During lunch, Ding Qiunan mentioned this matter to her husband.
"She's being given the cold shoulder. You really can't give this woman a kind look. She even wants to open a restaurant? Does she even know how to write those two words?"
Li Chu said with a disdainful look.
What do you mean by that?
"Don't you know she can't read or write?"
"Huh? No...you mean Qin Huairu is illiterate? She never went to school?" Ding Qiunan exclaimed.
"Hmm, you really didn't know, honey?"
"I don't know, and you never told me."
“Her family was from the countryside and they were dirt poor at that time. They had many children and couldn’t afford to raise them. You could say that Aunt Jia bought her for three yuan.”
"Bought...bought back?"
"Yeah, when have you ever seen her go back to her parents' home? You can't say she never goes back. She might go back half a time every year or two."
"You really bought it?" Ding Qiunan still found it a bit too unbelievable.
"That's about right, it's nothing special."
"My God, they sold their own daughter. What kind of parents are they? And it was only three yuan."
"Hey, their family had no other choice. If they kept them all at home, they would all starve. At least she could have enough to eat after she got married. Besides, three yuan in those days was enough to support the whole family for a while."
Ding Qiunan remained silent for a while before shaking her head and saying, "Indeed, everyone had a hard time back then. Oh, by the way, why did Aunt Jia want to find a rural wife for her son? Jia Dongxu has a job, so finding someone with a job shouldn't have been difficult, right?"
Li Chu thought for a moment before saying, "The Jia family wasn't having an easy time back then either. Jia Dongxu's father passed away due to illness, and that's when he had the opportunity to come from the countryside to the city to take over the family business. Back then, Aunt Jia was still a bit clueless. Her own family was barely making ends meet, and she often had to subsidize her family."
Most importantly, she was picky. When others introduced Dongxu to several women, Aunt Jia always found fault, complaining that they weren't good enough. Eventually, no one was willing to introduce anyone to Dongxu anymore, so she had no choice but to pay someone from the countryside to find him a match.
"Oh, I see!"
"Actually, I don't know much either. He told me all this when we were chatting."
"Yeah, you were in school around that time, weren't you?"
"Yeah, I'm always with my master. I'm either out running around or staying at his house when I come back. My parents were busy with work back then, so I hardly ever saw them when I went home. Do you know what the most ridiculous thing is?"
"What?" Ding Qiunan stopped singing, looked up at her husband and asked.
“My parents didn’t live in this courtyard house at first. They always had a small house near their workplace. The bureau allocated houses to younger colleagues several times, so when I came back to visit them, I always went to that house.”
Once, I came back from out of town and went to see them, only to find that the house had been occupied by someone else, and even their workplace had moved. You wouldn't believe it, I was completely stunned.
I was wondering how I could go out and come back to find my home gone? My parents were gone too. I finally found out the next day when I went to find my sister that they had moved. Apparently, the old couple had forgotten about me, their son, and hadn't realized they should have left a message for me at school.
"Pfft..." Ding Qiunan chuckled. She found her unfamiliar in-laws quite amusing, how could they have forgotten such a grown son?
"When you were little, were you more cared for by your parents or your older sister?"
"That must be our sister. Back then, she said she lived near the headquarters, but actually it took more than half an hour to ride a horse from where we lived to the headquarters office. Often, our parents wouldn't come back."
I remember once our dad went to some base area with the headquarters leader and didn't come back for almost a year. On the day he came back, I happened to be coming back from working in the fields with my sister. When he saw me following behind my sister, he asked her, "Xiaoqin, who's following you? It's almost dark, why isn't this little one going home yet?"
My sister was completely bewildered by what Dad said. She stared at me for a long time before finally saying, "Dad, is this your son?"
Ding Qiunan was stunned for a moment, and then burst into laughter, "Hehehehe..."
People in the small canteen usually speak very softly, so when she smiled, everyone looked over.
When they saw Ding Qiunan laughing so hard she was doubled over, everyone smiled knowingly and went back to eating and chatting as usual.
Everyone in the hospital knows how loving the couple is.
Ding Qiunan struggled to stop laughing, her face flushed red, and she scolded Li Chu in a low voice for making her look bad.
"Stop talking! Everyone was staring at me. It was so embarrassing."
"Look, they're just envious of us." Li Chu thought to himself, feeling wronged. "I only told you because you asked, so why are you blaming me now?"
As long as they don't talk, they eat very quickly.
After finishing their meal, on the way back to the office, Ding Qiunan finally asked again, "Do you think the Rujia restaurant in Qinhuai will be able to open?"
"It's hard to say, but I estimate the chances of it being able to open are very high."
"Why? She doesn't have any money."
“She says she has no money, and that’s it? She might not have two thousand, but she can definitely come up with a hundred or two thousand. And I reckon she’ll end up going to He Yuzhu anyway.”
"No way, would He Yuzhu agree to lend it to her? Even if he did, Chunmei wouldn't agree, would she?"
“Chunmei certainly can’t agree, but what if Chunmei doesn’t know at all? Don’t forget, He Yuzhu still has a sum of money that doesn’t belong to him.”
"You...you mean, the money from selling the Yi family's house?"
"That's right. If Qin Huairu still decides to open a restaurant in the end, she will likely turn her attention to He Yuzhu. She needs not only money, but also a chef."
"He Yuzhu wouldn't quit his job here and go work for Qin Huairu, would he?"
"No, he wouldn't dare even if he wanted to, unless he wanted to divorce Chunmei. However, he might introduce one of his apprentices to her."
But she's oversimplified opening a restaurant. Even if she finds the money to start, I guarantee she'll go bankrupt in no time.
"Why? Even if she doesn't know how to run a business, if Xiao Dang and Huaihua go back to help her, there shouldn't be any problem in keeping the restaurant running, right?" Ding Qiunan was a little surprised by her husband's words.
"It doesn't matter who helps her. Even if He Yuzhu helps her, the restaurant will still fail. The most important thing about running a restaurant now is not whether you know how to do business, but where you get your vegetables and meat."
"Go to the farmers market to buy it."
(Announcement: Dear readers, this is the first update of the day. The next chapter will be released at 11:00 AM. Thank you for your support and encouragement.)
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