TATLC Chapter 66

When Tang returned home, her face looked terrible.

Li Fangyue roughly knew that Tang had gone out to ask Lu Lin for money. When she saw Tang come back, she wanted to ask Tang about the situation.

After getting pregnant, the elders in the family had high hopes for Li Fangyue’s baby, giving her a lot of confidence.

But Tang, still fuming after being exposed by Lu Lin, felt that bringing Li Fangyue into their family had been nothing but bad luck. When Li Fangyue dared to show up in front of her, Tang’s anger flared.

In her anger, she started arguing with Li Fangyue and hit her a few times.

Li Fangyue hadn’t been targeted by Tang for a long time. Seeing her mother-in-law going crazy for no reason, she naturally fought back, and the two women ended up a physical struggle.

Their fight drew Grandma Lu over. Li Fangyue saw that Tang was acting like a madwoman and figured she wouldn’t get anything good out of this, so she left in a huff.

Wang frowned at Tang with some dissatisfaction. “Eldest daughter-in-law, what’s wrong with you? Why are you taking it out on your daughter-in-law? What if you hurt the child?”

Tang had acted impulsively in the heat of the moment, but now that she calmed down, she realized she’d gone too far.

Wang glanced toward the door and muttered gloomily, “What if she goes to complain to her sister and makes the clerk angry?”

When the old woman mentioned the clerk, Wang felt another wave of bitterness in her heart. It would be great if the clerk really cared about this sister-in-law, but she was afraid the clerk didn’t care at all. However, she couldn’t say this to her.

Tang was scolded by her mother-in-law and couldn’t argue back, so she could only swallow her resentment in silence.

When Lu Chengyu came back from the academy, he heard about his mother and wife fighting.

“Mother, why did you start arguing with Fangyue?” Lu Chengyu didn’t really like Li Fangyue, but he still treasured the child in Li Fangyue’s belly.

Lu Chengyu was getting old by village standards. Many of his peers already had children running around everywhere.

The Lu family had been full of disputes lately, giving outsiders plenty to gossip about. Lu Chengyu felt extremely embarrassed.

Tang said hatefully, “That damn girl! The family spent so much silver to marry her, and all she knows how to do is embarrass me.”

Lu Chengyu really wanted to ignore the Li family’s affairs. A while ago, under Li Ru’s pillow talk, Lu Chengyu met with the Chief Clerk and they had a pleasant conversation. The clerk also promised to help promote him, which improved Lu Chengyu’s attitude toward Li Fangyue quite a bit. Seeing his mother bring this up again, Lu Chengyu said unhappily, “Mother, why bring this up again?”

So what if Li Ru was just a concubine? As long as she could influence the Chief Clerk, it didn’t matter whether she was a wife or concubine. Lu Chengyu really didn’t want to admit his choice was wrong.

Tang grumbled, “I went to borrow money from Lu Lin today, but he refused. I think… he knows about Li Ru being a concubine.”

Lu Chengyu stiffened. “Lu Lin knows? Mother, are you sure? What exactly did he say?”

Tang nodded, her voice bitter with frustration. “He said the Chief Clerk’s original wife is surnamed Ji, so why isn’t she surnamed Li?”

Lu Chengyu suddenly clenched his fists, his face flushing with humiliation and anger, as if his mask had been ruthlessly torn away.

“That damned brat, where did he even hear that?” Tang muttered darkly.

Lu Chengyu gritted his teeth and had to admit that Lu Lin had been very different lately. Many things at Huaxia Trading Company were managed by him. Before, he had even seen several bosses from town eating with Lu Lin. Lu Lin’s connections seemed quite good.

A creeping unease settled in Lu Chengyu’s chest. If Lu Lin knows, how many others do too?

In the courtyard.

Chen Xiaomi stared at the room full of bags piled up, baffled. “There are actually this many already?”

“Since payment is based on output, everyone’s been working hard,” Lu Lin explained.

They now officially employed fifteen workers, but Lu Lin didn’t mind people taking fabric home to finish and then bringing it back.

This way, employees who took fabric from here could ask their sisters-in-law and daughters at home to help make them together. After finishing, they could also find someone else to deliver them and pick up new tasks. So although there were only fifteen employees in the shop, there were actually more than that. Therefore, the bags were made very quickly.

To earn more money, many workers were putting in their full effort. Before they knew it, they had a bit too much inventory.

Lu Lin thought that those embroiderers were working so desperately because they were afraid of suddenly having no work. Unemployment was a big problem anywhere.

Recently, he had paid out several dozen taels in wages.

Chen Xiaomi looked at the room full of bags and said, “We might need to slow down. This is way too many.”

Lu Lin nodded. “Seems like it.”

With this much stock, they could pause production and sell gradually. Or he could rent a shop in the neighboring town and open a branch store, sending the bags there to sell. Although there were small merchants who bought goods from him to sell elsewhere, the quantities weren’t very large.

The more Lu Lin thought about it, the more feasible it seemed, so he shared the idea with Chen Xiaomi.

“Go to the neighboring town?” Chen Xiaomi vaguely felt it was feasible, but also felt the journey might be a bit far. A trip there and back might take an entire day.

“What a pity! We can’t make many styles, otherwise we should be able to sell another wave.” Chen Xiaomi sighed, feeling somewhat worried.

Lu Lin knew there were many styles of bags, but many of the styles Lu Lin knew couldn’t be made for various reasons. The most common reason was the zipper problem. A few days ago, Lu Lin had bought another batch of fabric. If the bags couldn’t sell, this batch of fabric would probably be stuck in their hands.

“It’s fine not to go. We can sell them slowly. They’ll sell eventually. Anyway, we’ve already made quite a bit in the early stage, and we’ve already recovered our investment.” Lu Lin said.

Chen Xiaomi thought about it and agreed. Just from selling bags, after deducting costs, they had already earned over a hundred taels. If they were digging for food in the mountains, who knows how long and hard they’d have to work to earn this much money. However, even though they had earned some money, they couldn’t stop moving forward. After all, there were so many mouths at home waiting to be fed.

Lu Lin looked at and counted the silver in the jar and said, “There are still one hundred fifty taels left.”

Chen Xiaomi blinked. “There’s this much again. Is a big part of this from selling alcohol?”

Lu Lin shook his head. “Not really. Most of it’s from selling bags.”

Recently he had gradually reduced the frequency of selling alcohol. Sweet potato wine was quite troublesome to brew, and they were out of raw materials. The alcohol in the convenience store was getting less each time he sold some, and Lu Lin wasn’t very willing to part with it. When he last ran into Manager Wang, the man had seemed pretty unhappy about the shortage.

Lu Lin and Chen Xiaomi lay together, chatting about opening a branch store. As they chatted, they fell asleep.

Lu Lin got up early and walked into the main hall, where he saw Chen Xiaocai biting his pen, looking deep in thought.

“You’re up?” Lu Lin glanced at Chen Xiaocai and thought, This kid is really diligent, getting up so early. In his world, kids on vacation would easily sleep until the sun was high in the sky.

Chen Xiaocai looked at him. “It’s not early anymore. The rooster has been crowing for a long time.”

Lu Lin: “…” Just because the rooster crows doesn’t mean you have to get up!

“What are you doing?” Lu Lin asked.

Chen Xiaocai frowned. “I’m calculating income and expenses. Recently the shop’s business hasn’t been good, but we have to pay wages every day, and fabric isn’t cheap either. If this continues, we’ll be losing money every day.”

Lu Lin: “…” This kid is thinking about too much. “Do you have any ideas?”

Chen Xiaocai nodded and said, “We still need to find ways to sell more bags, otherwise we’ll be eating dirt.”

Lu Lin pursed his lips and thought, It’s not that easy to eat dirt. This damn kid is still scared of being poor.

“Lin-ge, if the shop loses money, will the big boss have any thoughts? Will he not want us anymore?” Chen Xiaocai said worriedly.

“The big boss went out, so he doesn’t know we’re losing money…” Lu Lin said.

Chen Xiaocai breathed a sigh of relief and said, “I see. But I still think losing money isn’t good.”

“Alright, enough worrying, come out with me for a trip.”

“Where are we going?” Chen Xiaocai asked.

“You’ll know when we get there.”

Lu Lin took Chen Xiaocai toward the market.

Chen Xiaocai followed beside Lu Lin and said gloomily, “Lu-ge, why are we going to the market?” He thought Lu Lin was going to take him somewhere special, but it turned out to be the market.

“Obviously, to buy food.”

“What are we buying?”

“We’ll see what’s available at the market. We could consider buying an old hen, that’s the most nourishing.”

Chen Xiaocai: “…” Recently the shop sometimes couldn’t sell even one bag a day, and Brother Lu still had the luxury of thinking about buying an old hen. Still, chicken soup was delicious, and the meat was tasty too. He couldn’t help but lick his lips.

Lu Lin thought, The weather is getting hotter and hotter. Xiaomi’s appetite doesn’t seem very good lately. He’s been throwing up a lot of what he eats. He should really get some nourishment.

When they reached the market, he saw a crowd of people gathered around looking at something.

A young master-like man raised his voice, “I’m offering sixteen taels for this bear. That’s already generous.”

“Twenty taels.”

“I say, you hunter, don’t be too greedy. Your bear has severely damaged fur. Only I, this young master, am willing to offer sixteen taels. Others wouldn’t even offer twelve taels.”

“Twenty taels.”

The arrogant young man glared at Qin Yi, his face darkening with irritation.

Lu Lin squeezed into the crowd and looked in surpised, “Uncle Qin.”

Qin Yi was equally startled to see Lu Lin. Qin Lang’s eyes lit up at the sight of him, then he stared at Lu Lin pleadingly. Being looked at with such desperation by a grown boy gave Lu Lin a strange feeling.

In the end, Lu Lin paid twenty taels for Qin Yi’s black bear.

Qin Yi was very grateful and eagerly offered to deliver the black bear to Lu Lin.

Lu Lin invited Qin Yi and Qin Ming to the separate courtyard. On the way, he learned about the Qin family’s situation. A few days ago, Qin Yi and his two sons had targeted a black bear and set traps to capture it. Although they caught the bear, Qin Ming had an accident during the process and broke his leg.

After Qin Yi found a doctor, the doctor said that treating the injury would cost at least twenty taels of silver. That’s why when that young master offered sixteen taels, Qin Yi refused to budge.

Hearing their story, Lu Lin couldn’t help but sigh. Mountain folk have it hard. They finally catch a big prize, and it’s still not enough to cover medical bills. Then again, maybe Qin Yi didn’t know the market price and got scammed by a quack doctor.

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