The sight of several young girls planning to make hair accessories to earn money further surprised Yang Liming and the others. They called out to the girls, wanting to see the hair accessories they were making.
After the girls served the fruit platter in the main hall, they led Yang Liming and the others to Su Xiaotian's room.
Su Xiaotian lived in an ear-room on the west side. The room was spacious and elegantly furnished.
Besides the initial setup by Grandma Su, Yu Ruiyuan later added many nice things.
Later still, Fan Shufang brought back various foreign goods from her travels abroad.
The entire room was not opulent, but it was warm, tasteful, understated, and luxurious.
Su Xiaotian divided the room into two parts: one as a study and the other as a bedroom.
When the group arrived, they were all quite astonished.
The Su family was well-off, they could tell that, but for a young girl's room to be so beautifully decorated, even better than the furnishings in the main hall, was almost unbelievable.
"Good heavens, no wonder they say Xiaotian is good at studying. Just look at all these books, her studies can't be bad," Yang Liming said with a smile, spotting two large bookshelves against the wall and the desk by the window.
"You're right. Xiaotian studies diligently at school. Even when standing and waiting for the bus, she's holding a book and reading," Li Jianhong said, feeling comfortable enough to speak up since Yang Liming was amiable.
"Excellent, excellent," Li Xiurong also praised with a smile.
Although Fan Shufang had visited the Su family a few times, this was her first time entering Su Xiaotian's room, and she was greatly surprised upon entering.
In this era, not many families had two large bookshelves filled with books.
Especially, the books on Xiaotian's two bookshelves were dazzling, covering all sorts of categories.
Chinese, foreign languages, old thread-bound books, new editions – they had everything. Su Dan Novel Network.
Although the books varied in age, height, and thickness, they looked remarkably harmonious together.
Some very old books were carefully covered with book jackets by Su Xiaotian.
The characters on the book jackets were clear and elegant, possessing a certain spirit. Even someone unfamiliar with calligraphy could tell that these were excellent characters.
"These characters are written so well. I think they're all by the same person," Yang Liming, a meticulous person, quickly noticed the key detail.
Su Xiaotian smiled sweetly and said, "My second brother helped write them."
Su Xiaotian could also write calligraphy herself, but she wasn't as skilled as Su Ciliang, who specialized in it.
Moreover, Su Ciliang always insisted on writing the book titles on his sister's book jackets and did so with great enthusiasm.
Therefore, for the past few years, all the books with book jackets bore Su Ciliang's handwriting.
"Xiaotian's second brother, the second son of the Su family, is a well-known calligrapher and painter," Fan Shufang proudly boasted.
Yang Liming and Li Xiurong were clearly surprised.
Talented people indeed came from talented families!
After touring Su Xiaotian's bedroom and study, everyone's attention returned to the main purpose of their visit.
"This large box contains all the hair accessories made in the last few days. Grandma, please take a look and see if there's anything you like," Su Xiaotian said, picking up a dark red hair tie and holding it up for Fan Shufang to see.
Fan Shufang smiled and took the hair tie from Su Xiaotian, examining it closely.
"I'm already this age, I'm not suited for these flashy things."
She had short, bobbed hair, which indeed wasn't suitable for hair ties.
"If your two uncles find wives and give me a little granddaughter someday, I'll pick out more from you."
Fan Shufang's current wish was to have a granddaughter as well-behaved, cute, and pretty as Xiaotian.
Yang Liming teased, "Perhaps they'll all be grandsons."
"It doesn't matter if they're all grandsons, don't I still have Xiaotian?"
With that, she silenced Yang Liming.
Hmph, you little thing!
Even if her two sons were not successful and couldn't produce a pretty granddaughter, she still had a ready-made one to dote on and spoil.
Her husband, Old Yang, didn't have such good fortune!
Yang Liming fell silent.
After all these years, she still spoke so irritatingly!
It was too much.
She didn't know why she always had to get along with her.
From now on, she would never speak to her again!
Yang Liming and Fan Shufang had been friends for decades, and their relationship was clearly closer than that with Li Xiurong.
Li Xiurong paid no mind to their bickering and picked up hair accessories one by one, looking at them with great interest.
"Students can start their own businesses to earn money. Emancipating the mind is very important!"
Why shouldn't the vast majority of female comrades be allowed to generate their own income?
Especially those who were unemployed at home.
Ultimately, it was a matter of not having emancipated their thinking.
"It seems that work with women has not been done well. If women's work were done properly, there wouldn't be so many unemployed female comrades."
Yang Liming immediately grasped the essence of Li Xiurong's words.
"That's your occupational hazard!" Fan Shufang glared at Yang Liming and said.
Having worked in the Women's Federation for so long, she could link anything anyone said to women's work.
Yang Liming felt that she had found a new direction today and didn't take offense at Fan Shufang's words. Instead, she turned back to talk to Su Xiaotian and the others.
"Keep up the good work. Although you won't make a lot of money, it's better than sitting around doing nothing."
Fan Shufang said, "It's just too slow to sew by hand. It would be much faster with a sewing machine."
Su Xiaotian smiled and said, "A sewing machine is indeed good, but in the initial stage of entrepreneurship, this is how it has to be. When we earn enough to buy a sewing machine, we can try it."
She had also considered buying a sewing machine for processing.
However, a sewing machine cost one hundred and fifty yuan, and Jianhong and the others certainly couldn't afford that much.
Besides, hair accessories were small items that didn't earn much. It would take selling a lot of hair accessories to earn back the cost of a sewing machine.
Jianhong and the others were still students. Even with a sewing machine, they couldn't always be busy making money, as the most important thing at the moment was to study hard.
This was an era where education opened doors to the world.
Graduating from university, especially a prestigious university like Beijing University, promised a bright future.
The major of Chinese Language and Literature was highly sought after for many years to come.
Whether in news and publishing, literary propaganda, teaching and research, or later in editing, writing, publicity, and copywriting, all these fields valued this major. At the very least, one could choose to be a teacher or a secretary, jobs closely related to writing skills.
There would be no shortage of stable jobs in the future.
Although businessmen made a lot of money in the future, most Chinese people still preferred the respectable and stable "iron rice bowl."
Su Xiaotian never intended for her classmates to engage in small commodity processing or wholesale in the future.
Making money from small accessories now was merely an early life experience and a way to earn some pocket money.