"Sister-in-law, how's the family next door doing?"
Shu Hui glanced at the house to the east, and Deng Fangping immediately knew who she was asking.
Previously, Shu Jiandang and Liao Hongmei tried to open a roujiamo (Chinese hamburger) shop like them, but their business didn't go well and they even poisoned the meat. They were detained by the Public Security Bureau for several months and became much more obedient afterward.
After returning, he tried to set fire to their entire family, but fortunately Chu Yu was quick-witted and the fire only burned down Shu Jiandang's house.
"What else could they do? The house burned down, and the whole family had nowhere to live. Shu Jiandang refused to go out to work and earn money, and instead spent his days drinking and gambling, accumulating a mountain of debt. Now, when the debts became too high, people came to collect them. Seeing that they couldn't come up with a single penny, they kidnapped his eldest daughter."
"Huh?" Shu Hui was a little surprised. She always felt that the child was innocent. "Did you call the police? Where were they taken?"
"She was kidnapped to be his wife. That man is 45 years old, his wife died, and he has three children. His daughter will become his stepmother and will often be beaten by the old man. Calling the police is useless. Shu Jiandang accepted 200 yuan as a bride price, and the other party even wiped out all of Shu Jiandang's gambling debts. It's come to a couple thousand yuan. Where do you get married these days for that much money? Besides, it's a consensual affair. Even if the man is a bit old and has three children, the police can't do anything about it!"
Shu Hui felt a little regretful. Shu Jiandang was no good, but his daughter was innocent.
It's just a pity that the child has such parents.
"Didn't Liao Hongmei stop her?"
"They were cursing and swearing at first, but as soon as they saw the bride price, their faces lit up with smiles. They kept calling him 'son-in-law' and bragging about him every day, saying that he was capable and would build them a big house..."
"Has the house been built yet?"
“Build my ass! How could anyone be such a sucker? But Liao Hongmei has already planned to sell her second daughter, saying she wants to get a good price to build a house for her son’s wedding.”
Deng Fangping was so angry that she spat out a curse!
It's bad luck to be family with this son of a bitch!
The people outside were saying some really nasty things. Even though Deng Fangping and Liao Hongmei had fallen out, they were still related to Shu Jiandang. If people wanted to criticize, they would criticize their whole family. Deng Fangping was furious just thinking about it.
In the past few days, villagers have frequently brought their children to visit, all hoping to absorb some of Chu Yu's spirit so that their own children can also become top scholars in the imperial examinations.
Chu Yu originally wanted to rest for a few days, but she found that going home for the New Year was more tiring than working, so she quickly asked Mi Fei to buy her a train ticket for the seventh day of the Lunar New Year, planning to return to Beijing early.
“Chu Yu, this is Principal Wang of our village primary school. Principal Wang used to be my math teacher. I happened to run into him, so I brought him here,” Shu Lan said.
Chu Yu smiled, greeted Principal Wang, and then offered to donate a library and a running track to the school. Principal Wang was completely stunned.
"Donation? Zhou, building a library can be big or small, and it doesn't cost much money to get it done. But donating a running track will cost a lot of money. It's a project, big or small, and we have to apply to and report to higher authorities. After the previous phase is approved, we will then put out a tender to complete it. The later maintenance will also be a considerable expense."
Chu Yu knew what to do. "Let's start with the library first. We can take our time with the track."
Principal Wang's face lit up with joy. "To be honest, our school library is really too dilapidated. It only has some old books and not many books that children like to read. If you are really willing to donate, we will set up two reading classes every week and take the children to the library to read books so that they can gain knowledge from books."
These days, the curriculum is simple and the learning is not intense, so two reading classes a week is not a big problem.
"Then I'll trouble Principal Wang to draft the book purchase list. I'll also contact Xinhua Bookstore to ask them to provide a list of books you can buy for your reference."
How could Principal Wang possibly disagree?
He smiled sincerely and said, "Zhou, on behalf of all the children in the village, thank you!"
Having accomplished all these tasks, Chu Yu had achieved her goal of returning home. In the following days, she closed herself off to visitors, refused to see anyone, and slept soundly for several days.
Deng Fangping heard that there was a famous dumpling restaurant in Zhejiang Province, so she bought a train ticket and planned to go there with Shu Aiguo to take a look.
Chu Yu was also going back to Beijing. As she packed her luggage, Xiao Jiang was quite sad, circling around her suitcase, reluctant to see her go.
Chu Yu smiled, patted his head and said, "Your mother is going to open a shop in Beijing soon. When that happens, I'll help you find a big house, and you can transfer to study in Beijing."
Xiao Jiang went to Beijing for the Spring Festival last year and has been clamoring to go to Beijing ever since.
Beijing has so many delicious foods and fun things to do. It has the Forbidden City and a library. In winter, you can even skate on the ice. These are things that we don't have back home. Children always yearn for big cities. As soon as Xiao Jiang came back, he kept saying he wanted to go to Beijing to study.
"Sister, you'd better hurry up and help us find a house. Remember to save a big house for me, otherwise my mom will definitely leave the big house to my eldest sister and second sister."
Chu Yu smiled and agreed, "Okay, I'll pick out a courtyard house with lots of rooms for you. You can stay in whichever room you want."
Shen Jun was exhausted from her trip to Shanguan Village. The advantage of celebrating the New Year at someone else's house is the liveliness, but the disadvantage is that she is under a lot of mental strain. She dared not rest at all, for fear that if she rested for too long, the Shu family would think she was lazy.
Deng Fangping had to wait until she had a good idea of the dumpling recipe before she could go to Beijing. She prepared a big bag of food for Chu Yu, including apples, oranges, chili sauce, steamed buns, roujiamo (Chinese hamburger), and persimmon cakes. Aunt Tong brought over braised pig's trotters and braised beef.
Chu Yu brought food for the journey, and once they arrived in Beijing, Shen Jun went straight to Chu Jiali Buffet Restaurant.
Chu Jiali reopened on the seventh day of the Lunar New Year. She wasn't there at the time, and the shop assistants were busy with all the purchasing. You can't leave everything to others when you're running a shop, otherwise they'll enrich themselves while you don't earn a penny.
As soon as Chu Yu arrived in Beijing, she received a call from Liu Mingchuan, asking her to go to the cosmetics company, saying that he had something important to tell her.
Chu Yu was a little confused, but she put on her clothes and went over. As soon as she arrived at the cosmetics company, she saw Da Lei running over excitedly.
"President Zhou! It's done! It's done!"
Chu Yu was stunned for a moment, "What? It's done?"
"What did you say was successful? Of course, it's the hyaluronic acid that's successful!"
Chu Yu was stunned and didn't come back to her senses for a long time. She had seen a lot of things, but she still found it unbelievable.
Hyaluronic acid is a success? Just like that? You know, hyaluronic acid didn't really become popular until more than 20 years later. When she asked Liu Mingchuan to research hyaluronic acid, it was just a casual mention. She thought if it succeeded, great; if not, she would make other products.
Chu Yu was prepared for a long-term battle, thinking that if five years wasn't enough, ten years would be, and if ten years wasn't enough, fifteen years would be.
She can wait; one day, the successful development of hyaluronic acid technology will bring revolutionary changes to Mandarin.
But Da Lei told her that they had successfully developed it in less than a year!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
