A fierce wife enters the house: She helps up a house full of spineless people.

Twenty days exactly.

Wang Jinzhu went into the kitchen early in the morning, turned over the row of wooden molds on the shelf one by one, and knocked them hard.

"Snap."

A square, off-white piece of soap slid out of the mold and landed on the laid-out dry cloth. Its edges were neat, its surface was smooth, and when you pressed it with your fingernail, it was firm and left no mark.

She leaned closer and smelled it—a faint camellia fragrance.

It became.

Eleven pieces, not one more and not one less, neatly stacked in the winnowing basket.

Chen Tianwei squatted down and stared at it for a while before poking it with her finger: "Sister-in-law, is this what you called... silver?"

"Don't poke." Wang Jinzhu slapped her hand away, picked up a soap bar, dipped it in the basin of water, and rubbed it on the back of her hand. Fine white foam rose up, richer than soap beans and denser than bath beans. After rinsing it off, the back of her hand felt smooth and slippery, without any astringency, and had a faint floral fragrance.

Chen Tianwei's eyes widened slightly: "This... works better than the ones sold in town!"

Wang Jinzhu didn't reply. She dried her hands, wrapped the ten bars of soap one by one in clean coarse cloth, and put them into her basket.

"Tianfang, carry this on your back to town."

Without saying a word, Chen Tianfang carried his basket and followed Wang Jinzhu toward the town, while Wang Jinzhu kept thinking about the pricing.

The soap in the town's general store, a palm-sized piece, cost fifteen coins. It was coarse, didn't foam, and had a pungent smell.

This one is a size bigger than the other one, it's better at removing stains, has a floral scent, and feels nice to the touch. I'll price it at twenty coins a piece.

It's a bit more expensive than others, but it's much better.

Ruihe Grocery Store was the largest store at the east end of town. The shopkeeper, surnamed Sun, was in his forties, lean and wiry, with eyes that darted around faster than abacus beads.

Wang Jinzhu placed the basket on the counter and took out a bar of soap, placing it in front of the shopkeeper.

Shopkeeper Sun picked it up, examined it, squeezed it, and then brought it to his nose to smell it. His expression changed from perfunctory to curious, and then to serious.

"This is... soap?"

"Fragrant soap." Wang Jinzhu asked the shopkeeper to bring over a basin of water and demonstrated on the spot. White foam piled up in the shopkeeper's hands. After rinsing, he rubbed his fingers and was stunned.

"It's smooth and has a faint fragrance."

"It removes grease quickly too; just touch that grease stain on the corner of the counter."

With some skepticism, Manager Sun rubbed the oil stain a few times with soap, then wiped it clean with a damp cloth—it was spotless.

His eyes changed.

"How much is one piece?"

"Twenty cash is your consignment price. You can set the price yourself. If it doesn't sell, I'll buy it all back."

Manager Sun stared at her for a couple of moments, then held out his hand: "How many pieces do you want?"

"Ten pieces." Wang Jinzhu pulled out a piece and handed it to him. "Cut this into small pieces and let the customers who come in try it. Everyone who tries it wants to buy it."

Shopkeeper Sun took the sample, ran his fingers over the smooth soap surface, and nodded.

Wang Jinzhu left behind ten bars of soap, took the receipt written by Manager Sun, and turned to leave.

On the oxcart back, Chen Tianfang stole several glances at her.

"What are you looking at?"

"No, no." Chen Tianfang quickly turned back, but after a while, he couldn't help but ask again, "Can it really sell?"

Wang Jinzhu leaned against the cart floor, basking in the sun with her eyes closed: "In less than three days, Manager Sun will come to me to restock."

Seeing Wang Jinzhu's confident demeanor, Chen Tianfang decided to make more pig feed to save his wife some money. Although his father-in-law never charged him for the pork fat he got from his father-in-law's house, Jinzhu said that her father would charge her once the soap was sold.

Three days.

It only took three days.

Manager Sun personally drove the donkey cart to Chenjia Village. Standing at the door of the main house, his smile was even brighter than when he saw the God of Wealth.

"Sister-in-law Chen! Do you have any left? All the ten-yuan items are sold out! Several customers have asked if we have any more!"

Wang Jinzhu was stirring the second batch of soap solution in the yard, not even looking up: "What's the rush? The second batch won't be ready for another ten days or so."

Shopkeeper Sun wrung his hands anxiously: "How about a pre-order? I'll put down a number first, thirty yuan! No, fifty yuan! There's a shop I know in the county town, the owner is my cousin. He saw the one I was trying out and asked if I could supply it!"

county seat.

Wang Jinzhu then raised her head and stopped stirring.

What are the prices in the county town?

"The scented soap in the county town's general store is more expensive, and it's not as good as yours. Sister-in-law, you set a price, and I'll go talk to my cousin."

Wang Jinzhu didn't agree immediately. She wiped her hands, sat on the threshold, and thought for a while.

"I'll set a separate price for goods from the county town. The selling price is twenty-five copper coins per piece, with discounts for bulk orders. But there's one condition—I'll only use your channels; I don't like trouble."

Manager Sun's eyes lit up. He understood what "exclusive agency" meant, and he immediately nodded.

That afternoon, Wang Jinzhu sent Chen Tianfang to the Wang family with a message.

The next morning, Wang Xiaobao arrived in a donkey cart, which was loaded with forty catties of pork fat and two large buckets of broken oil.

"Sister, Dad said the lard will be six coins a pound, he won't charge you more. The scraps are free." Wang Xiaobao jumped off the cart, rolled up his sleeves, and added, "Also, Dad told me to stay and help out."

Wang Jinzhu thought it over and agreed. Anyway, his pork stall didn't need that many people. He would definitely make more this time. Once it sold well in the county, the orders wouldn't be just a few dozen yuan at a time.

Wang Jinzhu didn't say anything more, but tossed him a wooden stick: "Stir in one direction, don't stop."

"That's easy—"

"Stir it for half an hour before talking about simplicity."

Wang Xiaobao stirred for half an hour, and his arms started to tremble. But he gritted his teeth and didn't say a word, continuing to stir silently.

Wang Jinzhu was preparing the ingredients. She had picked several kinds of flowers from the mountain in the past few days—wild camellia, forsythia, and Chinese violet cress—and dried them to make three different scented soaps.

The elegance of camellias, the sweet fragrance of forsythia, and the herbal scent of honesty.

She even used soot from the bottom of a pot to adjust the color; the camellia soap was milky white, the forsythia soap was slightly yellow, and the February orchid soap had a pale blue tinge.

Three colors, three flavors.

Just looking at them displayed in the winnowing basket is enough to make you unable to look away.

Chen Tianwei squatted down and looked at it for a long time, then couldn't help but say, "Sister-in-law, if this were displayed in a shop, which woman could resist buying it?"

Wang Jinzhu's lips curled up slightly: "That's called—product differentiation."

Chen Tianwei didn't understand, but she felt that what her sister-in-law was talking about must be something very powerful.

While things were bustling with activity in the main house, the scene in the second house was quite different, separated by the newly built adobe wall.

The sound of chopping wood was mixed with Chen Yang's complaints.

Before the family split up, Chen Tianfang was responsible for chopping firewood and carrying water. After the split, all of these tasks fell to Chen Yang. Before, under the protection of the eldest son's family, he would at most go to the fields to make a show of it. Now, he was responsible for all four mu of land—two mu of good land and two mu of inferior land—plowing, fertilizing, and weeding all by himself.

The fields were about to be plowed in March. He squatted at the edge of the field, looking at the dark soil, and his legs went weak.

At home? The three women were arguing fiercely.

In the morning, Chen Xiufen made brown rice porridge, but Old Mrs. Chen thought it was too watery.

"Is this porridge or dishwater? Will scooping up more than half a bowl of rice kill you?"

Chen Xiufen slammed down her spoon: "Mother, you make it sound so easy. There's only so much rice left in the rice jar, and Shuyan only sends back half a tael of silver a month to help out. Aren't we going to be frugal and starve?"

Liu Yiyi sat to the side, not even picking up her chopsticks: "The food I cooked yesterday, my mother-in-law said was too salty, and my grandmother said it was too bland, so I'm not cooking today. Whoever wants to cook can cook."

Old Mrs. Chen slammed her fist on the table in anger: "I've raised my sons and grandsons my whole life, and now that I'm old, I can't even get a hot meal!"

Chen Yang returned from the fields, covered in mud and sweat. When he entered the house, he saw that the stove was cold, the pot was empty, and the three women were sitting separately, ignoring each other.

He stood at the kitchen door, holding his breath.

In those days, he farmed, chopped wood, and carried water all by himself, and when he came home, he didn't even have a meal to eat.

He suddenly realized how good life was when the eldest son was still alive—there were people to do everything, and he only needed to stand there and pretend.

Chen Yang finally snapped, "Three women, can't you even cook a proper meal? If that's the case, tomorrow Mother will cook at home, and you two will come with me to the fields. This constant arguing is making me wish we'd never separated."

The three women were stunned by the scolding, but knowing they were in the wrong, they dared not speak.

At night, Wang Jinzhu was doing accounts under the lamp.

Fifty bars of soap cost less than five coins to produce, but the net profit was almost one tael of silver.

She scribbled on the paper with a charcoal pencil, her eyes shining brighter as she calculated. "If I measure it up properly later, I can supply several surrounding counties! Haha, I'm going to make a fortune!"

Chen Tian put down the knife to sharpen it, preparing to go up the mountain tomorrow.

"Tianfang, we're going to be rich!"

Looking into his wife's bright eyes, Chen Tianfang just wanted to kiss her passionately. They'd been married for over half a year, and he was still a monk. He didn't want his younger brother to have children before he'd even consummated the marriage.

Wang Jinzhu continued to stare at him, and Chen Tianfang finally couldn't resist. He hugged Wang Jinzhu and kissed her fiercely.

After feeling quite satisfied, he released Wang Jinzhu, looked at her bright red lips, and said, "Yes, my wife is really amazing!"

Wang Jinzhu stomped her foot and pretended to be angry before leaving, seemingly unaware that Wang Xiaobao and Chen Tianwei were peeking through her fingers.