On Sunday evening, Yang Yajing and Zhang Aijia were busy making cakes, while Yang Guohua was cooking red bean paste.

Zhou Pengfei was carving rubber stamps in Yang Yajing's room.

Rubber stamps were all the rage in schools in the 1990s.

Paper cutting and eraser cutting are popular hobbies for many people. But Zhou Pengfei's skills go a step further than those of other enthusiasts.

Zhou Youcheng is a calligrapher and a lover of traditional Chinese painting. Seal carving is a required course for both calligraphy and traditional Chinese painting.

Zhou Pengfei started learning from what he saw and heard when he was five or six years old, and he even tried to learn by doing. Now his skills are quite proficient.

He has a complete set of engraving knives and is often skilled at carving jade seals, so this simple rubber seal is no challenge for him at all.

Previously, Yang Yajing had deliberately mentioned in front of him that she wanted to ask a seal engraver to engrave a rubber seal with the product name for her, which Zhou Pengfei overheard.

"Give me that twenty yuan, okay? My skills are top-notch!" Zhou Pengfei said, eager to take the job.

Yang Yajing knew, of course, that Zhou Pengfei was a master seal carver, but in her previous life, she had read in an interview in a magazine after he became famous that he had started carving seals at the age of five.

At that time, she felt that she didn't really understand Zhou Pengfei, and she even felt a little ashamed!

As if guessing that the red bean rolls would sell well, Yang Yajing planned to use his ability to stamp the product name on the label to open up a larger market.

In the 1990s, just as China was beginning to reform and open up, the people of Jincheng were just beginning to understand the influence of brands.

If she can establish a good reputation for such a small brand first, it will greatly help her in the competition when her products are copied in the future.

"Do you want the characters engraved in relief or in relief?" Zhou Pengfei asked that day. "What font?"

"The font should be 'Yang' with shaded lines, interspersed with tiny red bean patterns." Yang Yajing had already decided on it. "The first row has three characters: 'Uncle Yang's House.' The second row has five characters: 'Auspicious Red Bean Rolls.'"

"Okay! No problem! I'll finish the draft and you can take a look."

Zhou Pengfei's design was flawless; writing the advertising text with his newly bought marker took only a few minutes. He sketched out the lines, and the final draft was done in no time.

After Yang Yajing finished her work in the kitchen and Zhang Aijia took over, Zhou Pengfei had almost finished the rubber stamp.

One by one, she printed the brand name on the labels, and once they dried, she could put the labels on the plastic boxes.

They worked until after 10 p.m. that day, finally finishing packaging all the cakes.

Because it was late, Yang Guohua rode his tricycle to take Zhou Pengfei home, and also brought several boxes of cakes and mung bean paste to give to Zhou Youcheng as compensation for taking away his son's labor.

Zhou Youcheng didn't mind. He always believed that learning should be applied from a young age, and he was happy that his son could use his talents to participate in the Yang family's affairs.

Although it's all free, it's gratifying to see Zhou Pengfei able to earn income from his own labor.

At first, Wang Xiufen felt a little embarrassed to accept the pastries, feeling that she had taken advantage of the Yang family and felt somewhat guilty.

But Zhou Pengfei said, "How could I have gotten a bargain? I earned it by working so late!"

Zhou Youcheng was an open-minded father and did not politely refuse the pastries, which was also a way of acknowledging Zhou Pengfei's hard work.

Sure enough, Yang's Restaurant was packed with people on Monday, with a constant stream of customers. The parents who came to pick up their children and collect their cakes were like free advertisements, making the diners itch to try them too.

Unfortunately, apart from the custom-made ones, Yang's Restaurant only kept 20 boxes for retail, which sold out in no time.

Customers who were a little too late and missed out said it was a pity, especially since they saw such trendy and beautiful pastries. They all said they would come earlier tomorrow and they had to grab a box.

Sylvia Chang is already very familiar with how to make this cake, and making 30 boxes after closing the shop at 8 pm is no problem at all.

When Yang Yajing initially offered three yuan, she wondered if it was too expensive and she wouldn't be able to sell it.

But today she sold 150 boxes, netting a profit of 400 yuan after deducting costs. She's not greedy; if she could sell 30 boxes a day, earning an extra 80 yuan, that would add 560 yuan a week, and almost 2500 yuan a month!

Two thousand five hundred is more than half a year's profit for their family! It really came without any effort.

Sure enough, in the following three or four months, the number of people coming to buy cakes after hearing about their reputation only increased, and there were also many repeat customers.

Perhaps due to supply falling short of demand, Sylvia Chang increased production, and soon the profit from this one product exceeded ten thousand.

Yang Yajing felt it was time to reveal her next move.

"Mom, look, it's almost June, and it's so hot from lighting the stove every day!" Yang Yajing felt a pang of heartache seeing Zhang Aijia covered in sweat that morning.

“We run a small business, a restaurant. How can we not work if we're afraid of the heat?” Sylvia Chang said with a smile.

"Mom," Yang Yajing said, wiping Zhang Aijia's sweat with a cool towel, "shall we buy a gas stove?"

"Liquefied gas?" Sylvia Chang didn't expect Yang Yajing to say that.

“Yes!” Yang Yajing nodded.

"How do you make flatbread with liquefied petroleum gas?" Zhang Aijia asked, pointing to the large flatbread oven.

“Mom! Every family here makes pancakes, and they don’t make much money. Let’s just stop making them then?” Yang Yajing shook Zhang Aijia’s arm.

Sylvia Chang looked at the large pancake oven, still somewhat hesitant.

“Mom, look, this oven smells strong and it’s steaming. In the summer, it’ll make it hot for people to eat.” Yang Yajing continued to urge, “Why don’t we switch to liquefied gas? We can make two batches of food for breakfast: pan-fried buns, fried dough sticks, glutinous rice balls, and rice cakes, wouldn’t that be the same?”

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