Chapter 48: Earning Half a Month’s Wages of a Worker

“Yes, yes, yes!” Zhang Pengfei nodded repeatedly. Of course he wanted to! His brother and sister-in-law were getting rich and wanted to take him along, so he naturally had to follow in their footsteps.

“Okay, then Xie Qingxiao will come to you tomorrow to pick up the goods,” Lin Xiangyi said with a smile, “but the wages…”

“Wages can wait,” Zhang Pengfei said generously, “I believe you and Brother Xiao won’t shortchange me.”

“We’ll talk about it tomorrow,” Lin Xiangyi said. She had decided to ask Zhang Pengfei to help out suddenly, and she hadn’t discussed with Xie Qingxiao how to compensate him yet.

They were brothers, and this matter needed to be discussed with Xie Qingxiao.

“By the way, don’t you have another brother named Wang Xiaofeng?” Lin Xiangyi said. She hadn’t interacted much with Wang Xiaofeng and didn’t know him well, so she said to Zhang Pengfei, “Why don’t you ask him if he wants to come?”

“Alright,” Zhang Pengfei immediately said, “He lives in the county town. I’ll go ask him later!”

Lin Xiangyi: “Okay, then I’ll leave this to you.”

Seeing that Lin Xiangyi and Zhang Pengfei had finished their conversation, Xie Qingxiao said, “It’s getting late, wife, we should go home.”

“Then we’ll be off,” Lin Xiangyi said goodbye to Zhang Pengfei.

“Alright, alright, be careful on your way back,” Zhang Pengfei said with a grin.

Xie Qingxiao patted him on the shoulder and went home with Lin Xiangyi.

Fortunately, it was summer and the sun set late, so Xie Qingxiao and Lin Xiangyi didn’t have to go home in the dark.

They didn’t know that Xie’s father and Xie’s mother were waiting for them anxiously at home.

After they went to the county town, Xie’s father and Xie’s mother went to work in the fields, but they were distracted all afternoon, constantly thinking:

I wonder how Ah Xiao and Xiangyi are doing selling all those braised dishes? Will they actually sell? Won’t they have wasted their time?

Can they really do business now? Won’t they be caught and put in jail?

Finally, they finished work and went back home. Xie’s mother asked Xie’s father to go back and cook first, “I’ll go ask my sister-in-law if she has any extra eggs and exchange some for us.”

Xie’s father was surprised, “Didn’t you think Ah Xiao and his wife were too extravagant the other day?”

“Didn’t I misunderstand them then?” Xie’s mother said impatiently, “Although I still don’t know if their business will make money, they have worked really hard these past two days. We have to get them some good food to replenish their bodies.”

“Go quickly then, I’ll go back and cook,” Xie’s father said with a smile.

He went back to cook first. When Xie’s mother came back with the exchanged eggs, she started frying vegetables.

After the dishes were cooked, they didn’t eat. They waited for Xie Qingxiao and Lin Xiangyi to come back.

It was almost 7 o’clock, the sky was getting dark, and the elderly couple was getting anxious. Finally, they waited for Xie Qingxiao and Lin Xiangyi to return.

They hurried to greet them, “Ah Xiao, Xiangyi, you’re back! How was business? Be careful, Xiangyi, I’ll help you lift it.”

There was a threshold at the courtyard gate, and the bicycle needed to be lifted to get it inside.

“Thank you, Mother,” Lin Xiangyi said with a smile, pointing to the large pot on the back of Xie Qingxiao’s bicycle, she couldn’t hide her joy, “We sold everything!”

“Really?” Xie’s mother was overjoyed.

Xie’s father also breathed a sigh of relief.

Xie Qingxiao unloaded the large pot from the back of the bicycle, opened the lid, and showed them the empty bottom of the pot, “Can it be fake?”

“That’s good, that’s good!” Xie’s father and Xie’s mother were beaming, “Are you hungry? Dinner is ready, I’ll go get it.”

With that, Xie’s mother rushed to the kitchen and brought out the food.

Lin Xiangyi and Xie Qingxiao came back a bit late today. They didn’t know if the butcher shop still had meat, and they thought that Xie’s father and Xie’s mother would have already cooked dinner by the time they got back, so they didn’t detour to buy meat.

Today, Xie Qingxiao and Lin Xiangyi didn’t sell all the braised dishes. They kept some at home.

They thought this was all the meat they would have for dinner tonight, but when they sat down at the table, they saw that besides the vegetables they grew themselves, there was also a dish of scrambled eggs.

Xie’s father and Xie’s mother had used up all the eggs they had saved for the past two days. Although they raised two hens at home, they didn’t lay eggs every day, so where did they get so many eggs to scramble?

Without thinking, Lin Xiangyi knew that Xie’s father and Xie’s mother must have gone out to exchange eggs with the villagers.

Moreover, she could clearly feel that the food tonight had more oil than before.

She looked at Xie’s father and Xie’s mother, her heart warmed, and she talked to them about selling braised dishes today.

Xie’s father and Xie’s mother listened happily, happy that their first business venture was so successful.

After dinner, Lin Xiangyi happily took out her crossbody bag where she kept the money, “Come on, come on, let’s count how much we earned today.”

Xie’s father and Xie’s mother were stunned. Did they need to hide this from them?

“Dad, Mom, what are you standing there for? Come over here!” Lin Xiangyi called to them.

“Ai,” Xie’s father and Xie’s mother reacted. Their daughter-in-law didn’t treat them as outsiders, but they treated themselves as outsiders. What was wrong with them!

They smiled and sat down.

It was a small business, so there was a lot of change. Lin Xiangyi counted it one by one, “…27.1, our total turnover today is 27.1 yuan. The cost of duck innards and pig intestines is 7 yuan, plus spices and packaging… We conservatively estimate that we made about 18 yuan.”

“How much did we earn?” Xie’s father and Xie’s mother blurted out.

Xie Qingxiao: “About 18 yuan!”

“So much?” Xie’s father and Xie’s mother said in unison, their expressions the same.

Wasn’t that almost half a month’s wages of a worker? They earned half a month’s wages in a day?

Was business so profitable?

Xie’s father and Xie’s mother, who had thought they would be satisfied as long as Xie Qingxiao and Lin Xiangyi could make ends meet, were deeply shocked.

Xie Qingxiao and Lin Xiangyi were amused by them. Xie Qingxiao said, “Father, Mother, this is still a small amount.”

“This is still small?” Xie’s father and Xie’s mother were astonished.

Lin Xiangyi nodded with a smile, “dad, Mom, we were able to earn so much today because we only had so much merchandise. If we had more goods, we could definitely earn more.”

Xie’s father and Xie’s mother: “…” They were the ones with limited vision.

“So we want to add more goods tomorrow,” Lin Xiangyi said.

“Of course we need to add more!” Xie’s mother said hurriedly. If they could make money, why not? She said, “Tomorrow, I’ll stay with your father and not go to the fields. We’ll help you with this.”

“Okay,” Lin Xiangyi pondered, “But Dad, Mom, if we want to add more goods tomorrow, we can’t do it alone. It took us a long time to handle 60 pounds of goods today.”

Of course, they spent so much time today mainly because they had enough time, so they were more leisurely.

“What do you mean?” Xie’s mother instantly understood Lin Xiangyi’s meaning, “Do you need to find someone?”

“Yes!” Lin Xiangyi said, “I don’t know if you have any reliable people who can come and help. We’ll pay them, one yuan a day.”

“Of course I do,” Xie’s mother said hurriedly. It wasn’t the busy farming season yet, so many people were idle. As long as the money was right, there were plenty of people willing to come and help.

One yuan a day, thirty yuan a month, that was a lot! If she shouted it out, people in the village would probably fight over it.

But reliable people…