Chapter 127 Illness
Song Yushu rarely gets sick, but this time his fever was quite dangerous. He was only able to stabilize after being treated by Doctor Wu.
When she regained consciousness, it was already dark. When Xiong Erni saw her wake up, she almost burst into tears on the spot.
“You can’t push yourself like that anymore. Doctor Wu said that if you keep doing this, you’ll be taking a toll on your health,” Xiong Erni said, still feeling lingering fear when she rushed into Song Yu’s study and found him lying on the bed, feverish and unconscious.
"Okay, I was wrong to scare you this time, but I'm also grateful to you, otherwise I'm afraid I would have been in big trouble this time," Song Yushu said weakly as he woke up.
"Pah, pah, pah! You can't talk like that when you've just woken up. Just stay in your room for a few days. It's okay if the restaurant is closed for a few days. I've already told the staff that they don't need to come over these days. Just rest and relax," Xiong Erni said as she brought over a bowl of warm porridge for Song Yushu to eat.
"Your cooking skills have improved," Song Yushu said, sipping the porridge Xiong Erni had cooked, intentionally trying to ease her mood.
"After following you for so long, if I can't even cook porridge properly, wouldn't I be embarrassing you?" Xiong Erni breathed a sigh of relief and was in the mood to banter.
When Song Yushu fell ill, the restaurant was closed for five days. When Zhou Chengyu returned and saw that she looked unwell, he felt guilty.
She felt that Song Yushu had fallen ill because of her hard work and worry. She had originally asked for a few days off to take care of her at home, but Song Yushu sent her back to the academy that same day, and she was unable to fulfill her wish.
"I told you I'm fine, why don't you believe me!" Song Yushu had been recuperating in the house for several days, constantly being managed by Xiong Erni, and felt like he was going to get moldy if he stayed in the house any longer.
"We'll ask Doctor Wu to come over again tomorrow. If he says he's better, then you can leave."
Xiong Erni kept Dr. Wu's words firmly in mind and did not give Song Yushu a chance to leave.
Fortunately, when Doctor Wu came to take her pulse again, he showed a satisfied expression, and Song Yushu reappeared at the restaurant. This sudden fever served as a lesson for her. At least she stopped doing things at the restaurant that didn't require her attention. Apart from accounting and cooking, she handed over all other management matters to Xiong Erni, the manager, and also gave her a raise.
Good Taste Restaurant now has ten employees besides Xiong Erni. Three of them are in charge of the kitchen, two are in charge of cleaning, three are in charge of serving dishes and greeting customers, and two are in charge of washing and chopping vegetables.
Xiong Erni was in charge of supervising and managing these ten people, and she handled it quite well. The restaurant is still able to operate as before.
A month later, after Zhou Chengzhu learned that the danger in the prefectural city had passed, she wrote to Song Yushu again, begging him to let her come back to settle accounts.
Song Yushu was somewhat surprised. He had thought that she would stay in the county town after opening the cosmetics shop, but he did not expect that she would be willing to come to the prefectural city to help her with the bookkeeping.
When Zhou Chengzhu arrived, she realized that Zhou Chengzhu had overthought things. Zhou Chengzhu's help with the accounts was just a side thing; her main purpose was to purchase some of the newly produced cosmetics from the prefectural city each month to bring back to the county town to sell.
It must be said that she and Xue Qingyao were quite clever. The shop they opened in town not only sold rouge and face powder, but also some fabrics and jewelry, which did attract a lot of customers when they opened.
However, once the novelty wore off, the shop lost most of its customers, so Zhou Chengzhu decided to come to the prefectural city to learn from their experience and make some purchases.
"Won't it be too much of a hassle for Qingyao to manage your shop all by herself?" Song Yushu was pleased to see that Qingyao had become much more composed in the past month.
"You should worry about me instead of her. She's been taking care of the family business since she was little, and she's much better than me. Your daughter is only good at accounting now. If she doesn't come to the city to learn some skills, I'm afraid that shop will be of no use to her."
Without even looking up, Zhou Chengzhu began to list all of Xue Qingyao's merits, showing that she truly admired Xue Qingyao's abilities.
"You do have self-awareness. There's a fabric shop nearby that I'm on good terms with. If you want to learn from their experience, I can just say so and I'll send you there to hone your skills."
Song Yushu thought of the shop owners he had previously befriended who specialized in selling fabrics, and thought that they might be of some help to Zhou Chengzhu.
"Then I'll trouble Mother to talk to them and see if they'd be willing to let me help them with odd jobs. I can work at any of their cosmetics, jewelry, or fabric shops!"
Zhou Chengzhu was thrilled to hear this and wished Song Yushu would immediately help introduce them.
"Let me ask them if they're willing first, don't rush," Song Yushu said, seeing that she was now completely obsessed with money, and suddenly felt that this kind of enthusiasm was familiar.
"No matter how anxious you are, you can't neglect your health. You've only been in the city for two days, and you're already doing odd jobs. How can your body handle that? Don't end up like your mother, overworking yourself and ruining your health!"
Xiong Erni looked at Zhou Chengzhu's eyes, which lit up with a similar gleam to Song Yushu's, whenever she mentioned making money, and couldn't help but start to worry about her.
"How did my mother ruin her health? Sister Erni, please tell me quickly, I didn't know about this!"
"Erni, don't you have things to do? Hurry up and go!" Song Yushu, seeing that she was bringing up the very thing she didn't want to talk about, immediately wanted to get rid of her.
Xiong Erni then realized that she had said the wrong thing, but Zhou Chengzhu was not easily fooled and insisted on asking for clarification, so she had no choice but to explain.
"So, Miss, please don't follow her example in the future, otherwise, if she doesn't receive timely treatment, I'm afraid..."
Zhou Chengzhu had no idea that Song Yushu had been in such a dangerous situation. No wonder she looked much thinner when she came over.
“You’ve recovered now, so don’t look at me like that. There was nothing I could do. But you’re still young, so don’t be as anxious as I am. Take it one step at a time,” Song Yushu sighed and advised.
"Why didn't Mother write to tell me? If I had known, I would have come to the prefectural city to be with you long ago," Zhou Chengzhu said, feeling a little guilty. Her tone was not as cheerful as it had been at the beginning.
"With your sister Erni here, there's no need for a young girl like you to take care of her. Stop worrying and go to sleep!" Seeing that she was getting stuck on something like Zhou Chengyu again, Song Yushu quickly urged her to go and rest.
At this moment, Xue Qingyao, who was running a shop in the county town with Zhou Chengzhu, felt a bit lonely without Zhou Chengzhu's constant chatter. Nowadays, there were many people visiting the shop, but not many buying anything. She could only wait for Zhou Chengzhu to bring back the new goods from the prefectural city as soon as possible.
Although she had been taught by her grandmother to manage the family business at home, she had never done it so personally before. In the past, she seemed to know more than Zhou Chengzhu, but this was the first time she had opened a shop on her own. Moreover, her grandmother wanted to see what she and Zhou Chengzhu could accomplish, so she did not intend to interfere. They could only figure it out on their own.
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