"Attendant Sam, go to my private storage and take three taels of silver. You and Attendant Sean each get 500 wen, and each of the five guards who went up the mountain last time gets 400 wen." Don't say she's stingy. In modern times, a 400-dollar daily bonus is already pretty good, and they still had their regular wages.
Since that place had it, there must be spores left there. She planned to go back another day and see if she could benefit more from it. After dinner that evening, Yaelle went to Michael's place again.
She never needed to announce herself and always just walked in. Michael was still in the study going over documents. When he saw her come in, he knew she wanted something done.
"Go ahead, what is it?" he asked. "Brother, I got some great things from that boat merchant last time, but there's only one of each. I want you to find someone who can reproduce them for me."
Heh, that's right, it was the poker cards. She had been bored these past few days and wanted to have them made so guests could play them in her teahouse and in the private rooms at her brother's hotel. "Brother, it has to be someone you completely trust.
We need to move quickly if we want to earn money. Once it gets out, people will copy it, so we have to act before that." Yaelle took out a deck of poker cards from her bag and handed it to Michael, along with a set of mahjong tiles she had taken earlier from the automatic mahjong machine.
Attendant Sean carried them over in a wooden box. As for why she didn't carry them herself, it was mainly because they were too heavy. Since someone could help, why not let them do it, hehe.
"What are these things? What are they for?" Michael asked with curiosity. "These poker cards are amazing. I think they're even more fun than chess or gambling," Yaelle said with a smile.
She picked up the cards and shuffled them skillfully, then cut the deck and dealt the cards. "Let's start with something simple. I'll teach you how to play."
"Let's play 'Run Fast' first." Michael nodded and looked at the cards in his hand with focus. He realized this kind of game tested both strategy and luck.
You had to think constantly if you wanted to win. "Wow, my cards are so good this round!" Yaelle said excitedly. She quickly played all her cards and won the first round.
"Haha, I won!" she laughed cheerfully. After that, they tried a few other poker games like Sheng Ji, Dou Dizhu, Dou Niu, Qianfen, and Dry Stare. Each game had different rules and skills.
Michael found them very interesting. "These games are really fun," he said with admiration. "Exactly, and poker can be played with several people too."
Yaelle told him, "Even with just two people, it's still super fun."
They started a new round of games. This time, they chose a game where the players stared at each other. Michael discovered that this game required not only paying attention to one's own cards but also observing the opponent's expressions and movements to guess their intentions.
"Heh, I can tell you don't have any good cards in your hand!" Yaelle said proudly with a grin.
"Aiya, you saw through me!" Michael shook his head helplessly.
Michael found it more and more interesting and said with a smile, "I didn't expect such a small set of cards to have so many ways to play."
Yaelle smiled proudly again, then took out a set of mahjong and started teaching Michael the rules.
"This mahjong is more complicated than poker but also more fun. Usually, it needs four people. Each player keeps 13 tiles, and then takes turns drawing a 14th tile.
If the tile is useful, you keep it, and discard the one you don't need. If you have two of a kind and someone discards the third, you can 'pong.' If you already have three and someone discards one more, it's called a 'kong.' If you have four yourself, that's a concealed kong.
Different places have different rules. Some allow 'chow,' some don't. There are common rules, Guangdong style, Hubei with 'naizi,' Sichuan with tile swaps and continuous battles." Yaelle patiently explained many different ways to play, leaving Michael overwhelmed.
His eyes thought he'd learned it, but his mind couldn't keep up, making Yaelle burst out laughing.
"Brother, you have to explore this slowly. I didn't take it out earlier because I was studying it in my room. I spent almost two months just to barely understand it." (She was totally lying.)
"I'm planning to open a small tea house in a few days. Brother, help me find a location. It doesn't need to be big, just enough to divide into five or six small rooms and a large hall where people can tell stories.
Once it's ready, we can set up special rooms in both the tea house and your restaurant for customers to play these games."
Michael nodded, admiring his sister's business sense. "As expected of my sister. You even came up with such a creative idea. I'll go find someone reliable to build it."
Then he called Zack inside and gave detailed instructions, including where to do it and whom to hire. Zack accepted the task and left with the playing cards and mahjong sets.
Three days later, Michael came to Yaelle with a smile. He said he had good luck. A family who owned a teahouse was moving to the capital and selling the place.
The business hadn't been great, and they didn't want to bring the staff, so they sold it. The price was reasonable, only 320 taels.
Yaelle was delighted and followed her brother to check out the place. It was a small two-story building with about 150 square meters.
The first floor had four small rooms of about ten square meters each on both sides. The middle area was bigger, around seventy square meters, with a raised platform at the front for storytelling.
The second floor had larger rooms arranged in a circle, with a corridor and railing outside.
You could open a window from any room and look down at the storytelling platform. The setup was very clever and perfect for a tea house.
There was no need to change the structure. Only a few soft touches were needed, like hanging sheer curtains by the windows to create a nice atmosphere, putting fabric covers on the chairs, and adding matching cushions.
That was more than enough to give it a complete makeover.
She hadn't been idle during this time. The roses and jasmine she'd asked people to find were ready.
There was also dried hawthorn, though chrysanthemum hadn't been found yet. That could wait. The variety of tea could slowly grow with the seasons. The real business was the seat fees, not tea sales.
Yaelle gave the tea house a simple decoration and opened it on May 15. Michael had ten mahjong sets made from wood.
It wasn't hard to cut them to size, but carving characters and polishing them took time. Playing cards were made from hard cardboard and were simpler. The illustrations were done by hired artists and took less time than carving.
Michael even gifted one finely painted deck and one high-quality wooden mahjong set to the county magistrate.
He also sent some to the county lord's house, since they were family now. Naturally, good things had to be shared.
The remaining eight mahjong sets were split between Yaelle and Michael, four each.
They also split the playing cards, more than ten decks each. Yaelle actually didn't need any since her shop already had dozens, but to avoid suspicion, she still used the newly made ones.
Three days before the opening, she began promotion. Every customer who bought jewelry or dined at Michael's restaurant received a small gift.
They were told about the tea house, with its new and interesting features, and that there would be a 20 percent discount on opening day.
The gifts were handmade colorful soaps in pretty shades.
She had leftover dyes from coloring the dog's fur and had recently found the dyes again in her space. They were originally for dyeing eggs. Not edible, but non-toxic and safe. The soap dyes were light in color and didn't stain the hands.
Opening day was indeed lively. Most visitors were noblewomen accompanied by their servants or husbands, likely curious about the novelty.
Several young attendants were assigned not only to serve tea but also to teach poker and mahjong. These were specially bought and trained in advance, and they'd learned the basic rules.
Since there were only four mahjong sets, the fee was higher.
They were placed in private rooms on the second floor, each costing 2 taels. Poker rooms cost 1 tael for three hours of play. Storytelling in the main hall only required buying a pot of tea.
Tea prices ranged from 30 to 50 coins per pot, with the most expensive only 50.
It even came with a small plate of sunflower seeds, a cheap snack that was locally sourced. Once her peanuts were ready, she'd use them as snacks too.
Maybe it was thanks to the promotion, but all the rooms were filled.
Even the main hall was packed with people listening to stories. Young attendants bustled everywhere.
The noblewomen were extremely interested in mahjong and poker.
They even had their servants bring lunch back to the rooms. When it was time to extend the room rental, they didn't even blink at the price and paid it happily.
Yaelle saw the accountant working the abacus fast and couldn't help but smile with joy in her heart.