Chapter 544: Chapter 544

Under such circumstances, anyone with a bit of sensitivity wouldn’t continue to inquire further, and her expression had already said it all.

As for what they might think, it no longer mattered. What was important was that if she hadn’t been forced by circumstances, why would she come out to sell pickles?

Fortunately, her craftsmanship was always quality-assured, and most people could afford the price of 50 cents or one yuan.

However, since it was early in the morning, there weren’t many people, but she still managed to sell tens of dollars.

After class in the evening, she went to the vegetable market and stayed for two hours, earning over 30 yuan.

She had made less than one hundred yuan over the weekend, but at least she netted fifty yuan, enough to cover a week’s living expenses.

With the experience of selling pickles under her belt, she went home that night and bought a large bucket of cooking oil, a bag of flour, and ten jin of black and white sesame.

Because she noticed there were people selling banana leaves and twists at the market and doing fairly good business, she thought, what’s so hard about that? She knew how to make them too.

So that night when she returned home, she fried the quantity she needed to sell the next day. After all, the cost was sitting right there—with oil, sesame, and eggs included, she followed the market price of three yuan per jin.

Besides banana leaves, she also made crispy little twists, which required eggs, sugar syrup, flour, and other ingredients. The cost wasn’t low for these either, at four yuan per jin. Considering that not everyone ate sweets, she also made a five-spice flavor.

The next day after school, she rode her bike to the vegetable market, secured a large winnowing basket for carrying steamed buns on the back seat of her bike, laid a clean white cloth at the bottom, and set out the banana leaves and twists from the large plastic bags, starting to hawk her goods.

Such snacks were a favorite among children, and she also enticed customers by offering free samples. In addition to her several past visits to the market, she actually encountered some uncles, aunties, and grandparents who had bought her pickles before. When they heard that she made them herself, they admired her and offered their support by buying at least a jin each.

After selling a full winnowing basket, she pushed her bike to an empty spot, brought over the rest, and stayed until eight-thirty in the evening to sell it all.

In those years, there were no urban management officers, and as she was a child, the market management didn’t come to collect any fees from her.

She was relieved that her workplace had more men than women and that the female colleagues didn’t live around there. So far, she had not encountered any acquaintances, which gave her much more confidence. When she counted her earnings at home, she had made over eighty yuan that evening and was able to profit at least 30 to 40 yuan after covering costs.

Seeing everyone’s love for the twists, that night, she made honey twists rich in milky flavor.

To make the twists, she especially bought pure milk, honey, cling film, oil, yeast, and so on, on her way home, making whatever she could think of.

Given her current circumstances, she couldn’t afford an oven yet, so she planned to go back to the countryside over the weekend to find some clay and then make a sort of earthen oven, which would be useful for selling desserts in the future. Official source is novel·fiɾe·net

For the honey twists, she sold each for five yuan, preparing a total of forty. There was some flour left at the end, and she fried it into little twists, which were still priced at four yuan per jin, the same as the day before.

After all was done, she went to bed.

However, the weather didn’t cooperate the next day; it actually started to rain. Fortunately, it wasn’t raining heavily. After some consideration, she decided to set up her stall as usual, come rain or shine. The worse the weather was, the more convenience it offered her.

Because her space had preserving functions, although the twists would no longer be hot when they arrived at the stall, the milky fragrance continued to waft out, attracting many shoppers to stop and taste. She opened up one of the forty twists for everyone to sample and received a lot of praise from her customers in return.

"Don’t reheat them in a steamer when you get home. You can warm them up in a flat pan, or if you have a microwave, just heat them up a bit. They taste the best when they are warm."

She repeated these instructions with each sale, and if a customer wanted to buy a lot, she would advise them to try just one first and come back for more if they liked it. Of course, she said it would be another matter for those with a lot of family members.

The unspoken suggestion was that it was easy to get tired of eating too many; one twist was quite large, and buying too many might lead to leftovers, which would not taste good after sitting for a while.

Her enthusiasm made all these uncles and aunties like her even more, exclaiming that the girl had skillful hands and could make anything. After finishing some pickled vegetables, they even asked her to bring some more the next day.

In the end, she sold twenty-three out of the thirty-nine large twists, and all the smaller ones were sold out. That night, she earned the highest income yet—US$ 130.

Adding up the past few days, she had sold a total of over three hundred yuan, with a net profit of at least one hundred yuan. However, she was also quite exhausted, so she didn’t set up her stall on Wednesday or Thursday.

By Friday night, she went to sell banana leaves and pickles again, earning sixty yuan.

As soon as school let out on Saturday, she went to look for clay and then spent half a day in her space making an earthen kiln-like oven, also buying some charcoal for barbecuing and coal balls for burning.

On Sunday, she stayed at home and made cat’s ears, little cookies, and old-fashioned bread. In the morning, she sold them at the market and, in the afternoon, on her way to class, she specially made some sugar-free desserts for her Master and his wife. She didn’t set up her stall that evening; after being busy for two days, it was time to do her homework.

However, looking back on the week’s success, she had earned at least two hundred yuan and started her cash flow. With this pace, she wouldn’t have to worry about future tuition fees.

But when Zhou Yi went to school on Monday, she was called into the office by the headteacher, who had seen her selling desserts at the market over the weekend.

"Yiyi, I know it’s not easy for you, but can your body handle all this hard work?"

The teachers were all concerned about her, so young yet bearing so many of life’s hardships. While other children were playing at home or bickering with their parents, she was already working hard to make a living from dawn till dusk.

The teachers wanted to give her money, but Yiyi politely declined, "Thank you, teachers, I’m fine. I can handle it; please don’t worry. I won’t let it affect my studies. If I’m tired, I’ll take a break. I’m only earning enough for living expenses, and I can’t handle more. I definitely won’t allow myself to get sick,"

With the teachers’ advice in mind, Yiyi decided to only set up her stall four days a week, dedicating the other three days to her studies. Of course, while selling her products, she didn’t forget to clean the office and practice her calligraphy.

In the blink of an eye, a month had passed, and Yiyi’s savings had exceeded two thousand yuan, including her original savings, the condolence money, her wages, and the revolving funds.

There was also good news from Mr. Zheng. He said that her calligraphy had matured enough to be sent to Beijing and Shanghai.

To ensure the quality of the mailed pieces, she handed them over to the association for dispatching since there were several other members participating in the competition. Everyone could mail together using a scroll tube, which would protect the paper better than if she mailed it herself at the post office.

As a member, she filled out her information, submitted photos, and wrote an application for the first time. Everything was very official and made her nervous because she didn’t know whether this step was the right one or not.