Jiang Tian and Zhao Mingyue both felt a bit embarrassed.

They earned 256 wen from 80 jin of tofu, but in the end, Shen Qing didn’t even get the leftover small change.

Shen Qing understood.

This was the dividend money being delivered to her.

She hadn’t done anything, yet she received 52 wen!

Although it was still far from the 11 taels of silver needed to buy a donkey, little by little, buying the donkey wasn’t a dream anymore.

Shen Qing thanked them, which made Jiang Tian and Zhao Mingyue feel even more awkward.

Zhao Mingyue suddenly remembered something important. “By the way, I went to both Yangliu Lane and Shengping Lane. There were fewer buyers at Yangliu Lane, and I didn’t hear any useful news.

At Shengping Lane, there were more buyers, and I even spoke to an old nanny who serves the wife of Head Constable Sun. I got to know her a bit and made a familiar impression.”

The families in Shengping Lane were much wealthier, with servants, but still not as many as the merchants or the rich officials’ families.

Head Constable Sun’s family wasn’t wealthy, and the two servants they had were the wife’s dowry.

The old nanny had a hard life after following the Sun family, so when Zhao Mingyue gave her half a jin more tofu, the old nanny was very happy and talked with her for a long time.

Zhao Mingyue continued, “Today is just the first day of selling. I’ve already been to these two lanes, but tomorrow, I’ll make more tofu and visit the lanes again to gather more information.”

Jiang Tian added, “We need to find out which household in Yangliu Lane is involved. If Head Constable Sun dares to cause us trouble, we can leak this to the main wife in Shengping Lane. It will stir things up for a while.”

Shen Qing understood that they were treating this as an issue involving the entire family, which warmed her heart.

Zhao Mingyue nodded, but seemed worried. “I’m just afraid that in the end, Madam Sun might forgive Head Constable Sun. We might be able to delay it for a while, but he’ll still come back to cause trouble. It’s not a lasting solution.”

Shen Qing thought that at least they could delay things for now!

In less than two months, the flood season would begin, and the whole city would be flooded. By then, even if Head Constable Sun wasn’t dead, his status would be ruined, and he wouldn’t have time or energy to defend the Liu family.

She found an excuse and said, “It’s fine. We only need to delay things for now. Once his anger passes and time goes by, I’ll have earned more silver, and we can settle things with money.”

Jiang Tian and Zhao Mingyue thought it made sense. Since Head Constable Sun was greedy for money, they could just offer more silver to settle things when the time came. Their family had started earning money, so they could chip in for Shen Qing.

As long as no one was harmed, everything would be fine.

After exchanging information, they all returned home.

After arriving home, Zhao Mingyue started directing the sorting and soaking of beans, determining how much tofu to make tomorrow, and adjusting the routes for selling tofu.

Not just the city routes, but also the routes for the villages.

Farmers might exchange beans, but they wouldn’t do it every day. Fortunately, there were main roads leading in all directions from the city. The southern part was visited today, and tomorrow they could go to the west, then cycle through. If it didn’t work out, they could always walk a bit further to reach the next village.

It was just a matter of walking a bit more.

After arranging the tofu business, Zhao Mingyue went back to her room, tightly closed the door, and poured the copper coins from the little cloth bag onto the bed.

Even though she had already counted them several times after getting home, she still couldn’t contain her excitement when counting them again!

After deducting the tofu exchanged for soybeans, the copper coins amounted to 200 wen.

Shen Qing got 52 wen, and her family received 148 wen.

148 wen!

Even if the head of the family, along with the eldest, second, and third sons, worked all day, they couldn’t earn that much.

This was pure profit, and they wouldn’t even need to buy soybeans anymore.

“Tomorrow, I’ll make about 20 jin of beans. I’ll sell 80 jin in the city, and the rest will be exchanged for beans in the villages. That’s… after deductions… my family will earn more than 250 wen. If I earn this amount every day, after a month… with three to five years of hard work, there will be no worries about marriage expenses for the younger ones…”

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The tofu dividends were delivered daily, sometimes by Zhao Mingyue, sometimes by Jiang Dabo.

Shen Qing suggested they could settle the payments every five or ten days, but Zhao Mingyue rejected it, saying it would require bookkeeping.

Since the village was nearby, by the time they had done the accounting, the money would have already been delivered.

After receiving the fourth batch of dividends, the calligraphy brushes were ready for their second shipment!

With the brush handles wrapped, they suddenly had room for three more people.

With Jiang Yu returning, each step in the process doubled, and naturally, production increased significantly.

Now, the daily output was 70 to 80 brushes, far surpassing the initial agreement with Shopkeeper Lin of 300 brushes every six days.

With stock on hand, they no longer had to worry about meeting the delivery deadline.

Shen Qing’s psychological pressure decreased significantly.

Early the next morning, the brothers Jiang Xiangnan and Jiang Xiangbei prepared everything and set off for the city with their bamboo baskets full of brushes.

Shen Qing didn’t idle either. After a quick breakfast, she headed straight to Jiang Er Ye’s house.

Today was a big day for making malt sugar!

When Zhou Yan saw Shen Qing, she anxiously reported, “The glutinous rice and broken corn kernels were soaked overnight, and they’ve been steamed and kept warm in the pot this morning. Is everything okay?”

Yesterday, Shen Qing had checked the sprouting of the wheat and told them that it should be ready this morning.

The preparations were being done, and both families were extremely excited.

God knows how hard these past few days have been for them; it felt even worse than actual labor!

They would rather work, especially seeing how busy the third uncle’s family was, both inside and outside the house.

They envied them so much, but now their own family could finally get to work.

Shen Qing instructed, “We can take the lid off the pot, and when it’s warm enough, we can cover it again to keep it warm. Let’s move the sprouted wheat out and wash it, crushing it as finely as possible.”

The malt had sprouted several batches, so they didn’t have to wait five or six days for the second batch to be made after today.

“Okay!”

The women went inside to move the sprouted wheat, pulling it out from the bamboo strips without breaking the roots, then placed it into a large wooden basin for repeated washing.

Meanwhile, the men brought over stone mortars and wooden pestles to crush the washed wheat.

Shen Qing followed the book’s proportions and started mixing the crushed wheat with the warmed glutinous rice, while giving live instructions: “You need to remember the proportions of wheat and glutinous rice because the sweetness of the malt sugar can be controlled by adjusting the amounts of each. If there’s less wheat, the fermentation is slower.

I’ll explain what fermentation is in a moment. If there’s too much wheat, fermentation is faster, but if there’s too much, it will turn sour, which affects the sweetness. So, remember to be careful.”

Zhou Yan, Jiang Ying, and the other women nodded seriously, indicating they understood.

The eldest sons from both families had other work in the city, so most of the men were tasked with the physical work of crushing and field tasks, while the women handled the stirring and boiling, so they had to remember everything carefully.

After giving everyone a little time to digest, Shen Qing continued, “Once everything is mixed, we need to let it ferment. The current temperature isn’t enough, so we’ll fill a wooden basin with water just slightly warmer than bath water.

Then we’ll put the mixture into a wooden barrel and place it in the basin. It’ll take about three hours. I’ll come back in two and a half hours, but during this time, remember to add hot water as needed to keep the temperature warm.”

The book suggested using the keep-warm function of an electric rice cooker, which, when converted to water heating, was just a bit warmer than bath water.