Chapter 116 Chapter 116 Little Apprentice
After returning from the city, Zhao Ruyue kept an eye on Ning Shaoming every day and asked him to follow the doctor's orders.
Ning Shaoming didn't like it at first. After all, some of the doctor's instructions were different from his usual living habits. When his living habits suddenly changed, he always felt something was wrong.
But this is also his wife's care for him, and such care makes him feel very happy. Under the contradiction, he still tends to enjoy his wife's care and attention to him, and slowly gets used to it.
There are no major problems with Zhao Ruyue and her two children, except that some of the children have deep pits and fissures on their teeth, which make them prone to tooth decay. The doctor told them that if conditions permit, it would be best to take the children to get pit and fissure sealing treatments.
The two children were just the right age, so Zhao Ruyue had dental treatments for them at the hospital that day and had their pit and fissure sealants done in the afternoon before going home.
Buying a computer by yourself is half the price of buying a complete machine, so she bought accessories for two computers this time.
I went back and arranged a whole day of free time for myself, and figured out how to install the computer according to the tutorials on the Internet.
Zhao Ruyue started working after breakfast that morning.
I had a lot of trouble installing the first one. It took me more than three hours, including lunch time, to complete it. Fortunately, there were no problems after the installation.
When I installed the second one, I had the experience of installing the first one, so I was much faster. I assembled the computer and installed the system.
She also managed to pick up her child from school. She was too busy recently and had not been able to pick up her child from school for a while.
This time when she went to pick them up, the two children were quite happy. One of them held one of her hands and they skipped all the way home.
When I saw classmates and teachers on the road, I greeted them and waited for them to ask, "Is your mother here to pick you up from school today?"
Then answer loudly: "Yes, my mother is not busy today!"
Nowadays, the Internet is mainly accessed through dial-up. Although there is a telephone line at home, if you use this line to access the Internet, other people's calls will not be able to come in.
Zhao Ruyue applied for another branch line, bought a modem, applied for an account, and after getting her own username and password, she was finally able to access the Internet.
The situation in the county town is better. Although dial-up Internet access is still the main method, you can also apply for broadband.
Zhao Ruyue applied for broadband in the county.
There are two computers, one is kept at home. Besides her, Ning Shiqiu uses it more often. He has a lot of professional terms that he doesn't recognize, so he finally has a place to look them up.
Ning Shaoming occasionally reads posts online and chats about related topics with his baking enthusiasts whom he met online.
He also posts on the forum, asking questions he doesn't understand, or posting some of his baking experiences and tutorials.
Ning Shixia was still young and didn’t know how fun computers were. She only occasionally chatted with Yao Ju on QQ, or asked adults to play some cartoons for her that were not available on TV and that her family didn’t have discs for.
After moving another computer to the store in the county town, Zhao Ruyue did not rush to start her own small additional business.
Instead, he downloaded all the popular songs, TV shows, movies, and cartoons to several large-capacity USB flash drives that he bought.
Each type takes up a USB flash drive. Now the Internet speed is slow, and some music is not in the right format after downloading, so it has to be transcoded. Some videos have no resources on video websites, so she has to find them herself. All the decoding and transcoding are time-consuming to download.
However, sharpening the knife does not delay the chopping of wood. While the download was still going on, Zhao Ruyue happened to teach Su Shengnan how to use the computer.
After all these were downloaded, she also taught Su Shengnan how to use a computer and how to help others download music or videos to MP3 and MP4.
Although it takes more time to download everything in advance to a USB flash drive, when you download it to the customer's device, copying it from the USB flash drive to the device is faster than searching for it temporarily and then downloading it directly to the customer's device over the Internet, which can save a lot of time.
Zhao Ruyue had been eyeing this almost cost-free business for a long time. This time, she was finally able to earn some money and was very happy. She even gave Su Shengnan a benefit.
"This is a bread card that the bakery just made. You can order an eight-inch cake for free, and there is also a 100-yuan bread voucher with no threshold. You can use it up within one year."
This bread card was originally a New Year's Day holiday welfare card issued by a public institution in the county to its employees in the bakery.
Ning Shaoming made a few more, and Zhao Ruyue asked for a few more.
She gave two to her mother's family, two to her cousin Zhao Ruyu, and one to her eldest sister's family.
Her family had helped a lot during the nearly one year since she and Ning Shaoming opened the store. Even though Ning Shichun and Sun Jiajia are mainly in charge of the town now, her family's children still go to help whenever they are free.
Although her eldest sister was still a little awkward when facing her, she later tactfully apologized for what happened during the Spring Festival. In addition, her eldest sister's two daughters often went to her shop to help with work, so she also gave her family a card.
As for her husband's family, it all depends on whether Ning Shaoming gives it or not. She doesn't care anyway.
Ning Shichun and other employees in the four stores will also be given one of these cards on New Year's Day.
At that time, Zhao Ruyue will give Su Shengnan another one. Su Shengnan likes to eat bread very much, but her father is still sick, so she usually lives frugally. Only on the day of salary payment, she will buy a few cheap loaves of bread and bring them home to eat with her family.
Su Shengnan was surprised and delighted to receive the card. That day, he bought some bread that he had wanted to eat before but had not been willing to buy, and shared it with his family.
She did not rent a house in the county town. Landlords in big cities are very familiar with renting houses. Many single rooms in the houses they built are specially equipped with independent bathrooms and kitchens, even if the kitchen and bathroom are very close to each other.
But the rental market in county towns is not as good as that in big cities, and there are very few single rooms.
Moreover, most single rooms are just a room in an ordinary house. There are several rooms on each floor, but there is only one bathroom and no kitchen. It is very inconvenient for girls to rent such a house.
If you want to rent a single room with a separate bathroom and kitchen, you have to rent a house in a residential area. However, such houses are rare and expensive, costing at least over three hundred yuan.
If Su Shengnan wanted to rent a house in the county town, he would have to rent a room without a private bathroom if he wanted to save money. The rent for such a single room would cost more than two hundred yuan.
Unlike the restaurant next door that provides three meals a day, Zhao Ruyue's restaurant only provides lunch.
If Su Shengnan rents a house and cooks for herself, she will have to buy some simple furniture and appliances. The monthly food expenses and water and electricity bills will also be a lot of money. It would be better for her to go home and eat and live every day.
She and the girls from two other stores discussed the monthly car fare with Zheng Xiu.
The original fare for a van ride was five yuan, which is ten yuan for a round trip, but there is a discount on the monthly fare, and after deducting the four days of rest time when they don't have to take the van, the monthly fare is only two hundred and forty yuan, which is equivalent to giving them a discount on two or three days' fare.
In fact, it is more economical to buy a monthly bus pass, but the buses in town are too slow, not very punctual, and only operate until around seven in the evening.
Sometimes there are no cars left after six o'clock, but they have to work until eight or nine in the evening.
Now Su Shengnan eats two meals a day at home, which saves money and allows him to take care of the family.
That day she brought bread home, and just as she sat down, her grandmother said, "Shengnan, the faucet at home is leaking more and more seriously. Go ask your cousin if he can come over to help fix it. Don't go empty-handed, bring two loaves of bread with you."
Su Shengnan was a little unhappy. Her family did not have a good relationship with her cousin's family. Since her father only had a daughter and her cousin had a son, she felt that her family's things would have to be passed on to his son in the future.
Even though he and her father were only cousins, there were only two men in their generation, him and his father. He felt that the land and house passed down from their ancestors should be given to the male members of his family in the future.
It was just secretive before and not so obvious. But ever since her parents got older and still didn't have a second child, especially after her father got sick, and it was clear that he would definitely not have a son in the future, her cousin's family became more unscrupulous in their words than before.
Although they haven't done anything yet, it still makes people feel uncomfortable to see them always saying such things.
Su Shengnan lowered his head and did not respond to his grandmother.
Her grandmother urged her a few more times, and Su Shengnan suddenly remembered that she had seen the boss repairing a faucet in the store, and it didn't seem difficult. She wondered if she could learn from the boss?
If you learn it yourself, you won’t have to ask others for help in the future.
Without waiting for grandma to urge him again, Su Shengnan said, "Don't urge me, I can fix it. There's no need to find someone else."
"You can do it?" Her grandmother looked at him with disbelief, "Why haven't I seen you do it before?"
"Because I didn't know how to do it before, but now I'm working and have learned a lot of things." Su Shengnan still doesn't know how to do it, but who cares? He'll just put the old man off first.
She had finally won a reward today, and brought back the bread that she had been reluctant to eat before for her family, but she didn't want to send it to her cousin's house.
"You didn't tell me in advance yesterday, so why don't I buy a new faucet and materials and fix it right now."
Seeing how determined she was, her grandmother didn't ask her to go find someone for help: "Then buy a new one tomorrow and fix it. If it still can't be fixed, go find your cousin."
"Okay." After dinner, Su Shengnan hurried to the boss's house to ask for emergency help.
Zhao Ruyue had finished her meal and was planning to go out for a walk to digest the food. When she saw Su Shengnan running towards her in a hurry, she thought something had happened.
After hearing the reason why she came to him, he didn't know whether to laugh or cry: "I thought it was something difficult, it's just this, come with me, I can teach you now, wait for me to get the tools."
Zhao Ru's family had a complete set of tools, but since it was just a faucet, there was no need to move the toolbox out.
She only took a wrench, a screwdriver, and a roll of raw tape.
"Let me teach you a simple but more expensive method first." Although it is said to be more expensive, it actually doesn't cost much. Just take down the faucet, buy a new faucet and a roll of Teflon tape and reinstall it.
The reason why it is more expensive is that the money spent on buying the faucet and raw tape is more than just replacing the valve core.
"First remove the main water valve, then unscrew the faucet counterclockwise. If you can't turn it, use a wrench to loosen it. In fact, most faucets can be turned by normal people."
Su Shengnan nodded and thought to himself that this was it. It was the same when the boss changed the faucet last time. It was indeed very simple.
But installing a new faucet and wrapping the Teflon tape requires some tips.
"After removing the old one, don't use the raw tape yet, but insert the new faucet directly into the connection, so it's plugged in straight."
Su Shengnan asked: "Should we try it first and then estimate how much raw tape to wrap?"
"No, it's about counting laps in advance."
"How many laps?"
"Yes," Zhao Ruyue began to screw the new faucet into the joint, "clockwise, while tightening it into the joint, count how many times the faucet has turned. It has turned five times now, and halfway through the sixth turn, it got stuck and couldn't turn to the right position.
This means that after we wrap the raw tape, we can stop after five turns. Otherwise, the faucet will not be straightened after the sixth turn. ”
Su Shengnan suddenly realized: "So that's how it should be. No wonder some people's faucets are crooked."
In fact, she was talking about the faucet in her own home.
She spent half a pound of pork belly and asked her cousin to help her replace the faucet in her house.
As a result, it was installed crookedly, with the faucet's outlet not facing straight down, but tilted to the right.
It seems that her cousin is not very good at it either.
Zhao Ruyue taught Su Shengnan how to wrap the raw tape. After installing the faucet back, she took it apart again and asked her to try it.
Su Shengnan tried it with a little excitement.
However, although those steps look simple, there will still be some small deviations in actual operation.
For example, when wrapping the raw tape, the raw tape is very obedient in her boss's hands, but in her hands it always feels a bit awkward whether she holds it with her left hand or her right hand. Also, if she is not careful when wrapping it, it will become a thin strip and she has to wrap it again.
However, this was just a minor inconvenience caused by her lack of expertise and had little impact. She eventually successfully installed the faucet.
Zhao Ruyue then taught her a more cost-effective repair method: "Some faucets do not need to be replaced completely. You only need to replace the valve core or the rubber ring. These are very cheap. For example, if the valve core is rusted and can no longer be used, or the ceramic piece inside is broken, you have to replace the valve core. If the rubber ring is broken, replace it. For some other faucets, the screws that fix the valve core or the valve core itself are loose. You can pry off the plastic decorative cover on it and tighten it with a screwdriver."
As she spoke, she demonstrated to Su Shengnan how to pry open the decorative piece on the lid and how to tighten the screws and valve core.
These were simpler than changing a faucet, so Su Shengnan was only allowed to take a look and was not allowed to try them herself.
Then I told her what to do if there was a problem with the water pipe, and how much it would cost to buy a section of water pipe, a valve core, and a small pack of gaskets.
After listening to this, Su Shengnan realized that these things that seemed to have nothing to do with girls and seemed very difficult were not that mysterious at all and were not expensive at all.
Many people feel as if the sky has fallen when they see that the water pipes in their home are broken. In fact, the water pipes that are covered now are all exposed pipes, and you don’t even need to pry up the floor. You can just turn off the main valve and replace it with a new pipe that is not expensive and continue to use it.
After thanking Zhao Ruyue, Su Shengnan ran home to observe the faucet in his home.
However, she lacked experience and could not figure out whether she should replace the entire thing.
It just so happened that I had a wrench and a screwdriver at home, so I simply turned off the water valve and pried open the decorative piece on the top cover, intending to try unscrewing the screws and valve core inside to see if it would help.
If it doesn't work, there's still time to go to the hardware store, buy a faucet and plumbing tape, and replace the faucet with a new one.
Anyway, the owner of the hardware store in the town is a local. The front of his house is the store, and people live in the back and upstairs. As long as someone in his family is still awake, she can go to buy something at night. Once, she went there very late at night and was able to buy a light bulb.
Her grandmother saw her fiddling with the faucet and was a little worried: "Why haven't I seen your uncle do this before? Don't break the water pipe too."
"Don't worry, it's not that easy to break." Su Shengnan first unscrewed the screws, and then tightened the valve core. When she put the screwdriver on the valve core, she suddenly had a feeling that the valve core must be loose, which was why the faucet was leaking even when it was turned all the way down.
After she tightened it, she went to open the main water valve: "Grandma, I have already opened the water valve, can you try to see if the faucet can be used?"
Her grandmother's surprised voice came from the faucet: "Hey! It really doesn't leak anymore! Oh, the switch is working properly, it's really fixed!"
Su Shengnan looked at her grandmother's surprised expression and felt a sense of accomplishment: "I told you I could do it."
"That's great. I don't have to ask others for help anymore."
Su Shengnan: "Let me tell you, I can also change light bulbs and repair windows!"
Zhao Ruyue thought that she learned to repair faucets just to know how to fix the faucets at home when they broke in the future.
Unexpectedly, Su Shengnan got so obsessed that he came to ask her the next day how much the night school tuition was. It seemed that he wanted to learn more systematically.
But after hearing the price, Su Shengnan fell silent. If her father hadn't been sick and she could save her salary herself, she would have been able to save enough for tuition in a year or two.
But her family situation doesn't allow it.
Zhao Ruyue saw that she was a little depressed, and she felt sorry for her, so she said, "Why don't you just learn from me?"
Su Shengnan's eyes lit up: "But I have nothing to repay you..."
When she was chatting with the boss, she talked about the decoration of the store and heard the boss talk about what happened during the initial decoration.
The two decorators who came to do the renovation were willing to not charge her for this order in order to learn the craft from her.
When it comes to her turn, the question arises again. If her family conditions are better, she could also not ask for salary and exchange her labor for the opportunity to learn skills.
But she can't. Even though she and her mother are earning money, her family is still not well off.
But Su Shengnan didn't want to give up this opportunity, so she thought about it after she finished speaking.
Without waiting for Zhao Ruyue to speak, he said, "Boss, how about this? I'll learn the craft from you, and I'll give you half of the wages for each job I take in the future."
Zhao Ruyue originally just felt that this girl had a hard time. It was rare that she didn't think of taking shortcuts or being depressed in the face of difficulties. She just wanted to help her without thinking about the reward.
But Zhao Ruyue also knew the saying that a little kindness will bring resentment.
Since Su Shengnan was willing to pay something in exchange, even if it was a promise in the future, Zhao Ruyue was very pleased.
She did not refuse: "Okay, then you will learn from me for as long as you can. When you become a master and can take on jobs, you will give me a share of the wages."
If Zhao Ruyue had not been like Ning Shiqiu and Ning Danping, who disassembled a watch as it was, and had a few extra parts after putting the watch back together.
It won’t take a year, at most half a year or a few months, for Su Shengnan to have learned almost everything.
In fact, Zhao Ruyue has almost finished her studies in the night school. If she wants, she doesn’t have to go to the second year. She only needs to take a graduation exam then.
However, Zhao Ruyue feels that the benefits of attending night school are not only systematic learning and improvement of technology, but also the expansion of personal network.
Before she attended night school, the people she knew were either her husband's family and relatives, or her own family and relatives.
At most, I only see the neighbors I know in town, and I rarely see the people I played with when I was a child.
Because many of my childhood playmates have married and moved to other places. Even if they married to nearby villages, towns, counties, or cities, with transportation not so convenient nowadays, there are not many opportunities to meet, and everyone has their own things to do.
Many people can only see their parents and exchange a few words when they return to their parents' home during the Chinese New Year.
Not to mention friends who married and moved far away, you may not see them many times in your life.
So Zhao Ruyue still planned to go to class. Some students in the night school class had stopped going to class, and there should be new students coming tomorrow.
At that time, even if you are not in the same class, you can still get to know each other. After all, you are studying the same major and have topics to talk about, so it is easy to get closer.
Not to mention that she also got to know a lot of people from the same period but in different majors and classes.
Su Shengnan got these unexpected learning opportunities. After returning home, she told her family about it, and her parents and grandmother were all very happy.
The next day, Su Shengnan brought a small jar of pickled radishes made by her grandmother and a small jar of sauerkraut and gave them to Zhao Ruyue.
"Master, you must accept it." Ever since Zhao Ruyue agreed to teach Su Shengnan, she changed the address from boss to master. "My grandmother said that there is nothing at home to repay you. Only these pickled radishes and cabbages are hers. It's just a small token of my appreciation. I hope you can accept it."
Zhao Ruyue would feel embarrassed to accept expensive gifts as farewell gifts, but she would not feel burdened if she accepted these cheap things.
"Thank your grandma for me. I really like eating these."
Zhao Ruyue didn't say anything polite, she really liked eating pickled radishes and pickled cabbage. The pickling methods of these things seemed to be similar, but the taste of each pickler was different.
Some people’s pickled food tastes good, while others’ pickled food easily turns white.
After receiving it, Zhao Ruyue went straight to the restaurant next door, took some clean chopsticks and a small bowl, picked up a few pickled radishes and a little bit of pickled cabbage to eat.
The pickled cabbage made by Su Shengnan’s grandmother tastes average, but the pickled radish tastes very good.
Zhao Ruyue gave the dish a thumbs up while eating, and she even took it to the next room for Ning Shaoming to try.
Ning Shaoming tried it and thought it tasted good. He usually makes some side dishes and puts them on the condiment table for customers to help themselves.
Some customers will even frequent a restaurant just because the side dishes are delicious.
But doing these things is quite troublesome and time-consuming, and sometimes I forget to do them when I get busy.
Regular customers come here to eat, and once they get used to the food, they will complain if they see that there is no condiments on the table.
Sometimes the side dishes are made by Ding Yong. Ding Yong has only been learning cooking for a short time, so the taste of the dishes he makes, except for the boiled and fried rice noodles that he practices almost every day, are not very stable.
Sometimes if the side dishes are not cooked properly, the guests will complain when they eat them.
After the last physical examination, Zhao Ruyue stopped letting Ning Shaoming do too much work outside of his normal job, and he didn't have much time to cook side dishes.
The side dishes in the restaurant were replaced by Ding Yong and Ning Shichun, each of whom was responsible for cooking their own dishes. Customers began to complain again.
If there are several side dishes on the condiment table and the taste is relatively stable, customers will complain less because at least one of them is delicious, and people won't feel that the store doesn't want customers to take too much and is deliberately being perfunctory.
Ning Shaoming tasted it carefully and observed it seriously.
The radishes that Su Shengnan's grandmother used to make pickled radishes were not big. They were probably the small white radishes that grew in the sand by the river.
The largest one is only as thick as two fingers, less than the length of a palm, and very crispy when bitten.
After observing, he took another radish and ate it, asking, "Does your little apprentice have any more radishes at home?"
Zhao Ruyue was also chewing on it, she couldn't stop at all: "I didn't ask, do you want to buy it?"
Ning Shaoming said: "If she has more pickled radishes at home, or if she can provide them steadily, she can buy them and cut them into small dices and put them in the store as free side dishes. This way, Xiaoyong and Xiaochun can cook one less thing. It doesn't cost much to buy pickled radishes, and it won't increase costs much. It can also save them some trouble. They are very busy now."
The store does not plan to hire more people for the time being, so it can only reduce the workload of employees in other areas.
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