Seeing the two men fervently denying, Su Tang braced herself up in her seat a little bit and let out a faint smile, then said, “Then why don’t you both try the black tea they serve here? Brother Qiang, Brother Shun, come sit down first.”
The waiter who had led the two men to the door heard Su Tang’s words and hurriedly promised to fetch a pot of black tea. This sort of black tea was a staple of the restaurant so it wasn’t long before he came back with a full pot and poured two cups of tea for Su Yongqiang and Su Yongshun.
Meanwhile, these two men had grown up in Sujia Village and, while they had come to town many times in the past either to work or to sell off the produce from their land, they had never actually come to eat at Mingxiang Pavillion. They had always only thought that this place was an elegant restaurant where scholars came to drink tea and that it had nothing to do with them, so they had never come here and were unsure how they should behave.
At first, they were so uncertain they didn’t even know where they should be putting their hands and feet. They carefully looked over at Su Tang and saw how she was sitting in a calm and elegant manner and tried their best to imitate her behavior.
On the side, Luo Xingchen watched all this happening and felt it was very normal. Sure enough, this was how people from a normal peasant family should behave when confronted with a completely different environment! Su Tang, this little devil, was definitely the strange one.
“Brother Qiang, Brother Shun, this is Second Young Master Luo, who hails from the Luo family of Beikou. And the seedlings that the Su family will be raising will ultimately be used by that same Luo family. Of course, because this is an extremely important piece of business, I wanted to make sure that you and Second Young Master Luo met and got to see each other with your own eyes.”
Su Tang slowly introduced all the people at the table to one another.
Su Yongqiang and Su Yongshun were a bit shocked, but they had already been prepared. Before this, Su Tang had already told them that this job was related to the biggest business family in the north, the Beikou Luo family. Now that they realized that the person in front of them was actually the second young master from that huge family, they both stood up together and saluted, “Second Young Master Luo…”
Luo Xingchen gave a faint reply, “The two of you are Miss Su’s elders and she believes in you, while I believe her.”
“However, the job of raising the seedlings this time is extremely important to my Luo family, so excuse me, but I will play the part of the villain for a little while and touch on some important matters first.”
“A few days from now, Miss Su will give you a certain number of seeds. The most important point regarding these seeds is that they must never be leaked or taken away by an outsider. You will receive a certain number of seeds, and you must give me an exactly equivalent number of seedlings.”
“If, by chance, a seed does not sprout into a seedling, you must also dig that seed out of the soil and return it to me. If any seed or seedling somehow ends up outside due to your carelessness, the consequences are not something that you can bear.”
Su Tang and Luo Xingchen had known from the beginning that raising seedlings was not very technical work, so the only thing they needed to worry about was the plants themselves somehow leaking outside and undermining their business. After all, according to their plan, all of the tomatoes and chili pepper grown from these seedlings would be ground up and made into sauces. That was to say, they would only be sold after being processed in such a way that would make it impossible for the buyers to know what was inside the sauce or ever extract any seeds.
By doing this, they would be able to allow the Luo family to monopolize the two plants for a longer time and earn more money. Thus, secrecy was actually the most important aspect of this job.
Of course, Su Tang had already explained these points before. But, at the end of the day, Su Tang was still a member of the Su family, and a nine-year-old junior at that, so Luo Xingchen decided to explicitly reiterate the importance of confidentiality. She needed to make sure that these two men would make all the families from the Su family who were participating understand that confidentiality was the most important matter and needed to be paid great attention to if they wanted to earn any money at all.
“En, Tang’er has already told us before. Don’t worry, we know to keep it a secret.” Su Yongqiang nodded and agreed.
Su Yongshun also piped up to add, “Right, we will definitely follow Second Young Master Luo’s requirements. We will never let outsiders know and will keep everything a secret.”
Hearing Su Yongqiang’s nickname for Su Tang, Luo Xingchen couldn’t help but cover her mouth amusedly and send her friend a look. Su Tang rolled her eyes in response.
In fact, Su Tang had already said all of these things in advance, so both of them knew about the Luo family’s requirements. But Luo Xingchen still needed to repeat these things and emphasize their importance no matter what. Of course, later on, she would need to do the same thing for the other families that Su Tang had approved to meet her.
But for now, she needed to slowly discuss and clarify everything with the two men in front of her.
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