Since he and Yan Jiangtao became deskmates in the third year of junior high school, Guan Baiyu had been picked on by Yan Jiangtao every day.
He could ignore the verbal abuse. Occasionally, Yan Jiangtao kicked his legs or stabbed his arm with a pen, but he tolerated it.
He wanted to study hard and didn’t want to conflict with Yan Jiangtao.
The most he could do was secretly throw caterpillars into Yan Jiangtao’s schoolbag.
He didn’t dare to go too far because he was afraid that Yan Jiangtao would retaliate against him.
A few days ago, he poured mud and water on Yan Jiangtao’s head, firstly because he was really angry, and secondly because Shi Zhen’s appearance gave him confidence.
And now, he was angrier than ever.
Guan Baiyu looked at Yan Jiangtao with a gloomy expression.
Yan Jiangtao felt a little uneasy for no reason, and was extremely disgusted by the way Guan Baiyu looked at him. He immediately said, “What are you looking at? Watch me beat you again.”
Guan Baiyu wanted to beat Yan Jiangtao right now, but he still had exams in the afternoon.
Picking up his schoolbag, Guan Baiyu went to the bathroom.
He wiped the vegetable soup off his bag with a rag, but it was too late. His bag was originally made of cloth and was not waterproof at all. Now the books in the bag were wrinkled due to water stains, and they also smelled like food.
Guan Baiyu wiped his schoolbag clean and went back with the rag to wipe his stool.
Yan Jiangtao crossed his legs and shook them from time to time. Watching Guan Baiyu work with interest, his shaking legs knocked against Guan Baiyu’s table legs again and again. This kind of behavior really deserved a beating.
But most of the people around him dared not speak out. Yan Jiangtao was rich and had many friends, and most of the people in the advanced class just wanted to study hard. They wanted nothing to do with people like Yan Jiangtao.
When Guan Baiyu finished cleaning the table and stool and went to wash the rag, the girl sitting behind Guan Baiyu chased after him. “Guan Baiyu, do you want to tell the teacher? I will testify for you that the vegetable soup was poured by Yan Jiangtao.”
Guan Baiyu nodded and went to the office with the girl.
The teachers for the first and second years of their school were arranged to go to other schools to invigilate the exam, but the teachers for the third year did not go and stayed at the school.
Guan Baiyu and the girl entered the office and saw their class teacher sitting in his seat reading a thick novel. When he saw them coming in, he asked, “What do you want?”
Before Guan Baiyu could speak, the girl said, “Teacher Chen, after Yan Jiangtao finished eating today, he poured the remaining vegetable soup on Guan Baiyu’s stool and schoolbag!”
Chen was a common surname here in Anshan Town. There were many people surnamed Chen here. Their class teacher had the same surname as the invigilator.
Hearing what the girl said, he subconsciously said, “Was he just careless?”
“He did it on purpose!” The girl said.
Guan Baiyu also said, “Yan Jiangtao poured it on purpose. He admitted it himself. During the previous exam, he also threw a paper ball at me and framed me for cheating.”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Their class teacher favored Yan Jiangtao, and Guan Baiyu knew this a long time ago.
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Guan Baiyu followed, “At that time, Yan Jiangtao threw a paper ball at me, and he deliberately framed me.”
The girl was busy answering her own exam paper at the time and didn’t know where the paper ball came from. Now she found out that Yan Jiangtao was actually the instigator, and she was filled with indignation.
Their class teacher was also a little embarrassed. “I understand. You go back first and call Yan Jiangtao over.”
It was this appearance again where the teacher wanted to just send him away and didn’t intend to punish Yan Jingtao.
Guan Baiyu had long since given up on relying on teachers to get justice. After hearing what the teacher said, he didn’t stay long and left the office with the girl.
“Yan Jiangtao has gone too far!” The girl kept mumbling, but she stopped after entering the classroom. She was also afraid of Yan Jiangtao.
Returning to his seat, Guan Baiyu looked at Yan Jiangtao and told Yan Jiangtao to go to the office.
The proud expression that Yan Jiangtao had maintained disappeared. He had bullied Guan Baiyu a lot before. Guan Baiyu basically kept silent.
Guan Baiyu went to see the teacher last semester. After the teacher didn’t agree to change his seat, he stopped going to the teacher.
Unexpectedly, Guan Baiyu had the courage to go to the teacher today!
After glaring at Guan Baiyu, Yan Jiangtao went to the office. But after a while, he came back, and started tossing and kicking at his seat.
Guan Baiyu ignored him and just read his English textbook.
Of all subjects, he was the worst at English.
When the teacher taught them a word, he would pronounce it one way today and another way tomorrow. When he asked the teacher, the teacher simply told him not to worry about how to pronounce the word and just memorize it.
But memorizing words was a relatively painful thing for him.
He was happy to memorize Chinese texts and long ancient poems, but he did not want to memorize English. Even if he memorized it, he would forget it the next day.
However, all the students in his class were like this, so his English scores were still among the top five in the class.
Yan Jiangtao made a lot of noise, but Guan Baiyu didn’t react at all, which made him even angrier.
Guan Baiyu looked down on him just because of his good grades!
Let’s see how capable he was!
Even if Guan Baiyu was like this, he wouldn’t be able to make much money after studying!
His family could earn thousands of yuan a month by operating loom machines, but no school teacher could earn that much in a year!
With this thought in mind, Yan Jiangtao kicked Guan Baiyu’s stool and went to chat with the boy in the front seat.
“My shoes cost more than 100 yuan per pair! They are from a famous brand!” Yan Jiangtao showed off proudly, not forgetting to provoke Guan Baiyu, “Guan Baiyu, did you pick up your shoes? Did you pick up your clothes and shoes from the trash can? Do you want me to give you my old clothes? Forget it, I won’t give them to you. You are so dirty. Just thinking about my old clothes on you makes me feel sick!”
Guan Baiyu remained motionless, making the person who was talking to Yan Jiangtao very embarrassed.
No matter what Yan Jiangtao said, it didn’t take long for the afternoon exams to begin.
During the afternoon exams, the invigilator still kept walking around Guan Baiyu, coming over to look at Guan Baiyu’s exam paper from time to time. Fortunately, nothing else happened, and Guan Baiyu completed all the exams smoothly.
After the exams were over, the students would have a day off – tomorrow was Saturday. There were usually classes in the morning, but they just finished the exams and they didn’t have to come to school.
It was great to have two days to play! All the students in the class were in high spirits.
Guan Baiyu walked to the school gate and saw Shi Zhen riding a bicycle. “Brother!”
“Let’s go,” Shi Zhen laughed. “Go home.”
Guan Baiyu smiled and his eyes curved. The messy things he encountered in school no longer made him uncomfortable.
Shi Zhen sent Guan Baiyu home and hurried to town to close the stall.
Now, in addition to cold-cut pig head meat, Shi Zhen’s stall also sold braised eggs and braised dry tofu.
He sold braised eggs and braised dry tofu so cheaply that some people who came to town would spend fifty cents to buy them as snacks.
There were even students who bought braised eggs and braised dry tofu from him for breakfast in the morning.
In this way, business was pretty good.
After he hired Qian Qilai, there was always someone to manage the stall in town. His stall could be set up from morning to night, and he could sell more things.
Now, he could no longer sell one pig head an hour like he did at the beginning. But because the stall was open for longer, he could still sell out four pig heads in one day. As for the eggs and dry tofu, he cooked a big pot, but by noon, it was basically all sold out.
He actually wanted to cook more, but Guan Baiyu’s house only had one pot, which was not enough.
Shi Zhen had decided to buy two coal stoves this weekend. From now on, he would braise the pig heads on coal stoves. When he sold braised dry tofu and braised eggs in town, he would also put a coal stove underneath, so that customers could have hot meals.
In addition, Shi Zhen also wanted to buy a rice cooker, which would make cooking at home easier.
If one wasn’t careful when cooking rice in an iron pot, they would end up with a thick layer of crispy rice, so someone had to keep an eye on it. It was very troublesome, not to mention occupying the pot. It would be best to eliminate it.
At the end of the day, his net profit after deducting costs was approximately seventy or eighty yuan. After deducting the salary paid to Qian Qilai and various household expenses, he could save an average of sixty yuan a day. However, because this business had not been operating for long and he purchased some daily necessities, his total savings were now only four hundred yuan.
It cost money to buy a coal stove, it cost money to buy charcoal briquettes*, and it cost even more money to buy a rice cooker and other things he wanted.
The larger cycle rickshaw he liked cost 700 to 800 yuan each.
But if there was such a vehicle, he would definitely be much more relaxed, and the stall could be placed directly on the cycle rickshaw.
Shi Zhen had started a business in his previous life, and he also knew many people who started their business from scratch. They basically worked hard and grew bigger little by little.
If he were to do it again, he would inevitably go through this process.
When Shi Zhen rushed to town, the braised eggs and braised dry tofu had already been sold out, but there was still a lot of pig head meat left.
The remaining pig head meat was braised this afternoon. It had been cold recently, so it didn’t matter if it was kept and sold tomorrow. However, Shi Zhen and Qian Qilai continued to sell it for a while. He kept calling and attracted several customers. When the pig head meat was almost sold out, he closed the stall and prepared to go home.
At this time, Shi Xinghuo had gotten off work and also came over.
Shi Zhen tied the hard-to-carry things to the back seat of the bicycle and let Qian Qilai ride back. He and Shi Xinghuo walked back with a basket each and the odds and ends on their backs.
It was already dark when they got home.
Because they were usually busy until late at night, Shi Zhen had been letting Qian Qilai have dinner at his home recently. It was the same today.
Guan Baiyu had already cooked the rice. Shi Zhen took out the rice from the pot, fried a large plate of scrambled eggs with buckwheat and green onion, and also fried another plate of shredded lettuce with shredded dry tofu. Finally, he placed the remaining cold-cut pig head meat and badly cooked braised eggs on the table. It was a hearty meal.
After eating, Shi Zhen gave Qian Qilai five yuan and said, “Qilai, you have been working very long hours every day lately. Starting tomorrow, I will give you ten yuan a day.”
In fact, since Qian Qilai provided a bicycle, the five yuan salary he offered Qian Qilai seemed a bit low.
Now Qian Qilai could do things very well and his hands and feet were quick. Paying Qian Qilai five yuan a day was obviously not appropriate.
Wage increases were inevitable.
Qian Qilai refused without even thinking. “Master, there’s no need. I eat meat and eggs at your place every day. I basically just sit and watch the stall during the day…”
“You don’t eat much,” Shi Zhen said with a smile, “It’s decided.”
Qian Qilai was a local. He also liked to wander around and meet many people. Having Qian Qilai help him look after the stall therefore provided many benefits!
Apart from anything else, when people from Qian Qilai’s village came to town, they would more or less buy some cooked food at his stall.
Qian Qilai left after dinner. Shi Zhen chatted with Shi Xinghuo a bit and asked Shi Xinghuo about things at the construction site.
The river mud had been dug out, and Shi Xinghuo was now moving rocks and mixing cement there every day. Although he was a little tired, it was not very dangerous and he could do the job.
The most gratifying thing was that Wang Chengfa was no longer taking a kickback, and Shi Xinghuo’s income had risen to fifteen yuan a day. Although he had to do all the work before he could get it, it was still a happy thing.
***
T/N: Sigh, I got my hopes up that there would be some punishment when they reported to the teacher, but should have known better. This teacher is total trash.
*Briquettes are compressed blocks of coal dust used for fuel. They’re what I usually think of when people say coal or charcoal:
Even their class teacher is so bias ugh 😩 I can’t wait for shi zhen to get rich quick and spoil his wifey xiao yu. By then I hope xiao yu smacks yan jingtao’s face with a a stackful of money 😂
Sad that there was no repercussions