Top Scholar

Chapter 236 Year-End Bonus
Winters get dark early, and the main hall in the front yard is brightly lit.

The entire Su family, including the young and old, plus the pregnant and able-bodied, a total of eighteen people, sat around a large round table, shoulder to shoulder.

When the eldest aunt served the dishes, she shook her head upon seeing this scene and said, "This table is still too small. Next year, when my three sons get married and have children, I'll have to find someone to build an even bigger one!"

“You’re such a stubborn woman. We can just split it into two tables,” the uncle laughed. “Our hall is big enough to fit three tables.”

The side rooms on both sides of the main hall are separated by movable screens. After the screens are removed, the three rooms are combined into a very large hall for use in large events.

"Nonsense! A family reunion dinner has to be eaten at the same table, otherwise what's the point of a reunion?" My aunt and uncle bickered as usual, but their hands moved swiftly, working together with my aunt to set the dishes on the table one by one—

Cold-dressed wood ear mushrooms with pickled wild Sichuan peppercorns; dark black mushroom caps sprinkled with red dogwood; a plate of cured pork, sausage, and chicken, edged with green garlic sprouts...

Steamed sea bass rests on a white plate, with scallion shreds curling in black bean sauce; deep-fried crispy pork is piled into a golden mountain; braised pork hock in a casserole has a glossy skin; steamed pork with rice flour is laid on a lotus leaf, with sweet taro sandwiched in the middle...

The most wonderful dish was my aunt's specialty, tofu soup. Tender tofu was wrapped around crab roe, and golden egg strands floated on the surface of the soup, trembling at the slightest touch of a spoon.

Twenty dishes filled the table, and even my aunt, who is incredibly efficient, has been busy since noon. There are still dishes simmering on the stove.

Although they are all home-style dishes, and not as good as Chef Hu's cooking, this is the taste that the Su brothers remember, and no one in the world can compare to it...

The family raved about the food, and paired with their own Erlang aged liquor, this reunion dinner was simply perfect!
It was tough on my aunt and uncle; they only sat down halfway through the banquet, and my aunt was already exhausted, her eyes practically glazed over. My aunt was also exhausted, but she just forced herself to stay awake...

"Thank you for your hard work." The proprietress quickly ladled a bowl of chicken soup for each of them. It wasn't that she didn't want to help, but seeing the two of them fighting like it was a battle, she knew why her aunt couldn't get involved.

"It's nothing," my aunt said, but her hands were trembling slightly as she held the bowl.

"Alas, time waits for no one," the eldest aunt sighed. "Back when my second son got married, I was doing the work of three people, and I was much busier than this."

"..." The two sisters-in-law quickly turned their heads away and pretended to talk.

Fortunately, the landlady was already used to her aunt's sharp tongue, so she pretended not to hear and said to herself, "Let's hire two people to help. If we feel that the hired people are not suitable, we might as well buy two maids and teach them from scratch."

“Your eldest brother always says the same thing.” Aunt picked up her wine cup, took a sip of Erlang aged wine, and squinted her eyes as she said, “But whether you hire people or buy people, it’s not a one-off deal. It’s a huge expense every year.”

"Our Erlang wine isn't a one-off deal," the proprietress said with a smile.

"Isn't this what we're waiting for your share of the profits?" The eldest aunt beamed and put her arm around the proprietress, saying, "I'm just hoping the Goddess of Wealth will bestow more silver upon me before I dare to hire anyone."

"It's all ready," the proprietress nodded. "Pay the bill after you finish your meal."

"Then eat quickly, eat quickly!" Auntie urged loudly.

~~
After the meal, the whole family moved to the main hall in the second courtyard. Youli and Xi conscientiously took the lead in clearing away the dishes…

Since the old lady couldn't understand anyway, she took Jinbao'er, Xibao'er, and Dongge'er to bed.

Su Tai closed the door, and the proprietress brought out a stack of ledgers and began to report the expenses.

“Now our Su family’s income is divided into four parts: the earliest Sweet Water Shop, Hejiang Wine Shop, Erlang Winery in Luzhou, and most importantly, our shares in Erlang Winery.” The proprietress said, looking around the room. The whole family’s eyes widened and their ears perked up.

"Let's talk about Sweet Water Shop first. The profit is divided into two parts, one is sweet water. The annual profit from this part is 240 taels, which is 55 taels less than last year," the proprietress said.

"You two haven't been in the shop all year, so this is quite a good result," Auntie said with a smile.

"Actually, our absence from the shop doesn't have a big impact. In fact, our income this year is several tens of taels higher than last year, but we gave our three employees a total of one hundred taels in commissions," the proprietress explained. "So our profit margin has decreased somewhat."

"Give them so much?" the eldest aunt and the youngest aunt asked in unison.

"You two stupid women, if it weren't for the high commissions, would they work so hard for you? They would have ruined the shop long ago," the uncle said irritably, chewing on a betel leaf roll.

"You think you know everything? How much money did you bring home this year?" the aunt retorted sarcastically.

"Alright, stop talking and listen to your sister-in-law." Su Youjin quickly stopped her.

"So the profit to be distributed here is two hundred and forty taels." The proprietress continued, "Another source of income for Sweet Water Shop comes from distributing Erlang Wine, but this year we have put most of our wine business outside of Taiping Town so that we can sell it at a higher price."

"We really felt bad about raising prices with Sweet Water's loyal customers, so we opted to ship through Hejiang Wine Shop. That way, we wouldn't feel guilty," Su Youcai explained.

"..." Chun Ge listened silently, thinking to himself, "I'm really not suited for business." "So we only sold 40,000 jin here, still at the original price to our regular customers. Fortunately, the sales costs were greatly reduced, so the profit on the liquor was 350 taels," the proprietress continued.
"The two profits add up to five hundred and ninety taels. Now that Sweet Water Shop's business is getting simpler and simpler, we only need to keep forty taels in surplus, so the distributable profit is five hundred and fifty taels."

"The commander owns 20% of the shares and should receive 110 taels. He firmly refuses to accept any tribute, so the rest is all ours." The proprietress didn't distinguish between "yours" and "mine" anymore and directly calculated it as 440 taels.

The eldest aunt said in a deep voice, "Most of this is my second brother's wife's dowry. If she decides not to give it to the family one day, no one is allowed to say a word."

"Of course, we're too grateful to thank my second sister-in-law." The eldest uncle nodded, the couple rarely agreeing.

"..." The younger aunt felt as if she'd been shot in the knee. The older sister-in-law seemed to be implying something about herself again, because no one else could possibly...

~~
The proprietress picked up her teacup, took a sip, and continued, "Then there's Hejiang Wine Shop. When we invested, it was agreed that the proportion would still be the same as Sweet Water Shop, but we also gave Mr. You 20%."

Because Hejiang County was established by Commander Ma leading his troops in a physical battle, the Su family insisted that all of You Muyou's shares be given to them, without diluting Commander Ma's shares.

Therefore, the three companies accounted for 226%.

"The liquor store has two sources of income: one is selling our own liquor, and the other is taking a cut from other liquor stores' sales," the proprietress said in a softer tone.

"That year, Hejiang Wine Shop sold a total of 140,000 catties of Erlang wine, and it could be sold for 70 wen per jar here. So each catty of wine could earn 14 wen, totaling 1,960 taels! After deducting expenses, the profit was about 1,800 taels."

"Hiss..." Everyone in the family gasped. The aunt, clutching her uncle's arm, nearly fainted. "So much?"

"Another four hundred taels is the commission from other businesses," the proprietress said. "That makes a total of two thousand two hundred taels. Of this, ten percent goes to Seventh Uncle and the others first. They're the ones who handle the business at the wine shop."

"Of course." The Su family members nodded in unison; they didn't mind spending money on their own clansmen.

"Keep another 180 taels as a surplus, and the remaining 1800 taels can be divided up," the proprietress said, her voice slightly raised.

"Of that, Mr. You and the Commander-in-Chief each received 2360 taels, and our family received 1080 taels!"

"Whoa whoa whoa!" The whole family couldn't help but cheer. "Hooray hooray!"

"The third one is Erlang Winery in Luzhou," the proprietress added enthusiastically. "We've been mainly busy with that this year."

"Lanlan is the main one who's busy. I'll start studying in the second half of the year to accompany my son to the exam hall," Su Youcai said, glancing guiltily at his aunt.

“Now that we have money, you should take the exam. Otherwise, all those thirty years of your education would have been for nothing.” Aunt’s attitude was completely different from back then.

"Yes, sister-in-law is right, I think so too." Su Youcai finally breathed a sigh of relief.

"This is our first year in Luzhou, and the local wine merchants are quite powerful. Thanks to the efforts of Manager Tian from the county government, and the help of the Zhu family, we were able to enter the Luzhou market. We can sell no more than 100,000 jin of wine each year, and the price cannot be lower than 100 wen." The proprietress spoke casually, but there were actually many hardships behind it. But now it was a time of celebration, so she naturally only talked about the happy things.

"So we only sold 60,000 jin this year." The proprietress was a little embarrassed; the market she was personally in charge of had performed the worst.

“That’s normal.” Su Lu, who had been quiet all along, finally spoke up: “One hundred coins is the dividing line for high-end liquor, and Erlang liquor is mid-range liquor. It’s normal that it can’t beat Luzhou’s local Laojiao. We’ll switch to Fengqu liquor next year and try again. It should be much better.”

"But that's how it is this year," the proprietress continued. "We can take twenty cash per catty, so the total income is one thousand two hundred taels..."

"Hey." Aunt slapped her thigh and said, "You made yourself sound so pitiful, but it turns out you're the one who earns the most."

“No, that’s not it.” The proprietress shook her head and said, “There are still two hundred taels of expenses. In addition, I gave Steward Tian one hundred taels before leaving. I also went to the Zhu family to say goodbye to the Second Master and prepared a gift of one hundred taels. I also took out one hundred taels of surplus, so the final profit is seven hundred taels.”

"That's quite a lot!" Auntie beamed, "I can't even keep track of how much that is."

"It's not over yet. We also get a share of the profits from the distillery," the proprietress said with a smile. "We already received one share before the distillery merged in the first half of the year."

“Yes, yes, in early July, my seventh uncle brought over one hundred taels of silver,” my aunt nodded hurriedly.

"After the winery merger in the second half of the year, although our shareholding will be lower, we will still be able to receive two hundred taels of silver because of the increased production," the proprietress said. "Next year, when things are on track, the dividends should be higher."

"Hmm, let me calculate how much this is?" The eldest aunt quickly counted on her fingers for a long time, but she still couldn't figure it out, so she said awkwardly, "Never mind, just tell me directly."

"Including the dividends from the first half of the year, the total is two thousand five hundred and twenty taels!" the proprietress announced boldly.

"Ouch..." Auntie finally couldn't take it anymore and fainted. Her family was originally the richest in Erlangtan, but they hadn't seen two hundred taels of silver in a year.

(End of this chapter)