Chapter 009

Yan Jin and Yu Shu were borrowing a room at the Deng family’s house. The lady of the house, Deng Qian, had a straightforward and generous personality. Seeing Yan Jin and Yu Shu’s fine attire and hearing that they wanted to stay the night, she had her husband Wang Shi prepare a clean room for them.

As Wang Shi was tidying up the room, thinking about the lodging fee he had just received, he eagerly asked Yu Shu in a loud voice, “Young master, we have black sesame at home. Would you like me to make you some black sesame paste tonight?”

Black sesame was an excellent ingredient for nourishing hair. If it weren’t for Miss Yan’s generosity, he wouldn’t have been willing to take it out.

Hearing about the black sesame, Yan Jin glanced at Yu Shu’s shaved head and understood the situation.

The excuse she used for lodging was to pray for her parents, as her younger cousin who had become a monk at a young age was returning to the secular world and coming back to his hometown.

Because Deng Qian and her husband were touched by Yu Shu’s filial piety towards his parents, not only did they not give Yu Shu’s shaved head strange looks, but they even praised him, saying that this hairstyle made him look very spirited.

However, in terms of the aesthetic standards of a female-dominant country, men still needed to have thick, long hair to be considered good-looking.

Originally, Yu Shu wanted to wear a wig, but unfortunately, neither of them had a wig at home, so in the end, he could only travel through time with his original hair.

Yu Shu, however, didn’t think too much about it. Hearing about the sesame paste, his eyes lit up. “Then I’ll trouble Brother Wang. If you have sugar, add more sugar. I can pay extra for it.”

“Don’t say such things,” Wang Shi smiled and waved his hand. “We grow sugarcane here, so we’ll never run out of brown sugar. As long as you don’t want white sugar, it’s fine. That’s a precious item that can’t be bought even with money.”

[Brown sugar and white sugar are both sugar, so why is white sugar so much more expensive?] [In ancient times, sugar was a scarce commodity. In theory, both brown sugar and white sugar should be equally expensive.]

“White sugar is more expensive than brown sugar?” Yan Jin was a little puzzled. “Don’t they taste about the same?”

The total word count of this book is: 1,155,280

“I know the reason,” Yu Shu explained enthusiastically, seeing that Yan Jin, who seemed to know everything, also had knowledge gaps. “White sugar is expensive because its refining technology is more sophisticated than brown sugar.”

“That’s one reason,” Wang Shi said as he collected clothes and chatted with them. “But the main reason is actually because of the Phoenix Lord.”

Yan Jin was confused. “Phoenix Lord?”

Although An Guo was a country imagined by Yan Zi, there were still many details that hadn’t been perfected in a novel with only an outline, so she didn’t know who the Phoenix Lord referred to.

In contrast, Yu Shu’s eyes immediately lit up, and he explained in a low voice, “I’ve read other female-dominant novels. The authors all use ‘Phoenix Lord’ to refer to the emperor’s legal husband.”

Yan Jin suddenly realized and sincerely sighed to Yu Shu, “I didn’t expect you to be quite familiar with these online novel settings.”

Although she also read online novels in her spare time, the authors she often read didn’t write female-dominant stories. Yan Zi only wrote erotic female-dominant stories, so this was the first time Yan Jin heard of settings like the Phoenix Lord.

Yu Shu’s face flashed with a hint of embarrassment. “One should keep learning as long as one lives.”

Wang Shi didn’t notice the subtleties between the two and continued collecting clothes. “The Phoenix Lord loved eating pastries made with white sugar. When the news spread to the common people, the price of white sugar immediately skyrocketed.”

Yu Shu agreed, “I also think pastries made with white sugar are delicious.”

“With such expensive white sugar, how can the pastries made from it not be delicious?” Wang Shi sighed wistfully, “Even after the Phoenix Lord passed away, the price still didn’t come down.”

Yu Shu: “Whatever hobby those in high positions have, the people below will definitely be even more passionate about it.”

“That’s exactly the reason. In the few years when the Phoenix Lord was around, the price of white sugar increased dozens of times compared to before.” Wang Shi sighed, “The county magistrate wanted to teach us how to make white sugar back then, seeing the high price of white sugar.”