The Stepmother's Counterattack: Raising a Child in a Bygone Era-Chapter 444 - 443: Raise Wages, Open Branches

Shen Mingzhu closed the report and looked at Julie with satisfaction in her eyes, "Then you make sure to take time to write a branch opening plan for me to review."

Julie nodded her head hastily.

She was clear in her mind that this was Shen Mingzhu testing her.

If she passed the test, once the branch was opened, she was practically a shoo-in for the position of General Manager of Shenji Restaurant.

Initially, she gave up working at big hotels and chose the yet uncertain path of Shenji, eyeing its development potential.

...

After Julie left, Shen Mingzhu began to deal with the backlog of work from the past few days.

She was busy until noon and had just barely finished half of it.

Just as she was rubbing her sore shoulders to relax, Qin Jinlian arrived, bringing Jia Yuemei and Erya, the mother and daughter.

Shen Mingzhu didn’t take the three of them out to a restaurant, instead leading them to the cafeteria.

To be honest, the food in the cafeteria wasn’t bad—one meat dish, one vegetable dish, one soup, and they even had fruit on Tuesdays and Fridays.

Looking around at all the factories within several miles, none had better food than they offered.

Shen Mingzhu firmly grasped a principle: If you want a horse to run, you have to let it eat its fill of hay.

After eating, they went back to the office, and Qin Jinlian placed a pregnancy check-up report in front of Shen Mingzhu.

"I took Yuemei to get checked today, and she is indeed pregnant, nearly three months already!"

Qin Jinlian couldn’t contain her happiness, her face full of longing and expectation for her little grandson.

The eldest, Shen Chaobei, had already given birth to a grandson, and if the second child also gave birth to a grandson, then she would consider her life perfectly fulfilled.

Jia Yuemei was holding Erya, sitting quietly to the side like a meek daughter-in-law.

She still vividly remembered the last time Shen Mingzhu lost her temper, and now she only dared to behave respectfully in front of Shen Mingzhu.

Shen Mingzhu glanced at the check-up report and said indifferently, "This is not my business, if you want to have the child, have it, if you don’t want to, then have it aborted."

Qin Jinlian anxiously said, "It was so hard to get pregnant, how can we just abort it! This is your own nephew!"

Shen Mingzhu half-smiled, "Whether it’s a boy or a girl, you’ll only know after it’s born."

Qin Jinlian spoke up, "I heard people say that big hospitals can check the gender of the fetus, think of a way to let Yuemei go and check. If it turns out to be a boy, then give birth, but if it’s a girl, then do the abortion."

Although Shen Mingzhu already knew that Qin Jinlian favored boys over girls, hearing her casually decide the fate of a small life with just a few words still made Shen Mingzhu uncomfortable.

She looked at Jia Yuemei, "Sister-in-law, what do you think?"

"I’ll listen to Mom."

"Do you know that inducing an abortion is a very dangerous thing? A slight oversight could lead to death for both mother and child."

Qin Jinlian hurriedly spat out a curse, "What nonsense are you talking about; it’s not as scary as you’re making it sound. There are so many women in the village who’ve had abortions and are all fine."

Shen Mingzhu didn’t want to waste her words, "I can’t help you with this." fɾeewebnoveℓ.co๓

"Don’t you know a nurse who works in a big hospital? Ask her for help."

"If you guys have the capability, you go find your own connections. Anyway, I don’t have the ability to just rub my lips together and get people to do favors."

Qin Jinlian looked at her, "Is there anything that can’t be done with money?"

"Are you guys paying?"

Perhaps afraid of offending Shen Mingzhu, Jia Yuemei quickly spoke up, "Sister, Xiangnan and I will pay for it ourselves, you just help us find out the connections."

Seeing the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law were dead set, Shen Mingzhu had no choice but to make a phone call to Li Bing to ask about the matter.

"Go for an ultrasound at four months, prepare a hundred yuan as a red envelope, and give it to the physician during the ultrasound."

"That expensive?"

Shen Mingzhu rolled her eyes, "If you think it’s too expensive, you don’t have to do it. Do you think money is so easy to earn? Checking the gender of a fetus is strictly prohibited. One slip-up could lead to punishment!"

"We’ll do it! We want to do it!"

Jia Yuemei stood up excitedly, "Then we’ll come to the city at the end of next month to do it, by then it will be just the right time at four months."

Shen Mingzhu warned, "Sister-in-law, I’ll speak frankly. The test result isn’t one hundred percent accurate. The child is too small, and organs aren’t fully developed, so misjudgment is possible. If you bring this up later as an issue, don’t blame me for turning my back on you."

"Okay, I know."

Having settled the matter, the three of them—mother-in-law, daughter-in-law, and Mingzhu—showed no signs of leaving. Shen Mingzhu raised an eyebrow, "Is there something else?"

Qin Jinlian spoke up, "Isn’t it time to give Xiangnan a raise? You said that after a year of work, you’d increase his salary. It’s been exactly one year now, and Yuemei is pregnant; this is when we need money the most. Can you give him a raise?"

"Fine."

Seeing Shen Mingzhu agree so readily, the mother and daughter-in-law were immediately delighted.

"Then how much do you plan to raise Xiangnan’s salary by?"

"I treat all matters impartially, whatever the increase should be, that’s what it will be."

Qin Jinlian persisted, showing five fingers: "Can you raise it by fifty?"

"No! If there’s nothing else, please hurry back. I’m busy here."

Seeing Shen Mingzhu’s impatience, Qin Jinlian reluctantly led her daughter and mother-in-law away.

...

The next day, after finishing up her tasks, Shen Mingzhu drove to the restaurant.

She spent two half-days each week at the restaurant, partly to inspect the work and partly to teach Shen Xiangnan how to make new dishes.

To maintain popularity in the catering business, aside from good taste and environment, continuous innovation is necessary.

Even the tastiest dish gets tiresome after a few meals.

It’s only with a constant stream of new dishes that you can keep the customers’ hearts and stomachs.

Shen Mingzhu’s inspection was meticulous; she would randomly select a server to wait on her personally.

She would score each aspect of the service, and anyone who didn’t meet the pass mark for the total score would have their monthly performance bonus halved and have to undergo retraining.

After retraining, if they still didn’t meet the standard, they would be dismissed.

Following the inspections, Shen Mingzhu assembled all the restaurant staff for a staff meeting.

Over the year, the restaurant’s staff had grown from the original six to twelve.

At the meeting, Shen Mingzhu made two points.

The first was to acknowledge and appreciate everyone’s hard work, and the second was to announce salary increases.

"...All staff members who have completed one year of service will, starting from next month, receive a 10% increase in their base salary."

At this announcement, the veteran staff members burst into cheers and jubilation.

The new staff who didn’t meet the criteria for a raise could only watch the old staff members with envious faces.

When they heard Shen Mingzhu say that they would also receive a salary increase after completing a year of service, their faces lit up with excitement and anticipation.

After the meeting, Shen Mingzhu called Shen Xiangnan and Julie aside for a chat.

She first commended their work and then discussed plans for opening branch locations before finally speaking about their compensation.

The two were in charge of the kitchen and the dining area, respectively, and were her right-hand men.

In terms of remuneration, they were treated equally, each receiving a base salary of one hundred twenty, plus a ten percent profit share.

This ten percent profit share was not just from this restaurant but would include the total profits from all future branches.

...

After the Mid-Autumn Festival, Jia Yuemei came to the city with Erya and rented a place near the restaurant to settle down.

Unable to share a bed during pregnancy, and with the restaurant full of young and attractive female waitresses, she worried Shen Xiangnan wouldn’t be able to control himself, so she decided to keep an eye on him.

That evening, as soon as Shen Xiangnan walked through the door, Jia Yuemei immediately asked about his salary increase.

"So how much did your sister raise your salary by?"

Shen Xiangnan held up two fingers.

"Only twenty? How stingy can your sister be? You’ve worked your butt off for a year, and she only raises it by twenty yuan!"

Seeing Jia Yuemei’s disdainful look towards the twenty yuan, Shen Xiangnan’s expression fell immediately.