Carrying a Jurassic on me
Chapter 117 - 58 Selling ’Liquor’ Small Shop_1

Chapter 117: Chapter 58 Selling ’Liquor’ Small Shop_1

After banging for a while, the boarding was finally nailed down. When not open for business, the board would be lowered, otherwise, it’d be lifted. It even served as a makeshift rain shield.

As for wind protection, forget about it. The window faced north, right next to the road. There was a reason why houses were built without windows on the backside - to guard against the unrelenting wind.

And then the last step. Yan Fei was busy scribbling on the wall with a rusty brush and a bowl of lime water. Xu Xiaoyan couldn’t stand to watch anymore.

"You’re planning on using that shoddy formula for a sign, Yan Xiaofei?"

"What else do you want me to do? Hang up a board? How tedious," Yan Fei retorted. "Anyway, since you’re here, you can help me out. Just write two words: Liquor Sale."

"You don’t trust your handwriting, do you? Afraid your writing might cause a traffic accident?" Xu Xiaoyan complained, rudely. After begrudgingly taking the bowl and brush, she started writing. When she ran out of lime water with two strokes left, she complained again, "You couldn’t have brought a little more lime water? There’s barely enough!"

That being said, the lady was known to be an excellent student renowned for her chalkboard writing, and despite the rudimentary tool, the characters she wrote looked professional. At least, Yan Fei found them pleasing.

"Here you go!" Having finished writing, Xu Xiaoyan handed back the brush and bowl with a disgruntled look. No doubt, her disgruntlement stemmed from Yan Fei’s laissez-faire demeanor.

You’re opening a liquor store, at least clean up a bit, or simply shout "Open for business!" But nope, no door, just a tiny window! Shouldn’t there be at least a window frame for that window? Again, nope, just a random hole in the wall with neat brick edges!

No window frame is fine, but you could at least use a decent wooden board on the outside, right? Come on, a flat board, spray-painted in red, facing the road, wouldn’t that look good? Nope, just a bitten-up wooden plank.

Nothing at all. New store opening, could you at least get a proper sign? Apologies, again no. With only half a bowl of lime water and a shoddy brush. Just wrote two big glaring letters visible from afar on the roadside wall.

Yan Fei seemed quite satisfied and waved his hand to Xu Xiaoyan, indicating, "You can throw these away, they were just picked up anyway. Yuck... Aren’t you disgusted..."

"Who’s disgusting? What garbage dump did you pick this stuff from that I had to hold?" Yan Fei’s casual words disgusted Xu Xiaoyan, and she threw down the brush and bowl as if they were mucky toads, rubbing the remaining filth onto his clothes.

"It’s kitchen waste I fetched back, what’s disgusting about it?" Yan Fei was feeling triumphant but was interrupted by her, which made him upset.

"You... You’re such a pig!" Left dumbfounded by him, Xu Xiaoyan shook her horsetail and smacked him on the back of his head before walking off to wash her hands.

Yan Fei looked left and right, then ran to the road to take another look. He seemed quite pleased and said, "Not bad, not bad; we can open for business tomorrow!"

After washing her hands, the girl looked at the makeshift tavern, so cobbled together it couldn’t be thrown together any more, and him with his triumphant grin. She was at a loss for words.

Such a shabby liquor store only had its saving grace in the two large characters on the outer wall, which were unfortunately written in lime water! There was so little lime water in that shoddy bowl that she had to underline the last character when the lime water ran low. When the lime water dried out, the middle part became unclear. Standing far away, the two large characters seemed to say: ’Sell Fun!’

This is a typical case of ’even a good cook can’t prepare a meal without rice.’ Regardless of how good Xu Xiaoyan’s writing is, it wouldn’t matter. And with the lime-painted characters, they’d probably be washed away after the first rainfall. It couldn’t get any more makeshift. Seeing a more cobbled-together store would be a challenge.

After having dinner that night, Yan Fei prepared the necessities in the room and cleaned up a bit. He would be officially open for business the next day.

Early the next morning, the first thing Xu Xiaoyan saw was the facade of the tavern, which utterly drained her confidence – if one could even call it a facade.

The lady didn’t need anyone to attend to her and found a chair in the back to sit. Yan Fei didn’t like that, "Can’t you sit closer? We are selling stuff here, and we want the customers to see that there’s someone inside, right?"

Xu Xiaoyan became agitated, "Just look at yourself, lounging like a lord in a broken recliner, do you even look like someone selling anything?"

Upon seeing these two, Ma Chao and Heizi respectfully retreated to the yard to feed the cattle. They couldn’t meddle in the situation, but they could surely stay out of it!

Yan Fei didn’t argue with the lady and began explaining the prices to her.

There wasn’t much to explain, there were only two types of wines - one that was slightly better-selling for four dollars, and one that was cheaper for two dollars - the two dollar one was diluted.

That’s how cunning businessmen are made. It’s not really Yan Fei’s fault though, Ma Chao’s family had always been doing this. These days, expensive wines don’t sell, there are many who can’t afford it. If there was only expensive wine available, some people would resort to buying fake booze for a dollar or two. Even though the wine isn’t great, it is still made from grains, so diluting it seemed normal. If they didn’t dilute it, some people would add water at home when they have a lot of guests to serve. What otherwise?

Moreover, the four-dollar price is for those unrelated customers. In reality, the price is usually dropped for most patrons. Even for strangers, those who return a few times become regular clientele.

The two of them along with their four dogs were lazing around without much energy all morning, as no one came to buy!

It wasn’t until almost noon when the market crowd began returning home, that the wine shop started to see some customers. This livened up the spirits of the two.

However, they were stunned quite soon as a lot of people arrived empty-handed to buy wine.

Ma Chao’s lack of experience showed at this point, as he only suggested stocking up on wine, but forgot to mention that many customers come without any containers. Luckily, they had some leftover jars from their old shop, so these were enough for now.

Those who wanted more but didn’t bring containers had no choice but to come back another day with their bottles.

Surprisingly, the business turned out to be exceptionally good. They had to eat their lunch while selling wine.

There was a reason behind the booming business. At this time every year, many people who usually work outside return home to help with work – usually for the wheat harvest. Despite the inaffordability of return trips these days, they still came as the wages they earned exceeded the cost of the journey.

After days of hard work and reunion with family and friends, wine becomes indispensable.

Furthermore, due to problems with counterfeit wine, incidents of people going blind or even dying after consuming such booze had been heard. Therefore, rural residents felt safer drinking their home-grown wine.

This is what good luck is all about; Yan Fei unknowingly landed another great opportunity.

Luckily, they had prepared well. Otherwise, they would have sold out in just a few days.

At night, Yan Fei and Xu Xiaoyan did some accounting and couldn’t help but burst out in joy.

Aside from the cost of grains, the rest was all profit. Having Heizi, a helping hand was a bonus. Feeling sorry for him turning up at the busiest time, they decided not to strain him.

On the other hand, Heizi was stuck looking over the distillation process and didn’t get a chance to escape. Now he not only has to shovel cow dung but also help feed the cows and turn the fermented grains, he was so exhausted by the end of the day that he didn’t even try to escape.

Ma Chao’s family used to spend money on coal and firewood for making wine because both steaming grains and distilling wine required fire, and these processes took days. So this was a major expense.

For Yan Fei, this was not an issue as he had plenty of axes at home, and trees were abundant in the dinosaur world. As long as the wood could fit into the stove, it would work. Since he had the dinosaur world, he wouldn’t have to worry about running out of firewood.

However, it was indeed tiresome. Yan Fei had to chop wood alone on the island at night. Thankfully, Xu Xiaoyan was there to help sell the wine. Otherwise, despite his exceptional physical strength, he would not be able to keep up.

It turned out he deserved it. Previously, there were several liquor stores in the town that used to buy from Ma Chao’s place and then sell sporadically. But after Ma Chao’s family ran out of wine, he didn’t deliver to them.

Those stores had been selling the wine by the tael. Some people who loved wine would come and buy a few dimes’ worth, drink it on the spot and leave. Some had households that didn’t allow drinking, some had homes without wine, and others were just at the market when the urge to drink hit them. It was quite common.

No wonder they say those who love to drink are hopeless! They’ll simply take a sip and walk away, brimming with satisfaction.

This kind of business didn’t make much money, it was just an attempt to build a clientele. Now, since he stopped delivering, they simply stopped selling wine. Hence, those who wanted to buy loose wine had no option but to come to his place.