RGL – Chapter 56

“Alright, alright, I got it. I’m just talking with you, who’s going to run around shouting it to the world?”

Worried that Sun Hai might notice something, Li Meng acted as usual when she returned to her seat, showing no signs of abnormality. She joined in on the eating and chatting like normal.

At the dinner table, Su Min brought up the matter of the new store’s renovation again.

Sun Hai had indeed been busy with it lately. He smiled and said, “It’s mostly done—tables and chairs are all set. But those tableware sets you mentioned are hard to find. So I picked out some nice-looking bowls and chopsticks myself.”

“Uncle, are you sure you can manage everything on your own when it opens?”

“I’ll try running it myself at first. If it gets too busy, I’ll hire someone. But I’ll definitely need a server. Your auntie’s in no condition to help anymore, and I won’t let her work in the shop again.”

Grandma Sun chimed in too, “Let Mengmeng stay at home and rest. Running a shop is too tiring, and with so many people around, what if she gets bumped into? That wouldn’t end well.”

Li Meng had been lost in thought about Liu Li, but when she heard them mention her name, she looked up at Sun Hai and pursed her lips, staying quiet. She couldn’t stop thinking about how Gao Jianfeng used to be so in love with Liu Li, yet after Liu Li gave birth to a daughter, he cheated. What if I give birth to a girl? Would her mother-in-law and Sun Hai have a problem with that?

That thought gnawed at her, draining her appetite.

Sun Hai was sitting beside her. Though he was drinking with Su Changrong, he kept glancing her way. Noticing she seemed off, he grew concerned. Did someone at the restaurant say something to her to upset her?

That night, once they were in the house, Grandma Sun went straight to her room to rest. Sun Hai gently nudged Li Meng into their room, then headed to the kitchen to boil water for her foot soak.

Before, Li Meng handled all the house chores, but ever since her belly grew big, Sun Hai had insisted she stop doing any of it.

Watching Sun Hai bustling in the kitchen, Li Meng grew even more anxious.

Their relationship hadn’t been that solid to begin with, and now he was only treating her well because she was pregnant. What if he doesn’t like daughters, and I give birth to a girl? What am I going to do?

Once the hot water was ready, Sun Hai helped her clean up, then knelt down to soak her feet.

“The doctor said your feet will start swelling later on. Soaking them in hot water every day will help ease it a bit,” he explained.

Li Meng placed her feet in the basin and, seeing Sun Hai sitting beside her, asked cautiously, “Sun Hai, do you prefer sons or daughters?”

Sun Hai had been talking about what she should watch out for during pregnancy. Hearing her question, he laughed. “Why are you saying such silly things? Sons and daughters are the same.”

Seeing how serious she looked, he recalled what his sister had said—that pregnant women tended to overthink things, and he should be mindful of that. He quickly asked, “Is something bothering you?”

Li Meng looked down at the foot basin. “I was just thinking… if I have a daughter, will you and Mom blame me?” She’d seen too much of this sort of thing. Back in the village, if someone had a boy, the family threw a big full-month celebration. But if it was a girl, they just handed out some candy and rolled a red egg. Some families with daughters looked embarrassed when others asked about the baby. But those with sons would brag to everyone they met.

“No, absolutely not,” Sun Hai replied firmly. “My mom isn’t the kind who insists on having a grandson, and I’ve never cared whether it’s a boy or a girl. Whatever we’re meant to have, we’ll have. Besides, look at Minzi—she’s a daughter, right? But she’s more capable than most sons. If our daughter could grow up to be like Minzi, that’d be worth ten sons.”

He really didn’t see sons as anything special.

Just look at their family—his mother spent her whole life exhausting herself for his oldest brother, even broke her leg, and in the end it was their second sister who took care of everything. Even he, the youngest son, hadn’t been of much help.

So it’s like they say—if you don’t raise your son well, you might as well have raised a daughter instead.

Li Meng pouted and asked, “Are you serious? Even if I give birth to a daughter, you won’t dislike me?”

“What would I dislike you for? Even if you have two daughters, I’d still be happy.”

“Don’t talk nonsense. I still want to have a son later. It’s best to have both a son and a daughter.”

Sun Hai chuckled and gently touched her belly, laughing, “If you’ve got two in there already, then our mission is complete.”

Li Meng laughed too, caressing her belly and giving him a sidelong glance. “You’re dreaming. Just carrying one is exhausting enough. Two would be unbearable. I’ll take it one at a time.”

“Alright.” Sun Hai smiled as he squatted down and even helped wipe her feet. Once her feet were clean and dry, he quickly helped her onto the bed to lie down. “Rest up now. I’ll wash up and come back to keep you company.”

Hearing that, Li Meng blushed and smiled. Once Sun Hai stepped out, she curled up under the blanket, her heart full of sweetness.

Over at the Su household, Su Min brought up the shop situation with Sun Qiufang. “Mom, my uncle and aunt are already upgrading their shop. Shouldn’t we think about getting a bigger storefront too? That way, we could even bring clothes back from the factory to sell.”

Now that the family owned two small shops, and her parents were managing them separately, Su Min figured it was time to scale up. A bigger store would mean more profit, and these two small shops could be left to hired help. As for managing the business, there was no need to worry—each store’s inventory could be checked weekly, comparing goods sold to the money received.

Sun Qiufang listened to her daughter’s suggestion of selling clothes in their shop and said with a laugh, “Our store sells general goods. How could we start selling clothes?”

“Mom, our shop is called a supermarket, not a general goods store. Do you know what a supermarket is? It’s like a huge market that sells everything. Since we’re aiming to be a supermarket, there’s no need to worry about selling too many kinds of things.”

“No wonder you insisted on that name back then.” Sun Qiufang smiled helplessly. At the time, she had wanted to call it a general store, but her daughter thought the name was too plain. She insisted on something bold, so they named it a supermarket. Back then, it was just a tiny store, but her daughter already had big ambitions to turn it into a giant supermarket.

Su Min grinned. “Mom, you see, even Uncle is expanding his shop. If we’ve got enough funds, we should too.”

“We do have enough money,” Sun Qiufang replied. “But we’re already living a pretty good life—money, a house, a shop—we’re not lacking anything. There’s no need to chase after more.”

Sun Qiufang was content with their current lifestyle. With the family’s current situation, they had nothing to worry about. She was satisfied. When she and Su Changrong grew old, everything would go to their daughter and son-in-law. Their future would be secure.

But Su Min knew things weren’t as rosy as her mother believed.

Although their store was doing well now, competition would only grow fiercer as more people opened shops. If their store didn’t grow in time, they’d eventually be forced to close. And with inflation, their current savings would lose value fast.

She couldn’t explain all this directly to her parents—it would raise too many questions about how she knew so much. But without explaining, her argument would lack weight.

After a while, Su Changrong came over, having washed his feet, and called for Sun Qiufang to come rest.

Sun Qiufang responded, patted Su Min’s head, and said, “Go to bed early. You’ve got class tomorrow. Just because you’re making money now doesn’t mean you can slack off on your studies.”

“I won’t,” Su Min replied.

Once her mother had left, Su Min started planning how to convince her parents to expand the shop.

She had confidence in her ability to provide a good life for her parents. But the Rongfang Supermarket was their pride and joy, something they planned to pass on to her someday. If it went under in a few years, it would hurt them deeply.

Even if they couldn’t turn the store into a massive chain, she wanted to at least ensure it would stay afloat until her parents were too old to work.

Su Min thought about it for a long time that night. By the time she got up the next morning, she had already prepared a full argument to persuade her parents.

After washing up and sitting down at the table, she heard her father say, “Your mom told me you want to expand the supermarket?”

Su Min paused for a moment, then quickly nodded. “Yeah. Uncle’s already expanding his shop. I’m sure that once he starts making money, he’ll expand it again.”

Su Changrong chuckled, “Your uncle’s got guts when it comes to business. I’ve actually been thinking about this lately too. Yesterday, when your mom mentioned it, I figured we’re really on the same wavelength.”

Just then, Sun Qiufang came out of the kitchen carrying a tray of buns and mantou. She laughed, “Don’t flatter yourself. You two just stink the same way.”

Su Changrong grinned. “See that? Your mom’s gotten all refined since moving to the city—even the way she talks has changed.”

“Oh, knock it off,” Sun Qiufang said. “Tell me this—if we really expand the shop, can we even manage it?”

As she spoke, she served porridge for both father and daughter.

“There’s nothing we can’t manage,” Su Changrong said. “Those big restaurants hire a bunch of people, don’t they?”

“That’s different from our shop. Think about it—if we hire staff and someone starts helping themselves to merchandise, we wouldn’t even know who took what.”

And that was the real issue: managing people.

Su Changrong understood. With only one person in the shop now, theft wasn’t an issue. But once more people were hired, if anything went missing, they wouldn’t know who was responsible.

“It’s true that when there are too many people, things are more likely to go missing. No matter how much we watch, it won’t help. This really is a tough problem.”

“Dad, I’ve already thought about this,” Su Min said. “When the time comes, we’ll hire a store manager to help manage the shop. She’ll be in charge of supervising the staff and keeping an eye on the inventory. If anything goes missing, we’ll hold her responsible. As for the employees, each person will be in charge of one section. If something goes missing in their section, then they’re accountable. You and Mom can check in when you have time and collect the money once a day.”

This plan couldn’t guarantee there would be no theft, but if the profits were high, then occasional losses would be negligible. Even in future large supermarkets with surveillance cameras, thefts still happened. But their overall revenue increased significantly, so it was worth it.

Moreover, if they wanted to develop a large supermarket and there weren’t surveillance systems available at this time, then of course it wouldn’t be completely secure. But that wasn’t a reason to stop the development of the business. Su Min believed that once they got things running, other problems could be resolved gradually.

It was just like when County Head Zhao had been worried about selling the new houses but still went ahead with the construction. If you let fear of problems stop you from acting, then you’d never even get the chance to solve them.

Hearing Su Min’s proposal, Su Changrong and Sun Qiufang began to think seriously about it.

After finishing her porridge, Su Min looked at the clock on the wall and decided not to push the topic any further. After all, she didn’t plan on being punished to stand in the hallway again like last time. She put down her bowl, grabbed her school bag, and said to her parents, “Dad, Mom, think it over. I’m off to school.”

Sun Qiufang waved her hand. “Go on, your dad and I will discuss it. Don’t worry about it while you’re at school.”

“Got it!” Su Min ran off toward school with her bag.

She wasn’t too worried. The fact that her dad brought it up on his own meant he was already considering it. Now that she’d provided the best possible solution, if her dad figured it out, there wouldn’t be a problem.

When she got to school, she was nearly late.

Breathing heavily as she sat down and organized her things, she heard Wen Heping say from beside her, “Su Wenwen just came, packed her things, and left. I heard she got transferred to Class 6.”

Wen Heping wasn’t usually a talkative person. Aside from occasionally discussing schoolwork with Su Min, they rarely gossiped. So Su Min was a little surprised to hear him bring up Su Wenwen.

Seeing Su Min looking at him, Wen Heping seemed a little embarrassed. “I just mentioned it casually.”

Su Min smiled. “It’s fine. I’m not close to her anyway, and I don’t care about her business.”

Wen Heping blushed and smiled. “I thought that since you two had such a big argument last time, you might want to know about her. Guess I was overthinking. You don’t usually care about stuff like this.”

Su Min smiled but didn’t say anything.

She wasn’t very comfortable socializing with people her age. After all this time, the only friends she was really close with were Liao Zhaodi and Xue Mian.

She treated Liao Zhaodi as a peer instinctively since they had known each other in a previous life. As for Xue Mian, he was always hanging around in front of her—it was hard to ignore him even if she wanted to.

Wen Heping glanced at her as she lowered her head to read, his heart stirring slightly. He peeked at her with his book in hand and then quietly returned to his own studying.

After Su Wenwen left the class, Su Min felt much more at ease. Even though she didn’t usually take Su Wenwen’s provocations seriously, being constantly glared at by someone was still unsettling.

At noon, when she went home for lunch, Sun Qiufang told her what she and Su Changrong had discussed that morning.

“Your dad thinks there’s no problem expanding the store, but he wants to change the location. Your uncle’s place is in a really good area—well-connected and with a lot of foot traffic. Based on what you said, our store won’t just sell groceries—we could even sell clothes. I’m thinking we might as well throw in pots and pans too. That way more people will come in to browse. And of course, the place can’t be small, so your dad is planning to check out some locations in the next few days.”

Hearing this outcome, Su Min was delighted. “Mom, you agree too?”

“Would it matter if I didn’t? You all have already made up your minds. But I’ve thought it through—your dad’s right. This will all be yours in the future. Whatever ideas you have, as long as they’re not completely unreasonable, we’re willing to give them a try.”

“Mom, you really don’t plan on having a son? With today’s medical advances, maybe…”

“No more kids,” Sun Qiufang interrupted immediately. “Your dad and I already discussed it. He said the same—no more. Now, whenever your dad talks about you, he’s full of pride. He thinks no other son can compare to his daughter. He even told your grandpa and your second uncle that he doesn’t need a son to succeed. You’ll definitely be more successful than Cancan. We’ve both decided: as long as we raise you well, that’s enough.”

Su Min had originally thought that if her parents could have another child, maybe a younger brother, it would fulfill their wish from their previous life. But she hadn’t expected that they no longer wanted more children—they had placed all their hopes on her.

“Mom, I won’t let you down. When I grow up, I’ll take care of you and Dad. I’ll do even better than anyone else’s son.”

True to his go-getter personality, Su Changrong came home that night and told Sun Qiufang and Su Min that he had already found several promising locations. The one he liked best was a large space on the first floor of the county’s main shopping mall.