Chapter 7: Xingmenlou
Liu Xiaolan had no choice but to think about another way to sell her mushrooms.
'Maybe I should sell them on the marketplace…' She thought, but quickly denied this idea.
If even the shopkeeper of one of the best restaurants in the city didn't know what mushrooms were, what luck would she need to have to find someone on the market willing to buy them.
Liu Xiaolan gritted her teeth and muttered to herself. "No other choice, I can only look for other restaurants and hope someone knows what mushrooms are…"
With this in mind, Liu Xiaolan pulled over a random person and asked for known restaurants in the city. In the end, after listening to a few people talking about restaurants, she decided to try her luck in a restaurant called Xingmenlou.
While Xingmenlou wasn't the most popular restaurant in the city, that wasn't always the case. Originally, years back Xingmenlou was still at the front of the pack when it came to food industry inside Shenyang.
However, Xingmenlou never had a famous backer behind it. While it had good food and prices adequate to what they served, they also had their shortcomings. The owner behind it was originally a simple chef, and without contacts in the upper circle, once other merchants opened their restaurants, he soon found out that a large amount of nobles that used to come in to his restaurant now swapped to other places.
While his food was actually good, at the end of the day people would also get bored with it at some point in time. With new restaurants opening in the city and bringing dishes well known in other parts of the country, most of his original customers just stopped coming.
Right now, Xingmenlou just manages to survive thanks to the so called middle class coming in to eat. While they can't afford the same prices as nobles pay, their money allowed Xingmenlou to continue to open till now.
"Xingmenlou should be a good target... " A small grin appeared at Liu Xiaolan's face.
"At the very least they shouldn't discriminate against me… Even better now that their owner was also a chef, maybe he would know what mushrooms are…"
With no further time to waste, she quickly made her way towards the restaurant.
Xingmenlou has no people keeping the door, so this time she managed to get inside the building and came to the lobby.
The boy keeping the reception looked at her, but seeing that she was looking like a poor ghost without any money, he just ignored her.
Liu Xiaolan walked to the counter and politely smiled towards the little boy keeping tabs at the reception table. "Little brother, I've got some things to sell here…"
Seeing that the boy looked towards the baskets she lifted up, she continued speaking. "I'd like to ask your shopkeeper if he would be interested in them. Could you please call him over?"
The little brother looked at the sincerity in Liu Xiaolan, and seeing that see was quite polite and there wasn't too much traffic right now inside the restaurant, he decided to agree to her request.
"This lady, please wait here for a moment. I'll go and look for our shopkeeper."
Soon, the little boy returned and was followed by a middle aged man. "Shopkeeper Zhao, this lady is the person looking for you."
Shopkeeper Zhao looked at Liu Xiaolan with a little doubt in his eyes. Looking at the rural girl in front of him, could she really have something worth enough to call him over to personally check the goods?
Seeing that Liu Xiaolan picked up her baskets full of mushrooms, that looked tender, fresh and probably picked not a long time ago, his eyes showed a pleasant surprise.
"Oh? This little girl happens to bring some fungus to sell?"
Liu Xiaolan finally put down the worry in her heart. Trully, someone who knows his goods! While he called her mushrooms as fungus, it's good as long as he knows what they are.
In all honesty, how could it be possible for the shopkeeper of Qingxue Pavilion to not know food ingredients like mushrooms? He knows them perfectly fine, but Liu Xiaolan didn't think that they had a different name in the ancient times.
If Liu Xiaolan was dressed in better clothes, perhaps he would ask her what she meant by saying that she had mushrooms for sale, but seeing her looking like a beggar he just thought that she has nothing worth bothering himself.
"Is the little girl a fungus picker? Some of them are poisonous and one needs to know which ones are edible…"
Seeing the worry in Shopkeeper Zhao's eyes, Liu Xiaolan quickly replied. "Shopkeeper Zhao doesn't need to worry. I've been picking them up for a long time, as long as you call someone who knows how to recognize them, you will know if they are good.
Shopkeeper Zhao turned his attention towards her and slowly the look in his eyes became more polite. Mushrooms are seasonal goods that only a handful of people sell, so they are expensive and very often short of supply.
He immediately said to the young boy standing next to him, "Xiao Su, quickly go and call the chef."
At the same time he took Liu Xiaolan towards a private room and served some tea with refreshments.
Soon, Xiao Su came back with the chef.
"Hmm, Shopkeeper Zhao, there are no issues with these fungus. They're still fresh and safe to be eaten. Good product." The chef said after inspecting the mushrooms that Liu Xiaolan picked.
Seeing that everything was fine, Shopkeeper Zhao nodded with satisfaction. He looked towards Liu Xiaolan and decided to buy all of them. Mushrooms after all are still a popular product, and guests like to eat them very much.
Dishes with mushrooms in them, even as just some sides, can sell a few times more expensive than dishes without them. After all, the scarcity of mushrooms makes them much more popular than other available products.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone