Chapter 76: A Rival Appears in Business

  Qiu Ye carried a bag of red dates, walnuts, and pomegranates to Zhu Zi Ge's house to give welfare benefits to the employees.

  She jumped to Wang Dandan's door when she was stopped by Wang's mother again.

  "Hey, isn't this little something from Old Qiu's family? How come you're here at this time?" Wang Dandan's mother stopped Qiu Ye and asked, suddenly seeming to think of something, she widened her eyes, covered her mouth and said: "Oh my, I heard that your parents don't let you go to school anymore, is it true? You say how can your dad be so heartless, same as kids, why does he let the brother go but not the sister?"

  Qiu Ye looked at the woman in front of her, who resembled an old hen, and rolled her eyes in annoyance. This person really had no quality, still calling her "Little Who". She was already 44 years old, with the surname Qiu and the name Ye, so how did she become "Little Who"? However, Qiu Ye knew that she couldn't reason with this woman, who was a pure shrew. Her own moral integrity wasn't enough to impress this person, so she could only swallow her pride. She thought to herself, how did she get caught by this woman so carelessly?

  Wang's mother had no sense of self-awareness at all, and dragged the person involved in the rumor to ask for a clear answer.

  "Hey, quickly ask your aunt, is it because of your brother that your dad doesn't let you go to school? Ah, also, nowadays, how many girls can be as excellent as our family's Dandan. You didn't attend school, so you definitely don't know, our family's Dandan skipped a grade and is now a third-grade student." Wang Dama spoke without a topic, and her words suddenly turned to their family's Wang Dandan.

  Qiu Ye suddenly remembered that Wang Dandan from her household seemed to have skipped a grade, no wonder she always felt something was off. It turned out that in her previous life, Wang Dandan wasn't her classmate, but rather a year older than her.

  But she's starting to feel a little envious, just thinking about it. Now going to junior high isn't the problem either.

  "Really? Dandan is really too awesome! Auntie, I still have things to do, so I'll leave first. When I have time, I'll come and play with Dandan again." Qiu Ye thought of taking advantage of her distraction to quickly slip away, or else who knows when she'd be able to escape?

  "Hey, hey, you there, don't go away, you haven't told me why you're not going to school yet." Old Lady Wang looked at the little person running away from her hand, waving her hand to summon him back, still wanting to know the answer.

  Qiu Ye ran past the front without looking back, not daring to stop in front of Zhu Zhi Ge's house because it was too close. Afraid of being caught, she rushed past this row of houses, made a big detour, and came to the back of Zhu Zhi Ge's house, tapping on the glass to see if there was anyone inside.

  Qiu Ye came at the time when he looked at the clock, at this time, according to common sense, Zhu Zi Ge should be at home. He went out to deliver goods in the morning and made tea eggs at home after lunch, then went to collect eggs again.

  The curtains in the window opened a small gap. Wang Zhuzi's head came out. Seeing Qiu Ye waving at him outside, he was surprised for a moment. Qiu Ye quickly gestured to him to open the window and handed over what she had brought with her hands.

  "You hold on for a moment, I'll go take a look ahead. If that Old Lady Wang isn't there, you open the door for me."

  Like an underground worker, Qiu Ye has gone through countless hardships and finally entered Zhu Zhi's home.

  "Haha. You just jumped over from the window, isn't that enough?" Wang Zhuzi said as he looked at Xiaoyu sitting on the edge of the kang, wiping her forehead with her sleeve.

  Qiu Ye was taken aback and cursed inwardly. How could she not have thought of that just now?! "That won't do, I'm a girl," Qiu Ye said with a forced smile.

  Wang Zhuzi didn't say anything, Qiu Ye pulled over the bag on the kang and took out one by one to tell him how to eat.

  Wang Zhuzi always stood by with a smile on his face, listening and watching, feeling moved in his heart, thinking that Xiaoye was so good, going to such a far place and still thinking of bringing back so many delicious things for himself. He must work hard in the future to earn more money for Xiaoye.

  Qiu Ye would definitely sigh if she knew what Zhu Zhi Ge was thinking. No wonder in later generations, on TV, leaders often bring some things to ordinary people's homes for condolences. It turns out that it really works. At that time, she still had thoughts, what's the point of bringing things? If you have that heart, giving an extra 200 yuan would solve everything.

  Afterwards, Wang Zhuzi took over and reported on the sales situation of tea eggs for more than a month. The sales of tea eggs were still very stable, but Wang Zhuzi also saw that at the entrance of a certain school, another stall selling tea eggs had appeared, but it was not their family's goods.

  Qiu Ye immediately understood that there were now imitators, and someone else was also selling tea leaf eggs. Qiu Ye suddenly had a sense of crisis. The production of tea leaf eggs did not require any technical expertise, as long as one put their heart into it, the taste would definitely be good. Now that there was competition, the sales volume of tea leaf eggs would decline in the near future.

  Qiu Ye sat on the edge of the bed, silently thinking that this matter was not something she could resolve. The other person hadn't come to steal their techniques, but had figured it out themselves. She couldn't possibly stop them from selling either. Besides, just because tea leaf eggs were temporarily unseen in Oil City didn't mean no one else would make them. It wasn't strange that a competitor had appeared now.

  "Just stabilize our customers and that's it, we don't care about anything else." In reality, even if they wanted to manage, there was no way to do so.

  "Alright, here it is. This is the money I've earned over the past few months. I've put it all here. I only kept 200 yuan as capital for collecting eggs." Wang Zhuzi opened the kang cabinet door and retrieved a military-style canvas bag from under a large pile of quilts (which Qiu Ye had bought for him last year). The bag was round and bulging, and he handed it over to Qiu Ye.

  Qiu Ye opened the trunk, poured all the money onto the kang, and at a glance, it was clear that this was the result of Zhu Zi Ge collecting money every day and stuffing it in, one handful at a time. He had never checked it before.

  In the next hour, Qiu Ye sat on the kang counting money. Wang Zhu helped to tidy up the money and also found time to make tea eggs.

  Before lunch, Qiu Ye finally counted the money clearly. This month's sales were still pretty good. She bundled all the money neatly with a leather strap and put it in her backpack, preparing to go to the bank this afternoon.

  Qiu Ye held a stack of one-yuan bills and thought, "If this were a stack of 100-yuan bills, it would be great!" She then scolded herself in her heart, thinking that she was never satisfied. After being reborn for a year and a half, although she hadn't made a fortune like the female protagonists in those rebirth stories, with frequent strokes of good luck, she had still made some gains. At least the money in her savings account was considered a lot in this era, making her a genuine member of the "ten-thousand-yuan household". Her next goal was to become a "hundred-thousand-yuan household".

  Qiu Ye poked her head out of the gate of Zhu Zi Ge's house for a while, making sure there were no suspicious people outside, before waving goodbye to Zhu Zi Ge behind her and running back home in a hurry.

  In the afternoon, Qiu Ye woke up from her nap and took Qiu Feng, her bodyguard, to the bank. She deposited all the cash in her backpack, then went to the Xizhai market to pick up Qiu's mother and take her home.

  This year, the Xizhai market has undergone significant changes. The most notable change is that there are more small vendors and peddlers. The original market has also been extended a lot. Qiu Ye pulled her brother to stroll around the market, and saw that now it's not just their mother who sells tofu, but an old man at the other end of the market is also selling tofu. It seems that everyone is not stupid, seeing this profitable business, someone is imitating.

  The brother and sister slowly arrived at Qiu's tofu stall, saw Qiu was weighing dried tofu for an auntie, hurriedly went to help until the customer left, then Qiu Ye asked Qiu.

  "Mom, there's another tofu stall over there. Aren't you affected by this?"

  Qiu's mother smiled and said, "It's okay, our family has been doing this for a long time. Many old customers recognize our tofu, and our frozen tofu is one of a kind. No other store has it, so there isn't too much impact." What Qiu's mother didn't say was that thanks to the girl insisting on putting up a sign with "Qiu's Tofu" on their cart, they had gained some reputation over the past year or so. Some people would specifically look for "Qiu's Tofu" when buying tofu at the market, which is why Qiu's mother's tofu stand wasn't too affected by the competition.

  Qiu Ye could also tell from her mother's expression that the family business was doing well, so she felt at ease. She had already calculated the accounts for her own home and this year her mother's tofu stall had not made less money, especially in the past month, Qiu's mother's stall had added dried tofu, and the income had increased again. Although it wasn't necessarily as much as she earned, being a millionaire was definitely possible, otherwise Qiu's father wouldn't have been able to take out so much money for her when she went to Xinjiang.

  "What are you doing here? Why aren't you resting at home? What's the point of running around everywhere? Don't you have school tomorrow?" Qiu's mother looked suspiciously at her two children.

  "We didn't have anything going on at home, so we came to see if you're busy or not. Isn't that us trying to help you?" Qiu Ye protested with a pout.

  "Haha, mom, it's okay, I can handle the work, you just focus on studying well." Qiu's mother heard her daughter's words and was overjoyed in her heart, thinking that she and her husband hadn't worked hard for nothing after all. These two kids knew how to care about others.

  At this time, a customer came to buy frozen tofu. Qiu Feng didn't need anyone's instruction, he went forward to ask, then weighed the frozen tofu for the customer and collected the money in one go. Watching him, Qiu's mother nodded her head repeatedly, feeling moved in her heart that her child had really grown up and was like an adult, able to help her with work now.

  The owner of the meat stall next door, Mr. Wang, seeing the young man taking the initiative to help, praised: "Sister, your two kids are really sensible, how did you educate them? You should teach me too."

  Qiu's mother still set up her stall in the original place where Qiu Ye had a stall, and got along very well with Old Wang, the owner of the neighboring meat stall. When Qiu's mother bought meat, she would buy it from his stall, and Old Wang would cut it for her, weighing it generously. When Qiu's mother closed her stall, she would occasionally give Old Wang some leftover tofu or something to take back home for his wife and children to eat. The two of them had a harmonious relationship, often exchanging small favors with each other.

  Qiu Ye and Qiu Feng both politely greeted Uncle Wang and exchanged some pleasantries.

  Qiu's mother also said: "Old Wang, don't say that, you haven't seen them when they were poor. Besides, your son Wang Tuo is not bad, why are you still not satisfied?"

  "Big sister is just like you said," Wang Da Shu sighed, "you didn't see his skin when he was young, but I knew about it. It's really worried us to death. He's been in school..."

  Then Qiu Ye and Qiu Feng helped their mother sell goods, letting her and Uncle Wang next door discuss parenting experiences freely.

  ps：

  To all relatives, this week's strong recommendation, three updates every day! Please subscribe!