Her Cultivation Diary-Chapter 151 - . Fines and Relatives _1
Chapter 151: 151. Fines and Relatives _1 Chapter 151: 151. Fines and Relatives _1 At the corner of the market.
Mao Li and Sun Yanyan, who had just walked over, immediately stopped in their tracks before looking at the pickup truck with uncertainty:
“Yanyan, you have sharp eyes. Take a look, is it the police coming to collect fines?”
Sun Yanyan stretched her neck like a wild duck in the field to take a closer look, and sure enough, she saw the uniformed police officer with an unpleasant expression, who also took the money from Song Tan’s hands.
“Most likely,” she answered confidently:
“What can she do! Driving her scrappy little truck around every day, selling overpriced vegetables, recognizing only money, not people… If this were the past, my cousin’s neighbor’s son worked at the Urban Comprehensive Law Enforcement Bureau, I would have surely asked for a favor, put in a good word or two. But now…”
She snorted: “It’s normal for those who make big money to look down on us poor relatives.”
Mao Li felt nervous inside, but the corners of her lips betrayed a hint of a smile: “Serves her right!”
“I always said they were selling their vegetables too expensive, making ill-gotten gains. Sooner or later they were bound to run into trouble.”
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The mother-in-law and daughter-in-law duo watched the scene unfold with full enthusiasm, the light drizzle hardly dampening their spirits.
It was not until the uniformed person left that the two exchanged glances, then they approached the familiar scrappy truck with light footsteps, putting on a sighing face:
“Tantan, I told you, you can’t sell vegetables this way. Look, you weren’t careful for a second and got fined, didn’t you?”
Song Tan was busy arranging the next few pockets of bamboo shoots.
There weren’t many left, just three to five catties each, making up a total of four bags. She decided to just carry all four bags down.
She was just about to stand up when she heard these familiar voices.
So she turned around and smiled at Mao Li: “Right, Great Aunt, this morning alone, two officers came, and I was fined a total of one hundred and sixty.”
The nearby vegetable vendor burst out laughing with a “pfft”.
Wasn’t it one hundred and sixty? Zhu Suo’s one hundred, Xiaozhou’s sixty. This girl seemed lively at first, then it turned out she was quite generous, and eventually, she seemed quite stable. But now she seemed so teasingly clever, didn’t she?
By the time Sun Yanyan looked over, the vegetable vendor had already lowered her head to busy herself with the leaves in front of her again.
Sun Yanyan withdrew her gaze and now exaggeratedly covered her mouth: “One hundred and sixty, oh my! That’s not a small sum, do you want me to use some connections to help out? We’ve got to get this fine revoked somehow; we’re all family here, no need to be polite.”
This sour and pretentious tone was so fake that even the vegetable vendors couldn’t bear to watch, yet Song Tan looked pleasantly surprised:
“That would be great, Sister-in-law, I know I can count on you to handle things. I’m waiting to go home, can you hurry up and get the fine refunded for me?”
Sun Yanyan: …
Her face became stiff.
Not to mention how others might view her if word got out from a vegetable-selling girl, but as for the connection… she hadn’t lied about it. Indeed, it was her cousin’s neighbor’s son who worked as an urban enforcer. She had heard about it during gossip.
But she didn’t even know his full name!
Now that she had barely boasted a little, Song Tan promptly took the bait, leaving her with no choice but to keep a serious face and to pretend to be knowledgeable:
“What do you know? Government matters have their procedures; things can’t be resolved so quickly. Besides, it’s just one hundred and sixty; it’s not worth it to use connections for such a small matter.”
As she was speaking, she saw another policeman, who looked to be in his thirties, running over from up the street.
He was in uniform and appeared somewhat embarrassed when he saw Sun Yanyan and Mao Li, with his face tense and drawn.
The mother-and-daughter-in-law involuntarily stepped back, watching as he approached, looked at the plastic bags, and asked: “How much for these?”
“Three hundred and twenty, take it all,” Song Tan replied briskly.
He immediately breathed a sigh of relief: “I thought I wouldn’t be able to snatch them up today.”
He quickly transferred the payment and then picked up the bags in front of him, darting away like the wind.
Song Tan listened to the notification “Received payment of three hundred and twenty yuan” and smiled at Mao Li again:
“It’s still my sister-in-law’s face that works wonders, that double refund came back pretty fast, huh.”
Then she regretfully said, “Ah, great-aunt, you see, it’s really unfortunate timing, everything’s been sold out. I even said I’d save a couple for you to try…”
“If there’s nothing else, I’ll head back now, there’s a pile of work waiting at home. Day in and day out, slaving away just to make a few thousand yuan, what’s that good for?”
A few thousand a day? From these trashy bamboo shoots? A business with no capital investment?!
Little Pika let out a sound of grudging acquiescence, as the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law watched her skillfully turn the corner and disappear from view, feeling their blood pressure shoot up.
…
Feeling sulky, Mao Li picked her way through the market and only reluctantly spent some money.
But what about all those lettuce stems?
In the end, they still had their place on the dining table.
However, no one in the family paid them any heed, except for Mao Li who stubbornly tried to consume them on her own.
Song Dafang couldn’t stand it anymore:
“To the folks upstairs, downstairs, and across the street, just take a couple and give them away, with such a huge pile, how long will it take to finish eating all this?”
Truth be told, Mao Li usually liked to show off her wealth, and she felt a sense of superiority when giving things away.
But this time, who asked her to take up the challenge with lettuce stems?
Now, rolling her eyes: Just no.
“Every day, what’s with all this giving away, can we even live our lives? Soon I’ll blanch them and dry them, save them for the winter.”
Ziyi, holding her special bowl, asked curiously now, “Why save them for the winter? Won’t the supermarket have vegetables then?”
Mao Li felt annoyed but managed to force a smile for her little granddaughter: “Because your mom doesn’t work and spends money carelessly, our family has to save and live frugally, we can’t waste.”
Ziyi was just in kindergarten, but now she sighed like an adult and earnestly lectured her grandma:
“Grandma, you can’t say that, the teacher said that the contribution of a housewife should be respected.”
This was from a special seminar held last March on International Women’s Day, and although the kindergarten kids were young, they were surprisingly sharp and often made astonishing statements.
At this moment, Mao Li felt like she’d been stabbed in the heart.
She really wanted to flip the table.
Why, is she not a housewife? After managing inside and outside for so many years, why didn’t anyone see fit to speak considerately?
Now that she had a daughter-in-law, who seemed to do nothing but leisurely stroll and spend money all day, did she even touch any housework? At most, she’d make some juice for Ziyi or toast some bread, and even that came with exorbitant expenses!
And yet, her granddaughter was sympathetic to her!
The more Mao Li thought about it, the angrier she got, but looking at Song Ziyi’s young and tender face, she couldn’t bring herself to argue and merely grunted, “You’re just a child, you don’t understand, you’ll know when you grow up.”
Ziyi humphed, “Grandma, that’s the only thing you ever say.”
Because of this, Mao Li felt even more aggrieved and decided she had to make good use of these free lettuce stems.
So she cleaned up the dishes and got to work in the kitchen.
Peeling, shredding, blanching, sun-drying…
It was a massive task with dozens of stems, and she was left feeling sore and aching in the kitchen. When she finally looked up: it was already dark!
