TATLC Chapter 84 — Sweet Potato Strips as Freebie

Yun Niang’s cooking skills were so good that Lu Lin rarely cooked anymore. Sometimes when he felt like it, he would show off his skills.

After they stocked up on sweet potatoes, Lu Lin decided to make sweet potato pancakes.

The fried sweet potato pancakes looked tempting with their golden color. They tasted soft and delicious when eaten hot, making it hard to stop eating them.

Since frying sweet potato pancakes needed oil, Lu Lin didn’t make too many. But each of the kids in the house still got one.

Chen Xiaomai bit into his sweet potato pancake with sparkling eyes.

“Lin-ge, this is delicious.”

He was about to reach for another one from the plate, but Lu Lin gently swatted his hand away. “You’ve already eaten three. If you eat more, you’ll be taking Qin Lang’s share.”

Qin Lang licked his lips and said, “Lin-ge, it’s fine, let Xiaomi have it.”

Qin Lang had been helping Lu Lin earlier. By the time he washed his hands and came out, only one pancake was left on the plate.

Lu Lin glanced at him. “No need to spoil him like that. Besides, eating too much isn’t good for him.”

When Chen Xiaomai heard this, he reluctantly pushed the plate with the sweet potato pancake toward Qin Lang.

Qin Lang took a bite and his eyes lit up immediately. “Lin-ge, this is really delicious. You’re so talented.”

Lu Lin watched his reaction and thought to himself that people here were still easy to please. As long as there was good food, that was enough. Good food could really boost people’s motivation.

Chen Xiaomi had already eaten two sweet potato pancakes. He had one in his mouth and was holding another in his hand. After Chen Xiaomai pushed the plate toward Qin Lang, Xiaomai stared longingly at Chen Xiaomi. Chen Xiaomi had no choice but to give half of his pancake to Xiaomai.

Xiaomai took the half pancake and started nibbling on it very carefully.

Lu Lin found it amusing to see Chen Xiaomi looking heartbroken about his pancake.

Later, Lu Lin went to Dawan Village. Many villagers had grown sweet potatoes. When they knew Lu Lin was there to buy sweet potatoes, they were very happy.

Liu Guiyong looked somewhat embarrassed as he spoke to Lu Lin. “Lin-shao, we’re troubling you again.” Liu Guiyong felt that Lu Lin probably didn’t really want to eat sweet potatoes. His decision to buy these sweet potatoes was likely just out of kindness.

The villagers were eager to sell their sweet potatoes, so they didn’t set the price very high. Last year’s sweet potatoes cost five wen for three jin, but this year they only wanted one wen per jin.

Lu Lin spent eight taels of silver and bought eight thousand jin of sweet potatoes directly. The villagers promised to deliver the sweet potatoes to town.

Lu Lin could already be considered a big customer. However, many families in Dawan Village had grown sweet potatoes, so Lu Lin’s purchase of eight thousand jin was just a drop in the bucket.

Chen Xiaomai was shocked when he saw the people from Dawan Village delivering large amounts of sweet potatoes. His eyes widened in surprise.

“Qin Ming-gege, so many sweet potatoes!”

Qin Ming nodded and said, “Yes!”

Chen Xiaomai asked with some confusion, “Are we not going to eat rice anymore and just eat sweet potatoes?”

Qin Ming replied, “Probably not.” The sweet potatoes did taste good, but eating too many of them always caused bloating.

Lu Lin brought the Qin brothers and Chen Xiaomai to dry some sweet potato strips. The sweet potatoes from Dawan Village were very sweet, so the dried sweet potato strips were also very sweet. After the sweet potato strips were dried, everyone said they were delicious.

When Lu Lin and Qin Lang went to Liu Town to deliver goods, they brought a lot of sweet potato strips for Chen Xiaocai and Shen Chi.

Chen Xiaocai and the others ate very frugally. Lu Lin had talked to them several times about eating properly, but they still ate very little. Lu Lin asked Qin Yi to watch over them, but Qin Yi was even more frugal.

With no other choice, Lu Lin hired an elderly woman to cook for the three of them every day.

He planned to send more sweet potato strips to the two boys so they could have snacks when they got hungry.

Taking advantage of the sunny weather, Lu Lin dried several batches of sweet potato strips.

Chen Xiaomi was chewing on sweet potato strips and asked, “Why are you drying so many sweet potato strips? If we can’t finish them, they’ll go bad.”

“Business has slowed down a bit recently, so I’m planning to do some promotional activities.”

Chen Xiaomi’s eyes lit up. “Like that ‘buy one, get one free’ idea you mentioned?”

Lu Lin nodded. “Yes, exactly that.”

Chen Xiaomi tilted his head. He had heard Lu Lin talk about many “buy one, get one free” promotions, but most of them seemed like tricks. For example, the sign would say “buy one, get one free,” but in reality, it meant buying one piece of clothing and getting a free pair of socks. However, people always liked to get a bargain. Getting something for free was better than getting nothing at all!

“You want to give away sweet potato strips?” Chen Xiaomi asked, holding up the sweet potato strip in his hand.

Lu Lin nodded. “That’s right.”

Chen Xiaomi blinked and thought that buying dolls and getting sweet potato strips seemed a bit strange! But since Lu Lin was so smart, there must be a reason for doing this.

A few days later, the store launched an activity where customers could get free sweet potato strips when buying book bags or dolls.

Lu Lin made some small cloth bags in different colors and put sweet potato strips inside them. Anyone who bought something in the store would get a bag.

Sweet potato strips weren’t anything rare, but everyone who received them was very happy. Many customers gave very high praise to the sweet potato strips. When buying dolls, they would always ask the store to give them more.

“Lin-shao, those sweet potato strips taste really good. How about giving me some?” Yang Hengzhi said to Lu Lin.

Yang Hengzhi had bought another doll at the shop a couple of days ago. Since he was a regular customer, Chen Xiaomi gave Yang Hengzhi a few extra bags of sweet potato strips. Yang Hengzhi hadn’t thought much of it at first, but when he took them home, the old lady really liked the taste of these sweet potato strips and hogged all the free gifts for herself.

Lu Lin replied helplessly, “Yang-shao, those sweet potato strips aren’t for sale. They’re just free gifts.”

Yang Hengzhi winked and grinned, “Lin-shao, you’re doing this to me again. Your shop’s treasure isn’t for sale either, only those with fate can get it. These sweet potato strips are probably the same. Just look at me and you’ll know I’m the destined one.”

Lu Lin smiled awkwardly and said, “Since you put it that way, I’ll give you some. But please don’t tell others about it…”

Yang Hengzhi nodded. “I understand.”

After the sweet potato strips were given away as gifts for a while, they received widespread praise. Many people came to ask if these gifts were sold separately. Lu Lin hadn’t dried many sweet potato strips, so he told people they weren’t sold separately. This left many people disappointed, but some like Yang Hengzhi came to sweet-talk him.

“Your sweet potato strips really are delicious! I’ve had other kinds, but none were as sweet as these,” Yang Hengzhi said.

Lu Lin smiled. “I use small sweet potatoes from Dawan Village. The sweet potatoes grown there are smaller, but they’re quite sweet with a good texture. If you like them, you can go buy some yourself.”

Yang Hengzhi showed some interest. “Really? That sounds good. My grandmother loves eating sweet potato porridge.”

During this time, Lu Lin had also recommended Dawan Village’s small sweet potatoes to many people, but he wasn’t sure if those people had actually gone to Dawan Village to buy them.

If Dawan Village’s sweet potato surplus problem wasn’t solved, many families there would have trouble getting through winter. In his heart, Lu Lin felt sympathy for these farmers who faced the earth with their backs to the sky.

More than ten days later, several villagers came to the gate of the courtyard where Chen Xiaomi lived.

Qin Lang looked at the villagers and asked, “Is there something you need?”

Liu Guiyong said nervously, “We’re villagers from our Dawan Village. Thanks to Young Master Lin’s help, our village’s sweet potatoes have sold almost completely. We came to express our gratitude.”

The people of Dawan Village had originally been worried about how to sell their sweet potatoes.

Unexpectedly, some time ago, people actually came looking for them, saying they wanted to buy sweet potatoes.

At first, the villagers were worried that the sweet potatoes were too small and wouldn’t satisfy the buyers, but surprisingly, these customers actually preferred the smaller ones.

As more and more people started coming, what had seemed like a one-time fluke began to feel strange. Why were so many people asking about their village’s sweet potatoes?

After Liu Guiyong inquired around, he learned that Huaxia Shop was giving away sweet potato strips with doll purchases. Many people thought they tasted good but couldn’t buy them, so they came directly to Dawan Village to buy sweet potatoes.

With the increasing number of buyers, the village’s sweet potato surplus problem was solved. Many villagers were very grateful to Lu Lin. After discussing it, they decided they couldn’t let him help for free, so they brought him some local goods as thanks.

Chen Xiaomi looked at the mushrooms, yams, and bamboo shoots the villagers brought and felt very happy. There were plenty of these things in the mountains, but he hadn’t been going to the mountains recently. When he wanted to eat them, he had to buy them.

“Uncle Liu, you really didn’t have to,” Chen Xiaomi said with a smile.

“Not at all, not at all.” Liu Guiyong replied, then introduced the middle-aged man beside him. “This is the village head of our Dawan Village.”

Chen Xiaomi glanced at the man and said, “So you’re the village head. Please excuse my rudeness.”

Liu Tian quickly returned the courtesy and said, “Xiaomi-ge, you’re too polite. Thanks to you and Brother Lin, otherwise our village’s sweet potatoes would have rotted in storage.”

Chen Xiaomi quickly waved his hands dismissively. “It was nothing, just a small favor. No need to be polite.”

The village head Zhang Cheng in his village always looked at him with disdain, as if his eyes weren’t eyes and his nose wasn’t a nose. He even thought Chen Xiaomi had corrupted the village’s moral standards. Chen Xiaomi had originally thought all village heads were like that. Suddenly meeting a village head who was extremely polite to him made Chen Xiaomi feel a bit uncomfortable.

Liu Guiyong looked at Chen Xiaomi’s round belly and said, “Xiaomi-ge, your child is getting big!”

Chen Xiaomi rubbed his belly and sighed. “It’s been quite a few months. Carrying this little guy around makes it hard to move freely. I need to give birth soon.”

Liu Guiyong chuckled. “You’re joking, Xiaomi-ge. Right now, you should be resting and taking it easy…”

Chen Xiaomi puffed out his cheeks and said, “Resting? I already gained so much weight.”

Every time Lu Lin saw him doing heavy work, he would make a big fuss. It was downright unreasonable. In the village, pregnant women still had to work when they needed to.

Chen Xiaomi accepted the gifts and asked Chen Xiaomai to bring out some sweet potato strips to treat the guests.

Liu Guiyong and the others had heard a lot recently about the sweet potato strips sold at Huaxia Trading Company, so they all tried some.

“Xiaomi-ge, you really dried these sweet potato strips well!”

Chen Xiaomi said proudly, “They’re not bad, I suppose. Many customers like them and come asking if we sell them separately. But these are gifts, so we don’t sell them separately.”

Sweet potato strips were just a gimmick for the store. Sweet potatoes weren’t anything rare, and it would be difficult to make much money selling them. Lu Lin didn’t expect to make money from this, so he didn’t bother with it.

Liu Guiyong and the others ate the sweet potato strips while thinking that sweet potatoes weren’t easy to sell. Maybe they could consider selling finished sweet potato strips. But since Chen Xiaomi had thought of sweet potato strips first, they wondered if selling sweet potato strips would affect his business.

When Liu Guiyong cautiously brought it up, Chen Xiaomi generously assured him it was fine.

Sweet potato strips were just a promotional tool anyway. If they didn’t have this, they could use something else.