Courtyard House: Drunk and tipsy, the whole courtyard exposed at the start.

After finishing her sentence, Granny Chen stuffed the remaining buttered bread into her shopping basket, waved to Zhang Dabiao, and said, "Go on! Keep up the good work, your bread tastes great, the neighbors will all come and patronize it!"

Watching the old woman's retreating figure, Zhang Dabiao clenched the two coins in his hand, feeling a slight weight lift from his heart: "Thank you, Grandma!"

Ah Xiang breathed a slight sigh of relief and grinned, "Yaoyang, now we have a solution!"

Method?

There's no way to solve this; we still have to pay protection money.

Fortunately, my costs were low, but this still isn't a good thing.

We're not afraid of them collecting protection money, we're afraid of their insatiable greed!

------------

Around three or four in the afternoon, business was booming and everything was sold out. Zhang Dabiao even made a special trip back to the courtyard house to get a batch of pastries that Qin Jingru had just made to replenish the stock. He also brewed two more pots of milk tea, which was barely enough to keep the stock going.

As for sourcing pineapple buns from the main street and other tea stalls?

There was no need for that; Zhang Dabiao really thought the taste was just so-so.

By evening, all the milk tea and bread were sold out, but there were still quite a few people on the street. Zhang Dabiao originally wanted to set up a barbecue stall, but he was afraid that the gang members would cause trouble, so he held back. After all, the business scope on the temporary license was only a tea stall.

We don't want the gang members to raise protection money and then the cops to cause trouble.

So Zhang Dabiao and A Xiang packed their things and returned to Agongyan Village.

But when the two checked their income—

开店的成本是931块，但今儿个一天就入帐120块，奶茶3毫*280杯=84块、蛋糕点心平均2毫5*180个=45，总计入帐129块。

This startled the two of them. Generally speaking, a tea stall should only earn 30-50 a day, right?

They all investigated.

The amount of milk tea is currently fixed at around 300 cups a day, but Zhang Dabiao feels that at Qin Jingru's pace, 100 cakes and pastries a day is the limit. No matter how fast she goes, there is only one oven, and it's only so big, so she can't keep up.

So, the estimated daily income is 100 yuan, or even lower, 80 yuan. For the police, we'll calculate it as 100 yuan, and for the triads, we'll calculate it as 70 yuan.

So you can earn over 2200 a month here?!

You can recoup your investment in just half a month?

Zhang Dabiao was suspicious. If the police and gangs could do things for money, he wouldn't mind paying a little. But he was afraid that the popularity of the event might cause trouble.

Today, they've taken away most of the business from the tea stalls and ice cream parlors at the end of the street, which makes Zhang Dabiao a little worried.

As evening fell, the two sat in the courtyard of Zhang Dabiao's village house, watching the lights of Shau Kei Wan Main Street light up below. Ah Xiang came over carrying two cans of beer, pulled the tab with a "snap," and handed one can to him.

Ah Xiang: "Yao Yang, want a can? To help you relax."

Zhang Dabiao took the beer and gulped it down. After the beer went down, he sighed deeply, leaned against the door frame, and looked down at Shaojiwan at the foot of the mountain: "Back in my hometown (in Beijing at that time), if you ran a small restaurant (a state-run restaurant or a supply and marketing cooperative), the neighbors would be very polite (the sales clerks and shop assistants were all very arrogant). Why would I have to watch people's faces every day? The police wanted money, and the gangs wanted money too. This wasn't hard-earned money; it was clearly money earned by risking your life."

Ah Xiang squatted on the steps, poking at the pebbles under his feet, and said in a muffled voice, "That's just how Hong Kong is. I grew up on this street. Which shop doesn't have connections with both the police and the underworld? If you can keep your stall from being smashed, you're lucky."

Zhang Dabiao gave a bitter laugh: "I heard people say that Hong Kong was paved with gold, so I came here with my life savings, bought a house, and planned to settle down. I even opened a tea stall. Who knew that instead of seeing any gold, I would first witness what greed truly means. Today, that blond guy's eyes were like knives, and that patrolman was just threatening me all the time..."

Ah Xiang looked up at him, his eyes filled with a touch of youthful stubbornness: "Yao Yang, you can't find another place like your pineapple buns and cream cakes in all of Shau Kei Wan! Many customers go out of their way to buy them, our business will get better. Once we've saved enough money, we'll open a new shop in a quieter place, and we'll definitely make a name for ourselves."

Zhang Dabiao remained silent for a while. How could he make money in a quiet place? However, he still patted A Xiang on the shoulder, his eyes brightening slightly: "Good lad, you've got ambition. Alright, let's persevere! As long as this tea stall stays open, as long as people still come to eat my snacks, we'll eventually make it big!"

Ah Xiang grinned, raised his beer can and clinked it against Zhang Dabiao's: "Cheers! Let's make something of ourselves!"

The two men tilted their heads back and chugged their beer. The night wind carried the sound of distant waves, and the dim yellow light in the courtyard cast long, long shadows of them.

------------

Back at the courtyard house, Zhang Dabiao collapsed into bed and fell asleep immediately. Doing business for the first time was really tiring.

The next morning, I saw that Qin Jingru also had dark circles under her eyes, and she looked a little resentful...

Looking at the more than 100 loaves of bread in the side room, Zhang Dabiao realized that the little girl must have been exhausted yesterday.

Forget it, it's okay to earn a little less money. But if Qin Jingru gets sick from overwork, then it will really be considered child labor abuse.

"Jingru, I'm sorry, I needed it in a hurry yesterday. From now on, you can make whatever you want, just 100 a day is enough.

Zhang Dabiao also came to terms with it. Although Qinjiatun and the Zhang family were under great pressure to produce grain, there was no need to put all the burden on Qin Jingru; that was unfair.

She could make 100 loaves of bread in 4-5 hours, and the oven's efficiency was limited; it couldn't be made faster. This was just the right amount of work for Qin Jingru, and it was worth the wages she received.

That's it.

To make up for Qin Jingru's mistake, Zhang Dabiao copied down a few more dessert recipes for her, which made Qin Jingru so happy that she skipped and hopped to school!

Zhang Dabiao took the bread to Hong Kong again, working from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. When the bread ran out, he asked A Xiang to go to the main street to buy more.

Then Zhang Dabiao went back to the courtyard house, and A Xiang could buy the remaining milk tea and pineapple buns himself.

We make 100 random breads and pastries (Jingru brand) every day. That's all we make. We close down when they're sold out.

However, in the afternoon, I gave Ah Xiang a task—to find out where to buy an oven in Shau Kei Wan. You really can't buy one in Beijing without connections.

He himself went to the factory and asked Tian Baocheng to purchase 20 of each of the following: ordinary stainless steel egg beaters, press-type mixers, and rocker-type egg beaters.

Because of the factory merger, some of the surplus products produced previously cannot be sold and are still piling up in the warehouse.

Zhang Dabiao planned to get 20 of each to take to Hong Kong.

I don't have much money on hand right now, so I'll keep track of it and deduct it from my salary next month. It's almost the end of October now, so it'll be over soon anyway.

As soon as he finished talking with Tian Baocheng, the three college student assistants learned that he had come to the factory and surrounded him.

And he was unusually excited!

"Teacher Zhang! The nail clipper set project has been approved! Production should start in about two weeks!"

"And Mr. Zhang, the patent fee for the press-type mop has been received. You can go to the ministry to process it."

"And I have some good news for you: the second patent licensing fee for the lighter has been negotiated and a contract signed in Hong Kong. Guess how much it is?"

Watching the three of them chattering away, Zhang Dabiao felt a little confused. How did I become Teacher Zhang today?

I'm not used to this rapid change in identity.

As for how much it costs?

"20 million?"