Busy days always feel like they drag on forever, but if every night there’s a big stack of cash for you to count until your fingers cramp, then being busy just makes the days feel too short.
According to the custom of Sancha River town, on New Year’s Eve, there is only a morning market. Before noontime meal, couplets should be posted on the doors. Setting off firecrackers when having meal signifies the start of the New Year.
But in reality, the market continues until two or three in the afternoon.
The cattle farm starts celebrating the New Year early in the morning. Aside from alcohol and the vegetables growing in the greenhouse, everything that could be sold has been sold. What else is there to do if not celebrate?
Aside from Ma Chao and Zhang Hui who went home for the New Year, everyone else stayed.
People like Gao Rui, Old Cheng, and Widow Lin with her daughter are homeless, Gong Family’s grandfather and grandson don’t care where they celebrate while Heizi and the mute have homes but choose not to return. These two just make rounds at home and then come back. The mute explained through gestures that his parents encouraged him to work hard here. As for Heizi, without further saying, he simply went home to flaunt how much money he made this year.
He lives and eats at the cattle farm which means having no other expenses, and his salary isn’t low. Yan Fei, noticing how hard everyone has been working, gave everyone an extra hundred yuan.
They have indeed been extremely busy these past few days, and this extra hundred yuan is just justified - Yan Fei actually wanted to give more, but he decided to be cautious. It’s better to give in small doses over time. Giving too much at once can be too ostentatious, and then it’d be hard to keep it up in the future.
Yan Fei and Xu Xiaoyan were in great spirits – they made a profit!
Nearly forty pigs were slaughtered, excluding the few sold to the Slaughter Pig Station during the snow days, which made over thirty thousand yuan. They slaughtered three cows themselves, and the selling price was nearly the same as selling four whole cows. They didn’t dare to tell others how much they earned from selling off-season vegetables, even when Miss Xu Xiaoyan asked how much they made, they only admitted to several thousand yuan - the real amount was twice that and too shocking to reveal.
Plus, the money from selling alcohol, after adding everything up, paying everyone’s salaries and bonuses, they still had over seventy thousand yuan in cash. Not to mention, they had over a catty and two taels of bezoar, supposedly as valuable as gold.
They could tell Xu Xiaoyan the total earnings since she had been counting money every day till her head spun and had no idea how much each item sold for.
Their parents also stared wide-eyed at the money, their son really knew how to make money!
This was a great era where as long as you were willing to work, you could make money from practically anything. Labor costs were low, as demonstrated the wages Yan Fei was paying the workers were much higher than the usual state-owned factory workers. As for the cost of feed for raising cows and pigs, that was negligible. As long as there wasn’t a large scale unavoidable epidemic, making money was guaranteed.
Yan Fei, in his high spirits, handed Xiaochao two hundred yuan, "Here, big brother is giving you New Year’s gift money in advance..."
Before he could finish, his mother slapped him on the head, "Silly boy, is that how you give New Year’s gift money..."
Xu Xiaoyan immediately started snickering, Yan Fei quickly corrected himself, "This is your reward for the work you’ve been doing these past few days, consider it your pay. Save it properly for when you have to pay school fees..."
New Year’s gift money can be given by elders to the younger generation, or by the young to honor their elders. The gift for children is a symbol of protection from evil spirits for healthy growth, while the gift for elders is meant to bless them with long life and good health.
Yan Fei giving his younger brother a New Year’s gift in front of their parents was just asking for a scolding. Despite the older brother’s role being like a father, he was still of the same generation and it was not his place to give New Year’s gift money.
When it comes to other reasons, anything goes. He’s the older brother and wants to give his younger brother money, it’s a gesture, and his parents wouldn’t say much more.
So the little guy was overjoyed and happily pocketed the money.
Then a scene that happens in numerous households every New Year occurred again!
Yanfei’s mom was prepared to take the money before it could get into the youngster’s pocket, "Xiaochao darling, your pocket is too small. You might lose the money. Let mom keep it safe for you."
Xiaochao quickly jumped back, "No need for you to keep it safe! I’m going to switch pants. This pocket is huge, it won’t fall off, and you can see for yourself if you don’t believe me."
Yanfei’s mom, with her hand still extended, suddenly felt embarrassed. Her future daughter-in-law was still here! She couldn’t get rough with Xiaochao and quickly changed her approach, "This money is for your school fees, mom will keep it safe and pay the fees once you start school."
The boy clutched his pocket tightly and stared at her with wide-eyed thinking for a long time, who knows what he was plotting, then he finally responded to Yanfei’s mom, "I can pay it myself, you can take me to school and I’ll pay the fees. I promise I won’t lose it, look how big my pocket is, it won’t fall off."
When that plan failed, mom came up with another. She took a few dimes from her pocket, picked out three, and kindly said to the little guy, "How about mom give you three dimes in exchange for your two coins? Or even fourto your two?"
This trick had always worked in the past but failed this year.
The little guy tilted his head, "Do you think I’m stupid? This is a hundred yuan, yours is a dime, one of mine can be exchanged for many many many of yours."