A man wearing an indigo long coat and a gauze scarf on his head was holding a little girl about three years old, prying open her mouth and trying to dig out the caral that was stuck in her throat with his hand.
But after prying for a while, not only did he fail to remove the caral, but the little girl’s eyes also began to roll back, indicating she was about to choke to death.
"Yuanyuan, my Yuanyuan, please don’t let anything happen to you," the woman who was speaking was already crying a river, continuously patting the little girl’s back, trying to knock the caral out. But the caral just wouldn’t co out and the woman’s sobbing grew even more violent. Had it not been for a maid’s support, the woman would have likely fainted.
A servant carrying a lantern hastily said, "Old Master, let’s quickly take the young miss to the clinic in town."
They had just left the town and should have enough ti to turn back and make it.
"What nonsense are you talking about!" the man rebuked: "How would there be enough ti?"
He had seen people choked before, who died in less than a quarter of an hour. Now Yuanyuan’s eyes had started to roll back, it would take at least a quarter of an hour to get to the town from here—how could there be enough ti?
The people around all gathered over; upon seeing the little girl’s condition, they collectively sighed, "What a pity." There seed no hope for saving her.
The family just happened to be walking in front of Gu Jinli’s, and Third Grandpa saw the little girl’s condition and sighed, "Alas, what a sin. This little child probably won’t make it." He had lived a lifeti and seen many choke to death—very quickly losing their breath, beyond saving.
"Third Grandpa, wait for a mont," Gu Jinli ran over, and said to the man, "Uncle, give your daughter to ."
After speaking, taking advantage of the man’s mont of stunned silence, she took the little girl and positioned her back against herself. Gu Jinli’s crossed hands were placed at the top of the little girl’s abdon, and she applied forceful pressure upward towards the upper abdon several tis. After repeating this for a dozen or so tis, there was a "pop" sound and a caral flew out from the girl’s mouth.
"Wah—" The little girl finally could breathe and broke into tears instantly.
"Yuanyuan, Daddy’s Yuanyuan, you’re fine now, don’t be scared," the man embraced the girl, gently patting her back, comforting her.
He also consoled his wife beside him: "Don’t cry anymore, our Yuanyuan is alright."
The woman, seeing her daughter truly out of danger, finally stopped crying, moved behind the man, looked at the little girl, and comforted with a soft voice, "Yuanyuan, don’t be afraid, your mommy and daddy are right here."
The onlooking villagers said, "Yo, she really was saved. What thod was that?"
In fact, the thod was very simple— it was the common Heimlich maneuver in modern tis that uses abdominal thrusts to force out the object stuck in the airway.
But to explain this thod would take so ti, and Gu Jinli was in a hurry to get ho. After seeing the little girl was safe, she left.
By the ti the couple rembered to look for soone, Gu Jinli was already nowhere to be found.
Gu Jinli and her group traveled throughout the night, and it took them nearly four hours to get ho.
Many families hadn’t slept, all gathered at Gu Jinli’s house, waiting for them. Seeing them return safely, everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
Third Grandma hurriedly welcod them into the door, and as soon as they entered, she asked, "How did it go, did we sell all the spiced tofu and bean dregs cakes?"
Mrs. Chen quickly answered, "Sold out, sold out. You have no idea, our Fried Five-Spice Tofu and bean dregs cakes were so popular! They were flying off the stalls, people fighting to buy them. There were quite a few who couldn’t buy any and asked us to set up a stall again tomorrow."
Upon hearing this, the families were overjoyed.
Third Grandma said, "It’s good that everything sold. I was worried we prepared too much tofu and it wouldn’t all sell, but in the end, everything was gone and it wasn’t even enough."
Gu Dashan, Mrs. Cui, and Gu Jinxiu brought them ginger soup, letting each of them drink a bowl.
In this freezing weather, they had set up their stall and endured the cold wind all night; if they didn’t drink so ginger soup, they might get sick.
After gulping down a bowl of ginger soup, everyone finally felt ward up. Knowing that they were eager to find out the total earnings, they said to Qin San Lang and Father Luo, "Bring out the bag with the money so we can count it together."
Third Grandpa was old and afraid he might get robbed of so much money, so he split the Silver Coin into two bags, one each for Father Luo and Qin San Lang, who knew martial arts.
"Eh." Qin San Lang and Father Luo took out the cloth bags tied around their waists and with a whoosh poured all the Silver Coin onto the table, forming a huge pile.
Seeing so many Copper Coin, everyone’s eyes lit up, and in disbelief, they exclaid, "How, how did we sell so much money?"
Mrs. Chen’s brows and eyes curved up in delight as she said: "This is only the lesser amount. If we had prepared more tofu, we could have sold even more money."
Third Grandpa pointed at the pile of Silver Coin on the table, saying, "Let’s have soone good at counting from each family to count this money. Let’s see how much we sold tonight."
Imdiately, one person from each of the seven families got to work, counting the Copper Coin on the table. It took a full fifteen minutes to finish counting, and when the seven piles of Silver Coin were combined, all were taken aback: "There are actually eleven taels and six hundred and forty cents."
"Good heavens, really eleven taels so much?" Mrs. Chen knew they had made money tonight but didn’t realize it was so much. Hearing this number, she almost fainted.
The families couldn’t believe there was so much money, so they counted again, and the result was still eleven taels and six hundred and forty cents.
"It’s really that much." Third Grandma was shocked.
Hearing that they had earned so much money, Third Grandpa was very happy, but he didn’t lose his head and instead asked Gu Jin’an, who was next to him, "Brother An, is the counting finished? Give everyone a number."
"Eh." On the tenth day, when they went out to buy supplies, in addition to purchasing yellow paper, they also bought pens and ink. While everyone was counting the money, Gu Jin’an had already taken out paper and pen to note down the cost and profit.
Xiao Yu was the one who had reminded him of this task and taught him how.
"We sold a total of four loads of tofu, two loads of bean dregs; a load each of tofu and bean dregs weighs eighty jin, and we can make six servings of Fried Five-Spice Tofu from one jin of tofu, each serving costing five cents. The four loads should have sold for nine taels and six hundred cents, but today we gave away tofu, hence only earned seven taels and two hundred cents, missing two taels and four hundred cents."
"We didn’t give away any bean dregs cake; one jin of bean dregs can make eight cakes, earning three taels and eight hundred and forty cents."
"The rest are the sales from the spice packs; one pack costs five cents, we gave one away for every two bought, and we sold sixty packs, earning only two hundred cents."
Gu Jin’an spoke very slowly, so everyone understood clearly.
Mrs. Chen almost fainted upon hearing this, "Oh, my God! I said we shouldn’t give it away, just look, that’s more than two taels of Silver Coin—over two taels of Silver Coin, my flesh and blood!"
"Shut up, why are you howling?" Gu Dagui scolded Mrs. Chen, "Our business is in fresh food; if we didn’t give any away, who would dare to buy?"
Although Mrs. Chen understood this reasoning, she still felt the pain, feeling as if a large chunk of flesh was being gouged from her heart.
The families all felt the pinch, but they knew there was no other way. After the initial pain, they let it go.
The eleven taels and six hundred and forty cents were just the gross profit. After calculating the cost, Gu Jin’an told them, "Setting up this tofu stall cost us a total of six taels and two hundred and fifty cents. After deducting the costs, we earned a net profit of five taels three hundred and ninety cents tonight."
His family owned forty percent of the tofu business and could take two taels one hundred and twenty-five cents, while the other sixty percent would be divided among six families: "Dear uncles, aunts, and ladies, each of your families can take five hundred and thirty-nine cents."
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