As soon as she sat down, the system arranged her tasks for the day.
She had just begun to dabble in calligraphy, so she was only practicing strokes: horizontal, vertical, falling left, hooking right... She was exceptionally serious about every single stroke.
When her right hand became numb and sore from practice, she switched to her left hand.
Yes, her left hand; this was a course set by the system. She had to learn to write with both hands. The right hand was flexible, with good strength, so it could produce strong and unrestrained characters, while the left hand, soft and light, could yield gentle and delicate characters. She didn’t understand why the system had arranged it this way, but she felt it was good—as it didn’t waste time. When her right hand was tired, she would switch to the left. When the left tired, back to the right.
Repeating this back and forth, it wasn’t that tiring.
She spent approximately two hours practicing in the system before exiting to sleep; waking up later, she would re-enter. This cycle continued day in and day out, never feeling dull or boring.
On the eighth day of the Lunar New Year, most shops were still closed outside because the holiday atmosphere was still very strong, making it difficult to buy anything. However, the Qin siblings had nothing else to do, so they opened their shop early. Qin Xiangyang was someone who couldn’t sit still; just a few days without work made him feel restless to the point he thought he would sprout fur.
Only when the shop opened did he feel a sense of relief—to finally have something to do.
On their first day of business, they didn’t do much—just prepared some dough, cooked some porridge, wanting to test the waters of their business. After all, even though there were crowds passing by, it was unclear whether anyone would want to eat out.
They expected business might not be good, as this era placed great importance on celebrating the New Year—at that time, anything could be put aside, except for the celebration itself.
Unexpectedly, business was booming. Fortunately, as the dough was on the premises, Qin Xiangnuan managed to knead and bake more pancakes, most of which sold out. Even the two pots of porridge were sold off completely.
Due to the lack of preparation, they only made a little less than 20 yuan on this trial run.
Less than 20 yuan, and yet during the New Year, they had worked hard enough to see red in their eyes. Making 20 yuan a day, they should at the very least earn 15 yuan, especially as it was a casual effort without prior preparation, leading to limited sales. Tomorrow, planning to prepare more, they would surely sell more.
It seemed there were indeed more people out and about.
They had prepared the dough in advance and got all the vegetables ready. Qin Xiangnuan even bought a large pumpkin, which at the time was dry and sweet—made into pumpkin porridge, it was delicious. Rice was only 0.9 yuan per jin (half a kilogram), and a jin could yield many pots of porridge.
They no longer set up their stall in the morning, now opting to go out during the day. Morning outings required getting up in the middle of the night, and now, after a single day of work, they were able to make almost as much as they would in the morning, permitting them to have a regular routine.
Besides, it wasn’t the dinner peak hours yet, so going out late at night wouldn’t make much of a difference.