The Big Landlord - Chapter 100.1 – Scholar

Chapter 100.1 – Scholar

Seven days prior.

Tian Long Gambling House was a business that An Zi Ran built up by himself.

It wasn’t something that he obtained after becoming An Zi Ran, but rather something that he built up bit by bit for himself, so his awareness of Tian Long Gambling House was much higher than that of the An family’s businesses.

However, even a person made of iron could not handle that many days of high-intensity work, especially since the number of businesses under his hand has increased to three.

Originally, he planned to establish Tian Long Gambling House first. The carving workshop and playing card business were not in his plans, but then in order to better operate the gambling house, he had to have these two industries firmly within his hands.

But recently, he encountered some trouble.

The high quality official card paper that he used for making playing cards was a famous paper product that only qualified officials could afford. The low output was also a contributing factor to its price.

But the most important point was that the cost was too high.

Ten playing cards could be made from one sheet of the high quality official card paper. A deck of fifty-four cards required five and a half sheets of official card paper, including printing and labor costs, the cost of completing a deck of cards was likely to exceed fifty copper coins. This kind of situation was not conducive to the popularization of playing cards.

Translations are by vmnovels [dot] com, if you’re reading this anywhere else, then it was stolen.

People in the capital make at most a hundred copper coins a day. Their daily allowance to spend outside was even less. How could they possibly deliberately spend fifty copper coins on a deck of playing cards? If they had this kind of money then it would be better to buy a few pounds of meat and eat it with the family.

An Zi Ran’s plan was to keep the cost at about ten copper coins as much as possible. But if the cards were made entirely of official card paper, then this idea would not be possible at all. So it could only be replaced with another type of paper.

However, looking at all of Da Ya, there weren’t many types of paper that could replace the hardness and feel of the official card paper.

It couldn’t be that he would have to start a papermaking business himself could it?

An Zi Ran was afraid that if things went on like this, even if he knew how to duplicate himself, he could not juggle so many different things. And too many side occupations would only cause more problems.

Looking at the situation now, in the absence of a suitable paper to replace the official card paper, he could only temporarily service just the rich clientele.

While he was pondering, a warm body suddenly covered his back from behind.

An Zi Ran did not look back. The only person who could easily approach him was Fu Wu Tian.

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A pair of hands covered his temples and lightly rubbed a few times. The accumulating headaches in the recent days suddenly eased a lot. He had been thinking too much during this period of time.

“Wang fei, would you like to go out and relax?”

An Zi Ran hesitated. “Okay.”

He had been busy for so many days. He also wanted to relax, and with more and more industries under his hands, he could not do everything by himself, so he planned to delegate some of that responsibility in a few days.

When he heard that the two of them were going out, the lao wang ye also wanted to tag along.

He hadn’t been outside for nearly three months. Since the cheating incident, he had been quiet again, and was trying his best to hone his skills. He only came out of secluded training yesterday, but it was still his grounding period, so he could only move about within the Imperial Fu Palace.

Fu Wu Tian ruthlessly rejected his request.

He wanted to spend time with his wang fei. How could he possibly bring such a giant third wheel along?

In response, lao wang ye gave him a single comment.

“You ungrateful brat!”

“You make trouble without reason.” Fu Wu Tian countered, tit for tat.

The dialogue between these two amused everyone within the prince’s palace.

An Zi Ran couldn’t help laughing out loud. How come he felt like he had heard this dialogue somewhere before? It really wasn’t some ordinary joy.

In the end, they still didn’t take the lao wang ye out.

The streets of Jun Zi City were intricate. There was a bustling market in four directions: east, west, south, and north. They were named after the four cardinal directions. For example, An Zi Ran’s Tian Long Gambling House was located in the area collectively referred to as the East District. It was the liveliest place in the four major markets of the capital.

But they were not going to visit the East District today.

An Zi Ran has been in and out of the East District for the past two months. He was already clear about the lay of the land, and so was Fu Wu Tian. Since he gave up his military power, he could accompany him every day, which was a great help to him.

So today, they decided to look at the West District, which was the farthest.

West District was not as prosperous as East District. There were no brothels or gambling houses here. Instead, there were a lot of taverns, inns, and teahouses. But the majority of the shops here were the kind that sold various miscellaneous things, for example, clothes, tealeaves, steamed stuffed buns, lamb meat, secondhand clothes, stone work, wood work, etc. There were an abundant variety of items for sell. Thus, the night market in the West District was the liveliest of the four major districts. Even the East District could not compare to the West District when it came to the night market.

Translations by Vanilla Muse.

At this moment, An Zi Ran and Fu Wu Tian were strolling on the streets of the West District.

From time to time, the sound of hawkers yelling and the laughter of children and the elderly would reach their ears. The atmosphere here was much more peaceful and warmer than in the East District.

Seeing this, An Zi Ran couldn’t help remembering the letter from Steward Su a few days ago.

During his time running the casino, Zhou Laohan’s wife garnered huge success. The rice noodles she made were well received in An Yuan County, and many people liked to eat them.

Zhou Laohan’s wife didn’t conceal her recipe. She shared her rice noodle-making recipe with Chef Wang. She was a woman who liked cooking. Later, she experimented with Chef Wang to come up with many delicious dishes. They created two large-sized snack dishes that couldn’t be squeezed into the noodle bar, so Steward Su took the initiative and opened up a restaurant in An Yuan County.

An Zi Ran thought that if the results were good then he could try opening one in the capital and see how it went. Just as he was thinking that, a hand suddenly landed atop his head.

He looked up and saw Fu Wu Tian staring at him. He blanked for a moment and then realized that his thoughts had subconsciously turned in the direction of making more money.

“…Let’s go over there and take a look.”

An Zi Ran shifted the topic with a slight awkwardness, and then he walked ahead before the other could respond.

Fu Wu Tian saw the tips of An Zi Ran’s ears turn red. With a smile in his eyes, he kept up without saying anything.

An Zi Ran wasn’t a foodie, but he was very interested in the food here.

For example, dandan noodles, congee, cakes, steamed buns, crab soup, etc. There were snacks that he had never eaten before, not even in his previous life. He could smell the dense aroma of the food when he walked past the shop and it stirred his appetite.