A big business is coming! Little ink stick, hurry up and work for me! (Seeking follow-up reads)

Shen Le wore a smile on his face, but he was trembling inwardly.

Being late meant a deduction in pay; that was non-negotiable. Beyond that...

Xiao Ling's performance had the effect of smoothing out hostility and transforming it into peace. Even if ordinary people couldn't perceive it clearly, they still felt more comfortable and in better spirits.

Therefore, Xiao Ling not arriving on time meant customers were in a bad mood, which meant customers started fighting, which meant the shop suffered losses?

This loss, at least in part, had to be pinned on him, right?

Harboring a guilty conscience, Shen Le kept a close eye on every move the Landlady made, bracing himself for apologies, rebuttals, and even haggling.

To his surprise, the Landlady didn't demand compensation, nor did she scold him. She straightened out those red banknotes...

And shoved them into Shen Le's hands!

Shen Le: ???

"Xiao Ling's wages—no, the rental fee for the puppet—it doesn't cost this much!"

He instinctively pushed back. The Landlady simply stepped forward and raised a hand:

"If I tell you to take it, you take it!"

Before he could even see how she moved, she had already bypassed his defensive hands, unzipped his backpack, and stuffed the cash directly inside:

"It's not for free; I have work for you. These tables and chairs—"

She waved a hand toward the main hall:

"They are all old furniture, antiques. It would be a pity to throw them away and buy new ones. You're a professional in this field, so I'm leaving them all to you. Restore the old to look like the old; you can do that, right?"

Tens of thousands!

Several tens of thousands!

Shen Le's brain buzzed. Up until now, his total savings were only a little over thirty thousand. This thick stack of bills looked to be more than all the cash he had on hand.

With this money, he could completely build a separate concrete room in the big house, buy a fume hood, and even hire someone to put a ring of barbed wire around the mansion's perimeter wall!

The last shred of his reason stopped Shen Le from immediately answering "Yes."

He bypassed the Landlady, walked over to the nearest broken table, and crouched down to inspect the wood, touching it and pinching it:

"What kind of wood are these tables and chairs made of?"

"Don't worry, they aren't any precious timber." The Landlady followed him slowly and chuckled:

"They're just miscellaneous wood. These two tables are made of Elm Wood, these two are Cypress Wood, and there's a cabinet over here made of Camphor Wood. These chairs are basically Chinese Fir.

If you're worried, shall I have someone send over a batch of lumber?"

Shen Le had already let out a sigh of relief. Having worked with his boss on ancient building restoration, he had a rough idea of the prices for various types of miscellaneous wood—restoring all these tables, chairs, and cabinets would cost at most one or two thousand yuan in materials.

Of course, that was assuming he bought Timber Blocks—the most basic raw timber—then marked the lines himself, sawed them himself, and processed them bit by bit from scratch into the required shapes.

However, there was one more issue that couldn't be ignored:

"What's the deadline?"

Three days?

Or two?

If it takes forever to fix, won't your restaurant be out of business the whole time?

"A month, I suppose." The Landlady smiled nonchalantly:

"We have spare stock for the tables and chairs, but it's just a shame to throw these away. Can you take the job? If you can, it's yours!"

You really think highly of me... If I didn't have Little Ink Marker to help out, wouldn't a one-month deadline ruin your business?

Fortunately, with the magically sentient Little Ink Marker in hand, Shen Le was full of confidence. One month was too easy; let alone repairing this furniture, he could rebuild it from scratch without breaking a sweat.

He lifted his chin slightly and replied calmly:

"I can! I'll go call someone to haul the goods! You don't need to provide the lumber; leave that to me!"

He didn't even need to call anyone; the waitresses in the shop swarmed out, helping each other bundle and tie up the broken tables, rotten chairs, and the cabinet with a hole in it.

Then, a group of beauties began to march toward Shen Le's mansion, sandwiching him in the middle and attracting the eyes of countless passersby...

This group of girls was beautiful, with their skirts fluttering in white, rose-red, pink, and pale green. Walking down the street, they were a stunning sight without even trying.

Yet, each of them was carrying something: three smashed tables in the left hand, four crippled chairs in the right.

The most impressive one had a five-foot-tall cabinet hoisted onto her shoulder, and she was also carrying a large bundle of lumber—the very Elm, Cypress, Camphor, and Chinese Fir wood the Landlady had mentioned for the repairs...

There were a dozen pieces in the bundle, each between one and one-and-a-half meters long. Bundled together, the cross-section looked to be over 20 by 30 centimeters. Yet, she carried it as if it were weightless, laughing and chatting all the way.

A group of young beauties, exuding the aura of Lin Daiyu uprooting a weeping willow, made passersby stare. Shen Le felt miserable, as if ants were crawling all over his body. Please, don't come over here!

Don't surround me!

But the girls wouldn't stop:

"Mr. Shen, which way are we going? The front door or the back door?"

"Mr. Shen, open the door!"

"Mr. Shen, where should we put these things?"

Facing this group of Lin Daiyus who could uproot a weeping willow with their bare hands, Shen Le didn't dare to act out of turn; he opened the door when told to open it and turned when told to turn.

After entering the back door and piling the items into an empty room in the third courtyard that served as servant quarters, he was immediately swarmed by the group of waitresses:

"Mr. Shen, your house is so beautiful!"

"Can we take a look around?"

"We don't need to see every room, just that one—that garden! Can you let us see it?"

"Thank you so much! Wow, this garden, the pond beside it, the strange rocks by the water—it's truly stunning!"

The group of young, beautiful waitresses chatted and laughed, admiring their reflections in the water. Xiao Yu and Xiao Ge even stood on the muddy bank by the pond, lifting their skirts to spin around twice.

Their long skirts fanned out in layers, truly resembling two blooming Peonies—one pure white, the other pinkish-purple—shining brilliantly against each other.

The girls didn't linger for long; they swept through the courtyard with the pond like a whirlwind before bidding him farewell and leaving.

Left alone, Shen Le couldn't wait to unzip his backpack, pull out all the red banknotes, and start counting them one by one:

"20... 25... 33... 40... 42... Huh, I think I lost count? Let's do it again...

31... 34... Ugh, lost count again... One more time! 15, 16, 17... Oh no! I dropped one!"

Shen Le finally confirmed that he was completely hopeless when it came to counting money, having inherited the same level of skill he had back in his student days—

He could only manage a game of 40-point, but if he tried to play 80-point, cards would inevitably slip through his fingers...

He steadied himself, decisively gave up on counting the money himself, and grabbed the cash and his bank card to head out to an ATM:

I'll just shove it all into the deposit slot and let the machine count it for me; that should work!

He fed in a small stack, then another, and then another. A quarter of an hour later, Shen Le stared at the number on the ATM screen, his eyes gleaming as he pumped his fist in triumph.

Forty-three thousand five hundred!

A massive sum of income!

Xiao Ling's monthly salary at the Heavenly Fragrance Restaurant was three thousand yuan, and she earned two thousand two hundred from school tours. He split the earnings with Xiao Ling, meaning he usually took home two thousand six hundred a month.

Forty-three thousand five hundred was roughly equivalent to suddenly receiving...

16.7 months of salary.

He'd struck it rich!

What a huge pile of money!