As soon as those words were spoken, an immediate silence fell over the entire stall area.
Pan Ping'an had been doing business in the Provincial City for many years, seldom returning to the village more than once every half a year, but in the past three to five months, he had started showing up reliably in the middle of each month. First, he took various preserved fruits and cakes from the Jing Family's courtyard to sell in the Provincial City. Before long, he had also taken a liking to the sauces made by Hua Xiaomai for her own family's consumption, happily paying to buy them all. He carted them off to the Provincial City—one cartload after another. These matters were never hidden; who in the village didn't know about them?