Hearing this, both Lin Xiaoguai and Shen Chi were stunned.
For the first time, Lin Xiaoguai showed severity towards an elder, "Grandpa, do we really need to distinguish between ’yours’ and ’mine’ among family? Is there a difference between you being at a loss and me being at a loss?"
Shen Chi frowned. Grandpa had always been cautious with money; how could he suddenly agree to let someone buy on credit?
Being criticized by his granddaughter-in-law for the first time, Shen Zhangming was momentarily startled, feeling wronged as he hurriedly explained, "No, that’s not what I mean. It’s just that you all need your money, while the money in my hands is spare. It doesn’t matter if I’m out of it temporarily."
It wasn’t that he was trying to alienate his granddaughter-in-law. After all, the money in his hands was just pocket money given to him by the granddaughter-in-law. If they really were to become estranged, he wouldn’t accept the money at all.
He only thought that having so much money on hand was useless, and the girl had such a pitiable life story; helping her with that money would be a good deed.
Seeing the old man’s anxious expression, Lin Xiaoguai realized she had been too harsh—this was timely, as Lin Xiaoguai’s taboo was precisely the need to split ’yours’ and ’mine’ among family members. Otherwise, how could her four brothers have sold her off? Wasn’t it because they felt that, in the end, she would benefit from going to college, and they wouldn’t gain any advantage?
She had always believed that family members should not be so distinctly separated; otherwise, over time, a family wouldn’t feel like a family anymore.
Unfortunately, despite her wholehearted treatment of her four brothers, they only saw her as an outsider who would marry into someone else’s family rather than as a daughter, which ultimately led to a rift between them.
Thus, she was particularly sensitive and averse to such matters.
In the old city area, there used to be conflicts between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law over who should stay home with the kids and who should go out to work—some mothers-in-law refused to care for their grandsons, choosing to earn a monthly salary of two thousand, while the daughters-in-law gave up jobs that paid seven or eight thousand a month to take care of the children; there were also cases where young daughters-in-law, under the pretext of needing to care for their children, refused to work, leaving elderly mothers-in-law to go out and earn money through toil, supporting the family’s expenses.
Lin Xiaoguai didn’t agree with either the selfishness of the former or the laziness of the latter. In a family, only by not distinguishing between ’yours’ and ’mine,’ by pulling together, could there be a way for long-term harmony.
"Grandpa, I was too abrupt just now, please don’t mind," said Lin Xiaoguai, implying an apology since she had realized her mistake.
—In relationships, often you can’t let go of your pride, but in the other person’s heart, it remains a knot.
This was a truth that Lin Xiaoguai understood from her stumbling experiences at the magazine company in her past life. Therefore, even if she held herself in high esteem, she never skimped on saying ’sorry’ when she made a mistake.
Shen Zhangming breathed a sigh of relief, truly not wanting to upset his granddaughter-in-law. Remembering that agreeing to let someone buy on credit was indeed improper, he somewhat sheepishly said, "Chi, Wanwan, I wasn’t being thoughtless. It’s just that the girl has lost both parents, her grandmother who raised her is also unwell, she has to attend school while earning money for tuition and medicine, and she has to take care of her grandmother when she gets back. I thought if I could help her out, I would."
He paused and added, "Don’t worry, she agreed to write an IOU and even to leave her grandmother’s ID card with me."
Hearing about the girl’s circumstances, Shen Chi not only lacked sympathy but also frowned deeper. From the girl’s appearance, she seemed at most seventeen or eighteen, probably in high school. School fees for a term would at least amount to several hundred, not to mention the medical expenses for her ill grandmother and the cost of living... This sum was nothing for working adults, but for a schoolgirl to earn that much money, a regular job was definitely out of the question, leaving only unconventional ways of making money.
—In those times, it wasn’t like the future; even adults struggled to find stable work, let alone a child.
And among the unconventional ways of making money, Shen Chi could only think of doing business. Many small-scale businesses could make a lot of money, with Jiang Xiaomei’s family being an example.
Such a person would have to be very clever, and with Grandpa’s naive nature, Chi could guess that it would be easy to fool him.
Shen Chi was aware of this, and so could Lin Xiaoguai. Naturally, their expressions became somewhat unhappy.
"Grandpa, did the girl tell you what she was going to do with the items she bought from the store?" asked Shen Chi.
"She did. She said she wanted to sell them in other provinces," replied Shen Zhangming earnestly.
The two frowned again. The girl, a young lady venturing into other provinces to do business, didn’t need much thought to recognize that the potential profit must be substantial.