Chapter 41

Xin Geling carried Xie Zhitang on her back as she walked along the sidewalk, completely unaware that the person on her back was slowly turning her head to look at the stiffened Tan Shiwei across the road.

Xie Zhitang slowly tightened her arms around Xin Geling’s neck. This movement pulled the distance between them even closer, making them seem even more intimate.

The meaning of staking a claim was practically ready to burst out.

Tan Shiwei, who was on her way to work, had a bag slung over her shoulder and her phone in one hand. She stood frozen in place, her mind somewhat chaotic.

Only after a passerby bumped into her did she realize she was about to miss the subway. She hurriedly ran over. Ten minutes later, after getting on the subway, she finally came back to herself.

She immediately opened her phone and called on her friend.

Weiwei: My mood is complicated right now.

Her friend replied very quickly: What happened? Aren’t you going to work? Did you squeeze onto the subway?

Weiwei: I’m on the subway.

Friend: Then what happened?

Weiwei: A piece of news I don’t know whether to call good news or bad news.

Friend: Elaborate.

Weiwei: It’s like this. I just left home, and on the way to catch the subway, I once again, yet again, again-again-again saw my crush.

Friend: Isn’t that a good thing?

Weiwei: But at the time, she was carrying a gorgeous woman on her back!!!

Friend: !!!!

After a while, her friend understood what she meant: You mean the good news is that she might be a lesbian? And the bad news is that she might already have a girlfriend?

Weiwei: Which possibility is bigger?

Friend: Hard to say. What if she was just helping someone?

Weiwei: That’s not impossible either.

At that moment, Weiwei suddenly remembered that the gorgeous woman seemed a little familiar.

Weiwei: I remember now. Back then, it was that gorgeous woman who told me my crush wasn’t a lesbian.

Friend: Why is this getting a little complicated? Could that gorgeous woman just be her friend?

Weiwei: I hope she’s just a friend. [sad frog tears]

On the other side, Xin Geling turned a corner and entered another street. There were not many people on the street, and the buildings on both sides were old. Fortunately, the trees along the sidewalk cast shade, and the sun could not shine on them.

As they walked, Xin Geling heard Xie Zhitang ask by her ear, “Has Sister made a friend recently?”

Xin Geling said, “Have I?”

Xie Zhitang said, “I saw a girl who seemed quite close to you. You even seemed to call her Weiwei.”

Xin Geling remembered. “She’s my customer. Yesterday, she asked me to go to her place and clean her washing machine.”

Xie Zhitang smiled gently. “So that’s how it is. I thought Sister had made a new friend and was just about to feel happy for Sister. I was even thinking whether we should invite her out for a gathering so I could get to know her too.”

Xin Geling laughed helplessly. “We’ve only met a few times. If I make a new friend in the future, I’ll introduce them to you. But with my status, I’m afraid I won’t be able to make many friends.”

Xie Zhitang knew she was referring to the fact that she had been in prison. Her heart ached a little as she said, “That won’t happen. Sister, don’t think that way.”

Xin Geling did not echo her words. “We’re at the clinic. Let the doctor take a look at you.”

As she spoke, Xin Geling put Xie Zhitang down and called over the doctor. “She twisted her ankle. Doctor, please take a look at her.”

Xie Zhitang sat on a wooden chair and answered the doctor’s question. “I just twisted it earlier. It hurts a lot.”

The doctor pushed up his reading glasses. He only glanced at it before writing a prescription unauthorized copy on paper. “I’ll prescribe you some medicated liniment for bruises and sprains. Go back and rub it on.”

Xie Zhitang humbly accepted the doctor’s advice. “Thank you, Doctor.”

After getting the medicated liniment, Xin Geling applied it for her. “Is it better?”

Xie Zhitang nodded. “Much better.”

Xin Geling screwed the cap back on. “Then let’s go back.”

After leaving the clinic, Xin Geling sent Xie Zhitang back home, while she herself took a notebook and measuring tape to the shop she had just rented to take measurements.

There was also a storage room inside the shop, but it was not very large. It could store some drinks, bamboo skewers, barbecue seasoning, and other miscellaneous items. Most people who came to eat barbecue would order drinks or beer, so she could buy an upright refrigerator cabinet with a transparent glass door.

Xin Geling checked the shop inside and out. Before long, a layout drawing of the shop she had measured appeared in her notebook, every side marked with specific numbers as well as north-south direction.

Once the measured drawing came out, Xin Geling discovered that her shop faced almost due south. Moreover, across the road in front, there were no buildings blocking ventilation. Even if the summer sun was fierce, once evening came and the sun set, this place would become very cool.

Xin Geling planned to section off an area in the northeast corner and build a cashier counter. After confirming the general outline and height of the cashier counter, she calculated roughly how many bricks and tiles would be needed and arranged for someone to deliver them tomorrow.

She still had several appliance repair house calls on hand, so Xin Geling had no choice but to leave the shop and go repair appliances for others.

At four in the afternoon, she went home and told Lin Huailan her plan.

Lin Huailan was shocked. “You rented it so quickly?”

Xin Geling said, “Yes. Tomorrow, I’ll have someone deliver some bricks and build a cashier counter.”

Lin Huailan pulled her into the room, expressing deep worry. “Geling, why did you suddenly rent a shop? What if you lose money? And the lease is for a whole year.”

Xin Geling said, “Mom, didn’t you say you’d trust me?”

Lin Huailan said, “This isn’t about whether I trust you or not. This is doing a bigger business. We have no experience, so it’s very easy to fail. It’s different from the stall cart. You said the cost of trial and error for the cart was only a few hundred yuan, but a shop is different. Every day, there’s rent, water, and electricity to pay. That’s all money.”

Xin Geling sensed that her worry might not have come out of nowhere. “Mom, did you open a shop before?”

Only then did Lin Huailan tell her about her experience. “Yes… Mom opened a shop before. It was even a franchise.”

Lin Huailan said that after she was dismissed by the school, she had been depressed for a very long time. Every day, she had nothing to look forward to.

“But Mom thought of you. I thought that after you came out, we couldn’t have no home at all. I thought you might still want to continue studying, and that would need a lot, a lot of money. Back then, there was an ice cream franchise ad playing on TV. That ad was filmed so enticingly. The people who joined the franchise were interviewed on TV, saying that all you needed was to invest several tens of thousands of yuan to bring in a few ice cream machines, sell all kinds of colorful and pretty ice cream, open the shop, and there would be an endless stream of customers. Even if it couldn’t be sold, the franchise headquarters would recycle the ice cream-making materials, so there was no need to fear expiration.”

Lin Huailan sat by the desk, supporting her head with one hand as she wiped her tears. “Mom believed those people back then and ran off to open some ice cream franchise shop. I didn’t expect that after investing forty or fifty thousand, the shop opened, but no one came. Hardly anyone bought the ice cream I made. Only then did Mom realize everything said on TV was fake. They were all shills, tricking people into joining the franchise, collecting franchise fees, and making them buy their machines. Mom lost so much money, wu wu wu…”

After hearing this, Xin Geling could not come back to herself for a long time. Only then did she learn that during the seven years she had been in prison, Ms. Lin had lived far more miserably than she had imagined.

She had been dismissed by the school, mentally muddled, wanting to save up money for when her daughter got out of prison, only to be deceived again when starting a business. In the end, she could only survive by collecting scraps.

Xin Geling’s chest felt unbearably tight. She endured it without showing it and hugged Lin Huailan. “Mom, don’t be sad. It’s ​bailiantales.com​all in the past. Since your daughter has been released from prison, I won’t let you suffer again.”

Listening to her daughter’s steady voice, Lin Huailan sniffed, wiped her tears, and felt much better. “Mom is worried that you’ll walk my old road and lose a lot of money. We just barely got the barbecue stall started, and suddenly you’re investing so much. What if you lose money—”

Xin Geling understood her anxiety and worry, so she explained, “I’ve calculated the upfront investment. And the rent is two months’ deposit and one month’s rent, not a full year paid up front. I also had someone look at the location, and the estimated foot traffic won’t be low. We’ll stabilize offline customer traffic first, then consider developing online delivery. You told me before that good wine needs no bush. The fact that we can sell more barbecue from a stall than others means our barbecue tastes better than theirs. That’s enough.”

Lin Huailan still did not quite dare believe it. “Really?”

Xin Geling said, “Really. During this period of selling barbecue, we’ve actually had quite a few repeat customers.”

The main reason Ms. Lin’s business had failed was that in the end, she had discovered no one came to patronize her shop. That had been the last line of defense that crushed her psychologically.

As a product, ice cream was not actually unsellable. It was just that business did not depend solely on the product. It also depended on location, taste, pricing, publicity, and other factors.

To dispel Lin Huailan’s concerns, Xin Geling opened her payment records and found the transaction records of customers who had come back to buy multiple times. “Look, these are all records of them returning to spend. I can’t fake this, right?”

She continued explaining, “That shop is only about a hundred meters from where I set up the stall. They can see it after walking just a few steps. Their desire to repurchase won’t drop too much.”

Lin Huailan looked at these records, then blankly looked at her daughter. Only after a long while did she think it through herself and gradually agree with Xin Geling’s reasoning, murmuring, “As long as people come, that’s best.”

She was most afraid that no one would come.

Xin Geling knew she had already figured it out, so she patted her shoulder. “Mom, then I’ll go set up the stall first.”

Lin Huailan called after her. “Does the shop need cleaning? Your Auntie Fengzhu and I can go over ​Read on BaiLianTales​and clean it for you, okay? Let Mom do something for you.”

Xin Geling thought that the two of them did not have much to do, so she allowed it. “You can go.”

Lin Huailan smiled through her tears and stood. “Then I’ll help you push the stall cart over.”

Xin Geling said, “Okay. I’ll get ready.”

Just like that, Xin Geling, Lin Huailan, and Li Fengzhu pushed the stall cart out of the residential complex together. After finding a spot on the snack street, Lin Huailan helped her with some early preparations, peeling the casings off more than ten sausages and cutting decorative slits into them for her.

Seeing that she still wanted to keep peeling, Xin Geling could only take the knife from her and chase her away. “All right, all right. I’m getting ready to grill. The smoke and grease smell are heavy. Don’t stay here.”

Lin Huailan could only go with Li Fengzhu to clean the newly rented shop.

“Sister Lan, look. This shop is so spacious and cool.” Li Fengzhu pushed up the rolling shutter door. “Selling barbecue here will definitely make money.”

Lin Huailan asked, “Really?”

Li Fengzhu said, “Would I lie to you, Sister Lan? It’s so spacious inside. There’s more than enough room to set up several barbecue grills, and you can even put in a freezer. There’s also a storage room inside. Look outside too, such a big area is all yours. Put a few tables out there. At night, especially many people order barbecue and drink beer. In the morning, no one eats barbecue, but there are plenty of office workers nearby. You can sell some buns, soy milk, and fried dough sticks. One shop can be busy for an hour or two in the morning selling breakfast, then busy for a few hours at night selling barbecue, earning two streams of money. How great is that? No matter what, it won’t lose money.”

After hearing her say this, Lin Huailan did remember the sights she had seen over these years. Because collecting scraps required her to leave early in the morning, she had seen many noodle shops and fast-food shops along the way selling breakfast in the morning. But once it was past eight, all those breakfast items would be put away. Then at night, during the after-work rush, the two sides of the street were filled with all kinds of food stalls and snacks, and the noodle shops and fast-food shops were most crowded at night.

She faintly began to sense how to maximize the use of the shop.

Lin Huailan looked at this shop, liking it more and more the longer she looked. “You know what, you’re right.”

Xie Zhitang: If Sister makes new friends in the future, she’ll definitely introduce them to me, right?