9
Of Course, I Have to Make Another Buck: A Side Job
The groom made a huge fool of himself today – he was completely stunned by the bride’s beauty.
This is the new society now. The couple had been dating for nearly a year before marriage, observing all the traditional gift-giving ceremonies during festivals over three years. This wasn’t like the old society where the groom would see the bride for the first time only when lifting the red wedding veil. Yet the groom still managed to be dumbstruck.
Oh my, he must be completely head over heels from getting married.
When the bride’s relatives blocked the door, he kept handing out red packets one after another. Even if each packet only contained fifty cents, giving out so many still meant he spent a fortune.
However, the bride’s friends had their own comments. Goodness, where did they find this bridal attendant? She made the bride so beautiful she was almost unrecognizable. No wonder the groom was stunned.
Of course, more people teased the groom about marrying such a beautiful wife, reminding him to treat her well. Otherwise, if she got angry and ran away, there would be plenty of other men wanting to marry such a lovely bride.
Wang Xiao smiled as she listened to all the conversations. Good, this at least proved that her makeup skills were recognized by people in Zhou Town.
After all, aesthetic standards have strong temporal limitations. When she was young, the “Smart” style was popular, like in “The Magicians of Love.” Looking back at it now made her want to poke her eyes out. She wasn’t worried about her makeup skills, only that they might not align with current trends.
Xiuyun came over and tugged at Wang Xiao’s sleeve, whispering: “Um, Wang Xiao, could you take me to Xiahe Village? I’ll return the clothes to you afterward.”
According to tradition, the bride should return to her parents’ home three days after the wedding, so she couldn’t go back to Qianjia Village before that.
Wang Xiao nodded and asked: “When are you leaving?”
“Twelve o’clock.”
In Zhou Town’s wedding customs, the groom picks up the bride in the morning and has lunch with her at her family’s home, where most of the bride’s relatives are entertained. After lunch, the groom takes the bride away, and the groom’s family holds the wedding banquet in the evening – after all, weddings are ceremonies of dusk.
Wang Xiao checked the time and nodded: “Okay, I’ll go home first and come back for lunch.”
She rushed home to prepare Braised Chicken Feet. She wanted to make a pot of braised food before leaving.
Wang Xiao only brought the braised food to a boil in the pot, then added wood to let it simmer slowly. After making braised food for so many days, she had gained enough experience to know that branches of this size would last about forty minutes of simmering. Perfect timing – she could finish lunch, come home to take the pot off the heat, then pack everything into an aluminum pot. She would use a straw container to keep the aluminum pot warm and carry it directly to Xiuyun’s house.
Why bring it there?
To sell it, of course.
Since she was going to Xiahe Village anyway, she had to seize the opportunity to do business. Otherwise, wasting the whole afternoon and only returning home after dinner would frustrate her to death.
In 1990, sedans were rare even in the provincial capital, let alone Zhou Town. The most common transportation on the streets now was bicycles, and using a bicycle to pick up the bride wasn’t considered shameful at all.
She heard that in poorer areas, some people even carried the dowry in one basket and had the bride sit in another basket, carrying both on a shoulder pole directly to the groom’s house.
However, since dowry items like sewing machines needed to be transported by tractor, Wang Xiao and several other bridesmaids didn’t ride bicycles but took the tractor to Xiahe Village instead.
The girls were extremely curious, gathering around the straw container and asking: “What did you bring this for?”
Wang Xiao had always been meticulous in her lies, and now she could continue spouting nonsense with a straight face: “I’m conducting research on the township’s economic conditions. I made some braised food to sell in Xiahe Village. By analyzing sales, I can assess everyone’s purchasing power and indirectly reflect the township’s economic development.”
If her old friends had heard such nonsense, they would have rolled their eyes sky-high. Shameless creature—if you want to make money, just say so. Why pretend to be some high-and-mighty researcher?
But this tactic worked well in Zhou Town, where her college student status gave her credibility.
The young women exchanged glances. Earlier, when she claimed that charging for makeup services was a form of economic research, they hadn’t fully understood. The lofty terms she used were simply too impressive, overwhelming these simple girls who had mostly started working in factories after junior high.
After arriving in Xiahe Village, they didn’t even bother exploring the groom’s house. Instead, they gathered at the entrance to help Wang Xiao with her business.
Research! Conducted by a professor from the provincial university! So impressive! By participating, they were contributing to this grand survey.
The enthusiastic girls even offered suggestions: “Why don’t we push a bicycle through the village and announce the sale? That way, everyone will hear about it and come buy.”
Wang Xiao shook her head with a smile. “No need. With the wedding festivities, there will be plenty of spectators. Those who want to buy can take some home.”
“But people are here for the banquet—why would they need extra food?” one girl blurted out before catching herself. Wait, weddings and funerals are different.
At a funeral, the whole village would gather for the tofu banquet, and no one would cook at home.
But weddings are smaller. While almost everyone from the village shows up, only close relatives stay for the meal. The rest just watch the excitement, maybe grab some melon seeds, receive a handful of wedding candies for luck, and then head home to cook.
Sure enough, as the saying goes, “At eighteen, no girl is plain.” Their group of young women gathered at the entrance drew many glances. The sight of a steaming aluminum pot prompted curious noses to ask, “What’s this?”
Wang Xiao promptly trotted out her research spiel again, emphasizing that this was a secret recipe from a century-old provincial city establishment.
This stirred a sense of collective pride in many listeners, who immediately turned home to fetch bowls and buy braised food. They couldn’t let the provincial professor think Zhou Town was too poor to afford anything!
Wang Xiao quickly clarified, “No, no, only buy if you genuinely want to eat it. This has to reflect real market demand.”
Someone nearby joked, “Exactly! Don’t buy blindly. Otherwise, the higher-ups will think Zhou Town is rolling in money and stop giving us subsidies, just taxing us instead.”
This frightened several potential buyers into hesitating, afraid of causing trouble for the town.
Wang Xiao gritted her teeth inwardly but kept her smile intact. “But if we pretend to be too poor to buy anything, it might lead to the false conclusion that Zhou Town’s collective factories are failing and not worth investing in.”
Oh no, that wouldn’t do. Even farmers who’d never been to the county seat had heard of “investment attraction.” Only with investors setting up factories could they find jobs and earn money.
The would-be buyers hurried home again, this time for bowls and cash.
When Chen Yidong came to pick her up that evening, Wang Xiao had not only sold out the entire steel pot of braised food (Xiuyun’s husband’s family had also bought some to add to the banquet), but she had also taken on her third job of the day: serving as the wedding emcee.
To be honest, this wasn’t Wang Xiao’s original intention at all.
She was simply astonished to discover that Xiuyun’s wedding had no formal ceremony. A group of relatives and friends had gathered to chat idly all afternoon, and when the banquet began in the evening, the newlyweds simply came out to toast the guests before it was all over.
How perfunctory!
Unable to hold back, and relying on her past experience as a part-time wedding emcee—thanks to her fair skin, good looks, and long legs—she volunteered to help liven up the atmosphere.
She swore she hadn’t gone overboard. She simply followed the standard wedding procedures she knew by heart, without any fancy tricks, yet it was enough to amaze the people of Zhou Town, who were accustomed to plain and simple affairs. The relatives and friends at the banquet clapped and cheered enthusiastically. By the end, she was so energized that she even offered to sing “The Moon Represents My Heart” as a bonus.
When she finally stepped down, some people clamored for an encore.
Of course, Wang Xiao didn’t return to the stage. An emcee shouldn’t steal the spotlight from the hosts.
The villagers of Xiahe Village recognized Chen Yidong and greeted him with laughter: “Good heavens, your niece is something else! They teach so much at university—she’s truly versatile and can handle anything.”
As her uncle, he was completely dumbfounded. In his memory, his niece was quiet and reserved. He’d even heard she didn’t socialize much at university. Who would have thought she could now perform like a TV host?
For a moment, he even wondered if Wang Xiao had been overstimulated by the wedding, which explained her unusually excited state.
He hurried to take her away: “It’s getting late, Xiao Xiao. Let’s go, let’s head home.”
He was afraid that in the next second, her overexcitement might lead to some wild outburst.
The groom’s mother quickly came over and stuffed a red envelope into Wang Xiao’s hand: “Take it, dear. Thank you so much for today.”
In the village, when organizing funerals, the host family would give cigarettes and pork as tokens of gratitude to the master of ceremonies. Today, this girl had voluntarily stepped up and done half the work of a master of ceremonies, bringing great honor to their family. They definitely had to give her a thank-you gift.
Wang Xiao didn’t stand on ceremony. Smiling, she thanked her: “Then I’ll take some of your family’s joy as my own.”
When she went to the room to say goodbye to the bride, Xiuyun had already changed out of her red sweater. She thanked Wang Xiao repeatedly and gave her another red envelope as a wedding gift.
Again, Wang Xiao didn’t engage in the customary back-and-forth refusal. After all, she had provided skilled services all day, and it was only right to pocket the money. She offered a few more auspicious words, then cheerfully climbed onto the back seat of her uncle’s bicycle and rode home with him.
Wow, not bad! Both red envelopes were quite generous. One contained a 10-yuan bill, and the other held 5 yuan. Combined with the door-blocking red envelope she’d snatched earlier, she had made a solid 20 yuan just from wedding gifts alone.
Additionally, she had earned 18.7 yuan from selling braised food in Xiahe Village that day. After deducting costs, she had made a clear 30 yuan for the day.
Wang Xiao whistled happily and urged her uncle: “Hurry, hurry! Let’s check if the supply and marketing cooperative is still open. If it’s not closed, I need to restock.”
Chen Yidong was still in a daze and asked instinctively, “What are you planning to buy?”
“Needles, thread, and things like kerosene—items the village shops don’t sell, things ordinary people can only get at the supply and marketing cooperative.”
That morning’s casual chat with the girls hadn’t been for nothing. She discovered that although bicycles weren’t rare in Zhou Town anymore, their users were mainly concentrated among the younger generation who used them for commuting. There were plenty of people in their forties and fifties who couldn’t ride bicycles. This group often bore the responsibilities of taking care of grandchildren at home, working in the fields, and raising chickens, ducks, and pigs. Finding time to go to town to buy what they wanted was actually quite difficult.
They could ask their children for help, having them go to town to buy things for them. But an important manifestation of Chinese family relationships in rural society is that elders aren’t accustomed to asking favors from their younger generations. They’d rather wait for occasional peddlers to come to the village to sell goods or find ways to make the trip to town on foot to buy from the supply and marketing cooperative.
After hearing this, Wang Xiao didn’t have time to lament the peculiarities of parent-child relationships. She only focused on the key point: identifying business opportunities.
Since villagers needed goods from the supply and marketing cooperative but found it inconvenient to go buy them themselves, she could simply deliver the goods to the village. She wouldn’t look down on small business opportunities, as it was just a side task anyway.
Her first real pot of gold had been earned through Sam’s Club purchasing services. Starting with charging extra for home delivery, she later shifted to free purchasing services, making money through membership rewards. At her peak, she steadily supplied over twenty supermarkets in prefecture-level cities around the provincial capital, earning six figures monthly through reward points. Within two years, she happily acquired a large apartment in the provincial capital, and didn’t feel much regret even when property values later depreciated.
Now, she was merely replicating the Sam’s Club purchasing business model.
When Chen Yidong heard she also planned to make money selling needles, thread, and other small items, he was completely stunned.
Had his niece been overstimulated? How many revenue streams did she plan to generate from attending one wedding? Even Nezha from “Investiture of the Gods” with his three heads and six arms wouldn’t be enough for her ambitions.