Chapter 47: Cash withdrawal of the New Year's voucher successful!
"Do we really have to go at this time?"
On the morning of New Year's Eve, Zhou Chunhua frowned and asked, "Other days are fine, but today is New Year's Eve. Why do we have to rush to visit friends at this time?"
"It's all arranged."
Yao Xiaoyu was quite happy when she got her leave from the hospital. After all, no one would dislike a life where they get paid without doing any work. But when she realized that this meant she couldn't go out freely, she felt like the sky had fallen—the date she planned to cash in her banknotes was in the next few days!
To make matters worse, because household chores took up too much time, by the time she realized it, it was already Lunar New Year's Eve. If she couldn't withdraw the money on New Year's Eve, she would have to wait until at least the Dragon Boat Festival to try again!
Fortunately, Yao Xiaoyu works in the creative field, and in a very short time, she came up with a somewhat dreamy excuse for going out on New Year's Eve, which seemed quite believable due to her age:
When Yao Xiaoyu graduated from high school, she made a pact with some close friends because her future was uncertain. If she wanted to maintain the friendship, she should take the initiative to visit them. However, if she did not come within a year, they would no longer be her friends.
"Today is the last day, tomorrow will be the second year."
Yao Xiaoyu hugged Zhou Chunhua and left without hesitation. The old lady watched her granddaughter and Tao Erniu's retreating figures, but in the end, she didn't take Xiaoyu back with her.
The girls' promises may not carry much weight in the eyes of the older generation, but Zhou Chunhua was young once too, and she knew that at this age, girls' promises were very important to them. If Yao Xiaoyu didn't keep her promise today, those classmates would really break off their relationship with Xiaoyu.
Perhaps a few years later, the classmates, now grown up, will think these things are no big deal, and the granddaughter can become their friend again, but the hurt she suffered at that time is real.
"Proceed according to plan."
After walking a short distance, Yao Xiaoyu whispered to Zhou Erniu, who nodded seriously.
...
The period before the New Year is the busiest time for money shops. Many wealthy families come to settle their accounts, many shopkeepers come to collect debts, many people use their spare money to buy bank notes, and many people take out their savings to use for emergencies.
Especially on the mornings of Lunar New Year's Eve and New Year's Eve, everyone from the shopkeeper to the waiters was so busy that they were practically running around. Silver dollars were flowing in and out like water. They didn't even bother to look at smaller numbers. When Yao Xiaoyu asked for gold bars instead of silver dollars, she was only glanced at.
"Let's go."
Yao Xiaoyu, carrying a bamboo box, greeted them, and a dozen or so adult men she had hired in advance quickly surrounded her. Their ill-intentioned gazes disappeared in an instant, and the group boarded a rickshaw and headed straight for the restaurant.
"This money,"
Yao Xiaoyu grabbed a handful of silver dollars and put them on the table. After thinking for a moment, she grabbed another handful. She looked at the startled shopkeeper and waiter, her thick waist and bushy eyebrows making her stand out.
"Give them plenty of meat, rice, and Shaoxing wine. Is that enough?"
The eyes of the customers at several tables were glued to the silver dollars. The waiter couldn't make a decision, so he looked at the manager, who nodded firmly without the slightest hesitation.
"enough!"
The restaurant wasn't low-class, but it wasn't high-class either. The two handfuls of silver dollars that Yao Xiaoyu took out were enough for them to earn for two days during the New Year.
Don't be fooled by the fact that these dozen or so men all look strong and have big appetites. They are dressed in obvious poverty. These are the easiest to please. As long as there is enough meat and a large quantity, that's fine. As for their appetite, it's the same as before. They can eat three catties of meat, five catties of wine, and two catties of raw rice in one meal. They are not at a loss.
A large slice of fatty pork can be bought for about seven catties with one silver dollar, while lean meat is even cheaper. Cabbage and radishes are worthless. A hundred catties of the best white rice can be bought for three yuan and six jiao. Shaoxing wine is sold in bulk for only one jiao and two and a half fen per catty.
According to the restaurant's bulk purchase price, it would be quite remarkable for one person to be able to eat for eight cents, but the silver dollar manager on that table, with his years of experience, guarantees that it is definitely more than twenty-five dollars!
Even if we only make half the profit from cooking, the leftovers will still be enough for the whole family to eat for New Year's Eve dinner until the seventh day of the Lunar New Year!
"Then let's serve a few small dishes to go with the drinks, and then bring out some sliced beef."
Yao Xiaoyu pretended to be innocent and ate several pieces of beef with everyone. When everyone was enjoying the meal, she told the person next to her that she needed to go to the toilet. The group was still drinking and didn't notice that the young master hadn't taken his money bag and bamboo box with him, so they didn't bother to follow him. By the time they realized that Yao Xiaoyu hadn't returned, it was already too late.
Then, opening the money bag and bamboo box, oh, the silver coins inside jingled and tinkled. Counting them, it was exactly the reward for them.
Where did they go?
Some unscrupulous people, who had made a little money but wanted to rob a lot more, stood up and tried to interrogate the shopkeeper. The man, who had just been all smiles, immediately changed his expression. With a wave of his hand and a call, the shop assistants and the people he had just called over swarmed around him, each holding a weapon.
Do you really think his restaurant is run without any backing?
***
Yao Xiaoyu ran all the way out the door, following the route she had scouted out to the hotel she had rented in advance. She went upstairs, opened the door with a brass key, shrank into a corner, and quickly started to take off her clothes, her heart still pounding.
To ensure she could safely exchange the money, she made many contingency plans, including what to do if someone tried to steal it or followed her. But luck seemed to smile upon her for once, and everything went according to the best possible plan.
"Calm down, calm down..."
Yao Xiaoyu took a deep breath quietly, unbuttoned her clothes, and turned the two sleeves over. The brand-new blue jacket turned into a worn yellow, and no one could tell that it was the same piece of clothing.
A few years ago, when the emperor abdicated, those who could afford it all bought yellow fabric to make clothes. Even if those with ulterior motives actually saw the yellow on the back of the clothes and guessed the reversible technique, finding them would be like finding a needle in a haystack.
Yao Xiaoyu curled her lips smugly and quickly untied the straw rope from her waist—aside from being a little tight and making it hard to breathe, these ropes were major contributors to changing her body shape, and the key was that they were everywhere, while the clues had still disappeared without a trace.
Yao Xiaoyu, who had lost weight in the blink of an eye, patted her vest and made sure that the pockets containing the gold bars were secure before she relaxed a little. It is normal to stuff valuables into one's bosom, but after repeated practice, she managed to put each gold bar, which seemed to be placed on her chest, into a different pocket of the vest.
Then she untied the braid coiled on her head, used a handkerchief to wipe away the deliberately thick eyebrows with water from the basin in the corner, smeared her teeth with pre-ground coal powder, and applied cheap rouge to her lips. In the blink of an eye, the slightly plump boy became a girl.
They thought they had seen through Yao Xiaoyu's disguise, believing her to be a young master pretending to be poor. In reality, this was a disguise Yao Xiaoyu had deliberately created to make them overlook her true gender due to superficial flaws.
Then comes another layer of disguise.
Well, it's normal to have multiple layers of disguise in life.
Yao Xiaoyu tied the straw rope to the bed in the room, put on her yellow-faced clothes, went down to the first floor through the window, and disappeared without a trace.
"Go to the Ailu Hotel."
Yao Xiaoyu handed the silver coins to the rickshaw driver. The driver noticed her black teeth on her new-style hat and her bright red lips, and realized that she was a textile worker who was secretly spending money. He smiled smugly and, taking advantage of the fact that most people were going home for the New Year, asked for double the fare.
As he expected, although the female worker was heartbroken, she reluctantly paid the money in order to get back as soon as possible.
The Ailu Hotel was only two streets away from the Yao family home. Yao Xiaoyu got out of the car, took the rattan trunk containing her original clothes from Tao Erni, quickly changed in a corner, washed her lips and rinsed her mouth with water from a bamboo tube, and then naturally carried the trunk home.
"These are clothes that someone left with me. I'm going to take them back after the New Year."
Yao Xiaoyu's story didn't arouse any suspicion. She pretended to be tired from going out and went upstairs to rest. As soon as she locked the door, she began frantically hiding the gold bars. After the last gold bar was put away, Yao Xiaoyu finally lay down on the bed with peace of mind, her mouth stretching wider and wider.
She succeeded!
Although the silver dollars she had secretly saved were almost gone, compared to the wealth she had just acquired, those small sums were nothing!
"Sister, Mom fried some meatballs, come and eat!"
Yao Xiaoli rushed up to remind her sister to come down and have a treat.
"They're here."
Yao Xiaoyu locked the box, hung the key around her neck, and calmly opened the door. She pondered that she would need to buy a piece of furniture with a hidden compartment next year, and also buy a quilt to give to her younger sister. She could barely hide the gold now, but as the money increased in the future, how to hide it would be a big problem.
Gold prices aren't high right now; a small yellow croaker can be exchanged for a little over thirty silver dollars, which is about one tael of gold. Even without considering copyright fees, Yao Xiaoyu's fixed weekly income of fourteen yuan, minus the five yuan that's publicly known, allows her to save enough for a small yellow croaker every month—a sweet little trouble.
As Yao Xiaoyu pondered this, she went downstairs. The kitchen was already steaming. Yao Xiaoli had already eaten most of the small plate of tofu balls that had been fried to test the heat. Yao Xiaoyu picked up a chopstick, put one in her mouth, and found it tasted alright, but it had a slightly bitter aftertaste from being burnt.
Wenrou used to be completely unskilled in housework, and in the past few months, all she could manage was to stew vegetables. The flavor relied entirely on the freshness of the vegetables themselves. Frying meatballs, a highly technical dish, was quite difficult for her. The meatballs that came out of the fryer were either undercooked or burnt. Yao Xiaoyu ate two but couldn't eat any more, so she quietly withdrew from the competition to sneak a bite.
I hope Wenrou will make more of the undercooked meatballs. After all, undercooked ones can be stewed with other dishes, but if they're burnt, you can only remove the burnt parts, otherwise the bitterness will really follow you everywhere.
New Year's Eve is a big day. The whole family is busy in the kitchen all day. Even Yao Ping'an, who is not very good at starting a fire, was assigned the task of peeling garlic. By the afternoon, the table was already full of dishes, which made Yao Xiaoyu wear a mask of pain.
These dishes were prepared for the New Year's Eve dinner, but if they couldn't be finished, they wouldn't be thrown away or given away. Instead, they would be repeatedly reheated and served in the following days, or mixed with other dishes to disguise them as new dishes and enter the Yao family's stomachs. Yao Xiaoyu had no problem eating leftovers, but she really wasn't interested in beef soup! [1]
But the New Year's Eve dinner was still very delicious, mainly because there was a lot of meat, and the dishes were mostly stewed and steamed. Yao Xiaoyu filled her stomach with her favorite dishes and then saw Yao Xiaoli playing with candy fireworks.
As the name suggests, these fireworks have a candy-like appearance and shoot out various colored ribbons after being lit. They are a popular toy firework, and there aren't many of them. Yao Xiaoyu didn't plan to compete with Yao Xiaoli for them, so after watching for a while, she went to warm herself by the coal stove.
"Let me tell you, I used to work outside, didn't I..."
Staying up late on New Year's Eve is a tradition, but if you don't do something, it's hard for people with established biological clocks to stay up past midnight. Since there are children in the Yao family, it's not appropriate to play cards or mahjong. Zhou Chunhua thought about it and decided to pass the time by chatting, but the topic kept changing and somehow it turned into a gossip session.
"I really didn't expect that man..."
With melon seeds in her left hand and salted peanuts in her right, Yao Xiaoyu's ears were perked up, showing no signs of sleepiness. She had always thought that the tricks played by the older generation were just a pretense made up by some people to whitewash themselves, but now she realized that the idea that conservative Chinese people have 1.4 billion people was not a joke!
This is absolutely amazing!
Yao Xiaoyu kept having sharp, explosive thoughts running through her mind. Even after the New Year's Eve vigil ended, she was still feeling a bit unsatisfied. The next morning, she was still thinking about the story of the older sister running away and the younger brother taking her place in marriage.
The Yao family was quite relaxed on the first day of the Lunar New Year. No one came to pay New Year's visits, and they didn't need to pay New Year's visits to others. They exchanged a few auspicious words, ate a breakfast of rice cake and vegetable porridge, and then there was nothing else to do. Yao Xiaoyu simply went to bed for a nap. When she went downstairs at noon... well, there was radish and meatball stew.
The meatballs were still burnt.
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