Chapter 14

Liu Lizhen stood at the doorway holding a bowl of angelica-boiled eggs, a kindly smile on her face. “Your period is coming these next few days. Eating some angelica-boiled eggs is good for the body. Shall I put it on the table for you?”

“……” Ye Wanqing hesitated for a moment, then stepped aside. “Thank you.”

“Saying ‘thank you’ to me—do you still consider me your mother or not?” Liu Lizhen set the angelica-boiled eggs down and said in a scolding yet affectionate tone.

She turned and walked toward the door, as if tonight’s matter ended here and she truly was a loving mother.

But Ye Wanqing knew Liu Lizhen’s temperament and instinctively felt this matter was not so simple. Then she saw that when Liu Lizhen reached the doorway her footsteps suddenly paused. She turned back to look, as if she had just remembered something. “Wanqing.”

Ye Wanqing thought “here it comes” in her heart and answered, “Mm?”

“It’s the end of the month—time for wages. Although you’re no longer riding the routes, shouldn’t the income from the stall be handed over to Mom so Mom can save it for you? The family’s expenses are large. You also have to learn to share a little of the burden.”

Ye Wanqing: “……”

She had known this person had another purpose.

After thinking for a moment, she laughed lightly and asked, “How much does Ye Mingzhu hand over?”

Liu Lizhen instantly became wary. “Why are you asking about her? She just started working. Who knows how much wages she’ll get this month. As for later…… Mingzhu is so obedient. She’ll definitely hand over however much she gets.”

Previously Ye Wanqing had handed over every single cent of her monthly wages without receiving a single word of praise. Liu Lizhen only considered it what she ought to do.

“I’ll just follow Ye Mingzhu’s example.” Ye Wanqing said lightly. “The wages from riding the routes were twenty-five a month. From now on I won’t eat at home, so this part of the expense doesn’t need to be counted against me. I’ll hand over twenty. Speaking of it, five yuan a month for food is already cheap. Actually giving fifteen would be enough.”

Liu Lizhen was dissatisfied. “You’ve earned several hundred from the stall these past few days and only give me twenty? Ye Wanqing, you’re still so young—what are you doing gripping so much money in your hands? Have your wings grown hard and you want to fly?”

“Just these twenty yuan. Take them if you want them. If you don’t want them…… then let’s make a big scene and let everyone judge together. I just don’t know whether you can afford to lose that face.” Ye Wanqing took out twenty yuan from her person and smilingly handed it over.

“You’ve really got abilities now—even know how to threaten people!” Liu Lizhen was furious. She snatched the twenty yuan and left.

If Ye Wanqing made a scene, she was afraid the always face-conscious Ye Xiangdang would get angry. She had to speak to Ye Xiangdang first.

After closing the door, Ye Wanqing lightly furrowed her brows.

Liu Lizhen stormed back into the room in a rage.

Ye Xiangdang, leaning against the head of the bed, put down his newspaper. One look and he knew she had not gotten her way. “She refused to give?”

“Only gave twenty yuan—treating us like beggars!” Liu Lizhen shook the two banknotes in her hand and slapped them onto the bedside cabinet, nearly knocking the water glass down.

Ye Xiangdang took off his glasses, blew on them, and wiped them. “People at the station said Wanqing’s stall is very profitable—earning over a hundred a day?”

“She earns money, all right, but she earns it and won’t spend it on the family. What can I do? If she won’t give it, am I supposed to snatch it? If I really snatch it, do you believe that the next moment she’ll make such a fuss that the entire bus station knows and make us lose all face? Her wings have truly grown hard now!”

“Then just leave it like this.” Ye Xiangdang sighed.

“How can we just leave it like this?” Liu Lizhen became anxious. “The family’s living expenses are large. Social obligations north and south also need money—everywhere is short! We raised her for more than ten or twenty years and can be considered to have treated her fairly. Now she has the ability to repay the family yet acts like this. I can’t tolerate it!”

“What else can you do? You can’t go and steal it, can you?”

“Steal it? Tomorrow……” Liu Lizhen’s face darkened. “Tomorrow I’ll go search her room. She can’t possibly always carry the money on her!”

Ye Xiangdang sighed. “This way you’ll get it this time, but there won’t be a next time.”

“She has at least five or six hundred in her hands right now. If I take twenty yuan a month, how long will it take to get it all? I’ll get the money first. If she wants to make a fuss, let her make a fuss. Once it gets big we can take the opportunity to set rules for her and make her hand over more every month.”

“Sleep, sleep.” Ye Xiangdang turned off the light.

The next day, the moment Ye Wanqing left, Liu Lizhen opened the door of the master bedroom.

She first rushed over and locked the main door from the inside, ensuring that even if Ye Wanqing who had no key suddenly produced a key she still could not open the door. Only then did she give a triumphant cold smile and walk into the secondary bedroom that Ye Wanqing and Ye Mingzhu shared.

There were no locked cabinets or boxes in the secondary bedroom. Liu Lizhen searched one after another without any obstruction, yet she simply could not find the target.

At first she could still search patiently. After searching for one or two hours, when she had turned over every corner of the room without finding a single yuan, a surge of anger “whoosh” rose in her heart. No longer caring whether she would be exposed or not, she began throwing things around.

“Carrying several hundred yuan on her person and swaggering through the streets—isn’t she afraid of being robbed? Crazy, lunatic!”

Ye Wanqing was of course not crazy, nor would she always carry over a thousand yuan on her person.

In the morning when there were not many people, she had Wang Fang watch the stall for her for a while, then took the money herself to the Agricultural Bank and deposited most of the money she was carrying, only leaving a little over a hundred yuan on her person for emergencies.

People at this time still did not quite trust credit cooperatives and banks, feeling that money was only secure when hidden by their own side. Ye Wanqing of course would not have this kind of worry.

Depositing in the bank even earned interest. Keeping it on her person was much less secure.

She always kept the wooden money box close to her body, but there would inevitably be times she did not notice. If someone stole it, who could she reason with?

Looking at Liu Lizhen’s appearance yesterday, it did not seem like she would quiet down. She was probably secretly holding some big move. Ye Wanqing had to be on guard!

When Ye Wanqing returned home in the evening and discovered traces that her things had been rummaged through, she could not help giving a light scoff.

Fortunately she had acted quickly.

Ge Yuan acted quickly. In less than two days he had put together the pushcart Ye Wanqing wanted.

The finely crafted and sturdy pushcart was welded from an iron frame. It was 1.2 meters long, the same length the bus station stipulated for stall owners. Two coal stoves were embedded left and right inside. Ye Wanqing could use one side to cook oden and the other to boil water—neither interfering with the other.

If one of the coal stoves was not in use, she could also cover the stove opening with an iron plate, and the flat countertop would immediately increase a lot of space, able to hold quite a few things. It was very convenient for her to brew tea and pour water for people.

The space underneath the pushcart was also not wasted. The coal stoves were wrapped with heat-insulating materials, and the space inside was partitioned so that some miscellaneous items could be placed—cups, bowls and chopsticks, anything.

Never mind setting up a stall—even pushing this cart to hawk goods on the street would be extremely convenient.

Ye Wanqing had always trusted Ge Yuan’s ability to get things done, but this pushcart truly surprised her greatly.

“How are you so amazing?!” Ye Wanqing looked at the pushcart, then touched it, and simply wanted to hug Ge Yuan and kiss him fiercely.

If it were not for the fact that they were outside, she would definitely have kissed him right now.

Embarrassed by the surprise mixed with admiration in Ye Wanqing’s eyes, Ge Yuan’s face covered by stubble turned completely red. He coughed lowly. “Be a little more low-key.”

This little girl’s gaze looking at him was simply as if she wanted to swallow him whole.

It was truly…… making him a bit unable to restrain himself either.

“Hehe.” Ye Wanqing blinked her almond eyes, her smile crafty. “I’ll kiss you when we get back.”

Ge Yuan coughed even harder. “……Okay, okay.”

Ever since that time he had gathered the courage to kiss her, these past few days the two of them had kissed quite a bit behind people’s backs. That taste…… cough cough, was truly too good! So good that he felt even if he died like this he would be willing.

Thinking of this, Ge Yuan could not help having his heart and mind wander a little.

Ye Wanqing examined the pushcart again and pushed the daydreaming tall man. “Brother Yuan, can you find me a piece of solid red cloth and a piece of solid yellow cloth? They don’t need to be too large—just enough to cover the outward-facing side of the pushcart. I want to sew a price list.”

Writing with paint was afraid of fading. Better to directly piece it with cloth—more unique.

A man could not say no. Ge Yuan nodded seriously and slammed a fist against his chest. “I’ll get it for you right away! Tell me what style you want and I’ll have Fatty Wang’s mother make it for you directly.”

Ever since Fatty Wang’s mother obtained the job of preparing ingredients for Ye Wanqing, with wages settled weekly, she had not only repaired the courtyard gate but could also occasionally cut some meat for the family to improve their diet. Her attitude toward the Ge family and Ye Wanqing was unknown how good.

She not only knew how to flatter people but also worked seriously.

Ye Wanqing felt that in the words of her previous life, Fatty Wang’s mother had previously been Ge Yuan’s number-one black fan and was now his super fangirl…… just that this fangirl was overweight, her appearance slightly fierce, and she always held a knife—not soft and cute at all.

She could not help sighing that people truly die for wealth.

What Ye Wanqing did not know was that because Fatty Wang’s mother had unscrupulously switched camps, the various aunts and old ladies who originally liked to gather together and gossip about the Ge family had also fallen into a strange psychological state. Even gossiping no longer felt fragrant.

They could also work and also flatter people ah!

Why was it only the Wang family that could get the job? They could do it too!

They could also sacrifice…… no, contribute their own little brats and let them play with Ge Yue! Things like a biological mother’s conscience simply did not exist.

Ye Wanqing replaced the simple wooden table provided by the bus station that served as a counter with the new pushcart. The next day she also wrapped a price list around the front panel of the pushcart.

On the bright red price list were large characters cut from yellow cloth. Clear tea, ginger-salt tea, oden and other goods along with their prices were clear at a glance—far more eye-catching than the other stalls—and the already flourishing business improved quite a bit more.

These two things made the people who had already been envious of Ye Wanqing even more bloodshot in the eyes.

With Ye Wanqing’s earlier cooperation with Director Li’s “publicity,” plus the fact that the stall business looked genuinely easy to do, the remaining three stalls in the waiting hall changed from being unable to be rented out to being hard-to-get hot commodities.

After a round of open and covert struggles among those with connections, all the stalls were finally fully occupied the past two days.

At first many people still felt that Ye Wanqing’s stall was closest to the restroom and had the worst location. But slowly these people tasted the flavor and discovered that Ye Wanqing had actually occupied one of the best places.

Now Ye Wanqing had come up with this move again—wouldn’t all the business go toward her side?

This would not do!