Chapter 11 Manager Zhen's Plans I think he's got his eye on me.
"Uncle Jin, how much do you want for these people's steamed buns and meat in total?"
Yao Xiaoyu didn't know if the 101 coins she had just received were enough, but since the other party had already helped her, she couldn't let them spend money again.
"It's not much, I'll pay for it."
Jin Youwei waved his hand. The Yao family had just suffered a disaster, and everyone from the old to the young was thin and frail. He wasn't short of money, so there was no need for him to accept the copper coins that the Yao family had squeezed out of their teeth.
"I have to give tips when I watch a variety show or listen to a play. The amount of money I give is less than what I throw on the stage."
Seeing that Yao Xiaoyu insisted on paying, Jin Youwei changed to a serious expression. While saying something reminiscent of Versailles, he patted Yao Xiaoyu's head, intending to soothe the little girl's emotions. However, Yao Xiaoyu hadn't eaten much in the morning, and her crying and fussing had also exhausted her emotions. With just one pat, her legs went weak and she was about to fall to the ground.
? !
Jin Youwei instinctively grabbed Yao Xiaoyu by the back of her neck and lifted her up like a cat. Yao Xiaoyu was choked so badly that Jin Youwei almost grabbed her hand and begged her not to die.
...
"Thank you, Uncle Jin, and thank you everyone for your help."
Yao Xiaoyu smiled and said goodbye to everyone, clutching the two silver dollars that Jin Youwei had secretly slipped into her hand.
Jin Youwei said that this was a loan from her, and she would have to repay it double when she became successful.
"Master, if you want to take a concubine, just let us buy one. How could you..." take a fancy to the Yao family's daughter?
After finally getting rid of that group of pests, Yu Xianshu quickly closed the door and repeatedly told the servants to untie Zhen Chengshi's ropes, frowning as she spoke.
She and Zhen Chengshi were husband and wife, but the tenderness and affection they shared in their youth had long since faded. Now, Yu Xianshu was simply living a life of raising her children. Yao Xiaoyu's shout had planted a thorn in Yu Xianshu's heart.
Her eldest son got married early, and his well-behaved, intelligent, and beautiful granddaughter, whom she adores like the apple of her eye, is only two years younger than Yao Xiaoyu!
"Look at the mess you've made now..." He's been beaten to a pulp.
Yu Xianshu was unaware of her own subtle worry for her granddaughter, but she also found herself quite strange. According to custom, a grandfather who had been beaten like this should be visited by his grandchildren, and it was normal for them to care for him out of filial piety. However, her first thought was to tell her granddaughter to quickly find something she couldn't leave behind and not to go to Zhen Chengshi's place.
"You stupid woman, what do you know!"
Zhen Chengshi mumbled a curse, but seeing that Yu Xianshu didn't understand a word, he lost his temper and struggled to get up to go to the clinic to see his injury—it would cost him extra money to have the doctor come to his home, and he couldn't bear to do that.
"The silk thread falls, the nest is broken!" (A person is dying, help me up!)
Zhen Chengshi stood up unsteadily. Seeing the two servants who had been pushed over standing there like wooden statues, his anger soared to the sky. He cursed loudly on the spot, but unfortunately, after cursing for a couple of sentences, he spat out a mouthful of blood, which also contained his white teeth.
Zhen Chengshi: ...
Once he's recovered from his injuries, he'll sell those two things to the coal mine!
"Go with the master and ask the doctor what's wrong."
Seeing Zhen Chengshi being carried out of the door on a sedan chair, Yu Xianshu immediately called for someone to follow. She did not miss the man's action of covering his third leg the moment he untied the rope. The way he addressed her as "Master" sounded strangely sarcastic.
Zhen Chengshi, who had been beaten to three times his original size, was in pain all over his body and didn't notice the people following behind him. In order to distract himself, he could only start calculating how many connections he could make and how much money he could earn after sending Yao Xiaoyu up.
Yao Xiaoyu guessed correctly. Zhen Chengshi was indeed not the type to make a trip just for fifty silver dollars; he came with ill intentions.
Above Zhen Chengshi, a distant relative of the quartermaster had a son who contracted syphilis and howled at home every day. The relative, relying on his connections, had consulted famous doctors from the south to the north. The one in Shanghai was the last one; they would all be boarding the train in half a month.
The relative's message was that his son was doing well, but anyone with eyes could see that if he were truly well, or even if his condition was under control, he wouldn't be changing doctors so frequently.
This matter originally had nothing to do with Zhen Chengshi, but a few days ago he received news that his relative intended to choose a woman for his son to bring him good luck. He was not concerned about the family's financial situation, but she had to be good-looking, educated, smart, and not too old. The order would be placed according to the ranking of the selected women. Once the woman entered his house, she could never return home.
Anyone with a discerning eye can see that this is about a marriage to bring good luck. In reality, if the woman enters the household and her son dies, he has to be buried with her. It's even possible that the son is already dead, and the girl's entry is a ghost marriage.
Zhen Chengshi originally didn't intend to take shortcuts, until he saw the number of orders—if the woman he brought along became his legal wife, the orders he took could double his family business!
He was tempted, but after searching around, he realized that although there were beautiful women, cultured women, intelligent women, and young women everywhere, a woman who met all four criteria was simply someone he could not come into contact with.
Zhen Chengshi was about to give up when he found the Yao family's IOU and discovered that Yao Xiaoyu met all the criteria!
In terms of appearance, Yao Xiaoyu, although she has not yet fully grown up, has an oval face and lychee-shaped eyes, and her skin is as white as the finest mutton fat jade. She is definitely a beauty in the making.
In terms of academics, Yao Xiaoyu was one of the few who graduated from middle school. In the first year of the Republic of China, in order to show a new atmosphere, Shanghai opened its only girls' middle school, which only admitted one class of students. Yao Xiaoyu was one of the very few who graduated early.
In terms of intelligence, Yao Xiaoyu entered school at the age of four, skipped two years of the seven-year primary school curriculum and one year of the four-year middle school curriculum, and graduated smoothly from a bilingual middle school. If this were a boy, he would have been a candidate for the imperial examinations in the past, and now he is a good prospect for taking the college entrance examination.
In terms of age, with the new policy in effect, it's common for people to get married at seventeen or eighteen, while Yao Xiaoyu is only thirteen.
What's even better is that the Yao family has now fallen on hard times. After he took the person away, the Yao family had no way to find him. Moreover, the Yao family still owed him fifty silver dollars, which gave him a perfect excuse to go and see what the person looked like now.
After much deliberation, Zhen Cheng felt that fate had decreed that he should enjoy this wealth and honor, so he went to the door with the IOU. Who knew that he would be blinded by the fifty silver dollars and accused of coveting his friend's granddaughter.
I'm truly innocent.
Zhen Chengshi lay on the sedan chair, on the verge of tears. To make matters worse, after his arduous journey to the clinic to have his third leg examined, he received only a pitying look from the doctor.
Yao Xiaoyu's movements were steady, ruthless, and precise. She could urinate there, but she couldn't do anything else.
Even though Zhen Chengshi might not get up even once a year, and the time he did get up was less than two minutes, when he heard this terrible news, he still rolled his eyes and fainted instantly.
...
"Manager He, we plan to copy medical books, all of them, and also take a notebook that costs two copper coins."
Yao Xiaoyu entered He Family Bookstore, sobbing. It was clear something had happened. Manager He gave Yao Xiaoyu the items and wanted to find out what had happened. The twelve-day countdown was almost half a day short, and Yao Xiaoyu didn't dare to waste any more time. She asked Zhou Chunhua to explain to Manager He, and she and Yao Tianrui quickly went home.
"My Yao Daniu shouldn't have helped that Zhen Chengshi back then. How could someone like that have such a name? He should be called Zhen the Beast!"
Zhou Chunhua was very quick-witted and seemed to have a natural talent for keeping people in suspense. Instead of telling the story in a straightforward manner, she subtly teased them by mentioning a key figure. As Yao Xiaoyu left the bookstore, she glanced back at Manager He. Hmm, judging by how engrossed he was, she wasn't worried that he wouldn't tell the story.
"Dad, which part did you copy?"
While dividing the book into three parts, Yao Xiaoyu asked Yao Ping'an, "The 'Tianhua Jingyan' is a thread-bound book. To make it easier to copy, Manager He has already removed all the threads and threaded a long, thick rope through the top hole, making the pages look like modern flashcards. Each part is separated by a distance, so that multiple people can copy it at the same time."
"ah?"
Before Yao Ping'an could react, Yao Xiaoyu simply made the decision for him:
"Then you can copy the last part first, I'll copy the first part, and you can copy the second part, brother. Let's try to finish copying today."
With nearly 250,000 words to be completed in 11.5 days, the workload is divided among three people, meaning each person has to write at least 7,300 words per day. Given the tight schedule and heavy workload, Yao Xiaoyu plans to explain things more slowly at night when the lighting is poor.
"Father, this is a new job from He Family Bookstore. You can start copying it first, and we'll talk about it over dinner."
A single sentence assigned a task to the bewildered Yao Ping'an, and Yao Xiaoyu turned to look at Wenrou:
"Mom, when you cook rice later, don't add sweet potatoes. We have a lot to do today, and we can't stay awake on porridge."
Yao Xiaoyu breathed on the nib of the pen and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that it worked properly. Just two days ago, she was planning to get Zhou Chunhua out of that life-threatening profession, but now the whole family has to start working themselves to the bone. She only hoped that the fate of the Zhen family would deter other families who were desperate for money. Yao Xiaoyu didn't think she would have the good luck of copying books at high prices a second time.
Back in the modern era, she always had a guaranteed minimum payout when drawing cards!
After copying a few pages, Zhou Chunhua pushed open the door and gently told her mother-in-law about having rice for lunch. Zhou Chunhua had no objections after learning that it was her granddaughter's request, but she was thinking about working the night shift.
Who doesn't like to eat rice? It's just that we don't have enough money.
Rickshaws operate on day and night shifts, with higher fares at night, but also more dangers and a more grueling experience than during the day. In short, it's about exchanging your health for money, and it's hard to live a long life if you do it for too long.
But in this world, there are plenty of people who will starve to death if they don't earn money today, so there is never a shortage of rickshaw pullers in Shanghai at night.
"Dinner's ready."
After copying the last few lines, Yao Xiaoyu gently placed the paper aside and weighed it down with pebbles. The family originally had all sorts of paperweights, but they were all sold to raise money, so Yao Ping'an picked up a few pebbles to replace them.
"They're here."
Today's dish was a bowl of steamed peas with a little salt. Because the ingredients were fresh, the taste wasn't bad, but as Yao Xiaoyu chewed on the white rice without sweet potatoes, she still wanted to eat meat.
The family hadn't eaten a proper meal in a long time, and everyone ate with great relish, completely forgetting about the planned conversation at the table.
"I need to pay back those fifty silver dollars as soon as possible. Manager Zhen has his eye on me."
With their fill of food and beans, everyone was enjoying a rare moment of tranquility when Yao Xiaoyu's words startled them into a frenzy.
A note from the author:
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As I write this, I suddenly realize this article could also be titled "My Daughter Plants Bombs in the Family Every Day."
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