money player

"possible."

Chen Jinxuan asked, puzzled, "What does the master see in her? Is it her beauty?"

Did you hear any customers flirting with her in the store just now?

Chen Jinxuan nodded. "I heard you."

"Can you tell what accent that customer has?"

Chen Jinxuan shook her head, "I can only tell it's a northern accent."

"His accent sounds a bit like that of southwestern Shandong, but he's probably not from Shandong. He's most likely from Bozhou in northern Anhui, because his clothes have a sweet caramel scent mixed with honey and herbal fragrance. If I'm not mistaken, it smells like honey aster."

Nine out of ten people from Bozhou walking around outside are medicinal herb merchants. Judging by their accent and the smell of herbs, you can probably guess they're from Bozhou.

"Sir, you are very perceptive. I can only smell the sweetness." Chen Jinxuan complimented him, and then said, "However, the scent can still travel from so far away. He must be in frequent contact with honey aster every day. The scent must have accumulated over time. It is very likely that he is selling medicinal herbs."

"Hmm." Xian Yaowen nodded. "Whether I guessed right or wrong, he is most likely from another province. The two people sitting at the same table with him are quite tall, which is rare among southerners. They should also be from another province."

The suits worn by the three of them were made of Irish linen. You know what the properties of linen are, right?

"It wrinkles easily and needs to be ironed and maintained frequently. He used to have several of these."

"Then you know the price, right?"

"It's so expensive, a suit costs more than 500 yuan worth of toilet paper."

What is the price of toilet paper?

"Military notes issued in 1944, with an official exchange rate of one to one yen."

“Oh.” Xian Yaowen mentally calculated the equivalent value of 500 military notes in today’s Taiwan dollars. “Your suit is probably made of French linen. 500 military notes shouldn’t be enough to make a suit of Irish linen, especially linen produced by William Clark & ​​Son. Only Lin’s Trading Company in Rongting in Taiwan has it. I went there the other day and it costs 1200 Taiwan dollars to make a pure linen cream-colored suit.”

Chen Jinxuan exclaimed in surprise, "So expensive?"

"One of the two best linen brands in the world, it's bound to be expensive."

"Were those three guests all big bosses?"

"The business must be of some scale, so the three of them don't seem to have come to Jingmei to sell medicine. It's more like they came here specifically to eat. Do you think it's simply because her food is delicious that she can attract wealthy people from other provinces to come and eat her cooking?"

Chen Jinxuan shook her head. "Attracting locals is possible, but attracting people from other provinces is unlikely. Locals and people from other provinces are only superficially friendly; there is serious underlying antagonism. Locals won't tell people from other provinces about this kind of rural restaurant."

"How did they know that? There must have been a trigger, and that trigger could very well be in the landlady's northern Mandarin accent."

Chan Kam-shuen whispered in Sin Yiu-man's ear, "Sir, do you think she might have been to the mainland before?"

"Maybe." Xian Yaowen patted Chen Jinxuan's lower abdomen. "Let's not talk about that now. I'll meet her later. The moonlight is nice, let's enjoy it."

Chen Jinxuan changed to a more comfortable lying position to gaze at the sky and looked beautifully at the moon.

At this moment, at the unmarked Yuanji Mint, Chen Yan stood in front of a workbench, admiring the various German silver coins displayed on the table.

The world is a big makeshift operation, and this is vividly demonstrated in the case of the Yuan Shikai silver dollar. There are many counterfeit Yuan Shikai silver dollars still in circulation. Some were printed by local triads at the warlord level, while others were printed by local triads at the street level. There were small mints in Kowloon Walled City, Temple Street, and Fuk Wah Street in Sham Shui Po. The high-quality ones were used as genuine, while the inferior ones were sold as fakes.

With so many versions available, authenticity becomes less important. As long as both the buyer and seller acknowledge it, even a fake can be considered genuine. It's like the gold bars sold by some banks: no matter what materials they're made of, as long as you don't open the outer packaging, the bank will still buy them back as genuine gold bars. In this case, the "gold bars" are essentially just IOUs.

Chen Yan picked up a brand-new Yuan Shikai silver dollar, blew on it, and listened to it. She then repeated the process with a dirty Yuan Shikai silver dollar and concluded that the Yuan Shikai silver dollars she made herself had a clearer sound.

She tossed the Yuan Shikai dollar back onto the table, then picked up a defective eagle dollar. Its workmanship was even better than the real one, with machine-made filings on the edges, unlike the uneven depths and random breaks of the hand-filed edges on genuine coins.

It's not difficult to change a machine tool file to a hand file, but there's no need to improve it. Eagle Ocean doesn't have many messy versions. It's like an "employee". Being five minutes late is enough to be blown out of proportion. To use war as an analogy, five minutes can lose a battle that determines the fate of a nation. The attitude towards it should be to nitpick.

In short, Eagle Ocean can make counterfeits indistinguishable from the real thing, but it can't do so if you add the words "low cost".

Yuan Shikai silver dollars are the opposite, just like a "boss". Even if the boss doesn't pay his employees for three years, the employees must understand the boss and not miss the opportunity for the boss to hug girls, smoke cigarettes, and drink at the banquet.

After all, some things, if we don't do them now, we may never do them in our lives. What we need is tolerance.

Chen Yan threw the silver dollar back onto the table, walked through the printing workshop, and came to the patina workshop. She took out a dirty Yuan Shikai silver dollar from the iron frame, wiped it with a handkerchief, and the finished product looked no different from the ones circulating outside.

After randomly selecting a few items, she went to the packaging workshop.

In the workshop, three female workers hummed a song, randomly drawing 50 standard Yuan Shikai silver dollars from the long line on the table, rolling them in oil paper, then wrapping them in red paper, and a package of Yuan Shikai silver dollars was ready. They picked up the stamp on the side and stamped it on the package, adding a few words: Tianjin Mint, made in the third year of the Republic of China.

Chen Yan paused and looked for a while, then picked up 10 envelopes, wrapped them in newspaper, put them in her bag, and went to the wall. She picked up the shipping register hanging on the wall and added a shipping record to it.

After leaving the mint, she arrived at Kowloon Walled City.

At a snake stall, she personally selected four snakes from the snake cage: a golden-armored snake, a banyan-shaped snake, a rice shovel-headed snake, and a snake with a central serpent, to cook the most precious snake dish, "One Breath Through Three Jiaos".

Following the old custom, she gave the stall owner a silver dollar as a tip, sat down at an empty table, took out a slender silver cigarette case from her bag, opened the lid, and took out a long, thin cigarette—pure white, less than half the diameter of cigarettes on the market, and more than twice the length.

This is a trial-produced women's filter cigarette from a Hong Kong cigarette factory. It had no packaging, no brand, and was not sold on the market. It was only distributed by Chen Yan to a group of "specific" female smokers for tasting. After a period of time, it was conventionally given a name - "Special Supply".

She took out a slender lighter, lit a cigarette, took an elegant puff, pursed her lips, and exhaled a smoke ring. As the smoke ring grew larger, she exhaled another smoke ring that passed through the middle of the previous one.

She was having a great time making smoke rings, one after another.

Blowing smoke rings is a mysterious skill; a few people can learn it in a day, while most people never can. She was one of the few who could learn it instantly. She saw Sin Yiu-man do it once, asked him about the secret, and then she learned it.

As she exhaled her seventh smoke ring, Xiao Tianlai sat down opposite her.

She took out a silver dollar wrapped in newspaper from her bag, placed it on the table, and pushed it towards Xiao Tianlai, saying, "Try it at the casino in Macau tomorrow."

Xiao Tianlai placed his right hand on the newspaper and asked, "When can we ship in large quantities?"

"The machines are running 24 hours a day, and we can print 70,000 copies a day. We'll collect a million copies and send them to you."

"it is good."

Xiao Tianlai picked up the newspaper and left, showing no intention of having dinner with Chen Yan.

Chen Yan watched Xiao Tianlai leave, secretly praising Xian Yaowen for his benevolence.

Since meeting Xiao Tianlai at Shanjinlou last time, the old captain Xian Yaowen has not contacted him again, nor has he used his name to make a name for himself. Since Xiao Tianlai is so good at doing things, he reciprocated by bringing Xiao Tianlai into the Yuan Datou business so that he could get a share of the profits.

With the important business settled and nothing else important to do today, Chen Yan relaxed. She put her hands behind her neck and twisted her neck, feeling a little sore all over. She thought about going to Zhang Ji's to get some massage after dinner. She didn't want Zhang Ji's services, but she wanted to find Zhang Ji's son, a little chick, white and tender. His hands pressed against her body, making her feel tingly and itchy.

"Alas, it seems the gentleman will not pick my flower. It has been neglected for almost a year. I will give up and find a young chick to nourish myself."

"Sir, Madam, the river fish will be ready soon, and you can eat it."

"coming."

Xian Yaowen helped Chen Jinxuan sit up and sat down at the low table in the center of the bamboo basket. He watched as the woman used long bamboo chopsticks to scoop the last fish out of the pot. "I still don't know how to address the proprietress?"

"The guests all call me Sister-in-law Azhu."

"Chen Azhu?"

"Yes."

"Then I'll still call you Sister Azhu."

Chen Azhu placed the dish on the low table and said with a light laugh, "Sir, you can call me whatever you want."

Xian Yaowen took three pairs of chopsticks from the chopstick holder, handed one pair to Chen Jinxuan, placed one pair on his own bowl, and used the other pair as serving chopsticks to pick up a fish and put it into Chen Jinxuan's bowl. He then put down the chopsticks and looked at Chen Azhu, who had just pulled a net out of the water. He saw her pour out fist-sized river shrimp from the net and deftly peel them.

After watching for a moment, he glanced at Xie Tingyun, who was standing at the end of the platform, and Xie Tingyun nodded slightly.

"Sister Zhu, you haven't had dinner yet, have you?"

Chen Azhu glanced up at Xian Yaowen and said, "We run a restaurant, so we eat late. We have lunch at three o'clock and dinner is around eight or nine o'clock."

Sin Yiu-man raised his left hand and glanced at his watch. “After we finish eating and get ashore, Sister Ah-chu will miss the mealtime. If you don’t mind, you can eat with us.”

Chen Azhu smiled and said, "Sir, you don't need to worry about me. When business is good, the time for meals is unpredictable. I'm used to it."

"Let's eat together, otherwise I'll feel bad. Sister Zhu, please don't worry, I'll pay for your food."

"Alright," Chen Azhu said without further hesitation. "Thank you in advance, sir."

Sin Yiu-man got up and came to Chan Ah-chu, squatting down to help her peel shrimp. "My surname is Sin, Sin Yiu-man. I'm from Hong Kong and I do some business here."

Chen Azhu stared at Xian Yaowen's face for a moment, then lowered her head to continue peeling shrimp. "Mr. Xian, what kind of business do you do?"

"We do a little bit of everything: tea, bananas, sugar, and recently we've been planning to start a passenger transport business."

"The bus?"

"Yes, we came to Jingmei today to survey the route. Are there many people from this area who go to Taipei City to sell vegetables?"

“Our river fish, river shrimp, and chicken are famous, and people take them to Taipei to sell every morning.”

"Do you think if I run two buses every day from 3:30 to 4:30, they'll be full?"

"If the fare isn't too expensive, four trains can be filled."

Where would be the best place to park the car?

Did you see a patch of wasteland near the bridge when you came over?

"Saw."

"It's best to park the car there; it's convenient to get around town from anywhere."

"Does Sister Azhu know who owns that land?"

"I."

"Sister Azhu's land?"

“My father’s land, he is old.”

"Condolences."

"It's been some time."

"Oh, Sister Zhu, could you sell me that piece of land?"

“Even if I’m willing to sell, you can’t buy it. That piece of land is the precious land of the Chen family.”

The more formal name for the "Gao Huo Tian" is "Xue Tian," which refers to land used by clans specifically to support their children's education and participation in the imperial examinations.

During the Ming Dynasty, if a village produced a scholar, all the land in the village could be registered in his name. This was known as "deceptive registration" or "offering," which exempted the village from taxes and corvée labor.

This is illegal. The Ming Dynasty had regulations on the amount of exemptions, but the county magistrate in charge usually turned a blind eye. Today he is a scholar, but who knows if he will become an official tomorrow? To interfere blindly is to court death.

Because of this role, clans in the Ming Dynasty were usually happy to pool the resources of the entire clan to support their children's education. In addition, there was the benefit of "one person attaining enlightenment and even his chickens and dogs rising to heaven," meaning that if a high-ranking official came from the clan, even the stray dogs at the village entrance would have a chance to get a deputy canine rank.

Even if the high-ranking official they support is a complete scoundrel, who doesn't even enter his own home and doesn't offer any benefits to the clan, it doesn't matter. As long as the objective fact remains that a high-ranking official has emerged from the clan, no one will dare to bully the clan. After all, who would dare to gamble that the high-ranking official really won't care?

Supporting one's children was effective in the Ming Dynasty, and it remained effective in the Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China. Many clans still maintained their school lands, and the Chen clan of Jingmei was probably one of them.

"How did Xue Tian end up under Sister A-Zhu's name?"

Chen Azhu sighed, "A lot of things have changed."

"Oh, it can't be sold, but can it be rented?"

"Renting is fine, but I can't make the decision myself; I need to ask the clan for their opinion."

"Let me take a look first. If that piece of land is the most suitable, I'll have to trouble Sister Azhu to introduce me to the clan elder so I can discuss the land rental with him."

Sin Yiu-man was just saying that. Renting land in the countryside to build a station is practically suicide. Country folk don't care about contracts. They live off the land, the water, and the station. As long as the station is on their land, it's like a leech clinging to them and sucking their blood.

When leasing land, the initiative is in the other party's hands, making it difficult for them to seize the moral high ground; the land must be purchased.

Chen Azhu's statement that she wouldn't sell might not be true. A smart person is hard to deal with, but a group of profit-driven animals together is just a mob. Dealing with them can be done for as little as two peaches.

“I’m in the shop every day, Mr. Xian can look for me anytime.”

"Doesn't Sister Zhu get bored running the shop all day?"

Chen Azhu chuckled softly, "What can we do when we're bored? We still need to eat."

"If you're bored, you can find another way to live. God didn't dictate that Sister Ah-Zhu has to run a restaurant to make a living."

"If I don't open a restaurant, what else can I do?"

“That depends on what Sister Ah-chu wants to do.” Sin Yiu-man removed the shrimp vein, put the shrimp meat into the basket, clapped his hands, and said, “To be honest, Sister Ah-chu, I’ve taken a liking to you and would like to invite you to do something for me.”

Chen Azhu's gaze lingered on Xian Yaowen's face for a moment before she lowered her head and fiddled with the shrimp. "Mr. Xian, it seems like this is the first time we've met."

“What does it matter? I get along well with Sister Azhu, and I think she is a person who can do great things. My invitation to you is absolutely sincere.”

Chen Azhu smiled and said, "Aren't you afraid of misjudging me?"

Sin Yiu-man's burning gaze pierced into Chen A-zhu's eyes. "Sister A-zhu, you're right. I am indeed a lustful man. I've already fallen for you at first sight. But you've also misjudged me. I'm still a man who prioritizes his career. I can distinguish between beauty and talent."

Perhaps you can think of me as two people: one is Mr. Xian, who wants to use you, and the other is Yaowen, who wants to sleep with you. Mr. Xian won't pay for Yaowen, and Yaowen can't influence Mr. Xian's decision.

Chen Azhu glanced at Chen Jinxuan, "Isn't she Madam Xian?" (End of Chapter)