It's not that he doesn't want to earn this money, it's just that he's afraid of being attacked by his fans.
After all, these days most people don't sleep well, which is already pitiful enough. If he were to use this old tea cake to further torment them, making them go from staying up all night to suffering from insomnia, wouldn't that be just too inhumane?
The more he resisted, the more his fans rolled up their sleeves—
"Heh~ What tea cake is better than my hand-ground coffee? I don't believe it!"
"Go ahead and put it on the shelves if you dare! Night owls never give up! I want to see what kind of stuff can keep me awake until dawn!"
"Huh? One drink and you can stay up all night? Is that even possible? This is a godsend for those preparing for postgraduate entrance exams!"
"Nothing much to say. Those of you working overtime, I hope Brother Xiaoman will be sensible and not wait until tomorrow. Let's start pre-sales right now!"
...
Faced with everyone's urging, Jiang Xiaoman instantly put on a mask of pain!
He felt that he probably, possibly had to, make money against his conscience...
Chapter 109
Speaking of the local tea cakes from Langshan, they have quite a connection with those from Hongnigou.
Every industry has upstream and downstream sectors, including the tea market.
If Hongnigou was historically known for producing high-end "aristocratic tea cakes," then Langshan was known for targeting the mainstream market.
China is a vast country. There are people who can afford high-end tea cakes, and there are people who can't afford them but still enjoy drinking tea. This is the kind of business that Langshan used to be doing.
However, there are just too many varieties of tea in China, and young people nowadays prefer milk tea. Making tea cakes is hard work and doesn't make much money. In Langshan, only the older generation still makes some for their own consumption.
It's impossible to sell in large quantities, since we can't make many. Even the one Jiang Xiaoman is drinking was given to her by Jiang Baichuan.
As a principal who specializes in training eagles, Jiang Baichuan is very dependent on this kind of tea cake. Every year, he takes his students up the mountain to pick wild tea leaves to make tea cakes, which he eats himself and occasionally sells at the market.
"Moreover, the tea cakes we make here are very large, each weighing two pounds. You'll need them for a long time to eat them..." Jiang Xiaoman tried her best to explain to her fans.
"I won't listen, you're just spouting nonsense!"
"Couldn't you make smaller portions? Do you even know how hot the singles economy is?"
"The family up ahead is so clever! Brother Xiaoman, why don't you make some tea cakes weighing one or half a pound each? Let us try some!"
"Yes! Cut that big tea cake into four pieces!"
...
Fans are absolutely furious with Jiang Xiaoman's stubbornness!
Other streamers would do everything in their power to get their fans to place orders.
Jiang Xiaoman, on the other hand, even though the order was practically being fed to him, he kept turning his head away and wouldn't eat!
At this rate, when will Xiaoman's family be able to afford renovations for their guesthouse?
When will Xiaoman's beekeeping business be able to expand and allow his fans to enjoy free access to local honey?
And when will the villagers of Langshan Village be able to escape poverty and become prosperous?
They absolutely refuse to accept that this has delayed the entire village's poverty alleviation efforts!
Jiang Xiaoman: "..."
Aren't you guys getting a little too into the role?
Seeing that her fans wouldn't let her off the hook if she didn't get some tea cakes to redeem herself, Jiang Xiaoman could only laugh and cry as she agreed to find tea cakes for everyone after distributing the sold honey in the next couple of days.
"Xiaoman, is this tea cake difficult to make? If it's not difficult, I'd like to learn how."
Seeing a bunch of people in the comments section clamoring to buy the tea cakes, Jiang Yu shamefully felt tempted.
When he got down the mountain, he realized there were just too many places to spend money!
Raising kids is really expensive!
In the past, it was just him and Shanyan at home. When they were too lazy to cook, they would simply throw a few potatoes into the charcoal brazier to cook, which was a very simple way to fill their stomachs.
But things are different now. The three Camellia sisters are all at the age where they are growing, and they were already malnourished because they didn't have enough to eat or drink in their original home. Jiang Yu and Shan Yan have been working hard to supplement their nutrition, and they spend a lot of money on groceries every day!
It's at times like these that you can see the differences between people.
When you encounter scum like Jiang Cancan and Shancha's biological father, all they do is complain that raising children has made them poor, and they wish they could spare no money to spend on their children.
However, despite their cruelty and mistreatment of their own flesh and blood, they still haven't become wealthy.
On the contrary, people like Shan Yan and Jiang Yu, who used their children as motivation to work hard and improve their children's lives, ended up becoming wealthy one by one.
Wasn't that the family tracing case that went viral online a few years ago a prime example?
The father searched desperately for his son, who had been abducted by human traffickers, for fourteen years. During this time, in order to ensure that his son would not suffer a hard life after returning home, he opened a steamed bun shop while searching for his relatives. Finally, his son was found, and the father was able to give his son a better life.
Jiang Xiaoman has always been a very realistic person, and he also admires Jiang Yu's proactive and ambitious nature once she finds a goal.
He immediately patted his chest and guaranteed that there was no need to formally learn from a master, as his Uncle Baichuan was already an expert in making tea cakes, and he would have Uncle Baichuan teach them how to make tea cakes later!
"Then you'd better behave yourself lately, and stop stealing your uncle's vegetables..." Jiang Yu reminded him cautiously.
Jiang Xiaoman: "..."
Jiang Xiaoyu! How come you've also gone astray like those netizens?
Is it impossible to finish filming "The Principal's Uncle and Nephew's Feud"?
Jiang Xiaoman muttered to herself, but her actions betrayed her true intentions. She borrowed the stove and pot from Jiang Yu's house and made a bowl of hot egg noodles for her uncle. She also stir-fried some lean pork and soaked dried cucumber for him and piled it thickly on top of the noodles.
Jiang Yu also brought a box of milk, and the two of them, with flashlights in hand, went to the school's temporary teaching point to deliver a late-night snack to Jiang Baichuan.
Jiang Baichuan was grading his students' homework when he overheard his nephew saying that many fans wanted to buy their aged tea cakes. He casually pointed out a shortcut to them.
"You do it yourselves?"
"The two of you only have four hands combined, how many tea leaves can you pick?"
“Let me show you a way out. Many mothers left behind in Langshan can’t find work. They plant two crops of potatoes a year, but the money they earn isn’t even enough to buy some oil and salt for their families.”
“These people have plenty of time, and their children can help with picking tea leaves. If you really want to do this business, why not organize these mothers who are left behind in rural areas and let them help you pick tea leaves and make tea cakes? You can be responsible for sales. This way, you can save yourself the trouble, expand production, and you don’t have to spend money to open a factory yourself.”
“However, judging from all this trouble you’ve been causing, I doubt you have the money left to open a tea factory.” Jiang Baichuan suddenly stabbed his nephew in the back.
Jiang Xiaoman felt a pang of pain in her heart.
That's right! Forget about investing in a tea factory; he can't even afford to buy roof tiles to renovate the courier point he rents right now. o(╥﹏╥)o
After enjoying the late-night snack his nephew had made for him, Jiang Baichuan stood up, took his windbreaker from the shelf, took out his wallet, pulled out a brand-new bank card, and tossed it into Jiang Xiaoman's arms.
"Hurry up and take the money to fix your courier station!"
“I pass by there every day, and I see that pile of broken tiles every time I go back and forth. You’ve made the Jiang family lose all face!”
Without waiting for Jiang Xiaoman to refuse, he shoved the empty bowl of noodles into his hand and kicked the two of them out.
Looking at the bank card in her hand, still wrapped in plastic, Jiang Xiaoman sniffed.
After the investigation and handling of the corruption case involving the school's nutrition program for impoverished students, Langshan Primary School recovered a significant amount of the embezzled subsidies, some belonging to the students and others to Jiang Baichuan, the teacher and principal.
The villagers were all curious about how much subsidy Jiang Baichuan had received, and whether he would use the money to get married.
Now it seems that the money in this card should be the subsidy that Uncle Baichuan received back.
Hmph! Does his uncle think he's afraid to use this money?
It doesn't exist!
With this money, he can take care of his uncle in his old age and see him off when he passes away, and no one can say anything about it.
However, the path that Uncle Baichuan mentioned is indeed a good one.
Jiang Xiaoman originally planned to go home that night, but because of this incident, he made a special call to his father and said that he would stay at Jiang Yu's house for the night. That night, he, Jiang Yu, and Shan Yan brewed a pot of strong old tea cakes and sat around the fire pit to discuss how to sell the tea cakes.
Jiang Xiaoman felt that her fans were right. The single economy is indeed booming now. More and more young people are unwilling to get married. Single apartments and hot pot for one person are already very common. Even many home appliance manufacturers have launched a full set of mini appliances for one person. This is a booming industry!
Jiang Yu also thought it would be better to make the tea cakes smaller. He even suggested that they could be made into individual pieces, like the coffee that foreigners drink or the small bowls of brown sugar sold in the market down the mountain.
“This way, I won’t need to use tools to pry open the tea cake. You know, every time I want to drink tea cake, I can’t find a knife to pry it open, so I’m too lazy to brew tea and would rather drink plain water!” Jiang Yu said, feeling frustrated.
Although his family doesn't make tea cakes themselves, Shan Yan's apprentices send them homemade tea cakes every year. He quite likes drinking them, especially after eating cured meat in winter. Brewing a pot of fragrant old tea cakes is particularly refreshing.
The only drawback is that the old-fashioned tea cakes are extremely hard!
To brew tea, you first need to use a special knife or chisel to pry the tea leaves off the tea cake, which requires extreme patience.
Anyway, for someone as impatient as Jiang Yu, almost every time he tries to break open a tea cake, all he gets is a bunch of tea leaves... It's so disheartening to even think about it!
"I'll have to ask my uncle about this. But if he can make small bowls of brown sugar, then making small bowls of tea cakes shouldn't be too difficult, right?" Jiang Xiaoman wrote this down in her notebook.
"I'll go back and ask them. I have a few apprentices whose families make tea cakes." Shan Yan also kept this in mind.
To Jiang Xiaoman's surprise, the next day at noon, Jiang Baichuan called him and asked him to come to the school. When he arrived at the school, Jiang Baichuan gave him a piece of draft paper filled with names, addresses and contact numbers.
“I had someone collect a list from each class, and this is the contact information of parents whose families can make tea cakes.”
"Weren't you going to collect tea cakes? Why don't you call them one by one and go to each store yourself?"
Principal Jiang arrogantly tossed aside the draft paper and went back to the classroom.
He would never admit that he felt sorry for his nephew.
Besides, he's not really causing trouble for his parents.
After all, if Jiang Xiaoman's tea cake business really succeeds, the students' families will be better off financially. As long as they can finish high school, they'll have a chance to go to university!
Like Jiang Xiaoman, even though her family was poor, as long as she worked hard and got into university, there are many opportunities for social assistance for impoverished college students. In addition, with student loans for impoverished students, it is enough to support them until they graduate from university.
He hurriedly compiled a list of families who knew how to make tea cakes, partly to help his nephew and partly to help these children.
Perhaps, next spring, their school could appropriately add a few more lessons on tea picking and tea processing to their labor classes?
What if some of these students don't get into high school but master the craft of making tea cakes? Who knows, they might even make a name for themselves by following Jiang Xiaoman in the future?
As long as there's a glimmer of hope, he's willing to try his best to fight for these children...
So, keep striving, my dear nephew!!!