Transmigrating into a Book in the 80s: After Giving Up, I Was Pampered by a Rough Man

"Su Rou, you called us here just to hear you say this?"

The speaker was a tall, thin male educated youth, wearing thick glasses, with frayed cuffs, and a half-empty bottle of cheap bulk liquor in front of him.

"We're barely able to afford food right now, and you're still thinking about those women's clothes? What does that have to do with us?"

Su Rou pushed up her glasses, a hint of disdain flashing in her eyes.

These idiots, if they weren't short of money and manpower, they wouldn't have a chance to get a share of this pie.

"How can it be okay?" Su Rou chuckled lightly, her gaze sweeping over the cynical face of the male educated youth.

"Zhao Liu, if you don't like women's clothes, do you like money? Do you like going back to the city?"

These two words struck at the heart of everyone present.

The expressions of the few people who had been nonchalant instantly changed.

"What do you mean?" Zhao Liu put down his wine glass and leaned forward.

"It's nothing." Su Rou tapped her fingers lightly on the table. "I was just wondering, are we really planning to stay in this small county town forever?"

"Are we supposed to just accept this meager subsidy of a few dollars and live like rats in a sewer?"

silence.

Only increasingly heavy breathing could be heard at the scene.

"What can we do? We have no connections, what else can we do but endure it?"

Wang Qin, a female educated youth standing nearby, sighed, breaking the deadlock.

"No, we don't need to endure it!" Su Rou's voice carried a seductive power.

"We are educated and knowledgeable, a hundred times better than those rural people who only know how to farm!"

"Why can they make a fortune in business, but we can't?"

"What we lack is just an opportunity, and the capital!"

"Opportunities? These days, opportunities all require capital." Another educated youth named Li Li smiled bitterly.

"Our subsidies aren't even enough to cover our own expenses, so where would we get the capital?"

"Who says you have to have a lot of capital?" Su Rou looked at them and finally threw out her bait.

"I have an idea. We don't need much capital. If a few of us pool our money, it'll be enough to make a lot of money."

"What idea?" Even Zhao Liu's eyes lit up this time.

Su Rou looked around and lowered her voice.

"You've all seen the batwing shirts that are selling like hotcakes at the textile factory today, right?"

"So what if we saw it? Can we make that thing?" Zhao Liu curled his lip, thinking she really had some good ideas.

Is that all?

Su Rou ignored Zhao Liu's disdain, "Although we can't make shirts, we can make pants."

"A pair of pants that can match a batwing top, but are even more stylish and flattering!"

"A type of pants that can drive all the women in the county crazy—leggings!"

"Lymnastics pants?" Everyone looked blank.

"Yes!" Su Rou said decisively, "This is the latest style I saw in a foreign magazine!"

"Those pants make my legs look so slim and long, and my butt so round and perky. Paired with a batwing top, it's the most fashionable outfit in the world!"

She turned to stare at Wang Qin and another female educated youth, Li Li, her tone full of inflammatory rhetoric.

"Think about it, if there were pants that could make you look this good, would you be willing to pay for them?"

"Yes! Of course I'm willing!" Wang Qin blurted out without thinking, a woman's instinctive desire for beauty.

Su Rou immediately turned to Zhao Liu, "Did you hear that? This is the market!"

"If we can make these pants, the cost is only a few dollars, and we can sell them for twenty dollars..."

"No, thirty! Those fashion-conscious women won't even blink!"

"One...one for thirty?!"

Zhao Gang gasped in shock; his monthly allowance was only ten or twenty yuan!

This isn't selling pants, it's practically printing money!

"With money, what does a return-to-city quota matter?"

"With money, we can even buy a big house in the provincial capital. Then who would dare look down on us?!"

The blueprint drawn up by Su Rou instantly eroded everyone's rationality.

They could almost see themselves moving into a big house and returning home in glory.

"How do we do it? Where do we get it?" Zhao Liu's voice was already trembling, greed overwhelming all doubts.

"I'll buy the fabric from the fabric store; I've found the cheapest fabric vendor in the south of the city!"

"I've found a tailor for the job, and I've already contacted a skilled and affordable old tailor!"

Su Rou was confident, clearly having already planned everything. "Now all we need is to gather the initial capital!"

"Let's each contribute twenty yuan and make twenty to test the waters!"

Twenty yuan!

The previously heated atmosphere cooled down slightly.

This is almost their monthly allowance.

Seeing the hesitation on everyone's faces, Su Rou knew she had to take drastic measures.

She slammed her wallet on the table with a "thud," her gaze intense.

"I'll pay thirty. I'll cover the loss myself, and I'll give you an IOU!"

She paused, then said, word by word, "But! If there's a profit, I want 50%! The rest you can split equally!"

"Want to bet with me?!"

"Whether you continue to be a rat in the gutter or rise above others, the choice is yours!"

This do-or-die determination completely shattered their last bit of hesitation.

"Damn it, let's do it!" Zhao Liu was the first to slam his fist on the table, making a deafening noise. "What's the difference between dying poor and dying from financial ruin! I'm betting!"

"I'll do it too! Sister Su Rou, I'll follow you from now on!"

Count me in!

……

As night fell, while the small restaurant was bustling with activity, the Hongxing Production Brigade was shrouded in silence, broken only by the occasional bark of a dog.

Jiang Mian was fast asleep in the thatched hut, her breathing deep and even.

Lu Ting bent down and carefully tucked the corner of the blanket that had slipped off her.

Bathed in the cool moonlight streaming through the window, he gazed at his wife's sweet, sleeping face, and his heart melted completely.

But when he thought of the rumors he had heard in the village during the day, his heart turned from tenderness to the coldest winter.

In particular, one aunt revealed that no sooner had she left than her dear sister-in-law, Lin Xiu'e, went to inquire about it.

You could practically smell the sourness in his voice from a distance.

And then there's his biological mother, Wang Guihua. As soon as she heard that they were going to buy an apartment in the county town, she immediately sat on the ground and threw a tantrum, cursing Jiang Mian as a spendthrift and calling Lu Ting an ingrate who forgot his mother after marrying a wife.

These words pierced Lu Ting's heart with pain.

He didn't care about being scolded.

But what right do they have to insult his cotton?

Mianmian is so wonderful; she's a fairy descended from heaven, his lucky star, and the only person in the world who truly treats him well.

What right do they have to use such foul language to slander Mianmian?

The anger in Lu Ting's chest burned brighter and brighter, almost burning away his reason.

After changing his shoes, the man glanced at Jiang Mian, who was fast asleep on the bed, and his originally gentle gaze gradually turned cold.

The man pushed open the door quietly, his tall and imposing figure disappearing into the deep night without the slightest hesitation.

We walked towards the old Lu family compound at the entrance of the village.

……