A Maid's Survival Story in a Noble Family Mansion? Rich Landlords Are More Appealing.

"An easier and faster way to see results," Lin Wei murmured repeatedly, her fingers unconsciously twisting the handkerchief as she quickly recalled what Chen Wanxing had said before.

Besides taste, what else is important?

Chen Wanxing didn't wait long before stating her thoughts: "Besides taste, a good presentation can immediately catch people's eye, especially the young female customers we want to attract."

These words immediately caught her attention, and Lin Wei seized the opportunity to ask the question that had been bothering her earlier:

"I have indeed seen those banquet dishes in the prefectural city. They are beautiful, but they are made by several master chefs who have worked hard for most of the day to produce just one or two dishes. They are specially made for noble people to eat. How can they be made and sold every day?"

Besides, we might be able to find a skilled craftsman if we put our heart into it, but if we rely solely on the craftsman to sculpt and carve by hand, it will be time-consuming and labor-intensive, and the price will inevitably be higher.

Secondly, we can't guarantee that every piece will be exactly the same, so we can't control the quality.

Chen Wanxing did not answer immediately. She lowered her eyes slightly, her gaze falling on her slender fingers, which, though slightly calloused, were still long and delicate.

How can we change the style to achieve both exquisite craftsmanship and mass production? In modern times, it's incredibly simple: molds of various shapes can be pressed together.

She thought about it and realized that there were molds here, as casting copper coins and making bricks and tiles all used the principle of molds.

And what's most well-known is that the woodblock prints used in woodblock printing are also a type of mold, right? It's just that no one has yet applied them on a large scale and with great precision to the design of pastries.

The sunlight outside the window shifted slightly, illuminating the dust particles floating in the air. Chen Wanxing's eyes lit up. "Wei'er,"

Chen Wanxing's voice broke the brief silence. Her tone was calm and guiding, "Do you know how those storybooks and almanacs in bookstores, with their neatly uniform characters, are printed?"

Lin Wei was taken aback, not understanding why the topic suddenly jumped to printing books, but she still answered honestly: "I know, it's done with woodblock printing."

The characters were carved backwards onto a wooden board, ink was applied, paper was laid on top, and then it was pressed down to form a page. We had a bookstore in our family; I went to see it with my brother before, and the craftsman there was printing the *Thousand Character Classic*.

As she spoke, a hint of suppressed laughter appeared in her eyes, "I even tried making my own handprints, and I got my hands all black. My brother laughed at me for days afterward."

"It's woodblock printing." A smile appeared in Chen Wanxing's eyes as he continued, following this ready-made example. "You see, no matter how many copies you want to print, as long as you carve a block, the printed characters will all look exactly the same. It saves you the trouble of hand-copying, and the characters look neat too."

Lin Wei nodded: "Yes, it's fast and neat. But this is different from our desserts..."

She stopped mid-sentence, her eyes widening as a vague yet startling thought sprouted from the ground.

"Sister, you mean, we should also make a woodblock print? Not for carving words, but for carving the shape of a pastry?"

"Take the flower pattern you want to make, like carving a woodblock..." Lin Wei murmured, repeating Chen Wanxing's words, but her brows furrowed slightly, revealing obvious confusion amidst her excitement.

"But sister, woodblock printing produces flat characters, so if you carve the characters backwards, the printed result will be right-side up. But pastries are puffed up and have thickness, so what kind of mold would you need to carve? Would you have to dig a flower-shaped hole?"

She tried to imagine it, gesturing with her fingers in the air: "Moreover, engraving is done with lines, which is relatively simple."

But to carve those pictures so delicately, and to carve them in reverse, how difficult must that be? I doubt an ordinary carpenter could do it.

The most exquisite wood carvings I've ever seen in the capital were meticulously crafted by artisans, painstakingly carving each piece out bit by bit. Where else would you find carvings done upside down into the wood?

The more she talked, the more she realized how many obstacles there were to implementing this idea. Her initial enthusiasm cooled down a bit, and she instead proposed another, more intuitive idea:

"Sister, when I attended a banquet in the capital, I saw a method where, after steaming the pastries, they were colored with vegetable juice and fruit paste and then decorated with patterns. It looked particularly exquisite."

"You mean this is the effect you get from using woodblock printing? Could we try that first? Maybe we could hire someone who can draw a few strokes, or teach the workers to draw simple patterns?"

Upon hearing this, Chen Wanxing secretly admired Lin Wei's keen insight and pragmatism.

She did indeed pinpoint the key point immediately. The type of engraving she suggested was mainly used for flat text and simple line engraving patterns, but painting flowers on pastries was a more readily available and easier-to-implement idea.

Moreover, a thought suddenly occurred to her: Lin Wei's suggestion of painting on pastries was indeed a direction she had never considered in detail before.

Her mind was filled with modern molded desserts with various shapes, but she overlooked the traditional techniques of decorating food here.

"Painting on the desserts..." Chen Wanxing pondered, following this line of thought, "This is a ready-made method. If done well, it can immediately make the desserts look different."

"Vera, tell me, if you were to draw, what would you want to draw on it? And how would you want to draw it?"

Seeing that she was seriously considering her suggestion, Lin Wei became even more energetic. She tilted her head and said while thinking, "I was thinking that since it's a shop in Ruyang, we could paint some local specialties."

If you want to draw something simpler, you can draw lotus or scroll patterns commonly found on Ru ware, which are concise yet elegant.

Alternatively, you could paint seasonal flowers; in spring, paint peach blossoms and orchids, and in summer, lotus flowers...

She paused, somewhat uncertain, "As for painting, it must be done with a fine brush. As for paint, I've seen the kitchen in the mansion use red paint to decorate longevity peaches, so there must be some edible paint."

As Chen Wanxing listened, she pondered. Lin Wei's idea, which leaned towards a traditional and elegant decorative style, was not wrong in itself and conformed to current aesthetics. However, her proposed "painting" method immediately made Chen Wanxing see the problem.

Use a fine brush to hand-draw and outline the shape...

Chen Wanxing frowned slightly, tapping her fingers lightly on the table. "This idea is elegant, but it still has the same problem as before. The biggest difficulty is that it is labor-intensive and time-consuming."

If every single pastry needs to be decorated, how many can a skilled artist decorate in a day? If our shop relies on this for new creations, production capacity might not be able to keep up, and labor costs are not insignificant.”