The Stepmother's Counterattack: Raising a Child in a Bygone Era-Chapter 454 - 453: Making Money, Making a Lot of Money

Ma Chao’s words made Shen Hongmei somewhat cool off.

For this self-study exam, she had been preparing for a full year, working during the day and studying at night. Even during her days off, she rarely went out, instead choosing to concentrate on her studies in the dormitory.

You, Ma Chao, can have dreams, but don’t I deserve to have them too?

Seeing her displeasure, Ma Chao subconsciously explained, "Hongmei, I can understand your desire to improve yourself, but the self-study exam really isn’t as easy as you think. Even with a high school diploma like mine, it’s very difficult. Your education only goes up to junior high, and your hopes are even more slender. You’re not young anymore, and it really isn’t necessary to waste your time and energy on this."

If it were not for the bond of childhood friendship, Shen Hongmei would have turned her back on him right then and there.

"I don’t think I’m wasting my time. Knowledge is, after all, learned into my brain. Even if I don’t have a diploma, I can still be a cultured person."

Seeing that she was angry, Ma Chao said again, "I didn’t mean to look down on you. I—have I heard that you haven’t married yet because of me?"

"No."

Shen Hongmei answered decisively, but to Ma Chao, it sounded like she was trying to cover something up.

The two were childhood sweethearts, and he knew Shen Hongmei was a woman who valued her feelings.

Besides, the two once had a child...

Thinking of this, Ma Chao steeled himself, "I did you wrong in the past, but there’s no possibility for us now. You need to look forward and find a place for yourself. You’re not getting any younger."

Shen Hongmei was somewhat infuriated.

It was bad enough that outsiders gossiped about her behind her back, but what right did a thankless scumbag like you have?

The person who wronged her the most in this world was none other than you!

"Ma Chao, you’re overthinking it. I’m not unmarried because I’m pining for you, but because I don’t need a man to get by."

"I earn my own living by working. My salary is over a hundred a month. After giving some to my family, I still have quite a bit left over. I can eat whatever I want, buy whatever I want. My life is comfortable and satisfying. What’s wrong with that?"

Ma Chao was both shocked and envious.

Shocked at Shen Hongmei’s progressive thinking, and envious of her high income.

After failing the college entrance exam, he was a substitute math teacher at an elementary school in the city. It sounded glamorous but his monthly income was less than thirty yuan.

His wife worked at the Civil Affairs Bureau and her salary was not high either. Combined, the two barely made ends meet each month.

Shen Hongmei, a junior high school graduate from the countryside, actually earned more in a month than both of them, who had high school educations.

Ma Chao couldn’t quite name the taste in his heart, "Hongmei, you can’t only focus on immediate benefits as a person. You have to make long-term plans, think about your future. Are you going to spend your life with money?"

"Why not? After all, I think life with money is quite nice. I might be an old maid, but it’s not that I can’t get married; I just don’t want to. Matchmakers who have come to propose marriage have nearly broken the threshold of my house. If I wanted to get married, there are plenty of young and handsome men for me to choose from."

Ma Chao was speechless, "You’ve changed a lot. You’re different from before."

"I was naive before, believing whatever anyone said. Now I only believe in myself."

Ma Chao had nothing to say.

...

In the car.

Shen Mingzhu looked at Shen Hongmei, who was puffing up with anger, and her curiosity piqued, "Seeing you so angry, it seems my concern was unnecessary."

Shen Hongmei said, "Although he has wronged me, his temper is still good, and he won’t do anything to me."

"That’s not what I’m worried about."

It took Shen Hongmei two seconds to realize, "That’s impossible. When we didn’t see each other, I sometimes reminisced about the old times. Now that I’ve seen him today, I’ve put it all behind me. I think he’s just so-so."

"As long as you can keep a clear head, I’m relieved. Otherwise, even if you two rekindled old feelings, I’d have to snuff them out for you."

Shen Hongmei let out a laugh, her frustrations dissipating with it.

The people and events of the past, let them go with the wind.

Now, she only wanted to make money, lots and lots of money.

...

As the end of the year approached, Pei Yang’s thirtieth birthday arrived.

Shen Mingzhu generously booked the entire Ginkgo Building for her man’s birthday celebration.

Aside from relatives and friends from both the Pei and Shen families, many new and old clients of the food factory came. Shen Mingzhu, along with Shen Hongmei, Pei Qiuxia, and Pei Wenping, took care of receiving the female guests, while Pei Yang had Chen Yi, Chen Liang, and Chen Cheng, among others, to help on his side.

After Chen Yi moved to Shanghai City for his career, he would return home for the Spring Festival only around the twenty-seventh or twenty-eighth of the last lunar month every year, and then head back to Shanghai City soon after the holiday was over.

This year, on account of Pei Yang’s birthday party, he specially came back half a month earlier.

In the two years since Chen Yi went to Shanghai City, he had changed quite a bit.

To put it simply, he became even more charming.

He was dressed in a neatly tailored gray-brown suit, his hair groomed clean and tidy, losing some of his scholarly elegance yet gaining maturity, stability, and restraint.

Even Shen Mingzhu couldn’t help but take a few extra glances.

After all, who doesn’t like a handsome uncle~

"Wenping, Big Brother Chen is getting more and more handsome, living alone in Shanghai City, aren’t you worried at all?"

Shen Hongmei, who was unaware of the underlying circumstances, teasingly said to Pei Wenping with a giggly smile.

"There’s nothing to worry about."

Shen Hongmei was about to say something more but was sent off by Shen Mingzhu to make tea.

Seizing the moment when Pei Qiuxia went to the restroom, Shen Mingzhu also whispered to Pei Wenping, "Is everything still the same with you and your brother-in-law?"

Pei Wenping gave her a glance, "What else could it be?"

Shen Mingzhu thought for a moment and swallowed the words she wanted to say in Chen Yi’s defense.

Certainly, Chen Yi had the sincerity to mend old ties, but some wounds aren’t things she, an outsider, could heal with a few words.

Putting herself in those shoes, if one day Pei Yang cheated, she would definitely not forgive him either.

...

"Look at that, the Pei Family’s boy is really capable, huh? Just got married into the city and in a few years, they’ve made such a huge fortune, throwing such a lavish birthday celebration."

"I heard that each table at today’s feast costs 188, and that doesn’t even include drinks, so all in all, it could be around four or five thousand?"

"We work ourselves to death all year and barely make a thousand, but they spend several thousand on just one meal, there’s really no comparing with people, it’s maddening."

"Four or five thousand is nothing, a month? They earn it back in no time."

"Really? They can make four or five thousand in a month?"

"That’s the least of it! Just in the three months around last Mid-Autumn Festival, they made tens of thousands."

"Hiss!"

"Pei Yang is really lucky to have found such a beautiful and capable wife, the old couple of the Pei Family would probably be grinning in their graves."

Shen Baolan, cradling her son, listened to everyone’s discussion and felt so bitterly envious inside that it was like bubbles rising in vinegar.

"A son living off his wife’s money, if the old couple were still alive, they would probably have no place to put their faces."

Someone retorted at her, "Shuhuan’s mom, your words are dripping with jealousy, just because Pei Yang’s family is more capable than you are, right?"

"Just accept it, you’re not as good as them. Even though they’ve made money, they haven’t forgotten their roots, donating here and there, sponsoring poor students to go to school, all of which are truly great deeds."

Shen Baolan stubbornly retorted, "She’s doing all this just to earn a good reputation."

"Then you too can try to earn a good reputation. As long as you’re willing to spend real money to do good deeds, people will remember your kindness just the same."

Unable to counter, Shen Baolan picked up her son and went elsewhere.

The group snickered behind her back.

...

In a corner of the ground-floor hall, Yu Jin’e was surrounded by a few people from Shenjiagou chatting away.

"Jin’e, your Hongmei is really making something of herself now, she’s become a manager at a food factory, earning bundles of cash every month, you and your family are set for a comfortable second half of your lives."

"Hongmei is capable, for sure, but she’s not getting any younger, and if she doesn’t marry soon, she’ll end up an old maid."

"What’s there to worry about? Mingzhu is the big boss now, how hard could it be for her to find a city son-in-law for Hongmei?"

"That’s true, ha! There are quite a few guests today who came in cars, among them might just be a wealthy son-in-law candidate."

Though the speaker meant little, the listener took much to heart.

Yu Jin’e, looking at the long line of various cars parked outside the hotel, had her eyes gleaming.