Liang Er certainly did not disappoint her. Standing on a stool with his lame leg, he shouted at the top of his lungs: “Nutritional porridge is on sale! Five wen a bowl! Only five wen a bowl! Just for today, you’ll regret it for life if you miss it!”
Hearing his words, Su Zhen suddenly recalled the sales pitches she had heard in her past life, like “jump-off-the-building clearance sale” or “the boss ran off with his sister-in-law, factory bankrupt, everything must go!”
However, five wen for a bowl of porridge was unacceptable not only to Su Zhen but even to Liang Er’s wife, Zhu Mei.
She cautiously tugged at her husband’s sleeve: “Husband, five wen won’t work—we’ll lose money. Stop shouting, quick.”
Liang Er was already fuming with rage at Su Zhen; how could he care about costs now?
He kicked Zhu Mei away: “Stupid woman! What do you know? She’s deliberately challenging me! If I back down today, tomorrow she’ll be riding on my neck and shitting on me!”
No, he couldn’t admit defeat, and he certainly couldn’t back down. Even if it meant losing money, he had to win the customers back!
On one side was the “buy one, get one free” nutritional porridge, with a minimum price of ten wen per bowl, and on the other was Liang Er’s porridge at five wen a bowl. Many thrifty commoners flocked to Liang Er’s stall, buying two or three bowls at a time.
Liang Er beamed with delight, his face glowing red, while Zhu Mei shed tears of heartache—this was all money, and they were losing one wen for every bowl sold!
Su Zhen, of course, would not tolerate such unfair competition driven by malicious price-cutting.
She sneered and remarked, seemingly offhand but with clear intent: “Tsk tsk, I’ve heard some unscrupulous merchants will do anything to make money, using the cheapest ingredients, even old, stale rice. How could porridge made from that taste good?”
Su Anyu immediately nodded in agreement: “Exactly! Just now, an old lady complained to me that his porridge was watery and thin. After finishing a bowl, you could hardly find any rice grains. Not like our porridge—full of ingredients, generous portions. One bowl is as filling as two, and it’s absolutely delicious!”
The speaker had a purpose, and the listeners were even more attentive. The customers across the way quickly inspected the porridge in their bowls. Liang Er had a trick when serving porridge: he would stir it first, making the broth appear thick, but in reality, there were very few rice grains.
By the time the porridge settled and the broth became clear, the customers were long gone. Who would bother to come back and argue?
But even if someone did confront him, Liang Er wasn’t afraid. After all, the customer had carried the bowl away for so long—who knew if they had secretly eaten some along the way? Plus, the porridge left at the bottom of the pot was thick, giving him even more to say.
However, this trick didn’t work this time because Su Zhen had exposed it, and the porridge stall became lively again.
“Hey? My bowl of porridge looks thick, but why is there so little in it when I scoop it? A whole bowl of porridge, and there aren’t even ten peanuts!”
“At least you have peanuts in yours—I can’t even find a peanut skin in mine! And the rice grains are broken!”
“That’s strange. I bought porridge from him yesterday too, and it wasn’t broken rice! Boss, what’s going on?”
“What else could it be? He’s just fooling people! No wonder it’s only five wen a bowl. Look at the ten-wen porridge over there—that’s the real deal. One bowl of theirs has more ingredients than ten of his!”
“Refund! I don’t want it anymore, you cheat!”
“Refund! Refund!”
The eyes of the common people are sharp. As the saying goes, without comparison, there’s no way to tell good from bad. Liang Er’s porridge was already far inferior to Su Zhen’s in taste, and now, with his attempts to shortchange customers, his business was bound to fail.
Liang Er’s stall was immediately surrounded by an angry crowd. People held up their porridge bowls, shouting “Refund!” in unison, making Liang Er flush with rage, his face red and neck thick.
If he hadn’t been beaten for no reason yesterday, he wouldn’t have thought of gambling at the betting house, wouldn’t have lost all the money he’d just earned, and wouldn’t have been left without enough capital to buy ingredients.
His mind filled with the anger and curses of the people, Liang Er grew increasingly irritable. In a fit of rage, he grabbed a wooden stool at his feet and smashed it onto his own porridge stall: “Get lost, all of you! I have no money, but I’ve got my life to spare!”
The porridge stall overturned, jars fell, and unsold porridge spilled all over the ground, creating a mess.
The furious crowd was stunned by Liang Er’s bloodshot eyes and reckless actions, deciding it wasn’t worth getting beaten over five coins.
A young woman threw her bowl and porridge to the ground before turning away: “Pah! I don’t want it anymore. Consider those five coins fed to a dog!”
Another person poured their porridge onto the messy stall: “What a disgrace! I should’ve gone to the opposite side to buy. Spending money only to end up with a bellyful of anger!”
One led to another, and everyone followed suit—some poured out their porridge, others smashed their bowls along with it, spitting and cursing Liang Er and Zhu Mei for their black-hearted, shameless greed.
Zhu Mei held back tears as she cleaned up the filth on the ground, while Liang Er watched his former customers all flock to the opposite side. Overwhelmed by malice, he grabbed the wooden stool, leaped up, and hurled it toward Su Zhen’s porridge stall.
The danger struck suddenly. Even though Su Zhen had been keeping an eye on Liang Er, she hadn’t anticipated such a turn of events.
“Watch out! Everyone, scatter!”
Su Zhen grabbed a little girl nearby, shielding the child’s head with her own body and using herself as a barrier, completely disregarding her own porridge stall.
People looked up in terror at the wooden stool flying through the air, but it was too late to dodge.
At the critical moment, the crack of a whip sliced through the air, its black tail coiling around the stool like a nimble snake.
With a swift flick, the whip flung the stool away, and it landed with a dull thud on an empty patch of ground not far away.
Su Zhen, still shielding the little girl, quickly scanned the crowd and spotted a black carriage. The carriage curtain fluttered slightly, obscuring the figure inside.
The one who had intervened was the carriage driver—a young man wearing a tilted cap, looking no older than seventeen or eighteen, who was now retracting his whip.
Whether it was Su Zhen’s imagination or not, she felt the young man was squinting, a smirk curling at the corner of his mouth, as he stared intently at her…
Or rather, at the porridge in front of her!
Someone inside the carriage seemed to say something, and the young man pouted reluctantly before withdrawing his gaze and driving the carriage away.
Su Zhen blinked, sensing instinctively that she would cross paths with this person again in the future.
“Miss, thank you so much! Thank you, thank you!”
The little girl’s mother, still shaken, hugged her child tightly as she expressed her gratitude to Su Zhen.
Su Zhen smiled faintly, but when she looked up again, the warmth in her eyes had turned to icy frost, as if she wished she could freeze the culprit to death.
She had indeed gone too easy on him yesterday, allowing him to still have the strength to harm others!
“A Yu!”
At her cold command, Su Anyu understood his sister’s instruction. Cracking his knuckles, he strode step by step toward Liang Er.
Not just him—anyone with eyes could see that Liang Er had just attempted to harm others. They all followed behind Su Anyu, surrounding Liang Er menacingly until he was completely trapped.
Thud!
Ouch!
The sounds of fists and cries of pain rose and fell in succession. Everyone’s punches and kicks landed on Liang Er, making it impossible to tell who threw which punch or who landed which kick.
“Stop hitting him, it hurts too much!” Su Anyu shouted, landing another punch on Liang Er’s face.
“Ouch, his face is all swollen! Someone stop him!”
Despite his words to “stop,” Su Anyu’s hands showed no hesitation.
Zhu Mei cried and pleaded, “Stop hitting him, please stop! I beg you! If you must, report this to the authorities!”
When everyone finally stopped, Liang Er lay curled on the ground like a shrimp, muttering softly, “Su Zhen, just you wait. I’ll make you pay for this!”