The Fortunate Lady and Her Mountain Man

Chapter 54: Chapter 54: Advertising Effect

That afternoon, the Hu Family left only Hu Ximei at home to look after Granny Xie, Xiao’an, and Hua. Everyone else went out, including Ji Huan.

The four of them borrowed two flatbed carts. Since it was their first time, they didn’t dare to split up and went together to Willow Tree Village, which was the closest village to Dafeng Village.

But before that, Hu Liang first made a trip to town. Of the thirty taels Ji Huan had given him, he took ten taels and exchanged them for broken silver and copper coins.

Silver ingots weren’t easy to use in the countryside—a detail Ji Huan hadn’t considered. It showed that Hu Liang was indeed meticulous.

Widow Xie and the others had never done business before and thought they would have to go door-to-door. But to their surprise, as soon as they reached the village entrance, Ji Huan took a bronze gong out of a basket.

Holding the gong in one hand and a small mallet in the other, she struck it with a loud CLANG, producing a deafening sound.

Hu Dacheng, who was closest to her, jumped in fright. "Sister Wan! Where did you get that gong? You scared me to death!"

"I borrowed it from Uncle Fu’s house before we left." Ji Huan patted him on the shoulder without much sincerity. "Come on, Dacheng. I’ll strike the gong, and you do the shouting."

"Sh-shout what?"

Ji Huan cleared her throat and recited a passage for him as if she were reading from a script.

"Buying vegetables! Buying vegetables! If you have vegetables in your garden, there’s no need to tire yourselves out going to town! Come to the village entrance and sell them for cash on the spot! Cash for goods, goods for cash! We run an honest business, no cheating young or old! Buying vegetables..."

She recited it with a perfectly straight face. Hu Dacheng was dumbfounded, and even Hu Liang and Widow Xie stared, slack-jawed. ’Is there anything Wan doesn’t know?’ they thought.

"D-do we have to do it like that...?" Dacheng stammered. "Can’t we just go door-to-door and ask?"

At his age, he was terrified of being laughed at, and Ji Huan wanted to use this to train him a bit.

"Do you know what efficiency is? Going door-to-door is exhausting, not to mention, how many houses can we even visit before dark? You need to learn to use your head. If we shout like this at the village entrance, word will spread like wildfire. Then people will naturally bring their vegetables right to us."

"Th-then why don’t you shout?"

"A young lady like me is allowed to be shy, isn’t she?"

"..."

Hu Dacheng was being pushed into a corner. He was usually as lively as a monkey, but he choked when it mattered most and just couldn’t bring himself to open his mouth.

Seeing no other way, Ji Huan was about to do it herself when Hu Liang offered to take over.

DONG! The gong was struck.

"B-buying vegetables... Buying vegetables! If you have vegetables in your garden, n-no need to tire yourselves out going to town... come to the village entrance... on the spot... you can sell them for cash! Cash for goods... g-goods for cash..."

His beet-red cheeks betrayed Hu Liang’s embarrassment. He clenched his fists, but after forcing out the first line, he found it wasn’t as hard as he had imagined.

And so it went, Ji Huan would strike the gong, and Hu Liang would immediately follow with a shout.

He went from stuttering at the beginning to becoming more and more fluent.

The ringing of the gong, combined with the shouting, did its job. Before long, they had attracted a sizable crowd.

There wasn’t much farm work to do at this time of year, so most people were cooped up at home, either visiting neighbors to gossip or simply bored out of their minds. When they heard a commotion at the village entrance, they thought a traveling merchant had arrived.

Traveling merchants were itinerant peddlers who carried their wares on a shoulder pole, going from one village to the next. They typically carried a pellet drum, and its rattle was the signal that a merchant had arrived. It wasn’t convenient to shop in the countryside, and people didn’t go to town often, so they relied on these merchants for occasional needs like needles, thread, and other small odds and ends.

But the merchants didn’t come often, perhaps only making their rounds once every ten days to half a month, so there were always plenty of people waiting to buy something.

However, when people ran out to look, they were immediately disappointed. This wasn’t a traveling merchant at all!

Then they heard the shouts more clearly. What? Buying vegetables!

The crowd immediately lost interest. Vegetables were dirt cheap and practically worthless; you couldn’t even sell them if you hauled them all the way to town. And now someone was coming here specifically to buy them? ’It has to be a scam,’ they thought.

Quite a few people shared this suspicion. As a result, while a large crowd gathered to watch, very few came forward to ask questions.

Seeing this, Hu Liang and Widow Xie couldn’t help but grow anxious.

Ji Huan handed the gong to Widow Xie, motioning for her and Hu Liang to continue shouting.

She, meanwhile, walked over to an older woman standing nearby.

"Ma’am, do you happen to have some vegetables to sell?"

The reason Ji Huan chose this particular woman as her starting point was that she could see clear interest on her face.

Those who weren’t interested just watched from a distance for a moment before going back to their conversations or chess games.

This woman, however, had already paced back and forth near them three or four times, looking as if she wanted to say something but holding back. She was probably waiting to see what would happen before making a decision.

Now that Ji Huan had approached her in person—and faced with such a pretty young girl with such a warm and friendly voice—the woman’s wariness immediately lessened.

"Young lady, is this for real? You’re not trying to trick people, are you?"

A man standing far away heckled, "Aunt Liu, you’d better be careful! What scammer is going to admit he’s a scammer!"

Ji Huan ignored the heckler, smiling warmly at the woman. "Your surname is Liu, isn’t it? Aunt Liu, we live right in Dafeng Village. You can find out where we live just by asking around. If we were trying to scam people, don’t you think we’d pick a place farther away? Wouldn’t we be afraid of you coming to our door to settle the score later?"

Aunt Liu chuckled, amused. "You’re from Dafeng Village? That is close by."

"Exactly," Ji Huan said, striking while the iron was hot. "Aunt Liu, if you have vegetables at home, just bring them over, and we’ll pay you on the spot. With so many of your fellow villagers watching, it’s not like we can just grab your produce and run. They wouldn’t stand by and let that happen, would they?"

Aunt Liu found her words reasonable and was convinced. "All r-right, then. You don’t seem like a swindler, child. I’ll go get my vegetables."

"Wait," Ji Huan called out to her. "Are you home by yourself?"

"My daughter is married off, and my son is working as an apprentice in the county town, so it’s just my old man and me at home. We’re too old to tend to the crops, so we just planted some vegetables. Who knew they’d be so hard to sell this year..."

Aunt Liu sighed with worry. "We two old folks have bad legs; we can’t haul them to town, and they’re about to rot in the fields."

Ji Huan thought for a moment, then turned and called Dacheng over to go with her and help at Aunt Liu’s house.

Her reason for offering this door-to-door service wasn’t entirely out of pity for the elderly, "empty-nester" couple. This first sale was also crucial for determining whether they could break into the market in Willow Tree Village.

Aunt Liu’s vegetables were piled in the courtyard, most of them already cleaned.

"We’re not able to sell them in town, so we had to clear out the garden early. We figured if we put them in the cellar, they would at least last for a while."

Ji Huan had Aunt Liu rest off to the side while she and Hu Dacheng loaded the vegetables into baskets and onto the cart. It was a surprisingly large haul. After setting aside a few types that weren’t suitable for dehydrating, they had filled nearly half the cart.

The three of them returned to the village entrance together.

On the way, Hu Dacheng whispered, "Sister Wan, why didn’t we just give her the money back there? It would have saved Aunt Liu the trouble of making another trip."

"Because we need to advertise."

They had to do it right under everyone’s noses, letting the onlookers see with their own eyes as they placed the money into Aunt Liu’s hands.

The sight of cold, hard cash was far more persuasive than repeating "we’re not scammers" a thousand times over.

Hu Dacheng didn’t understand what "advertise" meant, but Ji Huan didn’t elaborate, deciding to keep him in suspense.

"You’ll see the power of the ’advertising effect’ in just a moment."

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