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Chapter 53
Shen You’s cousin-in-law pulled a long face, and her words of thanks were squeezed out through gritted teeth. In front of so many people, the anger in her chest made breathing painful.
She wasn’t stupid. How could she not see that Shen You was doing this on purpose?
Shen You was taking advantage of their family’s current downfall to kick them while they were down. They would get better again, and these people would regret it sooner or later!
She still had a promising younger brother.
Shen You’s eldest uncle’s family, who had been watching the show the whole time, actually spoke up for Shen You this time. However knowing they definitely had ulterior motives, Shen You wasn’t in a hurry.
Sure enough, when it was time to eat at the table, after just drinking a bowl of chicken soup, her aunt spoke up.
First, she praised her, then got to the main point.
“Xiao You, look, we’re all family. Your shop has made quite a bit of money, but your brother only has that little salary. Can you also bring your brother along to work together?”
When this topic came up, the cousin-in-law who had just been angered by Shen You also looked over.
“Aunt, I’ve only taken two orders since opening the shop for so long.” Shen You smiled and shook her head.
“Moreover, what I do is restore antiques. Cousin doesn’t know how to do that either. Not to mention anything else, if something goes wrong with this work, none of us could afford the compensation required.”
He also wanted to do this? Her female cousin and male cousin sitting there were a pair of incompetents. They wouldn’t last three days on the antique street before being scammed out of even their underwear.
Even if the shop wasn’t connected to other dimensions, she would never let them get involved.
“It’s like this: your cousin can help you run business and handle social activities. You’d definitely handle the professional work. Wouldn’t that be quite good?”
An Lifeng was afraid the cousin-in-law nearby would compete for this job, so she said to Father Shen hurriedly,
“These matters should be handled by people with the same surname for safety, right, Third Uncle?”
Shen You’s cousin and cousin-in-law heard these pointed words and weren’t having it. Both sides competed for this job, undermining each other, and were even about to start banging tables and smashing bowls.
“Zou Jun, Tang Rou, I don’t even want to talk about your family. Have you repaid the money you owe Third Uncle’s family and the money guaranteed for you? How do you have the nerve to ask Shen You to bring you along?”
Shen You’s cousin displayed his fighting power.
But her cousin and cousin-in-law weren’t to be outdone either. Her cousin-in-law sneered,
“How much better are your messy affairs? Are you really trying to help Xiao You work together, or are you trying to take the opportunity to steal the shop? You know in your hearts.”
Shen You’s parents and eldest aunt couldn’t stop the argument from both sides. Shen You had long seen through these people’s true faces, so she just smiled, turned into a lazy Susan to get food, ate her fill first, then put down her chopsticks.
“I don’t need social activities or business running here. Or do you know those collectors who need antique restoration?”
Both sides, who had been arguing with red faces and thick necks, suddenly fell silent.
“Don’t you know some people?” The aunt smiled ingratiatingly.
If this girl helped make connections, wouldn’t they have this network?
“I only know a college classmate. He gave me the order.”
Shen You looked at them with a half-smile. They wanted to use her connections to let outsiders share her money.
What a beautiful thought.
“This work takes dozens of hours at a time. What I earn is skill money. I can’t afford to pay a salary. Some shop rents on the antique street aren’t expensive. If you like this business, you can go lease one yourselves.”
Seeing that Shen You wasn’t showing any consideration, both sides’ ingratiating attitudes toward her instantly cooled.
Go lease one themselves? If they understood the business, would they need to ask her?
When she returned from Jiang City last time, she heard from company leadership that people who could do this work all had some skills and definitely weren’t lacking in connections. They might even know some big shots.
That was why they went to great lengths to curry favor with Shen You’s family, specially sending mooncakes.
But this girl guarded against her own family members like guarding against thieves.
**
That night when she returned home, Shen You followed an online tutorial to stew bird’s nest, then poked her head out to tell her parents in the living room,
“Did you see? Their minds are full of thoughts about how to get some benefits from me.”
Mother Shen’s lips moved. Having cared about relatives for half her life, she really couldn’t say heartless words. After all, there were still some feelings in her heart.
“If you can really help, we should still consider blood relationships and family affection. We can’t just watch family members…”
Without another word, Shen You took out the recording from last time.
“Dad, Mom, when you weren’t there, they didn’t have today’s attitude.”
After listening, both Father and Mother Shen’s expressions changed. Last time when the eldest uncle’s family came back, what they told them wasn’t like this.
What the aunt said was that they kindly helped bring things over, but Shen You didn’t give them a good attitude, didn’t even let them enter the door. She spoke as if she was so wronged, her eyes even turned red.
The couple had been so frightened that they had quickly apologized for their daughter.
But today, after listening to the recording, they realized that from beginning to end, their daughter was the one who was truly wronged.
Father and Mother Shen were silent for a long time, their faces showing disappointment, sadness, and some helplessness.
The last time they felt like this was when they heard that the second uncle had run away.
“Our family will just live our own lives well from now on. Those people should have been kept far away long ago. Our family has already been benevolent and righteous enough.”
She was being polite enough in her words. Otherwise, she would have directly called them old bastards and middle-aged bastards.
Under Shen You’s gaze, her parents nodded silently.
“We’ll follow your arrangements. Your mother and I will go settle in Jiang City in a while.”
Hearing the satisfactory answer, Shen You was finally at ease.
She had just gone to bring out the bird’s nest when Mother Shen received a phone call. When she came back, she hesitantly said to Shen You,
“Your aunt says there’s a boy with good conditions she wants to introduce to you. Do you want to take a look?”
“No.”
Shen You refused without thinking. “Last time she tricked me into going out and introduced me to a bald man who wasn’t as tall as me and was ten years older. What truth could there be this time?”
“Alright, then I’ll decline for you.” Mother Shen said.
On matters like this, the family never forced Shen You. Those old bastards, when they couldn’t get benefits, wanted to use her as a favor.
After receiving the message, the aunt who was doing the blind date introduction wasn’t too happy.
She sent a long string of voice messages talking about how good the other party’s family situation was, saying handsome men were useless and reliability was what mattered.
As if their whole family didn’t recognize good people.
Shen You just found it amusing. If it was really that good, her aunt would have introduced him to her own niece long ago.
Her aunt even sent photos confidently. When Shen You’s parents saw them, both their expressions wrinkled up.
What kind of good person would introduce to a relative’s daughter a man in his thirties who was frighteningly overweight?
“Absolutely not! Our family may have average conditions, but no matter how poor we are, we won’t cling to others!”
Mother Shen was also angry. Later, she sent another voice message directly saying not to make any more introductions.
This Mid-Autumn dinner with those people had no joy whatsoever, so the next morning, Shen You specially went to buy some seafood and a durian to bring back.
Their family of three then ate freely by themselves, which was much more comfortable.
When the neighbor who had said that daughters weren’t as good as sons when Shen You returned that day saw her buying so many things, she gossiped below that Shen You was wasteful.
“The girl has graduated and is now earning money, how can buying some things for her parents be called wasteful?”
“You think this thousand or two thousand is wasteful, but to Shen You it’s probably just pocket change.”
Shen You’s parents were famously kind-hearted in the courtyard, so many neighbors were willing to speak up for them, not to mention these neighbors had all received mooncakes from Shen You.
The person who liked to gossip behind people’s backs, seeing no one on her side, snorted and went home.