"You mean Langshan embroidery?" Jiang Xiaoman gave him a strange look.
“Yeah, I heard it’s a nationally certified intangible cultural heritage. You country bumpkins probably haven’t even heard of it, right?” Jin Chengjie said smugly.
Jiang Xiaoman: "..."
He had not only heard of it, but he had also participated in the excavation of Langshan Tu embroidery, an intangible cultural heritage.
However, he later got busy with live-streaming e-commerce and exploring other Langshan local specialties with greater inclusive value. As for the relatively niche craft of embroidery, which requires time to hone skills, he handed it over to General Manager Zhang Jiahui to follow up on.
Last year, I heard that General Manager Zhang had helped Langshan embroidery apply for national intangible cultural heritage status, and that Sister Chen and a few others are now reportedly working at General Manager Zhang's clothing design company.
These housewives, who used to have to do odd jobs and carry heavy loads to earn some pocket money, have all become Zhang Jiahui's personal embroiderers because of their traditional embroidery skills honed since childhood.
Zhang Jiahui herself is from the countryside and knows that they cannot leave their families and children, so she simply let them work in the company. The company provides the design drafts, and the embroiderers can complete the works at home. Then, the payment is calculated based on the rating of the works.
A skilled embroiderer can earn several thousand yuan for a single exquisite piece of traditional embroidery!
Wait a minute... the Jin family seems to be in the clothing industry too. Could it be that Jin Chengjie is here to poach Sister Zhang's girlfriend?
That won't do! Compared to the Jin family, who are thousands of miles away, Jiang Xiaoman is more willing to believe Zhang Jiahui.
After all, Shuangwan Town is not far from their Langshan Town, and they are from the same county, so it is very convenient for them to communicate with each other.
However, seeing the kid's arrogant attitude, Jiang Xiaoman decided to tease him.
"You mean our Langshan embroidery? I've not only heard of it, I've used it too. I have many embroidery pieces at home. I'll show them to you when I get back tonight."
"What? You have traditional embroidery here? Then don't wait until tonight, show it to me now!" Jin Chengjie said anxiously.
“No way! I still have to go up the mountain to pick flowers. In this season, if I don’t pick them every day, the chrysanthemums will be fully open and worthless the next day. You know we farmers make our living from the soil, and our whole family depends on the income from the land.”
“That’s true, your family doesn’t even have a car. I’ll take you into town later to take a look, you can choose one yourself, and I’ll give it to you!” Young Master Jin was quite generous, but his words sounded more like showing off.
If Jiang Xiaoman were still a child, living a miserable life while her younger brother, born to the same mother, squandered money, she would probably have turned into a villain on the spot.
However, he was already an adult, and he decided to forgive Jin Chengjie, this immature brat.
He led Jin Chengjie to the steepest part of the mountain.
"Jiang Xiaoman! You call this a flower field?" Jin Chengjie was somewhat exasperated as he looked at the almost vertical mountainous terrain.
"Calm down! You still call me a country bumpkin? Have you ever tried rock climbing? This slope is much easier than rock climbing, right? It's easy to climb. Look at me, I just grab onto the branches and climb up." With that, Jiang Xiaoman put the basket on her back, put one foot on the rocks, and used the other hand to grab onto the branches next to her. She climbed up in no time.
"Who are you saying hasn't tried rock climbing? You just wait!" Jin Chengjie climbed up, refusing to give up.
He's really physically fit, and he's clearly had experience with rock climbing; his climbing skills are even better than his assistant's.
The assistant was still trembling with fear.
However, although the hillside looks steep, once you climb up, you'll find that it's made up of platforms of varying sizes. The Jiang family's golden chrysanthemums are planted on these platforms, making them easy to pick once you climb up.
On the second day, Young Master Jin was already quite skilled at this task. When he saw Jiang Xiaoman taking out a tripod to shoot a video, he even waved to the camera.
It has to be said that Young Master Jin's appearance is really deceptive, with that kind of roguish and bad-boy vibe. If this kind of temperament were on a middle-aged man in his thirties or forties, he would definitely be a greasy old man.
But Young Master Jin is in the prime of his youth, with a sly, mischievous smile playing on his lips, giving him the air of a rebellious school heartthrob... No wonder even a female celebrity like Kang Xinyue couldn't resist him and wanted to nibble on this tender grass.
Anyway, after Jiang Xiaoman released her new video, a bunch of girls who didn't know the inside story were all clamoring to change their husbands. Quite a few girls actually like Jin Shao Ye's type of temperament.
The charmingly wicked school heartthrob was taught a lesson by his own brother when he came down from the mountain.
"Ahhhh! Jiang Xiaoman, I can't take it!" Jin Chengjie gripped a small tree tightly with both hands and wouldn't let go.
"A real man can't say he can't do it! Jin Chengjie, you can do it, come down now!" Jiang Xiaoman urged from below.
"Waaaaah, I really can't do it..." Looking at the steep slope below, Young Master Jin trembled, shaking even more violently than his assistant.
Seeing that he absolutely refused to get down, Jiang Xiaoman had no choice but to climb up, take the basket from him, put it on her own back, and then scare him—
"There's no other way down the mountain from here. This is the only one. The other side of the mountain is steeper and full of rocks. If you roll down there, you'll reach the reservoir. If you want to drown yourself, go that way."
Young Master Jin hasn't lived enough yet. His family is so rich, how could he bear to die?
Gritting his teeth, and at the great cost of scraping his palms raw, Jin Chengjie finally tumbled down the mountain.
He didn't want to see Jiang Xiaoman make a fool of herself anymore; he wanted to go home. o(╥﹏╥)o
“We really need to hurry home. It’s autumn now, and the pythons in the mountains like to come out to hunt for food, so they can eat their fill before hibernation…” Jiang Xiaoman continued to scare him.
"Hurry up, hurry up!" Ignoring the pain in his palms, Young Master Jin picked up the basket and carried it on his back.
Back home, Jiang Xiaoman and Jiang Youliang still need to carry the chrysanthemums they picked that day to the zipline. That way, they can slide down and find someone below to help them deliver them to the tea factory, so they don't have to carry them down the mountain themselves.
"Jiang Xiaoman, I'm hungry!" As soon as he got home, Young Master Jin started acting up again.
He had never suffered from hunger in his life. There was only food he didn't want to eat. How could the Jin family's cook dare to let the noble young master go hungry?
"I'm busy, have some roasted potatoes to tide you over," Jiang Xiaoman instructed him without turning her head.
Although he hired someone to look after the tea factory at the foot of the mountain, he still had to process the fresh flowers he picked every day himself. These golden chrysanthemums were all taken care of by his father with great care. After deducting labor costs, the final profit from selling flowers would be deposited into his father's retirement account.
He wouldn't use a single penny of this money; it was all for Jiang Youliang's future retirement and medical expenses.
After dinner, Jiang Xiaoman kept his promise and took out the Langshan embroidery that he had kept hidden away in his family.
Many of these embroidered items were things he used when he was a child: miniature and cute children's bibs, shoes, little hats, little quilts... all made for him by the aunties and grandmothers in the village.
Although these earthen embroideries may not look as exquisite as Suzhou embroidery, each stitch is quite unique and exceptionally sturdy and durable. Jiang Xiaoman wore them when she was a child, and even after more than 20 years, they can still be used.
Looking at these exquisitely embroidered baby products, Young Master Jin fell silent for a moment, a rare occurrence.
He thought, no wonder Jiang Xiaoman never envied him for growing up by his mother's side, because even Yan Susu had never made a single piece of clothing for him by hand.
The Jin family was in the clothing business, so how could their children lack clothes? Let alone make their own clothes.
Damn it! It seems we lost to Jiang Xiaoman again!
He only has one mother, but all the aunts and uncles in Langshan Village are Jiang Xiaoman's godmothers!
They even made clothes and shoes for Jiang Xiaoman by hand! And they were all hand-embroidered!
Young Master Jin failed to compete with his father and mother, and finally became a defeated little rooster, dejected and looking rather pitiful.
"Do you want it? If you do, I'll buy you a whole set and send it to you when you get married and have children."
"Hmph! Who wants it? It's all because of my dad. He insisted that I come here to explore some intangible cultural heritage of Tu embroidery, and he even wants to invest in your town..." Jin Chengjie rolled his eyes.
Invest in Langshan Town?
Jiang Xiaoman's eyes lit up, and she decided to treat her adopted younger brother better.
He personally took a piece of cured meat from the roof beam, burned it over a fire until it was black, and then took a wire brush and frantically scrubbed off the black ash from the cured meat.
"Jiang Xiaoman! You're not going to make me eat this kind of meat, are you? I'm telling you, I absolutely won't eat it! This meat is covered in ash! I'd rather die than eat it!"
Watching Jiang Xiaoman squatting on the ground brushing meat, Jin Chengjie almost vomited.
Help!!!
He had indeed heard that people in the mountains were not very hygienic, but this meat had been hanging on the roof beam for who knows how long, and it was covered with a thick layer of dust!
Jiang Xiaoman even burned it until it was black!
Is this still edible? Ugh...
Poor young master Jin didn't know that the cured meat from last year hanging on the beam of Jiang Xiaoman's kitchen was coveted by countless seasoned gourmets. However, it was no use coveting it, because Xiaoman said that these cured meats and hams were kept for their own family to eat and were not for sale!
Therefore, in order to enjoy this authentic smoked bacon, many gourmets who are not short of money make a special trip to Langshan. Anyway, Xiaoman's guest rooms include three meals a day, so as long as you book a room, you are sure to be able to eat bacon.
In the evening, Jiang Xiaoman prepared a dish of cured pork prepared in three different ways.
I cut the spare ribs off the cured pork into separate sections, and asked someone to buy two pounds of old tofu from the foot of the mountain. I made a stew of cured pork ribs and tofu. This old tofu is made from local soybeans from Langshan and is hand-ground. It has a particularly fragrant flavor and absorbs the meaty aroma of the cured pork ribs. It tastes even better than the pork ribs!
Jiang Xiaoman sliced the pork belly and stir-fried it with chili peppers and garlic sprouts. The aroma could be smelled from two miles away.
Jiang Xiaoman diced the fatty parts of the meat and used them as filling with dried bamboo shoots and wild mushrooms to make more than twenty bamboo leaf cakes. Although the cured meat was quite fatty, the dried bamboo shoots and mushrooms naturally absorbed the oil, so the bamboo leaf cakes wrapped with fatty meat had a moist and oily texture, and tasted even better than those wrapped with lean meat.
Poor young master Jin, just a second ago he was vehemently refusing, saying he preferred vegetarian food and had no interest in farm-style cured meat.
The next second, it smelled so good! Holding the bamboo leaf cake in my left hand, I wielded my chopsticks so fast that I almost wanted to bury my head in the bowl.
Waaaaah~~ Why does this cured meat look so scary, but taste so delicious?
Chapter 238
Jin Chengjie, representing Mr. Jin, is coming to explore the intangible cultural heritage of Langshan embroidery and introduce the high-end clothing industry of Jinyan Group, which is a good thing.
However, Jiang Xiaoman still called Zhang Jiahui privately to explain the situation.
After all, Zhang Jiahui put in a lot of effort to ensure that Langshan embroidery could be successfully listed as an intangible cultural heritage. Although this intangible cultural heritage belongs to the entire Langshan Town, it is not right to kick away the partners who worked together with her just because she has made a fortune.
“It’s alright, let them use it. The right to use intangible cultural heritage doesn’t belong to the businesses. As long as Jinyan Group can reach a cooperation agreement with your town, perhaps it can push Langshan embroidery to a higher stage?” Zhang Jiahui encouraged Jiang Xiaoman on the other end of the phone.
"Hmph~ Jiang Xiaoman, are you alright? We're family, and I'm here to invest in your town out of kindness. Why do you have to greet outsiders?" Jin Chengjie overheard Jiang Xiaoman and Zhang Jiahui's phone call and looked very unhappy.
He felt he had shown enough kindness; he had never been this patient with any of his previous girlfriends, let alone helped with farm work at their homes. If it weren't for Jiang Xiaoman's pitiful state, who would care about her?
"Nonsense! If it weren't for Sister Zhang, there wouldn't be any Langshan embroidery. You've taken credit for someone else's work, shouldn't you be more polite?"
Jin Chengjie fell silent.
Isn't it said that mountain people are all simple and honest, and easy to fool?
Why is Jiang Xiaoman so cunning?
...
After helping the Jiang family with chores for three days, Young Master Jin finally moved the cold and ruthless Xiaoman, and Jiang Xiaoman decided to take him to find Aunt Chen.
“Xiaoman, this matter, sigh! Logically speaking, you’ve helped us so much, so we should definitely do the work you asked for. But our orders are already booked until next year, and the deposits have already been paid…” Aunt Chen’s face turned red with embarrassment.
People in the mountains value relationships. These rural women are now able to earn a lot of money while sitting at home, which is all thanks to Jiang Xiaoman for connecting them with Zhang Jiahui, their lucky charm.
The problem is that almost all the villages near Chenjia Village that know how to make Langshan embroidery have been discovered and incorporated into Zhang Jiahui's intangible cultural heritage creative studio.
Although Zhang Jiahui's clothing customization business is not as well-known in the industry as those big brands, she is already a well-known designer in the entertainment circle, especially skilled at designing costumes for period dramas and accessories with folk characteristics.
Last year, she took on a costume customization job for a period drama. Now, all the embroiderers in the studio have been assigned a portion of the orders. Skilled embroiderers like Aunt Chen have their jobs booked until next year.
"Hmph~ What did I tell you? Outsiders are outsiders! They talked a good game, telling us to use them as we pleased. But what happened? They've got all the talent firmly in their grasp. What are we going to do now?"
Jiang Xiaoman felt a little uncomfortable after hearing what he said, but then he thought that Zhang Jiahui was not the type of person who liked to scheme against people behind their backs.
So, just when Young Master Jin thought they were going to have to compete with this Boss Zhang, Jiang Xiaoman made a phone call and went directly to Boss Zhang for help.