SWG Chapter 60

Chapter 60

Ruan Shengyi rushed down in the next elevator, only to find the other woman standing at the entrance with her arms crossed, answering a call. Seeing her arrive, Xiao Wenyu merely raised her chin slightly, signaling her to wait a moment.

“Yes?”

Ruan Shengyi saw Xiao Wenyu frowning slightly as she listened, her tone becoming noticeably cooler, her voice deepening, “Could you be more specific?”

On the other end of the line, Zhuge Jing’s voice was gentle and refined, “I have fulfilled my obligations, Ms. Xiao. I truly admire you, it’s a pity we don’t have the opportunity to work together.”

Xiao Wenyu: “Whether or not that opportunity exists depends on your word alone. I hope to receive your consent soon.”

“Good luck.”

“Thank you.”

Xiao Wenyu ended the call, shoved the phone into her pocket, and after taking a slow, deep breath, finally looked up, “It was a business call.”

“Really?” Ruan Shengyi noticed her slightly worried expression. “It doesn’t sound very pleasant.”

“No, it isn’t.” Xiao Wenyu responded softly, turning away, her expression becoming much more somber.

“They canceled the order?”

“Mm.” Xiao Wenyu ruffled her hair, using her fingers as a comb to smooth it back, before hooking her arm around Ruan Shengyi’s and gently patting it. “No morning kisses anymore.”

The mark on her neck was the result of this woman insisting on clinging to her this morning. At that time, she had carefully applied concealer, but with a morning of rushing around, taking clothes on and off, even the most perfect concealer would get rubbed off.

After all, if you don’t want people to know, the best way is not to do it in the first place.

As soon as these words left her mouth, the other woman became noticeably displeased, leaning closer, “I won’t kiss you there next time.”

“No means no.” Xiao Wenyu said in a cold voice, taking a few quick steps. “Let’s go home.”

She was almost at her limit and couldn’t hold on much longer.

Zhuge Jing calling her at this time with what amounted to a warning call was undoubtedly making her anxious, unsure of where to turn or how to respond.

Besides, why would Zhuge Jing contact her first? If Lin Simu wanted to drag her down, why would she let Zhuge Jing get the jump on her to notify her…

Suddenly, her arm was tugged, and Xiao Wenyu was pulled back to reality, already held in the arms of the person behind her. “Watch where you’re going! You’re on the side of the road!” Ruan Shengyi’s voice sounded a little uneasy.

Xiao Wenyu gently placed her hand on her arm, lowered her eyes, staring at the inexplicably placed hole in front of her, spaced out for a moment, and then remained silent, only then softly responding with an ‘okay’.

She thought, no matter what, she couldn’t let the already tired and overworked Ruan Shengyi be dragged into the depths of this matter any further.

Ruan Shengyi assumed she was preoccupied with something, hugged her for a moment to calm her down, before turning to face her, asking with concern, “What’s wrong? Did the doctor say something to you just now?”

Xiao Wenyu shook her head. “No, I’ve just been running around, I’m a little tired.”

Knowing she wouldn’t get anything out of her, Ruan Shengyi took a breath, “Then should we go back to the hotel first, or go straight back to Chuncheng?”

Xiao Wenyu looked up at her, her limpid eyes tender and full of spring, and after a moment, leaned into her embrace. “I want to go home.”

Ruan Shengyi hugged her and calmed her down for a while, until those palpitations subsided, and then said gently, “Anyway, I’m here. If there’s anything I can help with, okay?”

“Don’t worry.” Xiao Wenyu patted her arm. “Everything’s fine, I’m fine.”

With you by my side, those problems will always be solved, right?

*

A few days later, as Ruan Shengyi slung her bag over her shoulder and opened the door, she turned her head to look at the shops on either side of hers, a habitual action that brought her some unexpected joy today.

The auntie from the cake shop next door was putting up a “For Transfer” sign.

“Aunt Zhang, are you transferring this place?” Ruan Shengyi asked, one hand in her pocket, walking over and tilting her head to inquire.

This place was close to the high school, and the shop was an old bakery that had been in business for many years. Back then, the commercial street hadn’t even been built yet, and there were only two rows of small shops here. This bakery had already been here, mainly selling old-fashioned bread and pastries, safe, hygienic, and healthy. So, this shop was well-known, students liked to come, and the school would also order some goods here to put in the school’s small supermarket.

Aunt Zhang patted her back, and when she saw that it was Ruan Shengyi, her smile almost squeezed her eyes together. “Little Ruan, long time no see, your hair is even prettier now.”

Ruan Shengyi touched her neck, a little shy.

Aunt Zhang knew this person didn’t like to talk much, so she didn’t force her, smiling as she continued, “Yes, I’m transferring it. I can’t do it anymore. My daughter has a stable foothold in Beishi, and I’m going to live with her.”

“What about Sister Wang?”

Sister Wang was the other soul core of this cake shop – the cook.

Aunt Zhang had been unable to do the kitchen work for several years, and had hired someone, teaching her hands-on. From then on, Aunt Zhang was responsible for sitting in the shop, while the other person was responsible for making and displaying the goods. When there was enough stock or not many cake orders, she could just rest at home.

Aunt Zhang sighed. “Little Wang is also a pitiful person, her health isn’t good, and she still has to rent a house to live in here. When I couldn’t do it anymore, I originally wanted to rent it to her, but she didn’t have the money to pay the rent! Alas…”

Ruan Shengyi rolled her eyes, her fingers stroking her knuckles, and started calculating in her mind.

Aunt Zhang continued, “Little Wang only has this skill. I thought I’d let her keep working until the shop is transferred, so she has something to do every day, right? Later, I’ll go to Beishi and see if there’s anything suitable for her, and introduce her!”

Ruan Shengyi: “If it’s Beishi, can Sister Wang afford the rent?”

Aunt Zhang shook her head without a word, and could only let out another long sigh.

She didn’t dwell on this matter any longer, saying freely, “Your Sister Wang has recently seen that the little flower basket cake is popular online again, and she’s been researching it these past few days. Come and take a few to try, bring a couple to the young people in your shop, and bring a few to the one across the street…”

As she spoke, Aunt Zhang grabbed Ruan Shengyi’s arm and was about to go inside. Ruan Shengyi didn’t want to break free from her hand, so she had to follow her inside, watching her open the refrigerator and rattle off a little more than half a bag of little flower basket cakes to her, saying, “Don’t worry, this is all fresh cream, your Sister Wang just made it less than ten minutes ago.”

Ruan Shengyi lowered her eyes, hooked her fingers, and said softly, “Thank you, Aunt Zhang.”

The enthusiasm of neighbors is always like this, unexpectedly giving you a half plastic bag of delicious food, after all, it doesn’t cost much money, and the money spent on each other on weekdays can almost earn back the cost.

Greed can’t achieve great things, this is the most basic and simple example.

But the enthusiasm between neighbors won’t stop there either. Ruan Shengyi was about to sling her bag and leave when Aunt Zhang slipped a few steps to catch up, grabbing her arm and stopping her.

Ruan Shengyi: “…What’s wrong?” Has she already seen through her thoughts?

Aunt Zhang looked around, made sure no one was around, and then leaned closer to her, whispering, “Last week, you weren’t here…”

Ruan Shengyi’s heart jumped. Was she going to report her shop? But she could see the revenue, and there was nothing wrong with the income.

“That pretty owner across the street wasn’t here either. Did you two go out together? Hmm?”

Ruan Shengyi’s eyebrows twitched, and she froze on the spot.

Why, did it suddenly turn to this topic.

Aunt Zhang: “I heard you two even drive back and forth together, do you two live together? Or, is a happy event coming soon, hmm?”

Sure enough, no matter what age people reach, what their mentality is, how much energy they have, they can’t help but care so much about other people’s gossip.

Seeing her gossip to the extreme, Ruan Shengyi inexplicably felt that she should get her a handful of melon seeds, preferably looking at her with her eyes hooked, but constantly eating the melon seeds in her hand, looking like she was determined to hear all the gossip.

Alas…

This is also not so good about being neighbors.

*

“Cough cough cough.”

The person who was eating the little cake choked on a bite upon hearing this, patting her chest and rubbing her eyebrows. “Aunt Zhang asked that directly?”

Ruan Shengyi was calculating the accounts, and nodded softly when she heard this, “Really.”

Xiao Wenyu looked down at the little cake, and suddenly felt that the cake wasn’t so fragrant anymore. She loosely raised her hand and threw the fork into it, watching it shake on the cake base, and then steadily settled, feeling a little better.

She propped up her chin and looked at Ruan Shengyi. “What did you answer?”

Almost at the same time, Ruan Shengyi opened her mouth: “I want to take over Aunt Zhang’s shop.”

“…”

Xiao Wenyu frowned. “Do you have enough cash flow? What are you going to do with it?”

“It’s been difficult to do business these past two years, and a lot of old shops have closed down. Why are you always thinking about expanding?”

Ruan Shengyi tapped her pen. “I don’t spend too much money myself, so my cash flow is okay, pretty ample. It’s okay to take over that shop.”

“Because it’s hard for new stores to survive, that’s why you have to inherit the reputation of old stores. And although my job is in pretty good condition now, it definitely won’t last long, but I don’t want to change it in the short term, so the best way out is to open another one.”

Xiao Wenyu rubbed her eyebrows and pulled out a chair. “This is too big of a deal, think about it again. Besides, Chuncheng is only so big, with a population of a few hundred thousand. Your input and output aren’t enough at all. I mean, why don’t you consider developing in Beishi? There’s a new shopping mall in Beishi recently, I think that’s better.”

“The rent for that shopping mall is about the same as Aunt Zhang’s transfer price, and I have to consider the decoration from scratch, consider what to do, and need to invest a lot of publicity, not just online, but also offline advertising. Now water, electricity, and rent aren’t difficult, but this publicity is really too expensive.”

Although they had a ready-made team to shoot publicity pictures here, the subsequent online and offline traffic costs were difficult to calculate. This set of costs would not be less than 300,000, in that case her cash flow would be a little dangerous.

Xiao Wenyu was stunned. “Aunt Zhang is selling so cheap and so fast? This good of a location, selling for only 100,000?”

More than two years ago, when the new commercial street had just been built and the school had just moved here, she had spent nearly 1,500,000 to buy this location. 100,000, that’s really unimaginable.

However, since it’s only 100,000…

Xiao Wenyu propped up her chin, lost in thought.

It doesn’t seem too bad.

Ruan Shengyi pushed the paper she calculated over, and said in a deep voice, “Besides, if we can keep Sister Wang and hire a resident shop manager and an apprentice, then there’s actually no need to do basic publicity. If we can talk to Aunt Zhang, we might be able to keep the school’s stable business.”

Xiao Wenyu smiled embarrassedly. “Why are we both thinking about the school.”

Ruan Shengyi raised her lips. “After all, there must be breakthroughs, but there must also be stability.”

She continued, “And I want to expand the store’s business, like delivery.”

Xiao Wenyu: “But delivery… okay, it’s said that they’re going to build an expressway, I think expanding it is also possible.”

“Yes, that time you were popular before, you chose to let go of that heat yourself, but if you can get it again this time, I…”

Xiao Wenyu tilted her head to look at her, frowned slightly, and gently covered her hand. “Let’s forget about this, no need.”

Ruan Shengyi held her hand back, and said in a deep voice, “It’s okay, just leave it to me to handle.”