Chapter 299: Mooncakes

Granny Rong was nothing if not multi-talented. The very next day, she whipped up two types of mooncakes for them.

Red bean paste and salted egg yolk.

Yan Yu stared at the mooncakes, which looked more like baked flatbreads, and fell into deep thought.

Li Xuemei, however, remained calm and composed. “You probably haven’t seen these before. Your father and I grew up eating this kind. They might look plain, but the taste is just the same. Try one if you don’t believe me.”

Yan Yu took a bite. The red bean paste was sweet without being cloying, the salted egg yolk rich and savory. The crust was thin and flaky. If you ignored the appearance, it was clearly made with care and heart.

To make something this delicious with such limited ingredients—only Granny Rong could pull that off.

Yan Yu was now even more convinced that selling mooncakes was a solid idea.

They tasted amazing, but looked so rough. It felt like an injustice!

But with Uncle Qi Wu away, how were they going to make molds?

Her gaze, unsurprisingly, landed on Maomao, who was stretching lazily by the door.

A mischievous grin crept onto her face.

Li Xuemei saw it and instantly knew what her daughter was plotting.

“Your uncle’s home, you know. If you suddenly show up with a mooncake mold, how are you going to explain it to him?”

“It doesn’t have to be fancy,” Yan Yu said, unconcerned. “Just say Dad whittled it with a knife when he was bored. A simple round shape will do. No need for patterns or characters.”

Li Xuemei thought it over. If it was just a circle, that could work.

Yan Yu quickly found a suitable piece of wood from Uncle Qi Wu’s stash and had Maomao cut out a round shape.

Then she hollowed out the center. Of course, she made sure it looked intentionally rough.

The finished product was ready in no time.

Li Xuemei: …

Yan Yu: …

It looked fine on the outside, but the inside was way too crude. Mooncakes made with this mold would probably come out lumpy and uneven—who’d want to buy that?

“Xiao Er.”

Her uncle’s voice called from the courtyard.

Yan Yu had a sudden flash of inspiration. She grabbed the mold and walked out of the kitchen.

“Uncle, take a look at this,” she said, intercepting him just in time.

This was usually the hour when her uncle came to give them lessons. He must’ve come looking when she didn’t show up.

“You’re making mooncakes?” Yan Huaiwen took the mold. When he saw how uneven the inside was, the corner of his mouth twitched ever so slightly.

“Dad started making it but had to leave before he finished. Uncle, Madam Rong’s mooncakes are amazing! Let’s make more and sell them. I bet we could make a lot of money.”

Yan Huaiwen smiled knowingly. Xiao Er’s love of money was just like Tian You’s.

“If Madam Rong made them, we can’t just sell them as we please,” he said, refusing her outright. Then he added, “It’s fine for us to eat them ourselves. But if Madam Rong wants to earn some silver from them, I can give her a few days off.”

Yan Yu: …

She’d forgotten about that.

In her uncle’s eyes, Granny Rong was a hired servant.

Her mooncake-making skills could earn money, but that profit shouldn’t go to the Yan family.

Yan Yu asked innocently, “But what if we provide the ingredients, and me, Mom, and Big Sis Daya all help? Can we sell them together, like Dad and Uncle Qi do with the Qi family?”

Yan Huaiwen: Sometimes, kids knowing too much isn’t a good thing.

“You do the math. After deducting the cost of ingredients, how much would be left to split with Madam Rong?

And if the mooncakes don’t sell, you’ll be the one taking the loss.”

That kind of talk might fool a regular kid, but not this one.

She flashed a bright smile, showing her tiny white teeth. “So that means you’re saying yes! I’ll go tell Mom and Madam Rong right now…”

Before her uncle could respond, Yan Yu dashed back to the kitchen to share the good news with her mother and Granny Rong. Then, like a swallow in flight, she zipped off to the study to tell Big Sis Daya.

Daya was straightforward and sincere. When she heard their father had approved the mooncake venture, she quickly packed up her books and rushed to the kitchen to help.

Yan Huaiwen: …

Oh well. Since they were so eager, let them do it.

He looked at the mold in his hand, found a smooth stone, washed it clean, and returned to the study.

Then he began slowly grinding down the uneven parts of the mold with the stone…

“Uncle’s right,” Yan Yu said, her eyes gleaming with another idea. “This is our first time selling mooncakes. What if people don’t trust us and don’t want to buy?”

She picked out two red bean and two salted egg yolk mooncakes from Granny Rong’s batch, then cut them into small bite-sized pieces.

She arranged them neatly on a plate and covered it with a cloth.

“Mom, Big Sis Daya, you two keep working. I’m going to let the villagers try our mooncakes.”

Before Daya could react, her little sister had already slipped out the door.

“Auntie, Madam Rong’s mooncakes are really good. We’ll definitely be able to sell them,” Daya said, though what she really wanted to say was that there was no need for a taste test. She’d just eaten one and it was delicious.

Li Xuemei said, “Let her be. We’ll start scooping out the egg yolks.”

She knew exactly what her daughter was thinking—start by selling to the villagers first.

And that was exactly Yan Yu’s plan.

Let the villagers sample the mooncakes. If they liked them, they could place verbal orders.

It was essentially a pre-sale.

That way, they could make the mooncakes in batches each day, avoiding waste or surplus.

As for the cost her uncle mentioned—hehe, she had it all figured out.

Mooncakes were a seasonal treat. If you sold too few, you couldn’t cover the labor. Sell too many, and you risked them going unsold. Pricing was key.

Yan Yu figured that if they were going to make a real go of this mooncake business, they’d probably need to take a trip to Yongning.

First, to see how much mooncakes were selling for in the city. Second, to buy some proper wrapping paper.

They couldn’t just hand over bare mooncakes. That wouldn’t do at all.

After making it halfway around the village, Yan Yu’s sample mooncakes were already all gone.

She wasn’t charging the villagers much, of course. Just a bit over the cost.

Four wen for a red bean mooncake, five for a salted egg yolk one. Sold by the piece—buy as many or as few as you like.

It didn’t take long before she had a handful of orders.

Yan Yu returned home beaming with joy.

She had just stepped through the door when a line of people came in behind her, all there to buy mooncakes.

The villagers weren’t picky about fancy appearances. To them, mooncakes that looked like baked flatbreads were just fine. Who cared what they looked like, as long as they tasted good?

Just like that, Yan Yu’s mooncake business was off to a flying start.

Several bean paste mooncakes sold in a row. The salted egg yolk ones were a bit less popular, usually picked up by someone as an extra treat to take home for their family to try something new.

Yan Yu grinned from ear to ear the whole time, collecting coins and handing out mooncakes.

Once Granny Rong’s batch of mooncakes had completely sold out, Yan Yu turned around—and saw her uncle standing in the courtyard. She had no idea how long he’d been there.

“Uncle, look! So many copper coins!” She patted her money pouch, and the coins inside jingled merrily.

Yan Huaiwen nodded and handed her something he was carrying.

“I’m heading out for a bit.”

Yan Yu looked down at the item in her hands—a mooncake mold that had been completely transformed.

She blinked. Then blinked again.

“Mom, Big Sis Daya, Madam Rong, look! Uncle made us a new mold!”

One could see that the rough-looking mooncake mold wasn’t just polished smooth on the inside—it even had a few characters carved into it: “When the moon is full, people reunite.”

Granny Rong immediately rolled some bean paste into a ball, wrapped it in dough, and pressed it into the mold.

Thump!

The mold was flipped onto the board and lifted away in one swift motion.

Five crisp characters stood out clearly on the surface.

Granny Rong was delighted. She made several more in quick succession.

When the new batch of mooncakes came out of the oven, their egg-washed crusts had a golden, slightly crisp finish. The characters were even more pronounced, and compared to the earlier ones that looked like plain flatbreads, these looked like an entirely different creation.

(End of chapter)