Chapter 25: 25

T-this slap in the face happened too quickly.

He had insisted a moment ago that he hadn’t gotten fatter, yet in the next moment, his pants ripped. His previous pants could have ripped because they were worn out, however, the cloth used for his new pants were very good and wouldn’t have ripped unless… he got fatter. Xu Zhao really couldn’t explain it. Besides, he was still in shock at Xu Fan revealing that tiny thing and hadn’t come back to his senses.

As one expected, Xu Fan’s first reaction was to cover his crotch. He was suddenly startled and he lowered his head to take a look. Ah! His little pee pee and balls were showing and completely seen by others. How embarrassing. So embarrassing. He quickly stood up and threw himself at Xu Zhao’s legs and buried his plump face in between Xu Zhao’s legs. “Daddy, my pants ripped,” he whispered, then heard Cui Qingfeng break out in a world-shaking laughter. He was immediately too embarrassed to show himself and hugged Xu Zhao’s leg as he pulled them to leave.

“What’s wrong?” Xu Zhao calmly asked.

Xu Fan whined and said as he pulled Xu Zhao, “Let’s go home.”

“Go home and do what?”

“Just wanna go home.”

Xu Zhao lowered his head to look at Xu Fan and said, “Daddy is busy so I can’t go home yet. Tell Daddy why you insist on going home?”

Xu Fan hugged Xu Zhao’s leg and was bashful for a bit before whispering, “Uncle Cui is laughing at me.”

Xu Zhao actually laughed a bit at this. Only just a bit before saying, “Then I won’t let Uncle Cui laugh, okay?”

“Okay.”

Xu Zhao turned back to Cui Qingfeng and blinked. He deliberately raised his voice and said, “Qingfeng, what are you laughing at? The quality of the pants weren’t good, so it isn’t Xu Fan’s fault. Our Xu Fan didn’t get fatter. He’s very skinny. You should be a bit more aware.”

Cui Qingfeng immediately went along with it. “Yes, yes. The quality of the pants weren’t good! Besides, I didn’t see a single thing.”

Xu Zhao turned his head and petted Xu Fan’s head and said, “Exactly. All right, it’s fine. We’ll go home once Daddy is finished with work, okay?”

Xu Fan was easily coaxed and immediately replied, “Okay.”

“Then come to the popsicle room with Daddy, okay?”

“Okay.”

Xu Zhao pulled Xu Fan towards the popsicle room.

There was a huge rip in the pants. Every time he walked, Xu Fan’s white and plump butt cheeks were exposed. Cui Qingfeng covered his mouth to secretly laugh. Sanwa was too silly.

Even Cui Dingchen, who was currently wiping the shoes, also couldn’t help raise the corner of his lips as he looked towards Xu Fan’s bottom.

After Xu Fan walked into the popsicle room, he bent his two small legs and sat on the stool. He didn’t pursue Cui Dingchen to sit inside the big car. He just sat on the stool without moving, making Xu Zhao not know if he should laugh or cry. He told Xu Fan to take off his pants so that Mother Cui could mend them. But Xu Fan wasn’t willing, saying he wanted to wait till they got here to mend the pants.

Mother Cui also couldn’t do anything as she watched Xu Fan who looked like he was about to cry but didn’t. She entered the main hall and brought out a braised pig trotter that she got from the city, handing it to Xu Fan. When the fragrant scent entered his nose, it immediately lifted his injured little soul. His tiny mouth ate until they were keroseney, his face showing a satisfied smile. “It’s so yummy!”

It was only then that Xu Zhao called Cui Qingfeng over again.

Cui Qingfeng smiled as he passed by Xu Fan to stand next to Xu Zhao.

Xu Zhao handed the account book for Cui Qingfeng to look at.

After Cui Qingfeng took a look, he exclaimed, “264 Yuan! That’s a total of 264 Yuan!”

“What’s the problem?” Xu Zhao asked.

Cui Qingfeng had a face full of disbelief and asked, “You made 264 Yuan in these 22 days?”

“That’s right. Is something wrong?”

“No, no, no,” Cui Qingfeng said with shock. “How did you make this much? The busy farming season has passed, and the steel factory reduced their purchase amount. You obviously sold less than half of the popsicles as before.”

“There are newspapers, noodles, cigarettes, matches, and other stuff,” Xu Zhao said with a smile.

“But you still earned too much money!”

Cui Qingfeng has always disapproved of Xu Zhao selling this and that like a snack counter. In Cui Qingfeng’s heart, a snack counter has always been like doing odd jobs. However, Xu Zhao actually made money from doing this. It was really too incredible! Or perhaps he should say that Xu Zhao was the incredible one!

“Selling newspapers and stuff, can you really make that much money from them?” Cui Qingfeng asked again.

“Of course. It’s a small profit but rapid turnover. It won’t be difficult once we become popular,” Xu Zhao said.

Cui Qingfeng saw the money and finally believed it. He was happy and was more excited about doing the business. “Then let’s  sell some more stuff when we head back,” he couldn’t help but urge.

“It’s almost done,” Xu Zhao said.

“What does that mean?”

Xu smiled and explained to Cui Qingfeng, “We originally had an advantage because of our location. We can just sell some daily necessities. If we sell too many things, it would be too chaotic, and our energy is also limited. The most important thing right now is making Fan’s Little Shop stable to make it our base of operations so that we can get a stable income.”

Base of operations?

Stable income?

What does that mean?

Cui Qingfeng couldn’t quite understand.

“It doesn’t matter. I’ll tell you once I’ve arranged everything. Let’s split the money now,” Xu Zhao said with a smile.

Cui Qingfeng didn’t want to use his brain anyway. In any case, even if he thought for a day, it wouldn’t be as useful as Xu Zhao’s one minute brain use. He said instead, “Sure, let’s split the money. You should take more this time since I didn’t help out at all.”

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Xu Zhao immediately became stern. “That won’t do. We should split it equally.”

Cui Qingfeng understood that Xu Zhao was a person with clear distinction between his private and public life, and knew that he couldn’t persuade Xu Zhao, and could only say, “All right! We’ll split it equally then. But I’ll work more now that I’m back. If you want to rest, you can stay at home and rest for a few days.”

X nodded. “Okay. However, I’ll only be able to return the 250 Yuan I owe you bit by bit. I’ll give you back 50 for now.”

“Sure, you can do whatever you want.”

Therefore, of the net profit of 264 Yuan, Xu Fan received a total of 82 Yuan. He used five Yuan to buy Father Xu’s medicine then purchased vegetables and meat from the city. Afterwards, he took Xu Fan back to South Bay Village with 74 Yuan leftover. Once they arrived home, he didn’t even have time to hand the money to Mother Xu before Xu Fan ran over to Mother and Father Xu.

“Grandma! Grandpa! My pants ripped!” Xu Fan urgently said to Mother and Father Xu.

“Where did it rip?” Mother Xu asked.

“Here.” Xu Fan immediately showed his soft white bottom to Mother and Father Xu. He pulled his pants up and exposed his eggs…

Mother Xu stared and said, “Oh, my. It really is ripped.”

“Mn,” Xu Fan twisted his body and said to Mother and Father Xu, “These pants aren’t good. They ripped as soon as I squatted.”

Pants—aren’t—good—

How shameless was he to say that out loud? It was clearly because he ate too much and became fatter and forced his pants to burst. Yet he dared to say his pants weren’t good. The pants are innocent, okay?

However, Mother Xu dotted on Xu Fan and said instead, “I also think these pants aren’t good. Why don’t you take them off and Grandma will mend them for you?”

“They’ll rip again even if you mend them,” Xu Fan said.

“They won’t. Once Grandma mends then, they definitely won’t rip.”

“Okay.”

Therefore, Mother Xu added a piece of cloth to the crotch of Xu Fan’s pants, expanding the space of the crotch area. It won’t matter if Xu Fan squatted or ran, the pants wouldn’t easily rip again.

However… it was still a patch, and the color was very different from the color of the pants. But inside the village, most people wore clothes like this so it wasn’t anything to pay attention to. Therefore, Xu Zhao didn’t say anything. Xu Fan wore the pants again and ran off to find Da Zhuang to play.

“Baobao! Baobao!” Father Xu was worried that Xu Fan would get lost or get bullied. He supported himself with the crutches and followed behind, using this time to exercise as well. Xu Zhao and Mother Xu didn’t stop them.

Mother Xu turned and entered the kitchen. Using the time while it was still light outside to quickly cook and quickly eat so that they could save some lamp kerosene at night.

Xu Zhao followed her inside the kitchen and pulled out the 74 Yuan from his pockets. He counted 70 Yuan and gave it to Mother Xu.

Mother Xu was startled and asked, “Where did you get all this money?”

“I made it at the small shop,” Xu Zhao said.

Mother Xu didn’t understand and asked, “Can a small shop make this much money? Didn’t you say the popsicles only sold half as well now?”

“It wasn’t earned all at once. It was earned in 22 days,” Xu Zhao said with a smile. “Besides, I’m not just selling popsicles, there’s also newspapers and other stuff.”

“Can you make this much money from selling popsicles and newspapers?”

“Yes. They may not look like they’re worth much, but in fact, they’re very profitable. Besides, popsicles are just water and other raw materials. Electricity also isn’t expensive so the profit margin is very high.”

Hearing this, Mother Xu was ecstatic, but she didn’t take the money. Instead, she pushed the money away and said, “You earned this money yourself so you should keep it.”

Xu Zhao shoved the money into Mother Xu’s hands. “You should keep it and use it for the family.”

“The family only needs a few dollars. We get all our food and water from the fields. We wouldn’t be able to spend this much money.”

“Who said? Mom, just take it.”

The mother and son pushed the money back and forth.

In the end, Mother Xu held onto the  money with one hand and her other hand sadly patted Xu Zhao’s old short-sleeved shirt and said, “You’ve been wearing these clothes for years. Look, the material is all rubbed away already. You should buy a new shirt, and pants as well.”

Xu Zhao smiled and said, “I know. Then you keep the money for now in case you need to use it.”

“Then I’ll take 50 and help you hold onto it. When you need money, I’ll return it to you. You should use the rest of the money to buy new clothes.”

“Okay.”

Xu Zhao accepted the 24 Yuan and stuffed it in his pocket, then asked, “Mom, now that the busy farming season is over, there shouldn’t be anything else to do, right? Are you free now?”

Mother Xu washed her hands and began picking the vegetables and said, “It’s not busy now. However, one the grass grows in the fields, I’ll have to go pick them.”

Every time after the busy farming season, they would rest for a few days then each family would enter the fields to pick grass. They would rise early and sleep early to pick the grass, feed the cows, care for the animals, and feed the rabbits and other animals. Most importantly, it was so that the weeds wouldn’t grow wildly and steal the nutrients in the skerosene. That would cause the beans and wheat to produce low output. However, Xu Zhao seemed to have heard that many places had started using pesticides and herbicides and the like.

“Aren’t a lot of people using pesticides and herbicides now? It’ll save so much effort rather than having to pick the grass,” Xu Zhao asked.

“Pesticides? I heard it’s very expensive. For our family, it would just be a waste of money. Your dad can wander around by himself now, and I won’t have anything to do if I stay at home anyway. Once the grass grows, I have time to pick the grass. There’s no need to waste money to by pesticides.”

Xu Zhao thought for a moment then said, “But, Mom, I need your help.”

“You need my help? For what? To take care of Sanwa?” Mother Xu asked in shock.

“No,” Xu Zhao said. “I want you and Dad to help me watch the shop.”

“Watch the shop? What shop?”

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