Chapter 237 - "Brother Yu, Miss Shu is going to merchandizing tonight." (1)
The 8th, most storefronts on streets large and small were re-opening, including Shu Yan’s shop.
She brought with her four roast ducks to the shop and Zhuo Yixuan and Yingying each got two of them. Zhuo Yixuan has had it before but Yingying was still surprised by them.
“Boss Lady, you went to the capital over the new year?” she seemed to have heard the Boss Lady speaking City Xi’s dialect previously. She didn’t think she was from the capital.
“Mmhmm, we don’t really have relatives in City Nan so we didn’t have much to do at home. I figured I’d take the kids to tour the capital. How was your new year?” Shu Yan had been to the capital before but she didn’t enjoy the experience. She went with a tour and, not only was it very restrictive, the accommodation and food weren’t great either.
To put it simply, she was poor back then. Had she joined a fancy tour, she would most certainly would have a much better experience. This time around, Shu Yan visited many locations and food places with her children. Especially when it came to dining, many of the places were fairly hefty for a working-class person. Shu Yan with her 400-500 yuan a month, for sure she would not want to take her children there.
Hearing Shu Yan’s question, Zhang Huaxiu pulled out two invitations with a shy look and said, “I am getting married on the 12th of this month. You two much come.”
Shu Yan looked at Zhang Huaxiu in surprise. She had just gotten engaged end of last year. She was getting married already?
Shu Yan wasn’t invited to the engagement so she didn’t attend. Wu Xiuyue mentioned to her later that on the day of the engagement, Chen Fei only invited his uncle’s family to have dinner with Wu Xiuyue’s parents. There was no banquet and, therefore, no invitations.
“My mom said we are not young anymore and there is no point in dragging it out. The earlier we get married, the earlier we can have kids. It is harder to recover when one is older,” said Zhang Huaxiu while blushing.
“She wasn’t wrong about that. What did Chen Fei’s father have to say about that?” They did not invite his father to the engagement, but they couldn’t not invite him to the wedding.
“Chen Fei had already given them a call. His dad said he will be coming on the 10th. I don’t have more details.” What Zhang Huaxiu didn’t mention was that things had gotten unpleasant between Chen Fei and his father on the day that he called him. It was something about his stepmother wanting to set him up with her own niece but Chen Fei made some comments about it and refused to have the stepmother attend the wedding. Something along the line that if she was going to come then his father, too, will be uninvited as well. Those were dirty laundry of Chen Fei’s family so, naturally, she did not mention any of them.*
Shu Yan wasn’t that curious about it either. She would listen if they were shared but she would not pry otherwise. Everybody has their own secrets.
“Alright. I’ll be there for sure.” She has almost a matchmaker for them. Of course she would attend their wedding banquet.
Business wasn’t great on the first day of reopening but there were still lots to do. They need to clean the entire shop and bring out the clothes that they had put away. Many of the clothes with fur needed to be patted down outside and aired out.
They needed to organize the winter clothes and hang the ones with missing sizes by the door. Some of the better-looking ones they would mix and match and display them on the wall. Spring styles were around the corner so all they needed to get rid of these as soon as possible.
“Place all of these by the door and list them as 50% off. These are 20% off. Go ahead and put them on the racks. Clean out this entire area before you take off today. I am going to go merchandizing tonight and we will put on spring clothing tomorrow,” said Shu Yan as she was mixing and matching the clothes.
Now that she has the aunty, she no longer needed to worry about her kids being at home alone. She could go merchandizing any time she wanted.
When they were almost done with organizing the clothes, two people walked inside. Shu Yan looked up and they were her regulars. One of them was the girl who gave her the folk remedy a year ago.
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Translator’s note:
There’s a Chinese saying “don’t let nutritious water leak into other people’s field”, obviously a farming reference. The fact that Chen Fei’s stepmother wanted to “save him for her niece” reminded me of that. Except he’s not an asset, piece of property, or even a job opening. “Oh, he’s a catch. He must marry my niece”?? WTF!!! (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻