"Xiaoxiao?"
Upon hearing the noise, Ye Jianmin, the father, put down the kettle and walked over.
"Why did you suddenly come back? You didn't even call ahead. I could have had your second brother pick you up."
"Taking the train is very convenient; there's no need to trouble you, Second Brother."
Ye Xiaoxiao smiled and said, "Dad, you've grown these flowers very well."
The father glanced at the rose bushes behind him: "They're just sitting there doing nothing anyway. Where's the eldest?"
The mother's face darkened: "Your eldest brother has gone out again."
At this moment, Hu Xueling, the eldest sister-in-law, came out of the kitchen and her eyes reddened when she saw Ye Xiaoxiao:
"Xiaoxiao, you're finally back."
Seeing that her sister-in-law looked even more haggard than she had on the phone, Ye Xiaoxiao quickly stepped forward to support her: "Sister-in-law, what happened?"
"It's all because of your eldest brother," the sister-in-law said, wiping away her tears.
"He said he was going to the factory early this morning, but I just called and they said he didn't go at all. He must have gone gambling with those guys again."
"How long have you been gambling?" Ye Xiaoxiao helped her sister-in-law sit down.
"It started last year, I think," the older sister-in-law sighed.
"At first, they said they were going to talk business with someone and wanted to play mahjong to build rapport."
I didn't think much of it at first, but then I gradually realized something was wrong. I was losing tens of thousands of dollars every now and then.
The factory has indeed made money these past two years, so I've turned a blind eye to it.
But lately it's gotten increasingly out of control, with amounts easily reaching tens of thousands.
I lost 150,000 yuan the night before last, and when I got home I said it was because I didn't understand business.
The mother listened with a pained expression: "This child, why doesn't she have a good life instead of getting involved in this?"
The father sighed: "I've told him off several times, but he says we're too old to understand business these days."
Isn't that how business works these days? But I see other factory owners, none of them operate like him.
"Sister-in-law, who exactly is my brother gambling with?" Ye Xiaoxiao asked.
"It's just those factory owners, Lao Li, Lao Zhang, and the others. They get together every day to play mahjong, supposedly to discuss business."
But what business is there? It's all gambling.
Over the past year or so, I've lost five or six hundred thousand yuan. And that's only because I kept a close eye on things; otherwise, who knows how much I would have lost.
Ye Xiaoxiao gasped:
"so much?"
Ye Xiaoxiao remembered that the original book mentioned that her older brother's factory would go bankrupt the year after next.
It seems it wasn't that business was bad; it's probably just that the older brother gambled away all his money.
"That's right," the sister-in-law said, her voice choked with emotion.
"The factory was finally built up, and now it's all gone to waste."
Recently, workers' wages have become a problem; thankfully, your second brother is helping to manage it.
Just then, footsteps came from the courtyard, and the second brother, Ye Qingshan, came in from outside.
"Xiaoxiao?" Ye Qingshan was surprised to see his younger sister. "Why are you back?"
"Second Brother," Ye Xiaoxiao stood up, "I heard about what happened to Eldest Brother, so I came back specifically to see him."
Ye Qingshan sat down with a grave expression: "It would have been better if you hadn't come back; you've come back just in time for this."
"Second brother, how's the factory?"
What else can be done?
Ye Qingshan shook his head and sighed.
"I paid for my own salary this month. My older brother just gambles all day and doesn't care about anything at the factory."
There are still forty or fifty workers in the factory, and their wages have to be paid on time every month. If things continue like this, the factory will definitely go out of business.
"How could it have turned out like this?" Ye Xiaoxiao frowned. "Big brother wasn't like this before."
"It's because money is made too easily," Ye Qingshan said.
"In the past two years, I've been doing foreign trade business, and each order has brought in hundreds of thousands of yuan in profit."
His furniture factory is now receiving a steady stream of orders. If he does things well, he can easily make a profit of at least a million yuan a year.
But he, on the other hand, got arrogant after he got money, hanging out with those kinds of people all day, talking about how he wanted to break into high society.
"I tried to persuade him, but he said I didn't understand business. He said that doing business nowadays requires networking."
I told him he was just going to gamble, and he got angry, saying, "What do you mean by gambling? This is business networking!"
The mother wiped away tears.
"You tell me, isn't he making enough money to spend? Why does he have to get involved in this?"
I've been arguing with your sister-in-law every day lately, and she gets physical all the time. I can't live like this anymore.
"Did he hit you?" Ye Xiaoxiao asked, holding her sister-in-law's hand.
"He came home after losing money the night before last, and I said a few words to him, and then he..."
"This is outrageous!" Ye Xiaoxiao stood up angrily. "Where is my brother now? I'm going to find him!"
"Don't go," Ye Qingshan stopped her.
"His gang has opened a casino at Jiangnanlou now, masquerading as a teahouse, but it's really just a gambling den. Going there is pointless."
"We can't just stand by and watch," Ye Xiaoxiao said.
"This is going to ruin this family. Sister-in-law, are you still keeping the family savings book?"
"Here you are," Lin Mei said.
"I've hidden all the money I've saved over the years, otherwise he would have gambled it all away long ago."
A few days ago, he wanted to retrieve his bankbook, saying he had a big business investment to make, but I refused.
Ye Qingshan sneered: "What big business? You just want to gamble with your money?"
"Sister-in-law did the right thing," Ye Xiaoxiao said.
"We can't give him that money. Second brother, how long have you thought eldest brother has been like this?"
"It started last year, I think," Ye Qingshan recalled.
At first they tried to hide it, but in the last two years they've become increasingly blatant.
Now he leaves all the factory affairs to me, while he just hangs around outside all day.
You wouldn't believe it, just a couple of days ago he was telling those guys he was going to Macau casinos to broaden his horizons.
This chapter is not finished yet. Please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
