Chapter 504 - 403: Li Xiaoyan Decides to Let Jiang Liu Go

Chapter 504: Chapter 403: Li Xiaoyan Decides to Let Jiang Liu Go

Yang Yixue’s hands trembled as she opened today’s sales report.

Seeing the stable graph, she breathed a sigh of relief.

’It’s fine. Not as bad as I thought. As long as we stabilize, there’s still a good chance...’

She opened the food delivery app.

Three of her stores had dropped from 4.6 to 4.0 stars.

One had dropped from 4.8 to 4.2.

The reviews said her steamed buns were too expensive and didn’t even taste good.

Others complained the filling tasted sour, wondering if she was using yesterday’s leftovers.

After reading, Yang Yixue let out a snort of laughter and couldn’t be bothered to care.

’Why make such a fuss over a steamed bun? What a bunch of spoiled brats.’

’She was in business to make money, not to grovel before these broke-asses!’

’The poorer they are, the more trouble they cause! Someone’s probably review-bombing me on purpose!’

As for the ingredients not being fresh...

Yang Yixue had indeed instructed her stores to reuse unsold filling the next day.

When a chef objected, she had chewed him out.

"Are these ingredients free? Are you going to pay for them, then?"

"Can’t we just freeze the filling? Don’t you put leftovers in your own fridge at home?"

Her sharp words silenced the chef.

Just then, Li Xiaoyan called Yang Yixue.

"Daughter!"

"Yes, what is it?" Yang Yixue asked, frowning.

"Why is business at my store so terrible? I’ve only had one customer since this morning! Meanwhile, business at that damned Tongtong Restaurant across the street is even better! It’s infuriating! That whole family is a bunch of ungrateful bastards! I have no beef with him, yet he’s stealing my customers like this!"

"And to think I was once willing to marry you off to him! Now, I regret it more than anything!"

Li Xiaoyan’s voice was laced with jealousy and regret.

She had been greedy for the 300,000-yuan bride price back then.

She had agreed without batting an eye.

Yang Yixue’s head began to throb. "That’s enough, Mom," she said impatiently. "What’s the use of saying all this? Just forget about that store and go watch over Store No. 5."

"I’m not leaving!"

Li Xiaoyan said through gritted teeth, "Why should we be the ones to leave? If I go, wouldn’t that ungrateful bastard get exactly what he wants!?"

"Hmph. If I’d known this would happen, I wouldn’t have been so merciful. I should have..."

Li Xiaoyan stopped herself.

But Yang Yixue guessed immediately. "Mom, did you go to Jiang Liu’s store last night?"

Since she’d been found out, Li Xiaoyan stopped being coy.

She grunted. "I went. Took an iron pipe with me last night and hung around his place for a bit. But I couldn’t bring myself to teach that ungrateful bastard a lesson, so I let him off the hook for now."

"I never thought they’d be even more outrageous today!"

Li Xiaoyan was filled with regret for letting Jiang Liu off.

She shouldn’t have been so kind.

Hearing that her mother hadn’t actually done anything, Yang Yixue breathed a sigh of relief.

While she didn’t think Jiang Liu could do anything to her, she still didn’t want any more trouble.

She already had enough on her plate. If Jiang Liu came to confront her, it would just create more problems.

"Don’t do that again. I saw his store has security cameras. But you were covered up, and it was dark, so he probably didn’t see you."

"He can’t do anything to us for just loitering outside his store. But if you had smashed something, it’d be a different story."

Li Xiaoyan said indignantly,

"If he dares to keep acting up in my face, we’ll see if I don’t sort him out. So what if he’s earned a little money? What’s so great about that? Our family had over twenty million not long ago. Why would we be afraid of a little punk like him?"

Yang Yixue tried to reason with her, a note of resignation in her voice.

"Let it go, Mom, let’s just move past this. Don’t waste your time on him. Our priority right now is to get our own business in order. That’s more important than anything!"

"Mmm."

Li Xiaoyan agreed. "I know, I’m not an unreasonable person. He’s just a punk. Making money is what’s important. We’ll just treat him like a fart and let it go."

Deep down, they both had a superiority complex.

Back when Jiang Liu had no power or money and a daughter to care for, they had bullied him so often that they saw him as a complete pushover.

That mindset was so deeply ingrained it couldn’t be changed overnight.

This was especially true for Yang Yixue.

Even though she was now drowning in debt, she still looked down on Jiang Liu.

’What else could her ex-husband do besides stay home, take care of a kid, and cook?’

’If he could run a successful business, how could she, Yang Yixue, possibly fail?’

’The business being bad now was just him having better luck than her. What was there to be afraid of?’

’Luck is temporary, but skill is forever!’

Yang Yixue said, pleased, "That’s more like it, Mom. You’re one step closer to being a true businessperson. Congratulations!"

"Mmm."

Li Xiaoyan was fired up now. "Right. I’ll go to Store No. 5 and keep a close eye on things for you. I’ll try to turn business around. I need to pull my weight for our family business, don’t I?"

"Good, let’s do that," Yang Yixue added as a reminder.

"Just abandon the Zhongyin Road Store. Don’t worry about it anymore. He wants to compete with us head-to-head? Fine, let him have it. We have plenty of other stores; we don’t need that little bit of turf."

After hanging up, Li Xiaoyan rushed straight to Store No. 5.

Yang Yixue got up and went into the bathroom to take a shower.

Admiring her still-firm and smooth body, Yang Yixue’s mood improved considerably.

She was just no longer a virgin, that was all.

In the future, she would definitely find a man far better than Jiang Liu.

But the priority was to make her business succeed. Once her business was successful, she could find an even higher-caliber man!

After her shower, she put on a face mask and looked at the bank notification about an interest payment on her phone.

Her mood soured again.

’The restaurant business is a treacherous game. If I’d known, I never would have gotten into it. Then I wouldn’t have had to cut ties with my daughter.’

’If I still had that connection to my daughter, maybe I could squeeze some more benefits out of Jiang Liu!’

Yang Yixue thought.

She suddenly realized that two recipes weren’t nearly enough.

’If only she had five recipes... better yet, if she could get her hands on the techniques and recipes for everything in Jiang Liu’s restaurant.’

’No, I have to think of something...’

The more Yang Yixue thought, the more she refused to accept it. Since she’d entered the restaurant business, she had to see it through to the end. There was no way to go back to the beauty industry now. All her money was tied up in this. There was no turning back!

Suddenly, Yang Yixue’s eyes lit up.

’That’s it! Why didn’t I think of it? I can’t get to Jiang Liu and Tongtong, but I can go after Jun Qingmeng!’

A host of malicious ideas came to her.

For example, she could go to the kindergarten and slander Jun Qingmeng in front of her colleagues, ruining her reputation.

After all, Jun Qingmeng was with a man who already had a child. As the ex-wife, Yang Yixue could easily embellish the story and sling some mud.

A few casual words could be twisted and sound completely different to others. It would be so easy to make people misunderstand Jun Qingmeng, to get them to gossip about her behind her back.

If she succeeded in creating a misunderstanding, Jun Qingmeng wouldn’t be able to keep her job...

Yang Yixue plotted maliciously.

Her phone rang. Someone was calling her.

She glanced at the caller ID. It was the manager of Store No. 4.

"Hello? What is it?"

The manager stammered, "Pre-President Yang, we have a huge problem! A whole group from the Market Supervision Bureau is here! Their director even came to inspect the store personally! What do we do? Tell me what to do!"

???

Yang Yixue was dumbfounded. ’The director himself came?’