Jiang Mengzhen didn't say anything, and the person reporting continued in a serious tone: "According to your instructions, we have checked everything out. Hao Cheng has been in Mingzhou City for more than a month. She opened a stall selling hand-pulled pancakes in the city's food street. The stall is called Ruyi Hand-pulled Pancakes. In recent days, she has been asking people to find a suitable shop. She should be planning to open a store."
Jiang Mengzhen had never heard of shou gu bing (a type of pancake made from scallions), but during the time he and Hao Cheng stayed in Xinghua Village, Hao Cheng always prepared some food he had never seen before, and he thought shou gu bing (a type of pancake made from scallions) was one of them.
Thinking of Hao Cheng busying around in the small kitchen, Jiang Mengzhen smiled. His eyebrows were not curved, but people standing in the room could clearly feel that he was in a good mood.
Taking this opportunity, the reporting woman added all the information: "The master said before that she was alone, but now there is a man and a woman accompanying her on business. The woman is in her early thirties and the man is about twenty years old. They are sleeping with her. The woman next door is the second daughter of the city lord."
The air suddenly froze. Jiang Mengzhen still had a smile on his face, but his eyes were no longer smiling. He knew Hao Cheng's personality. She was afraid of trouble and didn't like being served by others.
Otherwise, he would not have tried every means to stay away from him. Now someone told him that this man had two people, and he took the initiative to recruit them. It would have been fine if they were just women, but he actually kept a man.
The person reporting the incident hurriedly said, "Those two people are helpers bought by Hao Cheng. I guess that because the recipe is a secret and the stall business is very good, she bought two more helpers."
Her guess was pretty close. Although the hand-pulled pancake was simple, the raw materials basically had to be made by Hao Cheng herself. She sold an average of 400 pancakes a day, which usually took her three hours in the market, but it took at least five hours to prepare the materials. It was impossible for one person to make it with just two hands.
If she hired another assistant, she was worried that someone might learn the recipe. After all, the ingredients were very simple, and even if the assistant was inexperienced, he would know exactly what ingredients to use and how much to use after a while.
Those two people had no relatives in the world and were free of any ties. As she held their indentures, she did not worry about them having any bad intentions. She learned the skills and went out to work on her own, supporting her apprentice and starving her master to death.
The invisible pressure immediately eased, and Jiang Mengzhen waved his hand: "You can go down."
The latter bowed respectfully and quickly left, leaving Jiang Mengzhen alone in the room. He pondered for a moment, looking at the clear and pleasant glass mirror for a long time, then took off the expensive hairpin on his head, took out the makeup box, and began to uglier and soften his facial features.
Here, Jiang Mengzhen changed her appearance in front of the mirror, while Hao Cheng directed Wang Yang and Dong Xue to clean the newly bought ingredients.
After working hard for a week, she couldn't stand it anymore and went to the pawnshop to buy two servants. The State of Jin had a very strict class system. The good people were okay, and they had human rights even if they were servants. But slaves were the private property of their masters, and those who were branded with slave marks had no human rights at all. Even if they were beaten to death, the government would not care.
Hao Cheng originally wanted to buy two slaves, but after hesitating for a moment, she chose two servants of humble origins. One was strong and could do rough work, and the other was a young man with a certain foundation in cooking and a meticulous mind. The two people and two indentures cost her a total of 150 taels of silver.
Originally, Hao Cheng cooked for himself, but now Dong Xue is in charge of three meals a day. Occasionally, she cooks for herself when she wants to have some snacks, so as to avoid Qiao Mu next door always being startled and scolding her for being a woman who stays away from the kitchen.
Fortunately, with the help of these two people, she felt much more relaxed and had time to read the books of this world, absorbing and digesting the cultural knowledge left to her by the original scholar as quickly as possible.
The memories left to her after the scholar's soul dissipated were actually quite vague, but fortunately her body instincts were still there, and she was able to write beautifully when she picked up the brush, unlike in her previous life, when her pen writing was beautiful but her brush writing was poor.
It was a rare free day, so Hao Cheng was reviewing his lessons at the attached middle school, when Qiao Mu, the loud-voiced one, rushed in again. The other party had helped her a lot, and was very outgoing. The two servants she hired would only respectfully call her "Miss Qiao", so she couldn't expect this man to take her in.
She put down the pen in her hand, turned around and said, "Sister Qiao is a busy person, what makes you so happy?"
"Of course I have something to talk to you about. You are either setting up a stall outside or studying at home. How can a woman live such a boring life? I will take you to a good place today." Qiao Mu dragged her out without saying anything.
Hao Cheng grabbed the door frame and refused to leave: "Tell me clearly what good place it is, otherwise I won't accompany you there."
It was no wonder that Hao Cheng had the wrong idea. The good places that Qiao Mu mentioned immediately reminded her of those brothels and the young prostitutes who put on makeup and greeted guests in front of the brothels. She couldn't afford those men who dressed like transvestites and were covered in powder when they smiled.
Qiao Mu rolled his eyes: "What are you thinking about? Am I that kind of person who is not serious? The place I'm taking you to is definitely a good place where you can be innocent!"
Her brother is here, and her parents are watching secretly. Even if she had a hundred courage, she wouldn't dare to set up the place in a brothel.
Hao Cheng let go of the hand that was holding the door, and was almost staggered. She lowered her voice and said, "Don't pull me. I'll go with you. Let me change my clothes first."
Qiao Mu's eyes lit up. She was so anxious that she forgot to ask Hao Cheng to dress nicely: "Change your clothes! Change quickly and remember to wear your best one!"
Hao Cheng followed Qiao Mu out of the house, and she also let the two people in the yard go for half a day. Not long after the two of them went out, someone knocked on the door of Hao Cheng's residence. Wang Yang shouted, "Who is it?" and walked to the door to open it.
No one responded, so Wang Yang opened the door a crack and peeked out. Standing at the door was a handsome man, a stranger she had never seen before. She opened the door and asked, "Excuse me, who are you?"
The man smiled and said, "Tell your master that a young man named Meng Zhen is here to look for her."