Switched Marriage: The Coddled Little Wife-Chapter 386: The Accounts Don’t Match

The rule in their store was that even if there were leftover dishes or buns, they had to be handled by the manager’s arrangement.

Most of the time they were eaten as employee meals, but private handling was absolutely forbidden.

In an era where the majority of people had just solved the problem of food and clothing, leftovers from a restaurant were still good stuff.

Feng Zhong muttered something to Jia Liang’s back in dissatisfaction, when a little head popped up beside him, "Brother Feng, what did you say to the manager?"

Feng Zhong looked at Liu Na’s curious big eyes and chuckled, "Nana, are you free after work? Brother Feng will treat you to a movie."

"Sure, I’d like to see ’The Little Soldier Zhang Ga’."

"Alright, let’s go watch ’The Little Soldier Zhang Ga’. I’ll wait for you after work."

Liu Na, happy, twirled a finger around her braid and walked briskly to find Gao Lele, "How come you haven’t finished counting the money? Even if it was busy today, it shouldn’t take this half a day, right?"

Gao Lele was so anxious she was almost in tears, and handed the tickets to Liu Na all at once, "Can you help me recalculate this, how much is all this together?"

Liu Na had also graduated from high school and had no problem doing the math.

In a short while, she finished abacus counting and looked at the beads, "It’s a total of 265 yuan and 80 cents."

"It’s all over, my money doesn’t tally today."

Gao Lele sat on the chair, anxiously pulling at her hair.

"How much is missing?"

Gao Lele showed a mournful face, "I’m short exactly 10 yuan."

"Then... should I count it again for you? Maybe I got it wrong," Liu Na said, and she too became unsure.

"No need, I’ve counted it three times myself, it’s all the same number."

Now Liu Na also furrowed her brow; they only earn 40 yuan a month, and as Gao Lele was the front desk accountant, she made 10 yuan more than the others, only 50 yuan.

The lost money had to be covered out of her own pocket.

"Think about it, is there some place where there might be a mistake? Right, didn’t Sister Juan help you with the checkout this morning? Could it be..."

"It’s not," Gao Lele knew what she was going to say and interrupted before she could finish, "Sister Juan’s accounts were all cross-checked before we switched."

"Forget it, let it be for now; Nana, don’t tell the manager."

The manager trusted her so much with the accounts; if he knew she got it wrong, it would be too embarrassing.

Liu Na already knew that Gao Lele planned to pay out of her own pocket to balance the accounts, while feeling sorry for her money she nodded, "Alright, I won’t say anything, but next time be careful, it’s not a small amount of money, you can’t always be putting in."

"I know, it must have been this morning when it was too busy, and I miscounted."

.........

Qin Juan picked Ningning up from school and saw a tractor parked in the alley before even reaching the entrance to their home, its cart filled with honeycomb coal.

Next door, Aunt Jia was moving the honeycomb coal into the yard with a dustpan.

There were four stacks in the metal dustpan, four pieces in each stack.

Speaking of which, Aunt Jia was about the same age as her mother, and her mother hadn’t done this kind of work in several years.

When her father was in poor health, it was her brothers and sister-in-law who did it; now that her father was better, they wouldn’t let her mother do such heavy labor.

Qin Juan knew that Jia Liang had lost his father at a young age, and Aunt Jia, raising Jia Liang alone, had endured all kinds of hardship. She couldn’t help but feel a sense of empathy.

"Aunt Jia, why didn’t you wait for Jia Liang to be home to buy coal?"

Qin Juan didn’t like to pry into other people’s affairs and felt that Aunt Jia was kind-hearted; she did not let her daughter-in-law help, but she should be able to ask her son, right?

When Aunt Jia saw it was Qin Juan, she greeted her with a smile, "Alas, when does Liangzi have the time for this, waiting for him to be at home, I would have to freeze."

Qin Juan thought about it, Jia Liang was indeed busy; the Bun Shop was in good hands with him.

"Then let me help you move it."

Qin Juan couldn’t stand it anymore and left the vegetables she had bought on the way at her own doorstep. She told Ningning and rolled up her sleeves to help.

"Ah, no need, no need, I can manage slowly."

Old Mrs. Jia was not short and quite sturdy, yet she had small feet.

With her sturdy figure, she was shaky enough walking without carrying anything, let alone carrying a few pieces of coal—she dared not walk fast.

She wasn’t in a hurry, but the coal seller was. He urged Old Mrs. Jia to move faster, or else he wouldn’t be able to sell all his coal.

Qin Juan didn’t say anything else and got straight to work.

The coal was all put under the eaves, and with Qin Juan’s help, it was quickly moved into place.

Old Mrs. Jia tugged at Qin Juan to come inside and wash her hands, but Qin Juan laughed and declined.

Qin Juan used to live in a family where mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relations were sensitive. She didn’t know what it was like in the Jia family, but seeing Old Mrs. Jia move coal by herself suggested that there might be issues between the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law there too.

She didn’t want to meddle in other people’s affairs. Besides, being single herself, she needed to avoid giving the wrong impression.

Old Mrs. Jia, however, was insistent and wouldn’t take no for an answer, urging her to come in for a drink, "It’s just me and Liangzi at home, he’s not in and I’ve been lonely all day. You could at least walk around inside and liven up the place."

Qin Juan was still thinking about avoiding suspicion and paused at the words, "Is your daughter-in-law not around here?"

Could it be that Jia Liang left his daughter-in-law in An City?

Thinking back, Jia Liang always talked about his dear mother just like Zhang Wenbin did.

Bringing the old mother along but leaving the daughter-in-law in An City didn’t seem out of character for him.

Zhang Wenbin had thought about doing the same when he was transferring to the city.

However, being concerned about public image since he lived in the family housing provided by his employer, he finally brought both her and Ningning with him.

Back at the Bun Shop, Jia Liang sneezed violently: Who was talking bad about him behind his back?

Old Mrs. Jia with a hint of disdain in her voice chimed, "What daughter-in-law? I haven’t even caught a glimpse of a daughter-in-law yet."

On this topic, Old Mrs. Jia grabbed Qin Juan’s hand as if she had found someone to confide in.

"How can Liangzi be like this? He’s in his thirties and still isn’t looking for a wife. I’ve nagged him and it just annoys him. Here I am, old already, wouldn’t I want to hold a grandchild before I leave this world? It used to be difficult for him to find someone and I wouldn’t urge him, but now he’s got a proper job with a monthly salary. Why doesn’t he think about starting a family? I see there’s no shortage of young women at your Bun Shop. How come he doesn’t get it?"

Knowing that Qin Juan had been through similar things before, Old Mrs. Jia suddenly whispered, "Girl, you work at the Bun Shop with Liangzi, have you ever seen him care particularly for any young man? The young men at your Bun Shop all seem pretty charming."

Qin Juan: "..."

PS:

When writing about Old Mrs. Jia’s character, the author inexplicably thought of her own grandmother.

Grandmother was born in the 1920s, a typical well-bred young lady, attended private schools, read books, and even had a poetic name and a courtesy name to boot.

Though she was about one meter sixty, she had a pair of small feet.

I remember when I was young it was hard for my mother to buy shoes for Grandma. At that time, the village market even sold shoes for old ladies with bound feet, but there were none too small; I remember Grandma had size 21 feet.

Her size 21 feet were different from a child’s size 21. I can still recall the look of her tiny feet—toes all curled under except for the big toe.

They didn’t rest flat and comfortable in the shoe like a child’s small feet; Grandma’s entire foot was almost round, somewhat disconcerting to see.

The instability of the old ladies with small feet wasn’t just due to their tiny size but also because the deformed feet folded under in the middle developed calluses and corns, making walking quite painful.

Therefore, Grandma would often soak her feet in hot water and try to remove the softened calluses, but they couldn’t be removed cleanly; doing so would expose raw and bleeding flesh.

Yet, those size 21 feet were considered large by Grandma herself back then.

Grandma was the youngest of three sisters. During the foot-binding, she couldn’t tolerate the pain well, so her mother, feeling sorry for her youngest daughter, would secretly loosen the bindings whenever Grandma cried in pain—hence, they did not end up perfectly small.

Her two sisters’ feet were around size 18.

My grandmother wore traditional clothes with large jacket clasps she made herself even up to the early 2000s. She disliked clothes with buttons or zippers down the front.

Grandma felt that front-opening garments were insecure and feared exposing herself.