is probably a small plaza used for practicing Tai Chi.
Upon reaching the third floor, the three south-facing rooms had separate balconies. Surprisingly, there were no flowers planted inside; instead, various fruits and vegetables, as well as small fruit trees such as Buddha's Hand, citrus, and blueberries, were grown on flower racks and in planters.
The guest rooms on the third floor are built directly against the mountainside. At the very back is the bathroom, followed by a separate walk-in closet, the master bedroom, and a tatami-style tea room. Beyond the tea room is the glass room.
"Wow~ It must have cost a lot of money to reinforce this mountain!" Villager Jiang Youtian exclaimed, looking at the mountain reinforced with layers of anchor bolts and wire mesh.
"It's better than a landslide that washes the house away." Jiang Youliang also felt that building this house was too expensive. It was because of the high cost that his family had to give up the old house site and move to this one instead.
However, Tang Xinlan never does business at a loss.
“Our boss has already ordered a batch of Dendrobium seedlings. Don’t be fooled by the fact that this mountain is all rocks; this kind of environment is quite suitable for growing Dendrobium. In a couple of years, once we’ve planted Dendrobium all over this area, we can recoup the money spent on mountain reinforcement in just a few years,” designer Xiaoman explained.
"That's great! I'll buy some dendrobium seedlings later too." Jiang Xiaoman suddenly realized.
There's also a rocky hill near their new house, where moss grows but no grass, not even pig feed. They initially thought it was a waste, but now it seems they just hadn't found the right planting direction.
After we finished our tour upstairs, lunch was already prepared.
Lu Xinran wasn't very good at entertaining guests, but luckily her fiancé Hao Shuai came along today. The Hao family was also a wealthy family, and he had the air of a young master from a prominent family in his manners.
However, it wasn't long before he was led astray by those two bad boys, Jiang Xiaoman and Jiang Yu.
Jiang Xiaoman brought two jars of monkey wine from home. Hao Shuai had never tasted this kind of wine before. He took a sip and found it sweet. He thought it was some kind of low-alcohol fruit wine and drank three large cups with someone in one go!
Jiang Youliang and several village officials cheered loudly.
Everyone thought this young man had a really good alcohol tolerance. Who didn't know that the Jiang family's homemade monkey wine had a stronger aftereffect than 52-proof sorghum liquor?
However, Hao Shuai himself was unaware of this...
Once the alcohol hit his head, Hao Shuai hugged Jiang Xiaoman next to him and started sobbing. He cried so hard!
She cried and sobbed as she mumbled something.
When will my wife finally realize this? Waaaaah~
"Damn Tang Xinlan! She's doing just fine, having two kids in three years, living the high life!"
"You sent my wife to this desolate mountain wilderness, where she spends all her time drinking tea and eating vegetarian food. I hope she won't become a nun?"
"No! I can't leave! If I leave, I'll lose my wife!"
Jiang Xiaoman was completely confused.
However, this did not stop him from taking the opportunity to trick people into joining him.
“If you don’t want to leave, then stay. Listen to me, brother. The vast countryside especially needs outstanding talents like you to lead the villagers to prosperity.”
"Listen to me! Don't ever let your marriage be separated. Xinran is so beautiful and virtuous, she's in high demand not only in your city but also in the countryside!"
"Brother, judging from your age, your parents shouldn't be that old either. You don't need to worry about things at home, so why don't you spend more time with your wife?"
"Come and develop your career in Langshan!" Jiang Xiaoman patted Hao Shuai's shoulder hard.
“That’s right! You can never earn enough money. You only eat three meals a day at most, and you sleep in one bed at night. You work hard to earn 100 million a year, but you might as well spend more time with your wife and children.” Jiang Yu added fuel to the fire.
Hearing his words, Hao Shuai was even more heartbroken.
"Waaaaah~ I don't have any kids yet!"
That's terrible!!!
Jiang Yu patted his other shoulder sympathetically.
A winner in life like him, who doesn't have to give birth himself but gets three beautiful daughters for free, can't possibly understand Hao Shuai's sadness.
So, I'm leaving it to you, Jiang Xiaoman!
Jiang Xiaoman chuckled, helped Hao Shuai up, and escorted him to his guest room upstairs.
Just kidding! At least Hao Shuai has a fiancée arranged by his family.
He doesn't even have a girlfriend, how can I persuade him?
Let's not end up not saving Hao Shuai, but instead pushing him into a pit.
He should put aside his desire to help others and respect their fate.
Chapter 182
After having a celebratory meal at Tang Xinlan's guesthouse, Jiang Xiaoman and her father went down the mountain early the next morning, carrying large bags and small packages.
Today, the tea factory is going to start digging the foundation. According to their local custom, on the day of breaking ground, they must offer sacrifices to the Earth God and the gods of the four directions.
Jiang Xiaoman didn't know who these four gods were, but since the old shaman passed away and the young shaman went down the mountain to chase stars, most of the superstitious activities of the mountain people were done by the older generation.
The older generation has its own sense of ritual.
Young people also have their own sense of ritual.
Old Man Jiang Youliang set up a ritual to worship the Earth God and the Four Directions Gods.
Jiang Xiaoman, the son, set up a gimbal and started a live broadcast to report the progress of the project to his two million fans in real time.
After all, once this tea factory is built, with the help of large machines and production lines, the output of small tea cakes will be more than ten times that of before.
This greatly relieved the pressure on fans who were scrambling to buy tea cakes.
After all, finding a reliable blogger specializing in local specialties is really difficult these days!
A couple of years ago, a food blogger made a mistake by claiming that the sweet potato vermicelli was handmade by a farmer, but when netizens received the goods, they were shocked!
The food blogger is based in Province Y, and the shipping location is in Province S!
China is a vast country; it takes five hours to travel from Y province to S province by high-speed rail!
Did Sun Wukong deliver these sweet potato noodles by somersaulting on his cloud?
In comparison, Jiang Xiaoman and Jiang Yu have a truly unique style.
One is to sell only local specialties from Langshan, sell as much as you can, and then take them off the shelves!
Want to urge him to put it on the shelves? Sorry, that's all for this year. Practice your speed next year and come back, dear.
On a few occasions, I promoted products for the brands I collaborated with. They always explained to their fans during the live stream that the product wasn't a specialty of Langshan, but rather something they had personally used and found quite good, so they were selling it to earn some extra money.
The funniest one was the one selling stainless steel basins. It started as a joke by fans, saying something like "even a mosquito's leg is still meat." Since they had already recommended the basin countless times in the videos, they might as well take advantage of the shop owner, since they would use it anyway.
Everyone urged Jiang Xiaoman to put this rustic stainless steel basin on the shelf.
Three thickened stainless steel basins (small, medium, and large) are available for 18.9 yuan with free shipping, and you'll also get two steel wool scrubbers for scrubbing pots!
Unexpectedly, this ordinary stainless steel basin actually made him one of the top three sellers of its kind!
Almost every new follower of Jiang Xiaoman eventually succumbs to the irresistible allure of stainless steel basins…
What left the streamer speechless was that a fan who doesn't usually cook bought a set of stainless steel bowls. After leaving them there, not knowing how to use them, one day he suddenly couldn't find his dog bowl and cat bowl, so he just grabbed two stainless steel bowls of similar size and made do with them.
I never expected that my dog and cat would cling to the stainless steel bowl and refuse to let go. They won't even use their original dog bowl and cat bowl anymore; they'll only eat from the stainless steel bowl!
This fan filmed a before-and-after video of repotting, and after posting it online, it suddenly became a huge hit!
Netizens laughed out loud, but fans who have pets at home were pleasantly surprised.
The reason is simple: this thing is cheap!
Normally, a medium-sized dog bowl costs more than 20 yuan.
These stainless steel basins, in three sizes (large, medium, and small), cost less than twenty yuan in total!
Judging by the size, it's suitable for all your cats and dogs from kittenhood to adulthood. Even the smallest size bowl can be reused after they have puppies... Perfect! Buy it!
...
In conclusion, because of Jiang Xiaoman's quirky yet reliable product selection, fans have great trust in his judgment, or rather, his luck.
As for fisherman Jiang Xiaoyu... there's no doubt about his fans' spending power.
After all, those who can afford to go fishing are not necessarily in bad financial condition. Jiangyu started by selling all kinds of fishing gear, and now it sells everything from bait, chairs, fishermen's hats, sun protection sleeves, various kinds of food that are easy to eat in the wild, and snacks to pass the time. In short, whatever anglers want, Jiangyu sells.
Although he occasionally helps sell some local specialties from Langshan, his customers are mostly anglers, and there is not much overlap between his customer base and Jiang Xiaoman's.