Waiting at the inn entrance were not only the madams, but also maids sent by various wealthy families one after another.
Close to noon, Monkey and the others finally arrived on horseback.
Each horse had two crates draped over its belly.
The madams and maids rushed forward upon seeing them, trying to stop the warhorses.
This scared Monkey badly.
You see, most of the crates on the horses’ bellies were empty. If the madams opened them, would that not expose the ruse?
Fortunately, Big Liu arrived in time with his men and blocked the madams and maids outside.
“What do you want to do, rob our caravan?”
Big Liu drew his long knife with a swipe and shouted menacingly.
“No, no, we are here to buy soap.”
The madams and maids retreated repeatedly in fright.
Monkey quickly led his men into the inn.
“The soap has arrived, everyone please stay calm.”
Tang Xiaobei came out smiling and said, “Wait while I go in to sort them out, then deliver shortly.”
With that, she took Alan and retreated back into the inn.
Ten minutes later, the stall reopened.
This time, the madams dared not put on airs anymore, nor did they dare think of bargaining.
They desperately shoved silver notes into Tang Xiaobei’s hands, then left contentedly with the soap.
Fortunately, Jin Feng had anticipated this outcome and had Monkey bring enough empty crates, allowing Tang Xiaobei to improvise freely.
In just half an hour, Tang Xiaobei sold over six hundred more pieces, finally stemming the tide.
Another three thousand plus taels of silver in hand.
Big Liu was already shocked to the point of numbness.
He had never imagined making money like this.
“Brother Tie, that’s enough for today. If anyone else comes, say out of stock.”
Tang Dongdong watched the last maid leave and instructed Liu Tie guarding the stall, “Right, if anyone asks how much can be delivered tomorrow, say our village has little stock left, and there will be no goods for a while.”
“Understood.” Liu Tie nodded quickly.
Wealthy people in the prefecture city were limited in number after all. Over these two days, nearly a thousand pieces of soap had been sold in total, which was about enough.
Before they finished using this batch of soap, the situation of the past two days should not recur.
Continuing sales would instead lower the soap’s prestige.
Better to cool it off for a few days first.
Anyway, only Jin Feng in the whole world knew how to make soap. Once the Guangyuan Prefecture city market saturated, they could go elsewhere.
Dakang was vast. Not mentioning distant places, Guangyuan Prefecture alone had several county seats under it. Combined, there might even be more rich people than in the prefecture city.
Rather than exhausting energy in the prefecture city, better to open new markets.
However, Tang Xiaobei’s energy alone was limited. Even if she worked herself to death, she could not cover so many places.
Moreover, Jin Feng had once discussed his business plans with her. In Jin Feng’s vision, the goal was not one city or one place, but to build a vast commercial empire across the entire Dakang, even to the Western Regions, the grasslands, and overseas.
By then, Tang Xiaobei could not possibly handle everything personally.
With the nearly five thousand taels of silver earned recently, it was enough for Jin Feng to use for a while, so Tang Xiaobei decided to temporarily stop opening new markets. Instead, following Jin Feng’s suggestion, she would use this success as a case study to quickly train a batch of assistants.
Striving so that when business expanded later, this batch could become shopkeepers able to stand on their own like her.
And she would just manage these shopkeepers.
In the next few days, whenever free, Tang Xiaobei went to the tooth market, selecting clever and quick-witted people from numerous female slaves, personally teaching and training them.
The soap situation developed as Tang Xiaobei predicted. Although people still came to inquire, it was clearly not as hot as before.
But after a few days of fermentation, feedback on the soap’s effects came from buyers.
Soap, which no one in Jin Feng’s previous life cared to use, received unanimous praise from ladies of wealthy families and brothel girls.
Especially in Fengyue Lane, soap had become standard in every brothel.
Because soap not only had fragrance but also cleaned the body thoroughly, many customers, when selecting girls, specifically required the girls to bathe with soap first.
Brothels even set a rule for this: bathing with soap required an extra one hundred wen.
Some customers, fearing the girls took the money but did not use soap, or fearing the girls did not wash clean themselves, demanded a bathtub in the room to personally watch the girls wash.
Then these customers discovered that bathing with soap was not only slippery and smooth but also produced rich foam, adding much fun to bedroom matters.
The young masters of Guangyuan Prefecture city suddenly opened the door to a new world!
Thus, more and more young masters requested bathtubs in the room, causing bathtub prices in the prefecture city to multiply five or six times in just a few days, yet still in short supply.
Then, brothels added another rule: placing a bathtub in the room required an extra two hundred wen.
Even so, it could not dampen the young masters’ enthusiasm.
Any girl not using soap had no customers willing to visit.
All the carpenters in the prefecture city now stopped making anything else and worked overtime making bathtubs…
In contrast to the carpenters, due to soap’s emergence, the rouge and powder business in the prefecture city plummeted. Many rouge shops had not opened for days, and it seemed this situation would continue.
Jin Feng and Tang Xiaobei themselves had not expected that the soap they created would change the brothel service industry’s landscape, adding many new services to the brothels…
Later, Tang Xiaobei could not help her curiosity and specially went to Chunfeng House to consult Sister Ting.
Coming out of Chunfeng House, Tang Xiaobei’s mind was full of the knowledge Sister Ting imparted and Jin Feng’s figure.
“Sister Ting said I should take the initiative with the gentleman. Should I go back? But the gentleman is already good to me. What’s the difference if I go back or not? …”
Tang Xiaobei boarded the carriage with a mind full of thoughts.
In fact, soap not only opened a new world for the prefecture city’s young masters but also opened an upward window for the Zhou family, the largest cloth merchant in Guangyuan.
When soap was just gaining influence in the prefecture city, Zhou family head Zhou Changlin keenly sensed that soap would be something women liked very much.
So when news of Tang Xiaobei’s public sale spread, he immediately sent people to buy.
The maid who bought sixty boxes at once, astonishing Big Liu, was the one Zhou Changlin sent.
Apart from leaving ten boxes for his own family, the remaining fifty were all sent to Bianjing.
Usually, Zhou Changlin would occasionally send people to the capital to manage relations, with countless gifts, and soap was just one of them.
But who knew, once soap arrived in the capital, it was deeply loved by the women there and quickly snatched up by the Zhou family’s female relatives in the capital.
The capital Zhou family had many people, and few could get soap. Those who did not get any were unwilling.
The steward in charge of the inner household was pestered by the female relatives with no way out, so he had no choice but to send his own son to Guangyuan to quickly bring back another batch of soap.
