Chapter 546 - 530: Caught Red-Handed

Qiu Hualan smiled awkwardly, feeling a bit uneasy, "Yes. Yes, Ah Qing helped me find a job taking care of kids."

"Oh... So it’s this child!"

"Ah... ah, yes. Why is Ah Zhi here?"

"It’s still because of my aunt’s matter. Aunt Qiu, do you know my aunt is living around here?"

"I didn’t pay attention, oh... so they’re living around here," Qiu Hualan lied deliberately, not wanting to stir up those troublesome matters.

"Aunt Qiu, are you doing okay here?"

"Everything’s fine, eating well, living well."

"That’s good. If something comes up in the future, you can find my aunt; you two are in the same city outside, so you can help each other. Ah Qing should know where my aunt lives."

"I know, I know, it’s just that I’ve just arrived recently and haven’t had the chance to visit them yet. I’ll go over there when I have a day off. Ah Zhi, when are you leaving?"

"I’ll be heading back in the next couple of days, there’s a whole bunch of stuff to deal with at home. Aunt Qiu, I won’t stay longer, I’m leaving now."

"...Ah, Ah Zhi, when you go back, if Uncle Ye asks about me, can you not tell him where I’m living?"

Liang Zhi paused for a moment, understanding Aunt Qiu’s intention, and nodded with a smile.

After returning from Liang Weixiang’s place, Liang Zhi went to Lin Wan’s. He gloomily told Lin Wan about his aunt not wanting to see him.

"What’s my aunt doing in the yard?"

"Who knows, I saw through the crack in the door lots of scraps of fabric... Xiao Wan, maybe she’s trying to steal your business."

"Probably. Let them fiddle around if they want to. Brother Ah Zhi, don’t worry."

"Xiao Wan, sigh, they’re making you worry. Oh right, I saw Aunt Qiu when I went over. Ye Qing’s mother."

"Her mother is here," Lin Wan said in surprise.

"Of course, when Ye Rong got married some time ago, Ye Qing went back for a while, saying she introduced a nanny job to her mother here, which is quite lucrative. I saw her today, bringing a child."

"Next to my aunt’s house?" Lin Wan was momentarily puzzled but understood once she saw Liang Zhi nodding.

Ye Qing probably lied to her family, making it true that she brought her mother here to take care of her child.

"Brother Ah Zhi, you probably don’t know, but Ye Qing is unmarried and pregnant here, and she already has a child. It’s likely that the child her mother is taking care of is her own. Is it just a few-month-old boy?" Ye Qing didn’t want her family to know, but things won’t go as she wishes.

This time, it was Liang Zhi’s turn to be surprised, "Unmarried and pregnant? Isn’t she still in school?"

"You don’t know, she had a dubious relationship with a teacher at her school, and later it got exposed. The school expelled her. Later, that teacher secretly got her a government job, and that matter was settled. Then, it’s heard she met a soldier. The child is said to be the soldier’s. But whether it belongs to that teacher or the soldier, we are not clear, anyway, now she’s very close with that soldier. To have a good reputation, she told the neighbors in S City that she’s married back home. As for what she said to people back home, who knows."

"No wonder... when I ran into Aunt Qiu today, she specially asked me not to tell family members about her address here, fearing they might come over. After all, if Uncle Ye knew, they mother and daughter would suffer."

"Perhaps so." Being a man, Brother Ah Zhi should not spread gossip. But it doesn’t mean he won’t mention it to his family once he goes back.

The Little Grandmother and Aunt from his mother’s side might not hold their tongues.

In his trip to S City, Liang Zhi encountered a lot, but what touched him most were the aunt and niece duo and Ye Qing and her mother.

His aunt and her daughter seemed typical of those blinded by the glamor and good life of a big city.

Ye Qing puzzled him the most, how could such a promising college student get entangled with her teacher and do such things, her family so painstakingly supported her through years of schooling, only to fall short of completing university.

One lesson wasn’t enough, she got involved with another.

Could such things be hereditary?

Liang Zhi stayed in S City for a few days before returning.

Brother Li’s wedding date was also approaching as planned.

Uncle Li and Aunt Li are both warm and cheerful people, having many friends and relatives; with their only son getting married, they definitely wanted to have a grand celebration. As the best man, the brother had already been busy with Li Congnan since the day before.

One must admire Uncle Li and Aunt Li’s connections, aside from five or six tables of relatives, there were friends and colleagues from the factory, making up twenty to thirty tables.

Just the wine, they drank over fifty or sixty bottles. In the end, Li Congnan couldn’t tell if he was truly drunk or just pretending, but anyhow, he was carried back to the new house by a few brothers.

...

While Lin Wan was still feeling melancholy without Han Yi by her side, Ye Qing had already started promoting clothes vigorously at the train station and near the mall.

The same style of clothes, Lin Wan and the others had a wholesale price of 3.8, retailing one piece for only 4 yuan.

Especially near the city shopping mall, in just two days they seized a lot of business from the mall.

Seeing the good sales, Ye Qing specifically hired a very eloquent girl to join Zhang Dandan, running around the streets selling clothes.

She herself had to go to work during the day, not able to help much. With clothes selling well, Ye Qing found the time to get another batch. Liang Weixiang was busy day and night making clothes alone.

Zhang Dandan was engaged in selling clothes. At night, a few people sat together to tally accounts.

Almost a day’s work brought in about as much as when Lin Wan first started making clothes, with more than a hundred in profit.

A seventy-three split, excluding costs, Liang Weixiang and her daughter could earn twenty yuan a day. "Director Wang, don’t rush, you also said that without a comparison there’s no upset. I’ll give you an explanation soon. After all, our clothes now have trademarks and brands, do they have any? Items like clothes must focus on quality, if the quality isn’t good, even if they’re sold, the future reputation won’t be good, affecting future profits, which could be troublesome."

"As long as there’s profit and sales are good, why fear future profits, it’s obvious, so don’t need to tell me too much, if your prices don’t go down, this business is done."

"I understand, I’ll resolve this matter quickly," Lin Wan didn’t explain further.

Leaving the mall, Yin Peibai and Su Ling didn’t look good, feeling heavy-hearted, "Xiao Wan, what should we do, same style, selling cheaper than us. Sister Zhao even called yesterday. Although she didn’t mention returning goods, she did bring up this issue."

"Maybe we should lower our price too," Su Ling suggested.

Lin Wan shook her head, "It’s something I overlooked, I knew they would make clothes and sell them themselves, I even had my brother intentionally go check them out, the clothes my brother brought back were really not good. Unexpectedly, in just two days they learned so quickly and are imitating ours."

"That aunt and cousin of yours don’t seem like good people. What should we do now," Yin Peibai said after having met Zhang Dandan.

"Let’s first investigate them, and see their clothes," Lin Wan said.

"Director Wang said it’s around the mall, let’s take a look," Su Ling said, glancing around.

Lin Wan and Yin Peibai also thought they should first check out their clothes.

Walking around nearby, they indeed spotted Zhang Dandan, tagging along with a little girl. There were about a dozen customers surrounding them. They stood by observing for quite a while, Zhang Dandan didn’t notice them at all, busy enthusiastically introducing her family’s clothes to people, seemingly selling well.

Lin Wan deliberately approached, touching the fabric of her clothes. She had seen this kind of fabric at the cotton textile festival over there. Old Yang introduced it to her, saying he got a batch of fabric that wasn’t very good and couldn’t return it, asking her if she had any ideas on how to dispose of it.

That kind of fabric can’t be washed; it fades after one wash and simply can’t be worn.

At the time, she even told Old Yang to sell these to restaurants; using them as disposable tablecloths would definitely work.

But few restaurants use disposable tablecloths. Lin Wan didn’t pay attention to this matter at the time. Unexpectedly, Zhang Dandan and her mother ran into it.

Looking at this fabric, Lin Wan felt delighted inside, finally relieved.

"Dan Dan, business is good, huh," Lin Wan suddenly spoke beside Zhang Dandan, startling her.

Seeing Lin Wan, Zhang Dandan felt like she was caught in the act, feeling nothing but awkwardness following the realization.