The Evil Mother-in-law: Torment Children, Work Hard, Be Rich!-Chapter 101: Training the Waitress

The attack from Crispy Food Garden on Taohua Dessert didn’t throw Tong Huaqiong and her group of bad bamboo into a panic.

Everyone went about their business as usual.

Tong Huaqiong thoroughly enjoyed her three-day break without having to set up a stall.

She used the oven at home and found that the baked goods could rival those made with commercial ovens from later times.

It must be said that Qin Qingyou had some craftsman spirit in him for building such a perfect oven for her.

When Ma Huateng sold her the shop, the first thing she decided to do was ask Qin Qingyou to repair two ovens.

Tong Huaqiong had previously looked carefully at Ma Huateng’s liquor shop; there was a large courtyard behind the shop, which was simply a divine selection. In that big courtyard, she could carve out a space to build an oven room and two storage rooms.

Tong Huaqiong generously displayed various baked goods on the table for her family to enjoy.

Even though their family sold pastries, they couldn’t afford to let everyone eat to their fill since every bite was money, and the Gu Family was not yet at a point where money was not an issue.

The whole family went crazy with joy, not even eating proper meals, just eating pastries.

Especially Gu Yaozu, who stuffed his face with all kinds of pastries like he had been reborn starving; if Liu Yueer hadn’t stopped him, his belly might have burst.

Tong Huaqiong wasn’t as eager to eat pastries; she looked at their mud house and the worn-out furniture and thought about renovating the yard, making the interior more comfortable, all of which required money.

When she made a ton of money, she wanted to renovate her house beautifully, just like Yuanwai Huang.

Thinking this filled her with energy.

Gu Dashi and Gu Jingzhe were sent by Tong Huaqiong to the town to keep an eye on Manager Feng and his nephew, while Gu Dahuan diligently guarded their few acres of wheat at home, and Chen Sufen busied herself with housework, keeping everything in order.

Fired up by the hustle and bustle, Tong Huaqiong also didn’t plan to waste her three-day break, so she started vocational training with Liu Yueer.

The Taohua Dessert shop was definitely going to open, and according to her plans, Liu Yueer would be the first clerk of Taohua Dessert.

These days, most shops didn’t have a sense of service, especially towards ordinary customers, where they tended to look down on them, and she absolutely wouldn’t allow such a situation in her shop.

Although they couldn’t treat customers like absolute kings like some future hotpots did, it was important to make customers feel a welcoming service.

As a server, Liu Yueer’s looks were definitely up to the mark. Isn’t that obvious? When she was a young lady, she was the village belle of Qinghe Bay Village, and the fact that the face-obsessed Gu Dashi valued her showed that her title as the village belle was well deserved.

Moreover, although Liu Yueer was talkative, gossip-loving, and liked to throw fits, she was lively, cheerful, and infectious; even with Tong Dajiao’s bad reputation, the village’s young wives and older ladies were willing to welcome Liu Yueer into their homes for chats, which showed that Liu Yueer had a unique charm in winning people’s hearts.

Such a daughter-in-law is the most suitable to train and work as a server in Taohua Dessert.

At first, Liu Yueer was very happy.

In this era, the clerks in the shops were all men; even in shops targeted at women, like those selling cosmetics or jewelry, female clerks were rare. The family shop hadn’t even been set up yet, but her mother-in-law was already considering her as the first clerk.

What does this mean? It means that her mother-in-law valued her greatly.

Not just in Qinghe Bay, but even in the whole Yan Guan Town, no mother-in-law was willing to let her daughter-in-law show her face in public, but her mother-in-law was, which suited Liu Yueer’s wishes perfectly.

She had been cooped up in Qinghe Bay talking about this and that for so long that she was going crazy. Qinghe Bay was too small for her to fully utilize her abilities; she wanted to go to the shop and interact with customers.

She believed that with her quick wit, she could definitely win over all the customers of Taohua Dessert Shop.

Tong Huaqiong’s training was completely according to future standards, with smiles and enthusiastic attitudes portrayed just right; neither too ingratiating nor too fake.

At first, Liu Yueer found it odd; after a day’s work, she was too tired to move.

If not for her mother-in-law’s sincere intention to have her involved in Taohua Dessert, she would have thought her mother-in-law was deliberately mistreating her.

Not to mention anything else, just the requirement of showing eight teeth in her smile, she never knew smiles had such guidelines. She thought it was simple, wasn’t it just smiling? Wasn’t it just showing eight teeth?

But when really smiling, she either smiled too much or too fakely.

Her mother-in-law had her practice in front of a broken mirror at home and wasn’t satisfied until she had her practice by biting chopsticks.

Her mouth got swollen from practicing.

Not only practicing smiling, but Tong Huaqiong also had Liu Yueer practice her posture.

In town shops, there were basically no female clerks, and Liu Yueer had encountered female clerks who were usually the shopkeepers, with a stereotyped image according to Tong Huaqiong.

Standing with a hand on their hip, holding a handkerchief, bustling and fiery, ready to scold people at any time.

It’s not the shopkeepers’ fault; after all, it wasn’t easy for women to do business in this era, and they had to establish an image that was tough and not to be trifled with.

Her image, Tong Huaqiong’s, was no different.

Tong Huaqiong was the shopkeeper, so she could be like this, but if she wanted to create the number one viral pastry in Yan Guan Town, she had to come up with something fresh and eye-catching.

So she started with Liu Yueer as a practice.

Liu Yueer stood straight against the wall, with a pair of chopsticks in her mouth.

Tong Huaqiong had Gu Yaozu supervise her, and every time she moved a bit, her tattletale son would yell and report, and Tong Huaqiong would have her practice more.

Her mouth hurt, her back ached, and her legs cramped; even so, her mother-in-law said not having her practice balancing a sack of rice on her head was already lenient enough.

Liu Yueer was so worn out she had no temper, she hadn’t gone through such hardship since she married into the Gu family.

She even started to envy her elder sister-in-law, Chen Sufen; although baking pastries was tiring, at least it was free and unrestrained.

Thinking she’d have free rein to be a shopkeeper in Taohua Dessert, Tong Huaqiong clearly told her she’d be a clerk and should she dare act like a shopkeeper, she could go home and farm.

Since she was to be a clerk, she had to have a clerk’s mindset, such as not conflicting with customers and maintaining good posture and attitude like in the training.

Her mother-in-law said only in this way could they retain customers.

She almost gave up on the idea, but she wasn’t willing to.

The temptation of going to the town was too great.

What’s more, if she didn’t get involved in the operation of Taohua Dessert Shop, she feared that the shop would end up being controlled by Gu Taohua and the first family, and their second family wouldn’t get a share.

This was something Liu Yueer, who always loved to take advantage, couldn’t tolerate.

Liu Yueer trained until the second day, feeling as if she had died once.

In the afternoon of the second day, while Tong Huaqiong continued training "servers" at home, Ma Huateng came knocking at the door.

Seeing Ma Huateng enter, Tong Huaqiong’s heart filled with joy; he hadn’t even waited three days before coming to Qinghe Bay, showing that he accepted her terms.

Tong Huaqiong greeted him vigorously; after all, agreeing to sell her the shop wasn’t enough; the price hadn’t been settled yet.

She still needed to haggle.

"Aunt Tong, I’ve been looking for you in town all day; why didn’t you set up your stall today?" Ma Huateng asked, stepping into the Gu Family Mansion and seeing Tong Huaqiong.

Tong Huaqiong invited Ma Huateng into the house and instructed Liu Yueer to serve him tea, displaying the eight-tooth smile and straight posture according to her service requirements, startling Ma Huateng so much he almost spilled his tea.