After this fever, time seemed to be fast-forwarded.
Shen Qingqing stormed through the preliminary and semi-final rounds of the city-level competition, advancing to the next round with first place in both. The city-level final was on the first day after the New Year's Day holiday.
Li Xunli also successfully delivered an exceptionally perfect report to Yao Runyang three days before Christmas.
Five custom-made porcelain pieces, as well as two sets of custom-made gradient-colored twelve zodiac porcelain pieces purchased outright, with the final payment of 10,000 yuan received.
Shen Rongzhou has successfully passed the qualification certificate for transportation practitioners and received his first month's salary: a base salary of 3,000 yuan, plus an additional commission of 1,800 yuan for driving orders.
Li Xunjin's gift box company has finally gotten on the right track to profitability. In addition to the five or six long-term customer base brought by the original company business, the gift boxes that were previously sold as part of Wu Jingyuan's clothes have also brought long-term customer bases from a company with more than 100 employees in the provincial capital and two companies with more than 100 employees in Shenzhen.
Each company signed a three-year contract with Li Xunjin's company for various holiday gift boxes and annual party anniversary gift box orders.
Wu Jingyuan finally finalized the designs for the corsages and buttons. There were three styles of buttons and six styles of corsages. After discussing with Li Xunli, they signed a contract, confirming that delivery would take place between early and mid-March. The payment would be 20% of the transaction amount for the blind box clothing.
In 2006, there was already a work-life balance adjustment. New Year's Day on January 1, 2007, happened to be connected with the last weekend of December 2006. The regulations stipulated that the holiday would be from January 1 to 3, 2007, so the weekend at the end of December needed to be adjusted to make up for missed classes and work.
On the afternoon of December 31, 2006, which happened to be a Wednesday, all grades cheered in unison when the teacher announced the end of get out of class for the last period.
However, New Year's Day is not a festival with traditional culture that needs to be passed down. As usual, Li Xunli went to the porcelain kiln to prepare various accessories and pendants for Zhang Hengyun's troupe to wear in early February. Shen Yangyang went to take a nap, and Shen Qingqing followed Li Xunli to the porcelain kiln.
When Li Xunli delivered Yao Runyang's order last month, Zhang Hengyun finally confirmed the final number of accessories Li Xunli needed.
To allow for selection and combination, it was ultimately decided to round down to two hundred items.
Li Xunli did a rough calculation and found that the two thousand yuan Zhang Hengyun had given her was far too much, so she immediately wanted to return the money to her.
Zhang Hengyun stopped her, suggesting that Li Xunli help her burn a few sets of fragile porcelain, so that they could be used in scenes where porcelain was broken in the drama.
Because those porcelain sets also required reproduction, after all the calculations, Li Xunli still insisted on returning six hundred yuan to Zhang Hengyun.
Today, Li Xunli came to process the materials that would be easier to make fragile porcelain, while Shen Qingqing continued weaving tassels.
When Zhang Hengyun suggested making several more sets of fragile porcelain, Li Xunli was very glad that she had made up her mind to buy various materials when she went to look at them, just in case.
From the prepared raw materials, Li Xunli and Shen Qingqing took out the materials they needed to prepare for the initial pounding process.
Because the pounding of materials was quite noisy, the small porcelain kilns in this area were located far from the village back then.
Li Xunli started with great enthusiasm.
Shen Qingqing sat in the courtyard and began to weave tassels. Before long, she caught a glimpse of a shadow moving at the door. Looking up, she saw someone timidly peering inside.
Shen Qingqing immediately shouted, "Mom! There's a strange person!"
Li Xunli immediately became alert, rolled up her sleeves, and walked out aggressively, with Shen Qingqing following behind her.
The person at the door was startled when he heard Shen Qingqing shout and immediately shrank back inside.
When Li Xunli reached the door, she casually grabbed the shovel. But when she went outside, she saw a person huddled in the corner with their hands covering their head.
"Manyu?" Li Xunli had already raised her shovel, but when she saw the person huddled in the corner, she stopped abruptly.
The person huddled in the corner shuddered when he heard someone call his name. He then slowly raised his head, looked at Li Xunli, and hesitated for a moment before calling out, "Aunt Li?"
"Hey~ right!" Li Xunli responded exaggeratedly, moving the shovel in her hand twice, which startled Chen Manyu so much that he covered his head and shrank back into the corner.
Li Xunli quickly threw the shovel into the kiln, then walked up to Chen Manyu, bent down, and asked him, "Manyu, what are you doing here?"
Chen Manyu looked up at Li Xunli again, and seeing that she was no longer holding a shovel and was smiling gently, her timid demeanor relaxed a little. He lowered his finger and pointed in the direction of their abandoned porcelain kiln: "Play!"
Chen Manyu's blue jacket was covered in dust from playing in the abandoned kiln, making it look rather dirty. However, his overall spirits were still good, except that he was a little afraid of people.
Shen Qingqing peeked out from behind Li Xunli and asked her mother, "Mom, who is this?"
Li Xunli said a few words to Shen Qingqing.
Chen Manyu is the grandson of an old porcelain craftsman in the village. The old porcelain craftsman's son and daughter-in-law died in an accident. At the time, the old couple were busy handling their son and daughter-in-law's funeral arrangements and did not notice that ten-year-old Chen Manyu had developed a high fever due to excessive fright. By the time the old couple found out and took him to the hospital, Chen Manyu had already become mentally impaired due to the fever.
Chen Manyu is fifteen years old this year, but he still looks silly and blank.
Li Xunli has always been a soft-hearted person and can't stand seeing people in distress. She looked at Chen Manyu with pity, reached out and pulled him up, took out a tissue from her pocket and wiped Chen Manyu's dirty appearance. "So what do you want to do by coming to see Aunt Li?"
“Auntie is pounding materials, I can do that too! I’ll help you!” Chen Manyu stood obediently in place as Li Xunli wiped his face, revealing a shy smile.
Li Xunli then remembered that before Chen Manyu lost his mind from the burns, he had a good talent for making porcelain, especially teaware.
Li Xunli didn't answer him, but asked instead, "Manyu, where are your grandparents?"
Chen Manyu obediently replied, "Grandma is crocheting, and Grandpa went to buy groceries."
Because the old porcelain craftsman was too old to continue making porcelain, Grandma Chen took over the family's livelihood by helping some cloisonné factories with their work. Occasionally, the old porcelain craftsman would ride a tricycle to haul scrap metal to earn some extra income.
"Manyu! Manyu! Where have you gone!"
Just as Li Xunli was about to ask Chen Manyu's family if they knew he had run away, she heard an old woman's voice calling Chen Manyu's name.
Chen Manyu's eyes lit up, "It's Grandma!"
After saying that, he took off running. Li Xunli couldn't catch him. In just a few blinks, Chen Manyu had darted far away and stood with an old woman wearing a dark blue jacket.
Chen Manyu was talking to the old woman, occasionally pointing towards Li Xunli.
Li Xunli thought Chen Manyu was telling the old man who he had met, so she waved to the old man from a distance and gave him a simple greeting.
Unexpectedly, after Li Xunli greeted them, Chen Manyu helped the old woman walk towards them.
The old man's legs were still very strong, and he walked up to Li Xunli in no time.
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