No one had time to laugh at Miao Wan. In that era, giving birth was like going through the gates of hell for women. Seeing Sun's wet trouser legs, they were all terrified.
According to the calculation, Sun was about to give birth around the tenth day of the first lunar month. The family had been taking good care of her. There had been no signs of pregnancy in the past few days. Sun was eating and drinking as usual, so everyone relaxed a little.
No one expected it to happen so suddenly.
Especially Zhang Sanzhuang, who went forward with a pale face and hugged Sun before he realized that he couldn't hold his wife.
It was Yu who reacted quickly. She asked Sun, and she said that her stomach didn't hurt yet. Yu had already given birth to three children, so she knew it would probably take a while before the next baby was born.
She and Yang immediately brought the armchair over. Madam Zhang also stepped forward to give orders. She asked Geng for some old bedding to wrap Sun up tightly, and asked the two Zhang brothers, Old Sun, and Uncle Geng to carry Sun back.
As for Zhang Sanzhuang, his mother kicked him and said, "Why don't you go and get a midwife!"
"Oh oh oh!" This was Sun's second resurrection. Zhang Sanzhuang was extremely nervous and didn't even bother to wipe the footprints off his buttocks. He ran out happily.
As they left, Madam Zhang was still praising Sun, "This child takes after his father, smart and knows how to choose the right time. It's a good day off tomorrow, so the whole family has time to take care of him. Don't worry, I'll make you a bowl of egg noodles when we get home. After you eat, you can save your energy and have a baby slowly."
Sun was immediately comforted by her mother-in-law's words. Her nervousness subsided a lot. After all, she had given birth to a child. "Well, I'm sorry, mother. I don't feel anything right now. I can't hurry up even if I want to."
The Zhang family's female soldiers were no longer nervous, but Miao Wan's little hands, which were clutching her mother-in-law's sleeves, were so tight that they turned blue. She couldn't tell why, but she was extremely nervous.
Geng hugged her and comforted her, "It's okay, it's okay. I don't blame you. It was San Zhuanghao's howl that made Sun excited. Go back to the room and rest for a while. Mother will go over to check on you."
Miao Wan refused, "I, I'll go too." She was even more scared to be alone.
The village chief's father and his wife passed away early. When Sister Chenxi gave birth, she stayed by her bedside on behalf of her family.
When Sister Chenxi's mother-in-law was around, she went out to discuss an order with a client, and Sister Chenxi gave birth to the baby in just two hours.
When she returned to the hospital, both adults and children were already in the ward.
She had never come into contact with other pregnant women, so she always thought giving birth should be easy.
But seeing Sun's water break with her own eyes, and knowing that she still had more than a month to give birth, Miao Wan felt an inexplicable fear.
In that era when there were no hospitals and no caesarean sections, how many women died in childbirth?
Geng thought that her daughter-in-law ate too much, didn't listen to advice, and always used the baby to act coquettishly. No one in the family could stand it anymore, so she decided to let her go and take a look.
Geng was also experienced. She knew that Sun would not be pregnant soon, so she agreed to keep an eye on her daughter-in-law.
Miao Wan relied on her imagination to walk the short distance to Zhang's house, but her legs felt as weak as cotton. She had to rely on Geng and Aunt Geng to support her until she reached Sun's house.
Because the family made a lot of money from business, the Zhang family is now much better off than before. At least with the food business, the family has enough to eat.
Sun's belly is much bigger this time than the previous one.
This resulted in her giving birth taking an extremely long time. It took two hours from the time her water broke to the start of labor. By the time Sun's cry was heard from the delivery room, it was already completely dark.
"ah--"
“Ouch…”
"Push harder—"
"Uh-huh……"
“Ahhh—”
“It hurts…”
The men at the door: "..." How many people are alive in the house?
On the bed, Mrs. Sun and the midwife were screaming heartbreakingly. Not far away, Miao Wan was crying weakly, sliding down the round stool little by little, and could not even hold herself up while sitting.
Mrs. Geng and Aunt Geng were so amused that they could only watch over Miao Wan, one on each side, and occasionally help pass water to Zhang Sanzhuang and others who were boiling water outside the door.
When I heard the midwife shout: "You've already given birth to one child and you still dare to eat so hard, do you really want to give birth to a daughter? Inhale——"
"Ouch..." Miao Wan covered her chest and stomach, and tried to pull at her mother-in-law's clothes. She felt like her hands were not enough.
She, she seems to eat a lot too.
Her belly is so big...
Geng looked at Miao Wan helplessly, "You haven't had dinner yet. How about we go back first and let mother make you some dinner?"
The main thing is that Miao Wan is here, a mess. She scared herself when she heard Sun's shouting, and her little face wrinkled as if she was also angry.
Miao Wan's voice became weaker, "How can I eat anymore... ah..."
When Miao Wan heard the midwife say that it would be difficult to give birth if her belly was too big, she remembered that her mother-in-law and Aunt Geng had always advised her, and she had just perfunctorily tried to get by by saying that she should take a walk after eating.
The question is regret, especially regret. Is it too late to start dieting now?
However, Miao Wan did not dare to act willfully, fearing that staying would affect Sun's delivery. She could no longer sit still, so she was helped home by Geng and Aunt Geng. She lay down to sleep without even having dinner.
Early the next morning, she woke up suddenly with sweat all over her forehead.
Geng had already been sitting on the kang. When she heard the noise, she hurried over to wipe her dry. "Are you having a nightmare?"
"No, the baby is moving. It must be hungry." Miao Wan said with a bitter face, "Did the third sister-in-law give birth?"
After she said that, her stomach started to growl, and Miao Wan felt worried and embarrassed.
She could have stayed awake even if she had a nightmare, but maybe because she didn't have dinner, she almost dreamed of a full banquet at night, so she was woken up by the baby kicking her.
Geng was amused by Miao Wan. "A big fat boy weighing eight kilograms was born in the middle of the night. Your mother is so happy. But Sun has suffered a lot and will have to lie down in pain for a while."
Miao Wan felt her stomach growl when she heard this. An eight-pound baby! Was she torn underneath?
Geng helped her up. "There's some porridge hot on the stove. I put some beet sugar in it, some white fungus in it, and some salted duck eggs that Old Master Sun brought. I'll make you some dumpling soup."
Miao Wan's mouth was watering when she heard this, but when she sat down at the table on the kang, she was very conflicted about what to do with the chopsticks.
Don’t eat, I’m hungry.
Eat it. Sun’s painful and hideous expression yesterday is still vivid in my mind. She is actually quite afraid of pain.
Geng and others did not try to persuade her, but just watched Miao Wan struggling and secretly felt happy.
I'm about to give birth, so it's not a bad thing to eat less.
Although we don't have to go to Tile City on Laba Festival, both families have to cook Laba porridge, and snacks cannot be stopped either. We have to make more sugar bait and cat ears, so it's quite busy.
Most of the goods before the Little New Year have to be given to Bayin, and the flour is taken from others. Bayin will definitely not miss the good things.
In order to rely on Bayin to block the outside limelight, the Qiao family did not refuse Bayin's request, so they asked Zhang Sanzhuang to tell the merchants to start shipping the goods starting from the New Year.
On the ninth day of the twelfth lunar month, Zhang Sanzhuang and his friends pushed their stall cart out early. When they arrived in front of the tile market tent, people were still queuing.
Seeing Zhang Sanzhuang's face full of joy like the day before, someone asked again, "What's up? What good things have you produced at home?"
Zhang Sanzhuang chuckled, "The guest up front was right. My wife gave birth to a baby boy yesterday. We're really pregnant this time."
"Oh, congratulations!" Everyone hurried to congratulate Zhang Sanzhuang.
Zhang Sanzhuang smiled from ear to ear and said, "Thank you, our guests! Today we have a buy one get one free deal on spicy skewers, and a get one free deal on dim sum with every 10 jins of snacks. This is a great treat for everyone!"
Wow, now everyone is happy.
Some of them were those who didn’t get the spicy skewers yesterday, and some were waiting for orders. In any case, this happy occasion touched the hearts of the guests.
In fact, there is no need to add joy, as the butcher's spicy skewers stall also makes a lot of money in the twelfth lunar month.
Not only did the six kinds of snacks sell well, but also the fragrant soap and soap sold a lot, and toothbrushes and toothpaste were in short supply.
Before the Chinese New Year, a traveling merchant couldn't sit still and went straight to Zhang Sanzhuang's house to block him.
"It's fine if you're not letting us order more soap and scented soap, but I heard that merchants from Northern Mongolia have already started selling snacks in the county town. You're being dishonest!"
The businessman who blocked the way was the one traveling to the south of the Yangtze River. He was one of the richest merchants in Xining Town.
Zhang Sanzhuang didn't want to offend the family. "Please forgive me, my family is really busy. Look, my wife just gave birth and there's no one to clean her diapers. I even paid a lot of money to ask the neighbors for help."
He now understood what Miao Wan meant when she said there were not enough people. Both stoves were occupied and the fire never stopped for a moment during the day.
In fact, the Qiao and Zhang families now don’t even have a place to cook. They have to pay their neighbors to help with cooking. They have thrown away the sewing and washing work, and let Mrs. Zhang be in charge of it.
In fact, they had work to do and earned money, and could even save some meat for their family from time to time. The neighbors who had always been jealous of the Zhang family's business stopped gossiping.
If you have that much time, you might as well go back and make some money by rubbing diapers.
The merchant didn't understand. "If you don't have enough people, why don't you buy a few servants? I can give you a few servants to help you."
Zhang Sanzhuang was moved by what the merchant said. He had thought about this for a long time, but he never mentioned it again after being scolded by Am.
But this matter cannot be considered in front of the guests, so I agreed to increase the price of each dim sum by 100 kilograms and sent the guests away in a nice manner.
When he returned home, he began to think.
The Qiao family makes scented soaps and soaps, and the Zhang family makes all kinds of snacks. In fact, they can produce a lot of goods every day.
But there were still many people who wanted the goods, and a northern Mongolian businessman named Bayin monopolized most of the goods.
Especially for the scented soap and soap, Bayin sent people to guard near the Qiao family, under the pretext of being afraid that someone would smell the smell and come to cause trouble for the Qiao family.
Of course, he didn't know that these people came with the tacit consent of Qiao Shengwen and Qiao Ruichen.
Although there has been no activity in the restaurants on this street, no one knows whether they will suddenly do something bad.
Yu Maocai is considered a local tyrant in the northwest. If you are not careful, it is easy for him to capsize.
When Qiao Ruichen came back at the end of the month, he brought back a lot of dried sand apples and fried cakes.
Miao Wan held the snacks with shining eyes for a while, but soon she looked like she was crying again. She didn't dare to eat it, but just sniffed it again and again, forgetting even to flatter, which made Qiao Shengwen and his wife laugh so hard.
Qiao Ruichen looked at his dispirited wife with a mixture of laughter and tears, and found that her belly was indeed very big. He actually had the same fear as Miao Wan, that Miao Wan would have trouble giving birth.
This made Qiao Ruichen feel quite a sense of urgency. He was about to become a father. Regardless of being a father or a husband, he had to complete the saint's entrustment as soon as possible and create an environment for his wife and children where no one dared to bully them.
So Qiao Ruichen took the initiative to find Bayin and sold most of the goods in Bayin's name. Except for the dim sum orders that were taken from the Zhang family, he simply told the outside world that other things were temporarily out of stock.
That's why the traveling merchants came to block the door.
When Miao Wan and Geng came to Zhang's house to see the child, Zhang Sanzhuang couldn't help but talk to her.
"Awan, what do you think? Why don't we buy a few servants? If we have more family members, maybe we can open the shop after the New Year."
The child was only a dozen days old and still had red, wrinkled skin, but Miao Wan didn't think the child was ugly at all.
She knew that this was the case with all newborn babies. She heard that the redder the baby's skin was, the whiter it would become as it grew older.
At least that's the case with Sister Chenxi's child. Miao Wan was sitting beside the bed. The child had just finished feeding and was lying in Sun's arms. Sun was gently patting the child to help him burp the milk. He looked particularly adorable, half asleep and half awake.
When Miao Wan saw the child putting his hand into his mouth, she reached out and gently pulled it, but was grabbed by the little kid's fingers.
The action was not heavy, but it felt like a fist grabbing Miao Wan's heart. She felt like her heart was melting, and it took her a long time to hear what Zhang Sanzhuang was saying.
Her eyes were fixed on the child, and her tone was unnaturally gentle, "No need to buy servants. Our shop will be open after the New Year, right?" Lu Dan said.
Yes, the family has donkey eggs, dog eggs, iron eggs, and hairy eggs. Compared with names like Gousheng and Niudan, both families agree that braised eggs not only point out the starting point of the Zhang family's wealth, but also fit the meaning of being easy to feed, and it sounds like there is no shortage of food. It is simply perfect.
Miao Wan was silent for a long time before she started calling out Lu Dan while worrying about her own baby's name.
Zhang Sanzhuang was a little surprised, "Have we saved enough money to buy a shop?"
Even Sun's hands, which were patting the child, stopped for a moment. After hearing the humming of Lu Dan, she gently patted again. Both husband and wife stared at Miao Wan.
The task of finding a shop was assigned to Sun Laohuo, but the shops on the street that were priced right were either too small or too remote, and some of the ones in suitable locations were not for sale and were only willing to be rented out.
Everyone discussed it and decided that since they had some money in their hands, they were not too keen on renting a shop.
First of all, there are people who come to cause trouble, both openly and covertly, and no one knows whether the other party will bribe the landlord to do something.
Secondly, if the shop's business is booming, the landlord may become jealous and raise the price or want to use the shop to do business himself.
In short, it is too easy to be restricted when renting someone else's shop.
Sun Laohuo searched for a month and finally found two suitable shops.
The one with the largest shop is even half the size of the restaurant on the street, but it only has one floor, with a lobby in front and a courtyard in the back. It is located in a prime location in the street and the asking price is one thousand taels.
The other shop is not very big, only one-third the size of the restaurant on the street, but what is rare is that it is a two-story building just like the restaurant on the street.
There is no backyard or separate kitchen yard. It is a long and narrow rectangle with front and back. The kitchen is behind the lobby on the first floor.
Sun Laohuo is more optimistic about the two-story building. Although the shop is not big, it is not far from the tile market, and the upstairs can be used as a private room.
The tile market and the street are irregular right angles, and the restaurant on the street is facing the entrance of the block.
This shop is on the corner opposite the restaurant. In the front is a spice shop owned by a Western merchant, and in the back is a wine shop, with this shop sandwiched in between.
The landlord knew Sun Laohuo and knew that he was originally the head chef of a restaurant on the street and the father-in-law of the butcher and the owner of the spicy skewers shop.
When the landlord learned that Sun Laohuo had looked at the big shop but came to negotiate the price with him, he knew what Sun Laohuo was planning. He asked for one thousand taels without bargaining.
Sun Laohuo was so angry that his face was blue when he came back, but there was indeed no other suitable shop recently.
Zhang Sanzhuang also went to secretly look at the small shop. To be honest, the lobby was a bit small, so it was quite dark.
But there is also an advantage. When the time comes, the braised food can be cooked at the door, and the aroma will definitely drift towards the restaurant. It is also close to the tile market, so the guests coming in and out of the tile market cannot escape.
Sun gave birth to another boy. Zhang Sanzhuang was happy but also felt a little pressured. He had to save money for his education since he was young, and build a house for him and marry him off when he grew up. It would cost much more money than raising a girl!
In business now, the older couple takes the lion’s share, and in the future the eldest brother will definitely get more.
Zhang Sanzhuang didn't think this was wrong, but he didn't want his own children to live worse than his eldest brother's children, so his ambition was rising.
After the child fell asleep, Miao Wan came out of Sun's room and sat down with Zhang Sanzhuang in Zhang Niang's room. She took over Zhang Sanzhuang's abacus.
Seeing this, Madam Zhang and the others also sat over and listened.
"We started our business in early October, selling braised goods for half a month, and our two families have earned thirty-six strings of cash."
"After a few days of rest, we started the spicy skewers business. By the beginning of October, after twenty days of work, after deducting costs and labor, the two families made about two hundred taels."
"After a dozen days, the price doubled, and it was still around three hundred taels."
"By the time Sun Ada left the restaurant, until now, it's been…" Miao Wan counted on her fingers, "About two days or a month, and Spicy Skewers has earned over five hundred taels."
After she made this calculation, Madam Zhang quickly counted the silver and money in her hand and was shocked.
She didn't keep all the money for herself, but left some for the third wife. She didn't calculate the accounts for the two families, so she really didn't know that she had made so much money.
Miao Wan continued, "We still have dim sum. Although we haven't received payment for the dim sum from the Northern Mongolian merchants yet, we estimate it will be no less than three hundred taels. The rest is from the traveling merchants. By the 29th day of the twelfth lunar month, after deducting the share given to Sun Ada and everyone's wages, we should still have more than three hundred taels of silver."
She raised her head and looked at everyone in the room who were watching her with bated breath, grinning, feeling that her prenatal syndrome was about to be cured by money.
She hasn't even taken into account the fact that the Zhang family also sells toothbrushes. She also has soap and other products, so the working capital is definitely sufficient.
"After deducting the expenses of each of our families, we can at least get together 1,300 taels. My family, we can even expand our plans a little bit." Miao Wan waved an abacus to encourage everyone.
"You don't have to look at that small shop. We can definitely buy that big shop! Good wine needs no bush. When we save up some more money, we can build a three-story building there and make the Pig Butcher Restaurant the center of the street, or even Xining Town!"
The author has something to say:
See you at 9:00 PM for the second update. I don't have a name for the shop yet, and I haven't even bought a shop. For now, I'll call it the Pig Butcher, and it won't be called that in the future.
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