Witty Wife, Better Life

Chapter 454: Chapter 444 Madame’s Path

After sending Li Hongxing’s family off, Shen Yunfang finally relaxed; accompanying them for meals, drinks, and fun, all while managing her studies, had been a lot of pressure.

Once back home, considering she had been busy entertaining Li Hongxing’s family and hadn’t checked on the Ma Family’s matters, she decided to head straight there after picking up the kids from school.

By the time she and Mu Huazhen had finished preparing dinner, Ma Liguo got home. Seeing Shen Yunfang there, he laughed, "Do you have clairvoyance or supernaturally good hearing or something? I just finalized the matter today, and here you are."

Shen Yunfang’s eyes lit up upon hearing this and she inquired, "Really? Is that side settled then?"

"Settled, oh, it wasn’t easy at all. That Factory Director Shitou is just like a stone in a latrine — stinks and is as hard as a rock. Only someone like me would persevere; anyone else would have given up long ago," Ma Liguo said with self-satisfaction while taking a bite of his food.

"Hey, stop eating for a second and explain what happened," Mu Huazhen urged anxiously from the side.

"Hey, hey, what’s the hurry? Let me eat a bite first. Plus, I can’t really talk about it; if I do, it won’t work next time," Ma Liguo said, shaking his head.

"Give it a rest, as if I don’t know what you’re capable of. Spit it out already, Yunfang is waiting to hear it too. Right, Yunfang?" Mu Huazhen pulled Shen Yunfang into it.

"Sister-in-law, I just need the result; the process isn’t that important," Shen Yunfang said dismissively.

"Hahaha!"

Seeing Mu Huazhen’s frustrated look, both of them couldn’t help but laugh indiscreetly.

After laughing, Ma Liguo shared his method of moving that "stone."

Actually, it was quite simple. Since Ma Liguo couldn’t sway Factory Director Shitou, he took the route of influencing his wife instead. Five hundred yuan didn’t work with the factory director, but his wife found it quite effective.

After receiving the red envelope, Factory Director Shitou’s wife made him relent the very next day, though no one knew what kind of "pillow talk" she used that night.

Shen Yunfang was unsurprised by such tactics; countless good and honest officials had fallen because of their wives in later generations. However, she took this opportunity to try some ideological work on Mu Huazhen, "Sister-in-law, do you see? Behind every successful man stands a rational woman. If the woman is not satisfied, the man’s principles will falter, and he will eventually be pulled down from his position."

"Why are you telling me this? Look at your brother Ma’s character, do you think he’ll let me be that rational woman? I think what’s most likely is that he’ll end up being the rational man behind a successful woman," Mu Huazhen retorted, unwilling to concede.

"Hey, I can do that, I’m definitely up for being the rational man, but you’ve got to work harder, wife. I’ll just be that rational man," Ma Liguo didn’t feel any shame, quite the contrary.

"Behave yourself," Mu Huazhen chided, amused by Ma Liguo. "Now, get to the point. Now that the printing factory is taken care of, it depends on when Yunfang can produce the samples."

"That should be soon. I have already organized the content for the couplets. Once we have someone to write them down, that’s it, maybe a week’s work," Shen Yunfang estimated.

She had scoured her memories and came up with roughly a hundred couplets. With the upcoming year being the Year of the Monkey, she created over fifty monkey-themed couplets. The rest were all-purpose couplets that could be used for any year.

"Alright, then you’d better hurry up too. Factory Director Shitou says we can’t delay the nation’s production plan, so if we want to print, we can only do so on the weekend. This means we’ll need to get the samples ready, prepare the plates, and then do the printing; time is a bit tight," Ma Liguo calculated in his head. "Oh right, Shitou said that if we print on the weekend, we’ll have to pay the workers overtime."

"That’s not a big deal; it won’t cost much." Shen Yunfang also did some mental calculations. She wasn’t quite clear about the printing steps required at that time, so she couldn’t give a good estimate for the timeline. It was best to start earlier. "I’ll hurry things up on my end and try to move up the timeline as much as possible."

"That would be best."

The next day, Shen Yunfang found Ma Liang and told him about the matter.

Ma Liang was of course happy to help his senior sister earn a bit more money, so after school at noon, the two of them didn’t even stop to eat but instead hopped on their bikes and went straight to Ma Liang’s senior sister’s home.

This was the first time Shen Yunfang had seen Ma Liang’s senior sister. She had heard of her before, but had always communicated through Ma Liang and had never actually met her.

Ma Liang’s senior sister appeared to be a woman with a somewhat weathered face, clearly someone with a story, but the faint smile on her face was soothing to see.

Ma’s senior sister was very grateful to Shen Yunfang, and had no objections to the calligraphy Shen Yunfang asked her to write. She even ground ink on the spot and wrote a couplet for Shen Yunfang to see if it was to her liking.

Shen Yunfang didn’t know much about calligraphy, but watching her write so elegantly and freely, Shen Yunfang took the couplet and felt it was very good, and decided immediately that she was the right choice. Besides, she didn’t have a better option at that time.

Once satisfied with the calligraphy, the two discussed the labor fee.

In actuality, it was Shen Yunfang who unilaterally decided, and Ma’s senior sister agreed to whatever Shen Yunfang suggested. In her words, Shen Yunfang was a good person who had provided her with food before; she wouldn’t deceive her now or in the future.

Shen Yunfang was speechless and ended up giving her a raise consciously. This time they agreed on a per couplet fee—one yuan per couplet, totaling a hundred yuan for one hundred couplets.

There were also some Banners aside from the "Fu" character, which were Ma Liang’s responsibility to complete, also one yuan per piece.

But Shen Yunfang demanded that everything be finished before this weekend. That left them only four days.

Ma Liang and his companion agreed without a second thought.

By Saturday, Ma Liang indeed handed Shen Yunfang a package during the class break. Shen Yunfang opened it to find neatly stacked one hundred pairs of couplets and more than twenty versions of the "Fu" character.

That evening, Shen Yunfang brought all these couplets to Ma Liguo; the printing was then entirely his responsibility.

After passing the task along, Shen Yunfang washed her hands of the matter and simply waited for Ma Liguo to deliver the printed couplets to her.

After entering December, Shen Yunfang unexpectedly received a letter from Li Hongjun.

Her hands shaking, she pulled out the letter, which contained just a few brief words, "Yunfang, I am safe here, don’t worry. Take good care of Pangpang and Manman at home, and wait for me to return."

"This asshole." Shen Yunfang pressed the letter to her chest, "Would it kill him to write a few more words?" Doesn’t he know she worries about him? Such a brief message just made her more anxious.

However, the one consolation was that the bastard Li Hongjun was still alive, and that was enough.

The weather turned colder, and after a heavy snowfall, Ma Liguo finally came carrying the first batch of finished products.