In the end, Xiao An was dragged away by force. Before leaving, she gave Jiang Bai a deep look, as if to condemn her, or as if to remember her face in the deepest part of her mind.
Jiang Bai watched the figures of the group disappear from sight before shuddering and letting out a sigh of relief, saying, "They're finally gone."
Zhao Yi snorted coldly from the side.
Jiang Bai leaned closer and asked, "You didn't come back last night, did you go to see Xiao An's parents?"
Zhao Yi crossed his arms and said, "Hmm."
Ignoring the other person's cold attitude, Jiang Bai smiled and said, "You've worked hard."
Seeing her carefree attitude, Zhao Yi's heart raced with anger, and he couldn't help but scold her, "Don't bring anyone home to me again."
"I just wanted to know his identity, didn't I?" Jiang Bai pouted.
Zhao Yi gestured for Jiang Bai to walk into the house. The two walked into the study side by side. Zhao Yi muttered, "No reason will do. If you want to know, send your secret guards to investigate. Bringing him home is just annoying."
Jiang Bai sat down in the chair and asked, "So, did you find anything?"
Zhao Yi shook his head: "I can't find out if he's been in contact with outsiders recently. That family is already struggling to survive, so no one else would pay attention."
Jiang Bai nodded: "I also think he's a bit pitiful, he doesn't seem like a bad person."
That's why she spoke up to stop Xiao An when he held a knife to his neck.
After thinking for a moment, Jiang Bai couldn't help but ask, "You also feel sorry for him, so why don't you stay and be his helper? I think he's quite clever."
Zhao Yi looked at her and said, "I don't want just anyone."
"You even took in those two kidnappers who abducted me before." Jiang Bai's eyes widened, unable to hold back his rebuttal.
Those two people served a year in prison. After they were released, they worked for Zhao Yi. Jiang Bai didn't know this until one of them, his sister, became the assistant to the accountant at the medicinal cuisine restaurant. She happened to see the two siblings meeting one day and that's how she found out.
“That’s different,” Zhao Yi said. “The eldest and sixth brothers were forced to kidnap you. They’re not bad people. Even if they did something wrong, they’ve already been punished.”
"And that Xiao An, her intentions are not pure."
Jiang Bai curled his lip: "They all climbed up from the bottom. You expect them to be capable and have pure thoughts. That's too much. You have to give them a chance to reform themselves."
Zhao Yi shook his head: "I have already given them enough money to live on for two years."
He couldn't keep a man who liked Jiang Bai by his side; that would be like raising a tiger to cause trouble.
Jiang Bai shrugged: "Okay, actually I don't really like him either."
Xiao An possesses qualities unique to people from the lower class: tenacity, hard work, and ambition. However, he also has all the cunning and ruthlessness typical of people from the lower class. He is like aquatic plants in sewage, capable of tightly binding any life that accidentally falls in.
Jiang Bai dared not have much contact with him, fearing that he would become the other party's prey and would not stop until he was dead.
Thinking of this, she couldn't help but ask, "He won't come back, will he?"
“No,” Zhao Yi squinted, “His parents won’t let him come again.”
A son who has been raised to the age of sixteen with great difficulty is almost equivalent to the hope of the whole family. Xiao An's parents and several younger brothers all depend on Xiao An for their future. They cannot allow a young and strong laborer to come and block Jiang Bai.
That's practically suicide.
For ordinary people, people like Zhao Yi and Jiang Bai are already high above them, unattainable. Crushing their family is as easy as crushing a few ants or bedbugs.
Jiang Bai nodded, without asking why, and simply said, "That's good."
-
Having solved a major problem with Jiang Bai, the Zhao family faced their first major hurdle after opening the milk tea shop.
The second son's wife frowned as she looked at the milk that had been delivered that day and said, "What's different about this? I can't tell."
The third son's wife rolled her eyes, picked up a ladle, scooped up some, and handed it over, saying, "Try it, doesn't it taste a bit bland?"
Zhao Lao Er and his wife both took a few sips and smacked their lips.
The second son's wife looked at her husband and saw that his expression had turned cold.
He nodded and said, "It was indeed diluted with water."
Zhao Laosan slammed his hand on the table with a "bang," and couldn't help but mutter under his breath, "He's a real piece of work!"
The second son's wife panicked. She looked around at everyone and asked, "What should we do?"
Everyone frowned, unsure of what to do.
Since they returned Li Xinxiang's milk and switched to Boss Zhao's, their costs have indeed decreased significantly. Although Boss Zhao's milk doesn't taste as good as Li Xinxiang's, after adding various seasonings, you can't really taste much difference.
Now that the cost has gone down, the price of milk tea has also dropped by a penny or two. After all, rural areas are not like county towns, and purchasing power is low. This current price is exactly what they want.
They also followed Jiang Bai's advice to prepare less seasoning and more milk. Sure enough, most people ordered the basic milk tea to try something new, and the milk consumption was the highest.
This shop had only been open for a few months when it broke even and had a lot of repeat customers. It was just on the verge of becoming profitable when this incident happened.
The third son's wife looked around at everyone and asked cautiously, "So... are we opening the shop today?"
Old Zhao gritted his teeth, picked up a bucket of milk, and said, "Wife, go and borrow the village chief's donkey cart. I'll go ask Boss Zhao what's going on with this milk."
Actually, he just went to settle accounts with someone.
Everyone knew perfectly well that Boss Zhao couldn't possibly be unaware that the milk had been diluted with water, but going to look for it was still a glimmer of hope.
The third son's wife rushed out. Not long after, a few donkey brays were heard outside. Zhao Laosan said, "Let's not open the door yet. Let me come back first."
"Okay." Zhao Lao Er nodded. "We'll wait for you."
Seeing Zhao Laosan leave, the second son's wife pouted and said, "Laosan is really clever this time. He went to find Boss Zhao and left the two of us in the shop. How are we going to explain this to Mom and Dad later?"
Zhao Lao Er's thought process was slow, and he paused for a moment upon hearing this: "Just say it directly."
"How can we say that directly? Our parents are so old. What if they get angry or anxious after hearing it, and something bad happens?" The second son's wife punched her husband's shoulder lightly.
Zhao Lao Er, unfazed, scratched the back of his head and said, "But we can't just not tell them, can we? What will you say when your parents come and ask why you're not opening the shop?"
"I won't tell, you go tell him if you want." The second son's wife turned her back to him.
She turned around, and there were only a few buckets of milk left in front of her. Her eyes darted around, and she asked Zhao Lao Er, "Do you really think this milk is bland?"
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