The Delicate Darling with Her Rough Man

Gu Jiaojiao didn’t know about Yun Hao’s regret, nor did she care.

She wasn’t the pitiful Gu Jiaojiao from Xu Wenwan’s novel, the one hopelessly in love with the male lead. She was a different Gu Jiaojiao, one who had been pampered by her parents and had a rich inner world.

Forget the fact that she wouldn’t even look twice at someone like Yun Hao; even if she did like him, she would never compromise her own happiness for a man.

In her world, love meant loving others only after you loved yourself. Sacrificing yourself to fulfill someone else wasn’t love—it was charity.

When Gu Jiaojiao got home, Chen Xiaolan said her goodbyes and left.

The next day was Saturday, the start of a two-day weekend, so Chen Xiaolan wouldn’t need to come over for the next two days.

That evening, Gu Jiaojiao mobilized the whole family to process all the Chinese honey locusts. This was the last of their supply; they wouldn’t be able to pick more from the mountains until September.

It was currently 1976. By this time next year, the college entrance exams would be reinstated. Gu Jiaojiao didn’t plan to continue selling facial soap, so this would be her last batch.

In addition to the facial soap, she also brewed some shampoo. She kept some for herself and gave the rest to Lu Yuanbin to help sell.

The family of four was busy until eleven at night, finally finishing over two hundred bars of facial soap and twenty bottles of shampoo.

Leng Yuan had found time to make dinner: a simple meal of sweet potato rice with a small dish of pickled radish, which was quite delicious.

Early the next morning, Leng Yuan rode his bicycle to deliver the two hundred bars of facial soap and twenty bottles of shampoo to Lu Yuanbin.

The facial soap settled for two hundred yuan. For the shampoo—priced at twenty yuan a bottle—they also settled on two hundred, bringing the total to four hundred yuan.

Previously, Gu Jiaojiao had only made shampoo bars. This was her first time making liquid shampoo. Since the quantity was small and meant for repeat customers, she had set the price at twenty yuan.

With this money in hand, Gu Jiaojiao went to check on their hidden passbooks for the first time.

When she saw four passbooks, she was a little confused. ”Why are there three extra passbooks?”

Leng Yuan nodded and explained, ”I moved Mom and Dad’s money into an account under my name. The rest are ones I opened later. It’s safer this way.”

The attitude of a bank teller had given him the idea.

He had gone to deposit money from his hunting and Gu Jiaojiao’s facial soap a few times, and the teller had once remarked, ”More manuscript fees, huh? And quite a bit, too.”

Leng Yuan grew wary at that. He felt it was too risky to deposit everything in one place, so he helped Gu Jiaojiao open her own account. Later, he even went to the city to open two more accounts for their savings.

Gu Jiaojiao hadn’t thought of that. Fortunately, Leng Yuan was meticulous. She opened the passbooks, did a quick calculation, and was a little surprised.

”Twenty thousand! We actually have this much money.”

As Gu Jiaojiao took out the passbooks, Leng Yuan’s dark eyes were fixed on his young wife. He was eager to savor the expression on her face when she saw the total amount.

But after a brief moment of surprise, Gu Jiaojiao calmly put them away.

She knew she had more savings than most people. After all, in an era where people would argue over a single scallion or a grain of rice, twenty thousand yuan was an absolute fortune.

But she had seen a bit of the world.

’Millions, tens of millions, even hundreds of millions... this is just a drop in the bucket.’

Leng Yuan was speechless.

He knew his wife wasn’t obsessed with money, but seeing her so composed in the face of twenty thousand yuan made Leng Yuan feel his motivation to earn more dwindle.

Then he remembered that his wife seemed to be better at making money than he was.

Each of the four passbooks held five thousand yuan. A little less than half of it was from Gu Jiaojiao’s facial soap, while the majority came from Leng Yuan’s hunting.

Although he had earned more overall, that was his savings from several years. The other portion, however, was what his wife had saved in just half a year.

At this rate, if Gu Jiaojiao put her mind to it, she could surpass his several years of savings in just six months.

A sense of crisis instantly washed over Leng Yuan.