amaotonovel Chapter 88 Pinkeye
Chapter 88 Pinkeye
In order to gather information, Zhang had to rent an ox cart and take several hours to get into the city, and he had to pay the entrance fee. That was something Zhang could not do.
If others have the leisure to do so, that's up to them.
Even if her lies were exposed, it didn't matter. Did they sell cakes? Were they five cents each? As for the rest, did they have any obligation to explain? Who were they to her? Why did they interfere in their family affairs?
As for the price, she had considered it beforehand. For most ordinary people, earning five or six hundred coins a month was enviable, but not enough to make them jealous. Not to mention that they had to work their entire family to earn this little money, practically exhausting themselves.
However, if she raised the price, say one or two taels of silver, more people would get conjunctivitis.
A normal family of three could use frugally for half a year. How could others not be jealous of her if she only earned one ounce of silver a month?
Under the big sycamore tree at the entrance of the village, Zhang strode over, spread out her hands and said, "Do you have any more melon seeds? Give me a handful."
When women get together to chat, they inevitably eat melon seeds, but not sunflower seeds, but pumpkin seeds.
Even though they are kept for their own family and no family needs a handful or two, it is still a bit reluctant to let them share them with others.
Zhang still had some money left in her pocket, and she was deliberately taking advantage of others, even if it was just worthless melon seeds, she would save as much as she could.
On any other day, no one would have been willing to give her a handful, but today was different. Everyone was waiting to hear what she had learned, and they generously gave her pumpkin seeds.
"How did the investigation go?" Wang asked anxiously.
Zhang coughed dryly, found a place to sit down, and said slowly, "I found out that they are in the sesame cake business."
"Shaobing?" Wang frowned. "They make such delicious meat, how could they be in the shaobing business?"
"According to her, she put two taels of meat in a pancake and sold it for five wen, but she only made a profit of one wen," Zhang said. "She can sell fifty or sixty pancakes a day. Occasionally, if she meets a big customer, she can make more. For example, last time she made a hundred wen. She said she can make five or six hundred wen a month. I roughly calculated that it's more than that, probably seven or eight hundred wen."
"Seven or eight hundred wen, that's a lot."
"The whole family is working and only earning 800 coins. What's the good of that?" Wang said disdainfully.
"If it's just a few hundred coins, why don't you find a job? Tang Dafu used to get two taels of silver a month, but it was much more glamorous than it is now."
"Does anyone still want Tang Dafu? Besides Tang Dafu, Li Taohua, and Tang Yichen, everyone else in their family is a child. Who can work? Tang Dafu and Tang Yichen are definitely not capable of working. And no one dares to let that devil Li Taohua out to work. So, if they can earn seven or eight hundred wen, it's pretty good." Zhang asked. "You still don't think seven or eight hundred wen is worth it. What kind of work can you do in your family that pays seven or eight hundred wen?"
Everyone looked at each other.
If they only earned 700 or 800 wen, they wouldn't be so jealous. However, if you ask whether their family has a monthly income of 700 or 800 wen, the answer is definitely no.
But even so, they still feel that the whole family works so hard to earn this little money, and they still feel there is nothing to envy.
"I don't believe it," Wang said. "They bought a lot of things. You don't live next door to them, so you don't know their situation. If they only made that little money, they'd be wearing new clothes. Did they spend all their money on clothes?"
“And the well.”
"Yes, that well cost a lot too."
"Qin Huiyin is as cunning as her mother. She won't tell you the truth." Wang said, "I think we should see it with our own eyes."
"They're doing business in the county town. Do you still want to go there? You can rent an ox cart. It costs twenty cents for a single trip. Plus, there's an entrance fee."
"It's not that troublesome." Wang leaned over, lowered her voice, and said mysteriously, "We live so close, why would we need to go so far to get information?"
"Even if we find out, what's the point? The money they earn is theirs, and we can't use it." The youngest wife asked curiously, "Weren't we just curious about their business at the beginning?"
Everyone was silent.
Yes! At first, they were just curious about the business, then they became curious about how much money the Tang family made. Now, to satisfy this curiosity, they were racking their brains to find a way to sneak into the other party's house to find out. If this matter got out, with Li Taohua's fierce temper, what would happen?
The more the women thought about it, the more they felt something was wrong.
"We don't want to ask anymore," one of them said. "We were just curious. It doesn't matter whether you know or not. So don't do anything unnecessary."
Li Erniu’s tragic situation serves as a lesson for us.
Speaking of Li Erniu, ever since she committed that crime, she has been constantly tormented by her mother-in-law and her son. Now she can't touch a penny of the family money and can only work non-stop like an old ox.
Several women woke up completely.
Zhang and Wang were still hesitating.
Zhang went out of her way to get some information, but when she finally got it back, everyone said it was fake. She was unhappy and wanted to prove that the information she had found was correct.
Wang was even more unwilling to accept this. She wanted to find out how much money Li Taohua had made. She hated the constant laughter and chatter next door, and she didn't want to see Li Taohua having a comfortable life.
The malice of women towards each other was inexplicable. Perhaps it was because Li Taohua was too bright and beautiful, living the life that most women yearned for but could never reach.
After Wang returned home, the more she thought about it, the more unwilling she felt.
Just then, Tang Mingxiu came back in a coquettish manner, and she scolded her: "Where have you been fooling around again?"
After hearing what Wang said, Tang Mingxiu's powdered face became a little flustered.
But soon, she found out that Wang was just scolding her as usual, and she didn't really know that she was out fooling around.
"What are you doing?" Tang Mingxiu asked. "I've carried the water you asked me to carry, chopped the firewood, and pulled the weeds in the fields, but you can't let me go out for some fresh air?"
"Let me ask you, do you know what business the next door is doing?" Wang asked.
"How would I know? The family next door always walks with their heads held high when they see me, and they don't take me seriously at all. How can I have any contact with them?" Tang Mingxiu said.
"Do you want to know?" Wang asked mysteriously.
Tang Mingxiu: "...what do you have in mind?"
Wang poked her head out, sniffed the air, and said, "No rush."
They won't make any preparations in the next two days. They will prepare everything they need to open the store the next day on the first day before going into the city. You can't see anything if you go there now.