After staying one night at the village head’s house, Li Feng went to the drying yard.
Erhuang had already been wandering outside early in the morning. The moment it saw him, it ran over, wagging its tail. Li Feng asked which household it had stayed and eaten at last night, but it only responded with a bark.
Everything at the drying yard was as usual. A new day of busyness had begun. People arrived early to sell wild mushrooms, and those working moved in an orderly rhythm despite the bustle, every face carrying a smile.
Sun Fulang had gotten up early, while the two children were still asleep inside.
After the long journey, the children were exhausted. Having eaten their fill, they slept soundly. When they woke in the morning, they whimpered, complaining that they were sore. Sun Fulang rubbed their bodies for a while, and the two of them drifted back to sleep again.
Last night, Doctor Hu had come by, taken their pulses, and prescribed a dose of cold-dispelling medicine. Once it was boiled and drunk, they would be fine.
When the two met, Li Feng told him about the arrangements.
“Have you eaten? After you eat, I’ll take you to meet the village head. For the next few days, you can stay at the drying yard. I’ll go find people to talk about the honey workshop and bring them to meet you. After I return to the prefectural city, you can move into the house at the foot of the mountain and live near them. This couple has an entire hunting area full of beehives. Their child is about the same age as your youngest. The fulang is outgoing—you’ll get along well.”
The drying yard was crowded and noisy, but it gave a sense of security.
The two children also needed plenty of rest, and the house at the foot of the mountain still needed tidying up. Moving after some time would be just right.
Sun Fulang had already relaxed a great deal. After asking about the distance to the village head’s home and calculating the travel time—enough to return before the children woke—he asked someone to keep an eye on the children and went with Li Feng.
This was mostly a formality. After meeting the village head, Sun Fulang would be free to move around the drying yard. If he wished, he could also ask Fulang Erjun to take him around the village.
Li Feng temporarily set aside matters concerning Ertian and focused first on the honey workshop.
Before the workshop was built, they needed a “home-based operation”—refining honey at home to first fulfill the merchants’ order of five hundred jin of honey.
Things went more smoothly than expected. When he arrived at Daqiang’s house, it took no more than the time for two cups of tea before Daqiang and Yao Fulang both agreed to merge into the trading guild.
Daqiang had already been considering this ever since returning from the prefectural city and had discussed it many times with his fulang.
If they worked independently, they would have to do everything the guild did—hire people, organize transport, and deliver goods. Getting the goods to the prefectural city would only be the first step. Selling them well, at a good price, and maintaining long-term repeat customers—that was the difficult part.
They had never left the mountain stronghold before. Even when doing business in the county, it had only been small-scale stall trading. If they took on this business, they would have to shamelessly rely on the guild, asking Li Feng and Lu Liu for help in every aspect.
The guild was the livelihood of the entire stronghold. If they cooperated long-term without a clear division of profits, others would have opinions. Leaning on friends like this would also strain relationships.
There was also a very practical issue: even if they swallowed their pride, they simply did not have enough money to start their own operation.
They had even discussed how to bring up the idea of merging into the guild. The guild was flourishing this year, with business more than ten times better than last year. Their honey had not even opened up a market yet—wouldn’t this be taking too much advantage?
Once everything was laid out, Li Feng discussed the terms in detail.
Bees were expensive, and this was a profitable trade. They could follow the model used for mountain goods and medicinal herbs, which were accounted for separately. Taking the village head’s family as an example, they held only one-tenth of the shares in mountain goods, but two-tenths in medicinal herbs.
Li Feng said, “The honey workshop depends heavily on beekeeping and hives. We didn’t help you in the early stages—that all counts as your contribution. We’ll split it sixty-forty. You two take sixty percent, and the guild takes forty. You provide the hives and honey. The guild provides the capital to build the workshop, hires masters to teach honey refining, and handles sales channels. Besides honey, we can also sell beeswax.”
This ratio had already been calculated in the prefectural city and discussed with the village head—it was considered fair.
With sixty percent, Daqiang and Yao Fulang could conveniently support relatives if they wished—allocating half a share or one share at a time—while still retaining the majority.
Li Feng added, “We can also scale it up—divide it into a hundred shares. You take sixty shares, the guild takes forty. For every hundred taels of profit, you get sixty. This way, when you distribute shares to relatives, you’ll have a clear idea. Don’t think one share sounds small—it’s actually quite a lot.”
For such an important matter, Yao Fulang did not rush to answer, leaving the decision to Daqiang.
Daqiang turned to discuss it with him in a low voice, not avoiding Li Feng. It was roughly about who to include or exclude and how to handle the distribution.
Yao Fulang clearly had his own thoughts. Glancing at Li Feng, and knowing he would learn of it eventually—and that Li Feng had experience—he spoke:
“I won’t divide shares among my brothers. I’ll only give some to both sets of parents. We’re just starting—we haven’t even made money yet, and already we’re thinking of giving it away? Bringing relatives in to profit from it right away—it just doesn’t sit right. And what if it fails? Besides, it’s like making sauce—you can’t just look at profit, you have to consider costs. Saying honey comes from the mountains and costs nothing—I don’t accept that. Ever since Daqiang got this hunting area, our family was dragged down so badly we almost couldn’t feed the children. Later, things got a bit better, and whatever money we had went into beehives. That’s how we saved up this bit of honey. Now this family comes asking, that family comes wanting—I feel the pain every time!”
Wild mushrooms and medicinal herbs also came from the mountains, yet they still had costs.
Seeing that neither Li Feng nor Daqiang objected and both were listening seriously, he cleared his throat and continued:
“Every family has its own troubles. You men handle things outside, but you don’t see the frictions at home. I won’t burden you with those matters—I’ll just talk about the benefits of doing it this way.
“Filial piety to our parents is only right. If we give shares to them, no one can find fault with that. If none of the brothers get any, they won’t come pestering us. If they want shares, the best way is to be filial and coax our parents into giving them some—not to come asking us.
“When we start making money, we’ll see how much each share is worth. If the honey workshop becomes very profitable, losing a few shares won’t matter. If it doesn’t make money, then at least we’ll have the reputation of being filial.
“As for other brothers, if they insist on coming, we’ll take them up the mountain to keep bees. If they’re truly willing to endure hardship and not afraid of getting stung, we can let them apprentice at the workshop and learn honey refining.”
He spoke at length without stumbling—it was clear he had thought this through for a long time.
Daqiang was astonished. “I asked you about this earlier, and you didn’t say anything—you said we’d see later. Turns out you’d already figured it all out!”
Yao Fulang replied, “Back then nothing was settled. Why bother you with these matters of dividing money? I just saw that the honey up in the mountains had increased, and since we can sell five hundred jin this time, I thought we might earn something. I was afraid people would get jealous, so I planned ahead.”
Li Feng said, “The workshop will need apprentices. We’ll definitely choose some from your family, and also a few clever ones from the stronghold. Beekeeping will be taught. As for refining honey, we’ll wait and see after running things for a while. If the workshop can’t keep up, we can do it like the mushroom business—teach every household.”
That would be a matter for much later. First, they needed to get started.
There were no issues with merging into the guild. The couple agreed to first give half a share to each set of parents—together making one full share. The rest could be decided gradually.
Li Feng then took them to the new village to meet Sun Fulang.
Yao Fulang brought his child along to chat—talking about everyday matters, beekeeping, raising children—building rapport.
Meanwhile, Li Feng took Daqiang to look at land nearby to decide where to build the honey workshop.
He also asked, “So, once this gets going, will you be able to go to the prefectural city?”
Daqiang laughed heartily. “Five hundred jin of honey sounds like a lot, but when you do the math, it’s only about forty taels. That’s not even counting miscellaneous expenses or delivery costs. After profit sharing, I’d only get twenty-four taels. I’d need at least two hundred taels saved before I could settle in the prefectural city. Otherwise, I’d just end up coming back in disgrace and be laughed at.”
He added, “Laughed at by Wang Meng.”
Li Feng: “…”
How did those two even end up at odds?
There was an accountant at the drying yard, so Li Feng took him to look at the earliest account books.
At the beginning, when they went to the prefectural city to sell mushrooms, they only shipped three to five hundred jin at a time. Each person earned just a dozen or twenty taels. It had always been like that.
