Chapter 23

Si Cheng looked at the name of the publishing house. It was a familiar one to her. It was a publishing house that was relatively friendly to the publication of women’s romance novels. It had a good circulation and paid good treatment to authors. It had published works by many great authors.

Si Cheng explained to the editor that she was in school and could only write about 20,000 words a month. She would have time to write more during the winter vacation at least. The publishing matters would be discussed during the winter vacation. She also put forward her own requirements. She would only give her the publishing rights of the single volume. All other copyrights would be in her hands. The publishing rights were also signed for five years. After five years, this part of the copyright would be returned to her.

Editor Yi Mo agreed to all of her requests and waited for her to finish it during the winter vacation.

At this time, editor Yi Mo thought she was a college student.

The week after I received the royalties was the second half of December, and the weather was getting colder.

Her family earned money and she had good grades. When winter came, she asked her parents for money to buy winter clothes. Her father asked her mother to give her 500 yuan. Her mother was a little reluctant, but she finally paid the money.

At this time, a good winter coat only costs forty or fifty yuan, and you can buy it for as little as 25 yuan in the wholesale market.

But Mr. Si thought that his daughter had good academic performance and was grown up, so he gave her more money and allowed her to buy clothes in the specialty store.

With four hundred yuan, Si Cheng bought two high-quality cotton-padded coats and down jackets, and then went to the wholesale commercial city to buy cheap cotton trousers, sweaters, autumn clothes, and winter shoes.

When Si Cheng came back from buying winter clothes, he felt sad.

When she was in school, she hated winter.

Life was hard at home during those years, and her mother was very strict with her when it came to clothes.

I have to wear low-quality cotton padded jackets that cost twenty-five yuan each and prickly sweaters that cost twenty yuan each for the entire winter.

If she wanted to change her clothes, she could only endure the cold by wearing autumn clothes, or choose to wash clothes when the weather was good.

Not to say that she was extremely poor, but she was always short of money and her junior and senior high school years were definitely not easy. For her, they are an indelible memory of inferiority.

But at that time she was ignorant and unable to save enough money from her living expenses to buy herself a piece of clothing, a pair of warm cotton shoes, or a pair of fleece autumn trousers.

Later she realized that she was obsessed with satisfying her appetite because being full and having sugar made her happy.

Years of lack of parental love that she longed for made her transfer all of this to the desire for satiety.

The past is gone, and Si Cheng no longer worries about it.

Look forward.

She went through twenty years and embraced her love-deprived self. She tried hard to redeem her miserable fate. That was enough.

This week, when she went to the city, she left the Internet cafe and went home wearing a thick cotton coat. She saw her grandmother sitting at the door holding Si Lin. She looked worried and didn’t even notice that she was back.

“Grandma.” Si Cheng came over, “Did something happen at home?”

“Your parents are out. We’ll eat on our own at noon today.”

Seeing that grandma was unwilling to say more, Si Cheng guessed that something was wrong and asked more.

Grandma Si didn’t think of Si Cheng as a child who knew nothing, so she told her, “Something happened to your parents’ stall. Xinxin Daily Chemicals behind your parents’ stall said that your parents’ stall was blocking their business, so they contacted the relevant department and asked your parents to move out.”

“What do the people in the relevant departments say?”

“What else can I say? Someone from their company said that your dad’s stall was indeed right in front of ‘Xinxin Daily Chemicals’ and it did affect their business. The store asked your parents to move out, so they had to move out. This time, your parents were anxious and went to the store owner’s house to beg for mercy.”

Si Cheng frowned.

She had an impression of this incident.

However, the last time it happened was during the summer of 2004.

At that time, my parents were arguing about the confiscation of the house payment. Si’s father was so annoyed that he simply ran away to work after the New Year.

Since Si’s mother couldn’t run a night snack stall by herself, she sold their night snack stall to her third aunt’s family. She worked for her third aunt and was paid per day’s work, fifty yuan a day.

Third aunt also became rich because of this.

Therefore, Si’s mother thought that Si’s father was partial to the third sister, and the third sister had long coveted their good position at the corner of the street.

But the good times did not last long. After running the business for half a year, my third aunt was driven out by the owner of Xinxin Daily Chemicals. My third aunt argued with the owner for a month or two, but in the end she was no match for him and had to buy a nearby food stall.

After driving away the third aunt, the boss of Xinxin Daily Chemicals let his relatives occupy the stall.

They bribed the relevant departments to drive the people away because they were jealous of the several hundred dollars a day that this night snack stall could earn.

Si Cheng put the things back upstairs and ran to his third aunt’s house. His third aunt was not there. His third uncle said that she and her parents had gone to find a middleman to plead their case.

Si Cheng had no choice but to borrow a cell phone from his third uncle to call his father.

“Dad, Mom, I’ve asked Grandma about the night snack stand. Where are you now? If this doesn’t make sense, I have another idea. Come back and listen to it, and then decide whether to adopt it or not.”

Sure enough, not long after, Mr. and Mrs. Si came back.

Si’s mother was furious: “That boss was determined to kick us out. We found a middleman to intercede for us, but we were so angry with him. We have been here for several years without any problems. Why did he suddenly want to kick us out? Si Cheng, you are still a child, what can you do? If you make trouble for me, I will punish you.”

Si Cheng ignored his mother’s temper.

Instead, he asked, “Mom and Dad, you know, why didn’t the boss of Xinxin Daily Chemicals let us do this?”

Xinxin Daily Chemicals is a daily chemical supermarket occupying four storefronts.

It’s right at the corner where they set up their stall.

The stalls of Si’s father and mother just blocked everything.

Even my third aunt’s stall took up most of the Xinxin Daily Chemicals storefront.

Si’s mother rolled her eyes. “What else could it be? The daily chemical supermarket has expensive items and bad business. The number of people who came into the store after we set up the stall can be counted on five fingers. If they are going to lose money and go bankrupt, just blame us.”

Although the night snack stalls do block the store’s presence.

But there is an aisle more than three meters wide between the night snack stall and the storefront. Strictly speaking, the night snack stalls were set up on the street, not in the aisles, and did not block their location.

Si Cheng reminded him, “Is it possible that the daily chemical boss is jealous of your and dad’s good business and is here to snatch your stall?”

Father Si sighed, “I was saying that Xinxin Daily Chemicals has been open for more than a year. There must be a reason why they suddenly started to make trouble. I thought that the city people who opened the store looked down on the dirty and tiring work of setting up a night snack stall.”

Aunt Si said, “No matter how dirty or strenuous the work is, as long as it can make money, it’s a good job. In the past three months, you have made 40,000 to 50,000 yuan, who wouldn’t be jealous? We have taken over the business of the food stalls across the street, and two of them are being transferred.”

Si Cheng said, “Since my aunt mentioned it, I’ll tell you. I saw a notice about the transfer of the food stall across the street, so I want Dad to go to the food stall in the middle.”

“no!”

Si’s mother objected without thinking.