Zhou Cheng’s joy over his New Year’s gift kept the whole family in good spirits through the next day. Li Fengmei wanted to buy a television, and Xia Xiaolan agreed since it wasn’t far to take larger items of laundry to Grandmother Yu’s house for washing.

Liu Fen woke up quite early. She needed to attend the parent-teacher conference at County First High School for Xia Xiaolan. Without any particular dress code in mind, she chose a clean cotton-padded jacket, neatly combed her hair, and at Xia Xiaolan’s insistence, applied some cold cream to her face, not forgetting the clam oil and gloves for her hands.

“Mom, you look a bit fairer, don’t you?”

Liu Fen couldn’t see the difference, but Li Fengmei came over to examine it carefully.

“You’re much fairer than you were in summer.”

In truth, it wasn’t so much that her skin tone had lightened by several shades; Liu Fen’s skin issues weren’t just about darkness but also the yellowish tinge from blood deficiency. After months of eating well, having fewer worries, and living with greater hope each day, her body gradually recovered from its blood deficiency. As the yellow tinge faded, though her skin wasn’t exactly fair, her complexion looked much healthier.

With her skin tone becoming more even, fairness wasn’t so important anymore.

Compared to her previous diet of sweet potato porridge with pickled vegetables, where half a bowl of noodles required two bowls of soup to fill up, and where proper meals were only available during harvest time, her current balanced diet with daily access to meat, rice, noodles, and eggs had made a significant difference. Not only had the yellow tinge disappeared from her face, but her skin tone had become more uniform, and even her hair was becoming more lustrous.

She wasn’t even forty yet but had started growing gray hair while living with the Xia family.

Now with proper nutrition, not only had her gray hair stopped increasing, but it seemed to be decreasing.

Xia Xiaolan was delighted to see her mother’s improvement. “When we return to Shangdu, I’ll make you a bowl of black sesame paste every day.”

Liu Fen was a bit nervous, seemingly checking that her clothes were appropriate and didn’t look too shabby before heading out. Xia Xiaolan asked with a smile, “Are you sure you don’t want me to come along? I heard students can attend too.”

“No need, no need. You can study for half a day at home… I’ll be fine by myself.”

Though Liu Fen had never attended a parent-teacher conference before, she had run her own business selling deep-fried pork rinds. She figured she could handle it just like selling pork rinds – just listen to whatever the teachers say, right?

“Then we’ll pack up things at home and meet you in Anqing County at noon. We’ll take the bus to Shangdu together in the afternoon. You know Auntie Huang, right? Her shop is right at the entrance of First High School. If you need any help, just ask her. We’ll all have rice bowls at her shop for lunch.”

Xia Xiaolan’s detailed instructions made Li Fengmei laugh:

“Who’s the mother here? You’re treating your mom like a child!”

Liu Fen arrived at County First High School just after eight o’clock.

Both Zhang’s Snacks and Huang’s Fast Food were already open for business. Who doesn’t want to rest during the New Year? But with rent to pay, closing for a day meant wasting a day’s rent. No matter how few customers there might be on the fourth day of the lunar new year, opening the shop meant potential business – even small profits count.

Originally, Zhang’s was the only business on this street, but now with Huang’s Fast Food competing for customers, neither wanted to give the other an advantage by taking an extra day off. With high school seniors returning to school yesterday, both shops had opened then.

There was decent business. During the early days of the New Year, city folks visiting relatives wanted to rest too. Having breakfast out before visiting relatives was convenient. A family of three could eat their fill for just 2 yuan.

Families with more children naturally spent more.

Huang’s Fast Food didn’t bother with fancy snacks in the morning – they just served noodles. Huang’s expertise showed in the bone broth simmered overnight on low heat, requiring minimal seasoning – just a sprinkle of green onions and salt made it exceptionally fragrant. For those who didn’t want soup noodles, Huang’s offered various toppings, giving customers plenty of options to try something different each time.

People’s excitement about Huang’s Fast Food’s various “toppings” hadn’t worn off. From its initially quiet beginnings to finally gaining traction, to now sharing the market equally with Zhang’s, Huang’s Fast Food has developed incredibly fast!

This rapid development made Xia Yuzi frown.

Though she had many ideas, she lacked practical business experience and couldn’t think of good ways to suppress Huang’s business. Should they also serve rice bowls with toppings? It wasn’t particularly difficult – just pour the dishes over rice or noodles, but Zhang’s had been operating for three years, counting from their street vendor days, and had cultivated many regular customers in Anqing County.

Stopping their specialty snacks to switch to rice bowls would mean losing their existing loyal customers.

That wouldn’t work.

They could only add rice bowls as an additional option to their existing menu.

When Xia Yuzi suggested this to Zhang Cui, she hesitated: “Cooking dishes isn’t hard, we can do it alongside everything else, but we’d need to buy many different ingredients daily. If few people order rice bowls, we’d have leftover ingredients…”

Xia Yuzi was struck speechless – wasn’t that exactly the issue? Huang’s Fast Food focused on one thing, offering a rich variety of rice bowls with both meat and vegetable dishes. They had to prepare many options. At Huang’s shop, customers could eat any vegetable available in the market during winter. Some vegetables were hard to find in Anqing County, and it was said that Huang’s family members rode bicycles to Shangdu’s farmers’ market at midnight just for some garnishes… Should Zhang do the same?

A small snack shop required five people to operate.

Xia Dajun only handled purchasing, her uncle Zhang Manfu made dough, and her mother Zhang Cui was responsible for seasoning and alternated with Zhang Manfu in cooking dishes like lamb noodles. Aunt Jiang Lianxiang handled customers and collected money, while Xia Hongxia was the general helper, wiping tables and clearing bowls and chopsticks.

It seemed everyone had work to do, busy with tasks during peak hours, but when business was slow, everyone in the shop could be idle at once!

Take her father, for instance – if he could handle the dough-making, they wouldn’t need to hire her uncle Zhang Manfu at all. Even the work done by Jiang Lianxiang and Xia Hongxia overlapped somewhat; one efficient person could handle both roles. Back when they had just a street stall, Zhang Cui managed everything herself. When they upgraded to a shop, the business expanded and required more help – but did they need five people?

Xia Yuzi noticed that Huang’s shop only had three people, including Huang herself. Huang handled the cooking, her mother-in-law prepared vegetables and washed dishes, and either her husband or child would serve dishes and collect money.

Though Zhang’s had one more storefront than Huang’s, a business that her parents could handle themselves had somehow expanded to include her uncle, aunt, and cousin – and these three needed to be paid!

Setting aside Xia Hongxia, who could be managed with some clothes and pocket money,

Zhang Manfu and Jiang Lianxiang’s couple together earned 100 yuan monthly in wages. Xia Yuzi couldn’t help but wonder – was Aunt Jiang Lianxiang’s work, even with room and board provided, worth 50 yuan per month? Some urban workers in Anqing County only earned thirty-some yuan monthly. In the countryside, there would be plenty of people fighting for Jiang Lianxiang’s position at 20 yuan per month.

Was Zhang Manfu’s dough-making work that hard?

It wasn’t as dirty or tiring as boiler operation work, which paid 36 yuan per month.

As Xia Yuzi calculated mentally, she felt quite distressed. Having her uncle and aunt help in the shop costs 50 yuan more per month than hiring others, adding up to 600 yuan annually. Though Xia Yuzi didn’t think this was a huge amount, the fact that they would rather use this money to support her uncle instead of asking if she had enough money at school made her uncomfortable.

Zhang Cui was completely unaware of Xia Yuzi’s thoughts. Seeing Liu Fen walk past the shop, she quietly spat on the ground.

Xia Yuzi gave her mother a warning look, signaling not to be too obvious, as Wang Jianhua was present.

Zhang Cui turned around with a smile:

“Jianhua, would you like noodles or steamed buns?”

“Auntie, anything is fine, you’re too kind.”

Wang Jianhua wanted to leave early, as he was concerned about his parents at the North Ground Farm. What was the point of staying in Anqing? In the countryside, there wasn’t much entertainment, and the Xia family spoke with a heavy accent. Xia Hongxia kept trying to get close to him, and if he stayed in his room, Grandmother Xia would knock on his door every so often, bringing either pancakes or fried eggs.

In the county town, he and Xia Yuzi could only stay in the room behind the shop, which was very noisy during the day. When he offered to help with work, everyone objected, but he couldn’t just stand around while others worked, could he? Knowing that Xia Xiaolan studied at County First High School, Wang Jianhua was particularly afraid of running into her, haunted by the image of Xia Xiaolan holding out her hand for money at White Stream Temple.