Upon learning that the eldest son's wife went to the city without borrowing a penny, Qin Jinlian was so angry that she kept scolding, "You are such a blockhead, you wouldn't have left if she didn't lend you money, and you actually came back empty-handed..."
Du Juan ignored what Qin Jinlian said and waited until she finished scolding her before she spoke.
"Mom, I still want to borrow some money from you. Ten or twenty dollars is fine. Do you think you have enough money?"
"I don't have any money left. I spent all of it on buying a gold necklace for Lizhen."
Du Juan looked at Yang Lizhen, but before she could say anything, Yang Lizhen interrupted her with a smile.
"Sister-in-law, please don't ask me to borrow money. I'm also very poor. My mother asked me to raise money to buy a watch for my brother's girlfriend, but I couldn't even afford it."
Hearing this, Du Juan said nothing and turned away dejectedly.
Qin Jinlian stared at her back, muttering to herself, "That damn girl, she's so stingy with her money, she should be killed..."
Yang Lizhen continued eating melon seeds as if it was none of her business.
After returning home, Du Juan found a small notebook, took a pen, and went out with Shen Chaobei, going door to door to borrow money from the villagers.
The couple had a good reputation in the village, and they didn't borrow much, just three yuan from one family and five yuan from another.
Although every household was not rich in those days, they could still spare three or five dollars.
It was not until dark that Du Juan and Shen Chaobei returned home exhausted.
The scattered banknotes on the kang table piled up into a small mountain, and the small notebook was filled with several pages of densely written notes, all of which were the amounts of money borrowed by various households.
Du Juan counted the borrowed money according to the account book, a total of sixty-eight yuan.
Although it’s not much, it’s barely enough to set up a small stall.
After dinner and putting their daughter to sleep, the couple sat cross-legged on the kang and whispered about going to the market tomorrow to buy steamers, eggs, flour, sugar, oil, etc. for making egg cakes.
Taking into account the economic level of the countryside, Shen Mingzhu taught Du Juan how to make egg cake by steaming it instead of baking it.
Steaming does not require buying an oven or charcoal. All you need to do is use the large iron pot you usually use for cooking, burn firewood, and put it in a steamer to steam it like you would steamed buns. The cost will be relatively much lower.
As the couple was talking, there was a knock on the door.
Shen Chaobei opened the door and found it was his biological father Shen Jianguo.
It was too late, so Shen Jianguo didn't go into the house. He stuffed twenty yuan into Shen Chaobei's pocket at the door and left.
As soon as Shen Jianguo left, Shen Xiangnan came and also gave Shen Chaobei twenty yuan.
Forty yuan was placed on the table on the kang, and the couple looked at each other.
"Mom, what should we do with this money?" Shen Chaobei asked.
"Keep it first, put it in the account, and pay it back later." Du Juan made the decision.
So the couple recorded the accounts of Shen Jianguo and Shen Xiangnan at the back of the notebook.
——
The next day after breakfast, Du Juan and Shen Chaobei were preparing to go to the market with Daya when Yang Lizhen came to their door angrily.
Shen Xiangnan hurriedly followed Yang Lizhen, trying to pull her back, but was pushed away by Yang Lizhen.
"Brother and sister-in-law, did Xiangnan give you twenty yuan yesterday?"
"I borrowed that money from someone and was going to send it back to my parents' home. Please return it to me."
The couple then realized that the twenty yuan that Shen Xiangnan sent them last night was secretly taken from home. Yang Lizhen found out in the morning and came to their house to ask for the money back.
Both husband and wife were kind people and they immediately returned the twenty yuan to Yang Lizhen.
After Qin Jinlian found out about this, she scolded Shen Xiangnan severely and told him not to make Yang Lizhen angry again, so as not to upset the grandson in her belly.
Although the money was returned to Yang Lizhen, Shen Chaobei and Du Juan were still worried, fearing that the twenty cents given by Shen Jianguo was also "stolen". They did not dare to spend it at the market and could only use the sixty-eight yuan borrowed from the villagers.
After careful budgeting, I managed to buy all the supplies needed to make steamed egg cakes.
As for Yang Lizhen, since she bought the gold necklace, she wears it every day when she goes out to visit friends.
Within two days, everyone in the village knew that Qin Jinlian bought a gold necklace for the second son's wife.
When she wore the thin, glittering gold chain around her neck, all the young wives in the village were jealous.
However, the villagers privately gossiped about Qin Jinlian's favoritism towards her two daughters-in-law.
Some say that she is partial to her own sons, treating the eldest as weed and the second as a treasure.
Some also laughed at her for being stupid. The eldest brother was honest and loyal, and his wife was diligent, virtuous and able to manage the household, but she did not rely on them and instead followed the second brother who was easily influenced by his influence. The second brother's wife was lazy, gluttonous and cunning, so she would suffer in the future.
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Qin Jinlian didn't know that people in the village were gossiping about her, and she was very happy every day.
She was either busy embroidering small clothes for her unborn grandson, or cooking various kinds of food for Yang Lizhen to supplement her nutrition so that she could give birth to a plump and fair grandson.
——
That morning, before dawn, Qin Jinlian was awakened by a fragrance.
"Oh my god, whose family is this? Why are you getting up so early to make breakfast?"
Qin Jinlian turned on the light, stared at the dark sky outside the window, sniffed and muttered.
Shen Jianguo turned over and squinted his eyes and said, "It seems to be the eldest couple. They are going to set up a stall at the market today."
Upon hearing this, Qin Jinlian didn't even sleep, put on her clothes and went out.
In the north room, Shen Jianguo was carrying a load of egg cakes, and Du Juan was carrying Daya, who was still sleeping, on her back in a flowery sling. The family of three was getting ready to go out for the early morning market.
After the family split up, Qin Jinlian refused to help the couple take care of their daughter, so they could only take their daughter with them wherever they went.
As soon as they stepped out of the courtyard, the couple ran into Qin Jinlian who was coming over with a bamboo dustpan.
"Chaobei, give me some of your steamed egg cakes. It happens that I don't have to make breakfast this morning."
Qin Jinlian spoke lightly, without ever thinking that the couple had borrowed money from the whole village to make the egg cake, and were planning to sell it at the market.
Shen Chaobei was in a difficult situation.
Qin Jinlian is his biological mother. She asked him for some egg cake. It would be unreasonable for him not to give her some. So he gave her some. One pound of egg cake was one dollar and fifty cents.
He also hoped to make money from selling egg cakes and pay off the village debt as soon as possible.
Du Juan and her husband had the same idea and politely refused, "Mom, a pound of egg cake costs 1.5 yuan, how much do you want to weigh?"
Qin Jinlian immediately frowned and said, "What's wrong with me eating some of your egg cake? And you asked me for money. Are you obsessed with money?"
Perhaps awakened by Qin Jinlian's scolding, Daya on her back uttered two faint groans, and her small body arched back and forth in the baby carrier.
Du Juan patted her daughter gently to coax her while continuing to confront Qin Jinlian.
"Mom, it's not that we value money. Chaobei and I owe debts to everyone in the village, and we're counting on selling egg cakes to pay off our debts. If everyone is like you, ordering this and that, how can we do business?"
(End of this chapter)