Chapter 102: Hiring Her Mother
This is today’s third and last TOTFCS update. Enjoy! ❤
Liu Man answered truthfully, “For storing products.”
“What kind of product is it?” The landlord had the right to know.
“Cat food.”
“Oh, so your work is related to Mr. Yu’s, you both work in the animal section! That’s good, that’s good.” The landlord Wang was glad; he didn’t want to rent the space to weird people.
So, he signed the contract with Liu Man in glee and even so kindly removed the deposit. But, Liu Man had to pay 3 months of rent in advance, which is forty two-thousand.
Liu Man hadn’t withdrawn the money from the shopping cart feature yet, so she only had thirty-thousand on her hand. She said, “Landlord Wang, is it all right for me to first pay you thirty-thousand, then repay you the rest of the money in two days?”
Landlord Wang glanced at Yu Zhan on the side and smiled, “Sure thing, Ms. Liu is Mr. Yu’s friend, so I trust that you’ll keep your promise. I’ll gather the employees to remove all the furniture tomorrow morning so it won’t interfere with storage. If you have any other requests, feel free to find me.”
“Can you leave a desk and four chairs?” Liu Man thought she could use them.
“That’s no problem. If you think that you need more, you can always tell me.”
Liu Man finally successfully rented her storage, but, in a matter of one afternoon, she had spent all her savings. In the next few days of selling the cat food, she still had to repay her debt.
But, the more urgent problem for Liu Man was, she didn’t have any employees in hand.
Liu Man was preparing to skip class the next day and go to agencies to see if she could find someone to hire. However, Yu Zhan had thought of every issue of hers,
“Don’t worry; your studies come first. I’ll solve the employee problem.”
Two days later, Yu Zhan called Liu Man during the evening to tell her he found two people willing to do this job.
Both were men around their 50s. One of the men was recommended by the nurse. He was a relative of hers and was coming to the capital in hopes of finding a job after the break. The other one was introduced by Boss Wang; he was originally a staff from his restaurant, but because they didn’t need so many employees, he was introduced to Yu Zhan.
These past few days, Zhang Pei, like Liu Man, also went out early in the morning and returned home late. She was trying to find a job.
Zhang Pei had been to college. Before she became a full-time housewife, she used to be an accountant. However, because she hadn’t been to work for twenty years, she had already forgotten all her skills. She was at such an old age, so she couldn’t seem to find a job.
Today, she met a very aloof human resources officer.
“People of your age, they don’t have much of a skillset. Why compete with the youngsters? I recommend you find a job in a restaurant, get some cleaning or dishwashing job or something. Or else, even if you do get in our company, the best you’ll get is a janitor.”
Is this “kind” advice, or malicious humiliation?
Zhang Pei was too tired to tell; she has been away from the workplace for too long, the outside world only felt strange and scary.
Is it true that her best chance is to be a janitor?
Liu Man returned home during the evenings to see Zhang Pei sitting silently on the sofa, her eyes numbly staring at the blank space in front of her. Liu Man walked closer and found out her eyes were red.
She was worried, “Mom, what’s wrong?”
Zhang Pei was pulled back to reality by her voice. Then, as if she had just realized her daughter’s presence, “When did you come back? How come I didn’t hear any noise?”
Liu Man saw the tears at the corners of Zhang Pei’s eyes. She wiped them away with the back of her hand and gently asked, “Mom, what happened?”
The soft and caring movements were the final breaking straw, Zhang Pei broke down in tears, “I’m useless! I can’t even find a job, earn a single cent, and we still have millions of debt to repay! What should I do? I’m a useless scum of society!”
“Who told you that you were useless? Who told you that you were a scum? You are my mother, you carried me for 10 months, you taught me to talk, and to walk. When dad was busy at work, it was you who came to pick me up. Every. Single. Day. It was you who started saving money for my piano career. You provided the best education for me. You are the best mom, the person who loves me the most in the whole world.”
Liu Man’s eyes reddened as well. The previous Liu Man’s childhood memories replayed like a movie, flipping frame by frame inside her mind. These memories tell her, Zhang Pei was a selfless mother and she gave up on her job to raise her daughter.
Liu Man realized that as her soul and Liu Man’s memories mix, she seemed to be having the same emotions as the past Liu Man, for example, the respect and gratefulness for Zhang Pei.
Zhang Pei hugged Liu Man. She kept on stroking Liu Man’s hair, kept on murmuring, “My Man Man, my Man Man……” She was still crying, her tears wetted Liu Man’s shoulders.
After a while, she released Liu Man and pulled out a few tissue-papers, and cleaned her face. She calmed down a bit and said to Liu Man, “These days, I’ve been looking for a job all over town, but society doesn’t treat housewives like me fairly.”
She didn’t expect Liu man to respond with, “You don’t have to go out and work; I just so happen to have something I want to tell you.”
“What is it?”
“I’m a cat food dealer on the internet. To store the cat food, I rented a storage room near our house and hired two employees to pack the cat food. I need you to be my accountant and manage those two staff.”
Liu Man had given Zhang Pei so many surprises that she didn’t even feel shocked to hear her daughter was renting a storage room. Nonetheless, she still asked, “How many packages of cat foods are there for you to need a storage room?”
“There were 200 boxes, totaling 1000 packs of cat food shipped out from Hong Kong yesterday to here.”
One thousand packs!!!
Zhang Pei was shocked.
Liu Man had gradually stabled her status from her helplessness at the start. She ordered a printer, a box of tape, hundreds of packing boxes, and other mailing materials on Tao Bao.
Everything was going well under her meticulous arrangement.
On the day the 200 boxes of cat food arrived at the capital, Liu Man got a truck, brought the two staff, and hired five more temporary employees so they could carry the 200 boxes from the harbor to the storage room.
The storage space had been tidied up twice by Zhang Pei and Liu Man, so there was not a single stain to be found. The tiled floor was so clean it was reflecting light, and one could never imagine this used to be a restaurant. The 200 boxes of cat food filled most of the room. Although it seemed to be a lot, they were all gone within less than half a month. Princess Man’s fans told her through their actions how much they needed real cat food.
Not only did Liu Man return 8,900 RMB to the bank on March 15th, but she also paid the Westland company right on time on the 28th.
After seeing they could earn money by selling cat food, Zhang Pei got very enthusiastic and stopped being a housewife. She, like a mediocre person with a job, went to the storage space at 8 a.m. every day and only returned home when it was 9 p.m.
Credits: Sydney & Puppxteer/Yutong