Chapter 806: The Peasant Girl’s Splendid Manor
Chapter 806: A Marriage Granted, Never to Part (2)
Yan Junyu thoughtfully looked at Mo Yan, who was eating with gusto. Suddenly, he understood why Xiao Ruiyuan had forced himself to eat something he didn’t like, and he realized where he had gone wrong.
In the end, he would never do what his friend did for a woman—forcing himself to eat something he didn’t enjoy or do something he didn’t like... Perhaps this outcome was already destined.
As the hour of Xu approached, dozens of palace maids and eunuchs weaved through the hall with trays of delicacies. This was Mo Yan’s first time attending the royal New Year’s feast, and she was full of curiosity about the dishes. However, in order to prevent the food from cooling, the lids on the trays were tightly covered, and she couldn’t see the dishes. She could only try to identify the ingredients by the aroma wafting from them.
When Emperor Hui'an raised the first cup of wine and toasted with the civil and military officials, the banquet officially began!
Aside from a few extra dishes on Emperor Hui'an and the Empress Dowager’s table, the number of dishes on the other tables was the same, twelve in total.
The palace maids standing by lifted the lids from the trays, and Mo Yan finally saw the royal cuisine. Each dish was small in portion, but like the pastries, they were exquisitely made. Coincidentally, every vegetable on the table came from Liuyang Village.
Not to mention that these vegetables were impossible to find elsewhere in winter, the invigorating fragrance they released could only come from crops watered with spiritual spring water.
Thanks to the large deal made with the royal family, this had become a selling point for several vegetable stalls at the market. Business was booming, and within less than an hour, all the vegetables were sold out.
Liuyang Village’s greenhouse vegetables had gained a strong reputation in the capital, even attracting merchants from nearby provinces who were eager to buy and transport them to their regions.
Though the area dedicated to greenhouse vegetable farming looked large, it was only enough to supply the capital. Even if the merchants were just testing the market, they still needed a considerable amount of produce.
Yang Bao and the others dared not make a decision without consulting Mo Yan. Without hesitation, she refused.
First, there weren’t enough vegetables to allow for a trial sale. Second, she was deliberately keeping the merchants intrigued. After all, she planned to expand the greenhouses next year, and by then, the crops would be more than enough for the capital. She intended to sell them outside the capital, and those merchants would be perfect for expanding the market.
With Mo Yan’s efforts, the merchants signed a preliminary agreement for the winter supply of greenhouse vegetables from Liuyang Village. The agreement stated that once the vegetables were ready next year, they would be sold first to those merchants. If other traders in their regions were interested, Liuyang Village would only sell to those who had signed agreements this year.
The agreement did not stipulate how much produce the merchants had to purchase, so with almost no risk involved, all the merchants signed. To make a profit, the merchants would work hard to open up their local markets, leading to a mutually beneficial collaboration with Liuyang Village.
After the agreement was signed, the villagers, who had been worried that Mo Yan wouldn’t participate in greenhouse vegetable farming next year, could finally relax. They believed that it was Mo Yan’s good fortune that had allowed them to grow such fine vegetables and become wealthy. Without her, none of them would have dared to venture into greenhouse farming, fearing the risk of bankruptcy.
Many who had tasted the greenhouse vegetables from Liuyang Village at the banquet now understood why they were so good. Even if they didn’t know where the vegetables came from, seeing that even the emperor was eating them made them feel a sense of pride in their meals.
Indeed, these dishes were from the imperial kitchen. Aside from the vegetables, the other ingredients were rare delicacies that were hard to find in ordinary households. Two of the dishes even contained seafood—one with prawns, the other with jellyfish. Mo Yan, who had rarely seen shrimp since her arrival, was quite surprised.
[End of Chapter]
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