Rebirth Counterattack with Space

"""

"Thousands of salted duck eggs, when will you guys be able to finish them all if you eat them yourselves? Unless you’re in business and are planning to transport them elsewhere to sell? You need to think it through; aside from the transportation cost, my salted duck eggs are also a bit more expensive. I’m afraid that people who haven’t tasted them might not recognize their value and you might end up at a loss,"

Old Mi sized up Shitou and began to doubt their identity. The presence of this man was too extraordinary. Was he really employed at a major local institution?

"Dad, when someone wants to buy our stuff, shouldn’t we be happy and willing to sell it to them so everyone can be happy? Why are you meddling in what they’ll do with it? It’s none of our business,"

Old Mi’s eldest daughter-in-law pursed her lips, afraid that if Shitou heard this he might get scared off and not buy anything. A salted duck egg for forty cents, that’s a few thousand Yuan of income right there, which could be lost due to the old man’s foolishness.

Thinking this, she couldn’t help but shoot her father-in-law a surreptitious glare, cursing him as a fool in her heart, and then plastered on a smile for Shitou, "Our old man here’s getting on in years and is a bit muddled; don’t pay him any mind."

"Yeah, my dad’s getting old and confused; please don’t take him seriously. There’s a reason why they’re pricier; if you sell them elsewhere, everyone will be fighting to buy them. There’s only room for profit, how could you possibly suffer a loss?"

Old Mi’s eldest son also joined in with an apologetic smile, "We’re just too busy to do it ourselves or we would have done it already. This kind of business guarantees a profit. If you miss this opportunity, you won’t find another like it. You’ll come back to us after you’ve made money."

Hearing this, Old Mi gave them a look filled with disappointment and didn’t respond, but continued to direct his questioning gaze at Shitou.

His younger son and daughter-in-law watched with dissatisfaction at the behavior of the eldest, but quickly suppressed their emotions and eventually didn’t say anything—whatever they said would be useless. Voicing more complaints could only provoke an irrational tantrum from the eldest brother’s family, who would likely claim that the old man was playing favorites.

"Please don’t worry about it, sir. We’re serious. Besides duck eggs, we’re also interested in buying your ducks. How many do you have? And would it be possible for Master Mi to visit our institution in person and cook one or two special duck dishes from your shop for our colleagues?"

Shitou didn’t pay attention to the adoptive couple and disapproved of their brazen attitude toward their foster father, clearly seeing them as ungrateful, along with what Lu Yun had witnessed earlier—they indeed seemed like the proverbial ’ingrates.’

On the contrary, Old Mi was the kind of person who acted with principle, who did the right thing even when no one was watching, who could see immediate benefits yet remained unmoved, and who was able to offer such a reminder to his own family, clearly a man of integrity.

In this world, people of integrity might occasionally suffer a loss, but only they can truly earn the respect of others, and it’s often the people of integrity who eventually win in the end.

Therefore, Shitou started to speak to Old Mi very politely.

"Are these for the colleagues in your institution? Are you in charge of purchasing?" Old Mi asked, surprised, unable to anticipate such an answer.

"We’re not in charge of purchasing, but we can make decisions. When the time comes, we can discuss the price of the ducks. I just don’t know if you can supply enough?" Shitou said with a smile and a nod.

"If we count all the ducks, there are about one thousand five hundred. I don’t know if that would be enough?" Old Mi thought for a moment and gave an approximate number.

"Don’t you need to keep some for your own shop to do business?" Shitou inquired.

"""

"No problem, isn’t the New Year fast approaching? We’ve been working all year, and it’s only right that we also take a few days off. It would be my husband’s honor to cook a meal for your big unit, and he’d be on call whenever you need, no extra charge. Since you’re buying so many ducks from us in one go, consider the meal a bonus. As for the price of the ducks and the salted duck eggs—"

Old Mi furrowed his brows and thought for a moment before decisively saying, "You’re buying in bulk, so I won’t charge you more, just three fifty for a salted duck egg, four yuan per jin for the ducks."

"Dad, how can that be okay? Our salted duck eggs sell for four mao each at the shop. Now with the New Year almost upon us, prices are beginning to rise. Even if we don’t mention raising our prices, should we actually be lowering them?

Besides the ducks, ordinary ducks outside are already selling for four yuan per jin, and after New Year, the price will still go up. Our family’s ducks can’t be sold for so cheap, can they? In our business, a single duck could sell for three to four times that price.

Now you suddenly become this great philanthropist, this benevolent man. Are you expecting our whole family to go hungry? Don’t forget, those ducks were raised with the help of our Kang. You can’t make decisions so autocratically..."

As soon as Old Mi finished speaking, his eldest daughter-in-law abruptly stood up, her voice sharp in opposition.

"Mi Dahu, I’m still breathing here, and yet you just sit there watching your wife embarrass me in front of outsiders? Do you also feel I’m no longer capable, that it’s now your turn to call the shots in this family?"

Old Mi didn’t pay any attention to his eldest daughter-in-law but just coldly stared at his eldest son and asked.

"Dad, what Yang Yu said wasn’t wrong, your price is indeed a bit too low."

Mi Dahu, with a troubled expression, looked at Old Mi and tried to excuse his wife, "Yang Yu didn’t mean to disrespect you, sir. You just haven’t raised ducks yourself and don’t know how hard it is. You can’t let Kang’s year of hard work go to waste..."

"Big brother, from what I recall, wasn’t it mostly our mom doing the work at the duck pen? Mi Kang is gone two and a half days out of every three, so how has all his year’s hard work gone to waste?" Old Mi’s younger son couldn’t stand it any longer and finally spoke up.

"Wow... I’m so cursed with hard luck. I said your family was no good to begin with, but you, Mi Dahu, insisted on coaxing me, saying your parents, although not your birth parents, treated you like their own son...

Is this how they treat their own son? Now that they have a son of their own, who needs us? What do we count for? Slaving away for the whole year for the Mi Family only to end up being scorned. At home, we don’t even have the right to speak...

Oh heavens, we are just the bridge that’s demolished after crossing. Might as well have a thunderbolt come down and strike us dead, spare us the ingratitude after years of hard service, only to be drowned in spit and misunderstood as being unfilial, talking back to the elderly..."

Seeing Old Mi’s younger son speak up, Yang Yu immediately stood up and plopped down on the ground, not minding the presence of outsiders, and just started wailing loudly.

As she wailed, she also began slapping her thighs, her voice rising and falling dramatically—

Old Mi’s younger son stood up abruptly, his fists clenched tight, veins popping, his whole body trembling with anger.