At dinner that evening, Mother Chen suddenly said to Chen Dawei:
"Do you think we should open another restaurant? Lately, I've noticed that restaurants are doing pretty well."
"I don't mind, but things are pretty unstable right now. We could end up wasting our efforts again. I still don't know who to ask for the hundred-odd thousand in rent we paid last time. We can't even find the landlord, and with the renovation costs, we lost two hundred thousand altogether." Chen Dawei rubbed his increasingly plump belly, sounding hesitant.
Even without the upheaval, their restaurant's business had been so slow they would probably have lost every last cent. Chen Shouyi kept his head down and ate, silently grumbling to himself.
"I already looked into it. Shop rents are really cheap right now. Even in prime locations, it's only ten yuan per square meter per month. As long as business is good, we could make back the money in a month!" Mother Chen put down her chopsticks, speaking excitedly.
"That cheap?" Chen Dawei exclaimed. That was practically a giveaway.
"People with spare money are scarce right now, and a lot of them are as cautious as you. That's why it's so cheap. You can't make money if you're too timid," Mother Chen said smugly.
Seeing his parents about to return to their old line of work, Chen Shouyi couldn't keep quiet any longer. "Mom, Dad, I think you should forget it. It's not like we're short of money!"
He gave his family fifty thousand yuan every month now, more than enough for a family of four.
Anyone who had never run a restaurant had no idea how exhausting it was.
Back in Dongning, his parents had to go to the market for groceries at six every morning. After they got back,