Chapter 54: reselling

After the heavy rain, water was rising everywhere, and at home, all you could hear was the rushing sound of water outside.

Fan Father went to let the water out of the fields and repair the field ridges that had been washed away by the downpour.

Kang He and Fan Jing headed to the river, hoping to try their luck and see if they could pick up a couple of flood fish. There were quite a few people by the riverbank, all with the same idea as them.

Instead of catching cheap fish, the two managed to catch seven or eight crabs about the size of a fist.

These crabs weren’t like the expensive ones sold outside, with their bright red pincers but little meat and little crab roe; they were the worthless Mountain Crab.

Kang He brought them back, cracked the shells, and made a pickled vegetable soup. The taste was pretty good.

Chen Shi enjoyed the fresh crab soup but told the two little girls not to go out to catch fish or shrimp, for fear they’d slip and fall into the river. The current was swift now—if you fell in, you’d have a hard time getting out, let alone being rescued.

Not two days later, word spread through the village that a boy from the neighboring village had nearly been swept away while trying to catch flood fish in the river. When they pulled him out, he’d swallowed a lot of water and had to go see Zhu Doctor for medicine.

The adults were frightened when they heard about it and kept an even closer eye on their own children.

That day, Kang He and Fan Jing got up before dawn, planning to make a trip up the Mountain.

There wasn’t always work to do at Butcher Hu’s, so the two had some free time to go into the Mountain.

The strong winds had spared nowhere—not even the Mountain, which had suffered even more than the lowlands.

On the narrow path into the Mountain, many branches had broken and blocked the way. The two took turns walking and clearing the road, even startling two snakes hiding under the branches, which slithered away with a rustle.

When they reached the Mountain, the yard of the wooden hut was also covered with a thick layer of fresh branches and leaves.

The two tidied up.

After a while, they went together to check the beehives on this side. Fortunately, there hadn’t been any disaster.

The next day, carrying some rice and grain brought up from the foot of the Mountain, they made a trip to Zhang Shili’s place to check his beehives, too.

Zhang Shili’s spot had good nectar sources. The honey in both his hives was ready to be harvested, so he took the opportunity to cut some honeycomb.

“When I went out from here, I saw an old couple on the east side of the Mountain. They’re beekeepers, too. They’re using that patch of Wild Chrysanthemum and Chinese Galla as nectar sources. Looks like a family that specializes in beekeeping. I took a quick look—there were more than ten hives.”

Zhang Shili took a big bite of the meat pie Kang He had brought and chatted about what was happening in the Mountain.

“Should I go drive them away or not?”

Kang He replied, “Why drive people off? I just keep bees for leisure. My hives are in the Mountain, nowhere near the east side, so there’s no conflict.”

Hearing this, Zhang Shili dropped the matter.

Kang He was curious and wanted to take a look, so he asked Zhang Shili to show him the way.

Sure enough, in a field of golden Wild Chrysanthemum, there was a shed set up, with some cooking utensils nearby.

“Is there something you brothers need?”

Hearing movement, a man in a straw hat came out of the shed. His face was tanned and weathered, clearly not young.

“We’re hunters from the Mountain. Heard there were beekeepers here and came to see what’s going on.”

The Old Man looked at Kang He and didn’t think he looked like a hunter, but the other two did have the air of people trained in martial arts. He didn’t ask much, just politely brought out water for the guests.

Fan Jing glanced at the Old Man and noticed a hatchet tucked at his waist, and thick calluses on his palm—a sign he was trained as well.

It wasn’t surprising—anyone trying to make a living deep in the Mountain would have some skills. Otherwise, these beekeepers camping out everywhere would be sitting ducks.

To be cautious, Fan Jing thanked him and declined the water.

Kang He, on the other hand, accepted. He wasn’t particularly wary, but if he refused, the hosts would only be more suspicious. He asked the Old Man, “Uncle, do you have any honey for sale? What’s the price?”

“You want to buy honey, little brother?”

The Old Man didn’t look happy at the mention of a buyer—instead, he became more alert.

Kang He glanced at the tall and strong Zhang Shili beside him and understood the Old Man’s concern. With two sturdy men like him and Zhang Shili, plus the skilled Fan Jing, anyone would be wary of strangers showing up.

If they were the kind of bandits who killed and robbed, it’d be terrifying.

So he spoke honestly, “I heard from my brother there were beekeepers here, so I came to ask about the price. If it’s reasonable, I’d like to buy and resell it to a previous customer and make a little profit.”

“I’ve kept a few hives myself and harvested a few jin of honey before, so I know some good buyers. It’s just that my hives don’t always produce honey.”

This was as sincere as could be, and the Old Man visibly relaxed.

He tried to use the local accent, but there was still a hint of an outsider’s dialect: “If the price is fair, I’ll sell to you, little brother. Saves me some trouble, too.”

He then led Kang He to see the honey and chatted about beekeeping secrets. Hearing Kang He’s knowledgeable answers, he was convinced Kang He was a genuine beekeeper, not a crook.

The Old Man took out a piece of honeycomb about the size of a thumb, full of honey, and let everyone taste it. Zhang Shili couldn’t tell much, just thought it was sweet and fragrant.

Kang He tasted that it was sweet and mellow, with honey still stretching into threads. As expected of a professional beekeeper.

“Honestly, Uncle, your honey is excellent.”

The Old Man nodded, “It’s all genuine, not like the adulterated stuff sold in the shops. Of course it’s good. If you really want it, I’ll sell it to you for two hundred and fifty coins per jin. You’ve sold honey before, so you know the market price. Am I being fair?”

Kang He nodded. He could resell it for three hundred coins a jin, which was the retail price.

It was much cheaper for him, and the Old Man’s honey was worth it.

He could make fifty coins a jin—also a good deal.

But that wasn’t his main reason for coming.

“Uncle, is that price for processed honey?”

The Old Man laughed, “Of course. You don’t think I’d give you that price for honeycomb together with the honey, do you? That’d be cheating. Would you be willing?”

Kang He smiled and asked, “Then if it’s with the honeycomb, how much would you sell it for?”

The Old Man hesitated—there weren’t many buyers for honeycomb. After thinking, he said, “I rarely sell honeycomb. My filtering skills are good, but I’d rather put in the extra effort to get pure honey, which sells for more. If you really want honeycomb, how about a hundred and twenty coins per jin?”

Kang He calculated: a jin of honeycomb yields about five to seven liang of pure honey, so let’s say six liang. By the Old Man’s price of two hundred and fifty coins per jin of honey, six liang is one hundred and fifty coins.

So the labor for filtering honey is only worth fifty coins.

But if he bought the honeycomb, he could get the leftover honeycomb dregs and render beeswax from them.

Not many people ate beeswax or used it yet. Only the cosmetics shops used it for lip balm, and the high price was due to the craftsmanship and rare spices, not the beeswax itself.

Beekeepers kept some beeswax for making bee-attracting ointment, but mostly didn’t value it as much as honey.

Kang He had collected a lot of Incense Mugwort earlier and wanted to use the tail end of summer to make some little crafts for extra money.

He heard the Old Man’s price and tried to bargain, “Uncle, if you give me a discount of twenty coins, I’ll take it now.”

The Old Man shook his head, “Twenty coins isn’t a small amount. Think about it, I stay in the Mountain with the bees all day, nothing else to do but filter honey. If I sell you honeycomb, I lose that work.”

“If the price is too low, what’s the point of my running around all year?”

“You’re not wrong, Uncle, but I’m not a wealthy businessman either. If the price is too high, I can’t afford it. To be blunt, even if you’re a master beekeeper, if you produce a hundred jin of honey a year and can’t sell it, it’s just honey, not silver.”

“It’s rare for us to meet in the Mountain like this—give me a good price, and when you move before winter, you’ll have less to carry, right?”

The Old Man laughed, “You’re a tough bargainer, little brother. No more haggling—one hundred and ten coins. If you agree, I’m happy.”

Kang He agreed, and they struck a deal.

The Old Man only had about ten jin of honeycomb on hand. Kang He wanted more, so he’d have to open the hives for fresh honeycomb and could get about forty jin in total.

Forty jin of honeycomb would cost four strings and four hundred coins.

Kang He and Fan Jing had enough money, but of course they wouldn’t bring all their savings up the Mountain.

They asked the Old Man to wait while they went back to the village to get the money.

Zhang Shili said there was no need to go back—he’d lend them the money to buy the honey now, and they could pay him back whenever they had time.

He wasn’t in a hurry for money, living in the Mountain.

Kang He was grateful, wrote an IOU, and borrowed four strings from Zhang Shili, keeping some small change for emergencies.

The Old Man saw they were straightforward and felt reassured, so he gave Kang He a few extra jin of honeycomb with some honey as a bonus.

Kang He said he wanted to render beeswax from it to attract bees. The Old Man didn’t care what he did with it—after all, selling so much honey at once, a few jin of honeycomb was nothing.

Using the old method, Kang He filtered out the honey. The Old Man’s honey was high quality, and the yield was good. From forty jin of honeycomb, he got twenty-eight jin of pure honey, more than expected.

And the beeswax Kang He wanted came to five jin—over four jin from the honeycomb, plus the extra honeycomb from the Old Man made five jin in total.

With the honey extracted, Kang He went as usual to Zou Fulang’s place.

“So soon, you have honey again?”

“Not all from my own hives—some is purchased good honey.”

Kang He had already explained he didn’t have many hives and so was always honest: “But I checked, it’s all good. If it were poor quality, I wouldn’t dare bring it to you.”

Zou Fulang tasted the new honey and found it excellent, so he nodded and agreed to buy it.

He asked Kang He if it was still the same price.

Kang He had previously received a string of coins as a bonus from Zou Fulang, so there was no reason to raise the price now. He said it was the same as before.

Zou Fulang was pleased to hear there was more honey this time.

The few jin of honey from before had been eaten up quickly—what he kept for himself was gone, and what he gave away had others coming to ask for more.

Good things are always in demand.

Zou Fulang bought all twenty-eight jin of Kang He’s honey at once. As a businessman, he had many connections—give half a jin here, a jin there, and it was gone quickly.

Besides, honey keeps well, unlike the cakes and pastries from the shops, which spoil in a few days.

Kang He made eight strings and four hundred coins from Zou Fulang and netted a profit of four strings.

When he went to repay Zhang Shili, he brought a piece of fresh pork and a bag of flour for the Old Man as well. It wasn’t easy to buy things in the Mountain, especially for outsiders.

The Old Man was very grateful.

In the blink of an eye, it was autumn harvest time, and the village was bustling.

Fan Jing had a lot of work these days, going out to work two or three times every five days.

People liked to hold rituals in autumn, and there were many events, so more livestock was butchered. Fan Jing was busy helping Butcher Hu and didn’t mind the hard work, but still wanted to help with the harvest at home. His family, though, urged him to keep working with Butcher Hu.

The donkey they’d bought at the start of the year had grown strong and was a great help for carrying grain. The autumn harvest was much easier this year—they didn’t have to carry the rice home basket by basket as in previous years.

After an autumn under the glare of the Autumn Tiger, their faces were tanned black, and their shoulders were rubbed raw.

Kang He would get up early when it was cool and go to the fields with Fan Father to cut rice. One cut the stalks, the other threshed the rice in a half-filled bucket. When they’d filled two baskets, they’d load them onto the donkey, and Chen Fang would take them home.

The two little girls sometimes helped with the harvest, but when the sun came out, Kang He told them to go home.

The autumn sun wasn’t much cooler than in summer, and it wouldn’t look good for young girls to get tanned. It would take a long time to recover.

When the sun got too high, Kang He and Fan Father would head home, too. Working under the blazing sun was exhausting and dangerous—they might get heatstroke and have to lie at home, delaying the fieldwork and needing others to care for them.

So they worked early and late, resting in between.

During the midday break, Kang He didn’t idle—he tinkered with his little crafts in the house and had been making good progress lately.

Kang He crushed the Incense Mugwort he’d dried in the summer, processing a little each day and sifting it repeatedly. He’d already collected a big box of fine Incense Mugwort powder.

He melted the beeswax he’d saved earlier, filtering out impurities again and again, until it was pure and clean.

He mixed two liang of beeswax oil with some Incense Mugwort powder, put it into a bamboo tube with a wick in the middle, and let it cool to make a candle.

Candles outside weren’t cheap—a pair of ordinary candles cost fifty coins. Farming families couldn’t afford such lighting and used Oil Lamps instead.

Even Oil Lamps cost a few coins, so in the countryside, people would blow out the lamps early to save money and go to bed.

Candles were reserved for rich families.

The candles Kang He made weren’t ordinary candles but Medicine Candles.

He’d removed the impurities from the beeswax, so the candle burned without black smoke and, with the addition of Incense Mugwort, gave off a faint fragrance that repelled insects.

There were lots of mosquitoes in summer and autumn, so people burned Incense Mugwort to drive them away. Mixing it into a lighting tool was killing two birds with one stone.

At night, after dinner, Kang He dragged Fan Jing into the house.

Fan Jing had just finished eating and wiped his mouth when he was hurried off inside.

He’d been going out early and coming back late these days, and Kang He had been busy with the harvest too, so they hadn’t had much time alone.

He noticed Fan Father and Chen Shi were still busy outside—one feeding pigs, the other tidying up the kitchen—so Fan Jing felt a bit uneasy.

He said to Kang He, “Let’s do this later.”

Kang He brought out a box and, hearing Fan Jing’s words, was momentarily surprised. “Later for what?”

Fan Jing didn’t answer.

Kang He realized what he meant and laughed. “What are you thinking? I wanted to show you something good.”

Fan Jing glanced at the box in Kang He’s arms, his ears turning a little red, but he tried to act calm. “What is it?”

Kang He replied, “I guarantee you’ve never seen it before.”

With that, Fan Jing watched as he took out four pale yellow candles, not very long, but short and stout.

He had never seen candles before, so he asked, “What are these for?”

Kang He didn’t answer directly. He took one, lit it from the Oil Lamp, and put it on the candlestick.

As the candle burned, the room filled with the scent of Incense Mugwort. Fan Jing noticed there was no incense burning in the clay pot today, and the smell only appeared after the candle was lit, so it had to be coming from the candle.

His family rarely used candles, but he had seen them before. Still, he’d never seen anything like this.

Kang He saw the surprise in Fan Jing’s eyes and said, “I made these with beeswax and Incense Mugwort. See, they don’t produce black smoke or choke you, and they smell of Incense Mugwort.”

Fan Jing leaned in to look. If Kang He hadn’t said it was made from beeswax, he wouldn’t have guessed.

“The Incense Mugwort powder in the candle is soaked in wine for six hours to extract the fragrance, so it smells especially nice when burned. The beeswax is mixed with salt to remove its fishy odor, so you can’t tell it’s beeswax.”

“The trick to making Medicine Candles is right here,” Kang He said with a smile. “I wouldn’t tell just anyone.”

Fan Jing watched the candle burn for a while, then blew it out.

Such a good candle—it was a waste to burn it just for show.

Kang He said, “It’s fine. I’ll take these candles to sell in the city. I’ll have to light one for people to see how special they are. Burning half a candle for a novelty is worth it.”

Fan Jing thought even ordinary candles were a waste of money, let alone these rare Medicine Candles.

He asked, “How did you come up with this idea?”

“I suffered enough from mosquitoes in the summer. After using so much Incense Mugwort, I thought of this and tried it out—and it worked,” Kang He said. “This is a good thing. I should sell it for a high price.”

“I was thinking of going to the city to buy a few molds and carve some patterns on the candles, but my hands aren’t as skillful as the master craftsmen’s. If I mess it up, I’ll ruin the candle. I might as well keep them plain and sell them to the shops—let others decorate them.”

Fan Jing nodded. He knew Kang He was always full of ideas.

Even as an outsider, he could tell these candles were good, so the wealthy would love them.

“Have you found a shop to sell them to?”

“Did you forget what business Zou Fulang, the man who buys our honey, does?”

Fan Jing had gone with Kang He to sell honey before, and it struck him that Zou Fulang ran a Lamp and Candle Shop—so there was already a buyer.

Kang He said, “We’re old friends, and Zou Fulang is a good man. I’ll show him first. If he offers a good price, we’ll sell to him. If not, we can always look for another buyer—good things are never hard to sell.”

Fan Jing agreed.

Kang He added, “Last time I went to sell honey, Zou Fulang ordered sixty Pickled Duck and twenty Songhua Egg from us. When it’s time to deliver, I’ll tell him about the candles. Come with me when we go.”

Fan Jing agreed. He was also curious to see how much the candles would fetch.

Since there were still a few days before the Pickled Duck was ready, Kang He used the beeswax he had in stock to make a few more pairs of candles, so he’d have more to sell when the time came.