"Boss Liu, five cases of pork and cabbage dumplings, and five cases of black sesame tangyuan."
As soon as the business came in, Liu Fang and Sister Li immediately got to work.
Liu Chen sat obediently behind the table, diligently processed the orders, handed them to the customers, collected the cash, ran it through the money counter, and then put it into the desk drawer.
Hearing the sound of ten lottery tickets in her mind, Liu Chen's smile became even brighter.
At this time, Aunt Li and Liu Fang had already placed the goods on the customer's cart.
"The goods are loaded, six items, please check."
"It's just six items, what's there to check? Boss Liu, is this your daughter? She's so cute, helping out in this hot weather. You're quite heartless!"
This customer was clearly an old regular of Liu Chen's mother. Seeing Liu Chen, who had recently appeared in the shop, he even said a few words with a smile.
"Not at all, this girl insisted on coming. She said it's summer vacation and she can help out. If you ask me, a girl this size, what help can she offer? She's just here to play!"
Liu Fang said with mock displeasure, but the smile on her lips betrayed her true feelings. What mother wouldn't be pleased to have a daughter who cared about her?
After this rare big customer left, Liu Fang's attention turned to Liu Chen.
"Are you hungry? Do you want to eat porridge or noodles? I'll call for delivery."
As she spoke, Liu Fang picked up the landline phone and the business card holder by the phone, which contained mostly business cards from nearby small restaurants.
Being asked by her mother, Liu Chen realized she was already a little hungry. "Two liang of dry mixed sujiao noodles."
"Don't you love beef noodles the most?" Although she muttered, when the phone was answered, Liu Fang ordered according to her daughter's preference: "Three bowls of sujiao noodles, with three fried eggs, one per bowl. Wholesale market frozen goods section, Building 2, Number 16!"
After hanging up the phone, Liu Fang looked at her daughter sitting there blankly, staring at the chair. After a while, Liu Fang noticed something was amiss.
"Chen Chen, where's your phone?"
Liu Chen took a brand new Nokia music phone from her pocket, with a red and white color scheme and a slider design.
"Forgot to charge it, it's out of battery."
"The charger is plugged into the socket, you can charge it yourself. By the way, you'll be in your third year of high school next semester. Shouldn't you find a cram school to attend?"
Liu Chen nodded. Since she wanted to go to college, she knew that the high school knowledge she had lost for over a decade would require considerable effort to regain.
She had originally worried that she had too many subjects to catch up on, and that the tutoring fees would be too expensive, putting pressure on Liu Fang. Now, with the lottery tickets in hand, she felt more confident.
Throughout the day, Liu Chen's obedience and thoughtfulness made Liu Fang completely forget the scene she had seen that morning. After all, in Liu Fang's opinion, her sister's debt had little to do with her, as her small shop's income, after deducting costs, only supported herself and her daughter.
As for selling the house to her sister to repay the debt, that was even less likely. When they divorced, it was agreed that this house would be for Chen Chen. The reason the name hadn't been changed yet was out of concern that Chen Chen was too young and might be deceived. https:/
Seeing that it was past five o'clock and the surrounding shops had already pulled down their roller shutters and left, Liu Fang asked Aunt Li to help her cover the freezer with quilts and then lock it with an iron lid. She then let Aunt Li leave first, while she and her daughter slowly tidied up. This was actually to start counting the money. After a day of hard work, it was time to enjoy the happiness of counting money.
Liu Fang took a broom and swept away the trash outside, while Liu Chen took out the money from the drawer, sorted it by denomination, and ran all the hundred-yuan bills through the money counter. She bundled them with rubber bands once they reached ten thousand yuan.
Liu Fang glanced at it and was surprised to see that the sales had exceeded ten thousand yuan. She usually made only seven or eight thousand yuan a day, but today there were more than two thousand yuan.
"Second sister!"
A slightly hoarse voice interrupted Liu Fang's thoughts about the sales figures.
Liu Chen froze for a moment, then quickly looked up towards the aisle leading to the intersection.
The person who arrived was wearing a bright red dress. Unlike Liu Fang, her face was heavily made up, and as she approached, she brought an overwhelming scent of perfume, so strong it made it hard to breathe.
However, in her previous life, she had always thought her aunt's fashion sense was very stylish, and she felt like she was truly from a big city.
Liu Fang looked up and saw her sister, her expression filled with surprise. But when she saw the sturdy man in the floral t-shirt behind her, her expression faltered slightly, but she quickly smiled and asked:
"Xiao Juan, why are you here now? If you had come any later, Chen Chen and I would have already gone home."
Liu Juan hadn't expected this either. The wives of the bosses in the market liked to gossip, but they usually gathered after a day's work to chat before closing up shop. So, she had intentionally chosen a later time to come, wanting to have a private chat with her sister and get her to sign the guarantee. She didn't want anyone else to see it. Unexpectedly, her niece was also sitting neatly in a chair counting money.
What's more, her niece's frowning expression towards her made her feel inexplicably guilty...
However, thinking of the shattered glass on her shop floor, Liu Juan gritted her teeth and smiled at her second sister:
"Oh, business is good today, and most of the goods are sold. I was thinking of finding you, second sister, to have dinner together. This is my friend, Chao Ge. He runs a seafood barbecue, it's delicious!"
Liu Fang looked at the sturdy man's physique and hesitated. "Chen Chen has been looking after the shop all day. She had a fever yesterday and had to get an IV drip. I was going to take her home early to eat and sleep. We won't eat today. Another day, another day I'll treat you!"
When Liu Juan heard her sister refuse, she immediately pouted: "Oh! Chen Chen had a fever? Why didn't you tell me? You should have at least let me bring some fruit. Look at me, I came empty-handed. And you're still refusing to let me treat you? That's just not right."
Liu Fang looked at her younger sister, who had never paid for a family meal before, insisting on treating her today. Her heart began to pound. What did Xiao Juan really want? Why was she so eager? And who was this sturdy man? Could it be someone Xiao Juan was involved with?
"Auntie, it's okay. If it's really inconvenient, you can just give me cash. I don't mind."
Liu Chen said, extending her hand and opening her palm, as if expecting money to arrive. This posture made Liu Juan, who was laughing, freeze. Where could she possibly get money now? Her house and car had already been mortgaged to a loan company in Macau, and her shop was strictly watched by Chao Ge and his men. They had taken away anything she sold for a few hundred yuan.
"Oh, Auntie doesn't even have a hundred yuan for a comfort payment?" Liu Chen feigned shock, then her eyes scanned Liu Juan from head to toe.
"Heh, how could that be? It's just that Auntie doesn't happen to have any money on her. Tomorrow, Auntie will give you a hundred yuan, Chen Chen."
As Liu Juan spoke, she was calculating in her mind. With her second sister as a guarantor, and her house, car, and shop all combined, Chao Ge should be able to lend her another three million yuan. She had originally planned to borrow two million yuan, but since this Liu Chen was so unlikable, she might as well borrow the full three million!
Liu Chen took the opportunity to avoid her aunt's gaze and winked at her mother.
This was their classic coordination when shopping and bargaining. Liu Chen's wink meant she had her eye on an item, and Liu Fang would start negotiating the price.
"Oh, Chen Chen is just joking. But since she just recovered from her illness, I don't plan to let her wander around. We'll go home early and get her to sleep." Liu Fang said, while her heart was also pounding. What did her younger sister want?
Liu Juan listened to her sister's excuses and felt a bit suspicious. However, Chao Ge, standing behind her, was not someone to be trifled with. If her second sister didn't sign the guarantee today, Chao Ge wouldn't let her leave. After all, she still owed Chao Ge two million yuan. After much thought, she had no choice but to say:
"Hey, it's mainly because I really have something to ask you about today, second sister."
"Why are you looking for your second sister?"
Hearing this, Liu Chen straightened up and poked her head out from behind the office desk. She immediately saw a middle-aged woman walking from the end of the alley towards them. Liu Chen then smiled, waved, and shouted loudly:
"Big Aunt~~"
"Big Sister?!" Liu Juan's heart leaped with joy when she saw her elder sister arrive. She had borrowed forty thousand yuan from her elder sister before, and her elder sister had said she would give it to her in the next couple of days. She didn't expect them all to be gathered here today. Seeing that the backpack was bulging, it should contain that forty thousand yuan! It seemed like heaven was on her side!
As soon as she signed the guarantee today and the money arrived, she would take her daughter to America!
Several million yuan would be enough for the mother and daughter to live comfortably in America!
When Liu Fen approached, she first affectionately patted Liu Chen's head, then turned to look at her younger sister with a stern expression.
"Little sister, Second sister said someone came to your shop today saying you owe two million yuan? What's going on?"
Liu Chen looked at her aunt, who was wearing a formal suit and looking very serious. She couldn't help but feel a surge of emotion. In her previous life, her aunt had been cheated out of all her savings by her aunt, and she couldn't help with the down payment for her cousin's wedding house. It wasn't until a few years before she was reborn that she barely managed to buy a 70-square-meter two-bedroom apartment.
She still had to pay over 6,000 yuan in mortgage payments each month, and her cousin's wife often complained about her aunt, occasionally muttering that if her aunt hadn't been cheated back then, they would have bought a house by now, and perhaps the mortgage would have been paid off early. They wouldn't have to live so frugally like they do now.
Liu Juan looked at her elder sister's serious expression but wasn't afraid at all. From childhood to adulthood, her elder sister had always been like this, but in the end, wasn't she still easily fooled by herself!