Chapter 45: Earning Some Pocket Money

Meeting her gaze, the man thought for a moment and said in a low voice, “Li Zi, you promised to wait for an hour.”

Xia Li hadn’t expected to take so long.

She originally planned to sell everything directly to the medicine shop.

However, by a stroke of luck, she managed to use a bit of cleverness and stumbled upon some opportunities. Otherwise, relying solely on the medicine shop to buy her goji berries wouldn’t have earned her nearly twenty yuan at a time.

The price the medicine shop offered for herbs was one thing, but the selling price was another. If they bought her goji berries, it wouldn’t exceed sixty or seventy cents at most.

She noticed that the previous prices for herbs were too low, so she decided to find a way herself, pretending to visit relatives in the city, and ended up selling the goji berries right outside the family dormitory of the glass factory, avoiding the middleman’s markup and putting the money directly in her pocket.

These days, although individual businesses were springing up like mushrooms, ordinary people still tended to be straightforward and didn’t easily think of such schemes.

After all, she had earned some pocket money, so everything was good.

Xia Li’s eyes curved with a smile: “Sorry for keeping you waiting so long. Order whatever you want; I made some money today.”

Seeing his wife so happy, the man instinctively felt good too.

Though he still felt a bit restless, he didn’t really want to eat anything.

If his wife could just give him a bit of comfort with her words, he would be willing to wait as long as needed.

Wei Xiaojun was quick in her movements and soon brought over two plates of dishes and two bowls of rice.

One dish was minced meat with eggplant, and the other was stir-fried pork with green chili strips. Both looked appetizing, especially with a generous portion of meat.

Wei Xiaojun cheerfully said, “Li Zi, you both try my cooking. I really owe it to Jiang for helping me out today.”

Earlier, Xia Li had introduced this man as a distant relative from her original mother’s side, and since her original mother’s surname was Jiang, she simply introduced him as Jiang Chenyi.

She knew Wei Xiaojun was being polite, so she nodded in thanks, picked up her chopsticks to serve the man first, and then started eating herself as she was quite hungry.

The man looked at the meat in his bowl, which Xia Li had served him, and felt quite pleased.

Just as he started eating, two men passed by the cooking stall, picking their teeth.

They were dressed in dusty work clothes from the fields and deliberately leaned over to look at the dishes on Xia Li’s table.

Spitting out a toothpick, one of them slurred, “Wow, that’s a generous portion!”

“What’s going on? Is your boss lady giving preferential treatment? Why do my brother and I get only a tiny bit of meat, while you have half a plate full of it?”

“Wow? So much meat in that bowl? Are you trying to cheat me out of my money?!” The other rough-looking man chimed in aggressively, pointing his dirty finger towards the dish, nearly poking it.

Wei Xiaojun was still busy cooking, her brows furrowing as her expression darkened.

She handed the spatula to her mother and walked over to the table, casting Xia Li a reassuring glance. With a calm yet firm voice, she said, “We’re all from the same village, just here to support my little business. How could I possibly cheat you? When have you two ever eaten at my stall? I’ve been watching you.”

The men immediately became displeased, pulling their hands out of their pockets to point at Wei Xiaojun: “You think you can play tricks on us, lady? Just this afternoon, I was sitting at this table eating! You little widow take the money and forget about us?”

As the man shouted, a lewd glint appeared in his eyes, and he shamelessly looked Wei Xiaojun up and down.

The two men recognized her as the boss lady of this place. Although she wore an apron and sleeves and dressed simply, her fair, radiant face was youthful and eye-catching.

They knew she was a widow from the nearby village whose husband had died.

Looking for trouble was one thing, but seeing how striking Wei Xiaojun was stirred other thoughts in their minds.

Their small eyes darted around, and their lewd gazes fixated directly on Wei Xiaojun.