Chapter 25: Making Money Is Truly Not Easy

After returning from the world of zombies, Du Yun felt even more attached to the ordinary Du family. Helping her mother with housework, although busy and tiring, gave her a sense of safety—there was no threat to her life, which made her particularly content.

The absence of mortal danger didn't mean Du Yun was free from all pressure; she still carried the heavy task of earning money. She had promised to make some money within a month, so she had to figure out a way. Taking advantage of the quiet in the house while everyone was out working in the fields, Du Yun, following the original owner's memories, dug out all the money she had saved up. In a small, yellowed handkerchief lay a pile of small bills and coins.

Du Yun carefully straightened the rolled-up money and counted it meticulously: she had only three yuan, eighty-two cents. Through the original owner’s memories, Du Yun knew these were the pennies saved from school lunch money, accumulated bit by bit over three years—yet it amounted to so little.

With little capital and no connections, Du Yun, who had confidently promised to earn money within a month, found herself at a loss. And there were many things to consider. The first was where to earn money. Lotus River was far from the city, and the locals were all people who scraped a living from the land, stretching every penny as far as it would go. To make money from such villagers would be extremely difficult.

If she couldn’t earn in the village, she’d have to look outward—to the town, the county, or even the provincial capital. Du Yun thought it over and felt that the town and the county were more reliable. The provincial capital was too far, taking hours to travel back and forth, costing a considerable sum in bus fare. If the profits weren’t high, it simply wouldn’t be worth it.

The town had its advantages: it was close by, just a half-hour’s walk, and the county wasn’t too far either—a one-hour bus ride. Although the town’s customer base and spending power were limited, the lack of transportation costs was attractive to Du Yun. So she decided to start earning money in the town.

With the scope narrowed, the next question was what to do to earn money. Life revolves around four things: clothing, food, housing, and transportation. If she could grasp these four, she wouldn’t fear a lack of income.

But for Du Yun, with only three yuan and eighty cents in hand, even though she knew the future prospects were good, housing and transportation were out of the question for now—her funds were simply too limited.

That left clothing and food. For these two, Du Yun felt she had an advantage. In her previous life, she was a foodie, and although she was introverted, she knew how to cook all sorts of dishes and snacks—and did it well.

Aside from experience, Du Yun had Douzhi, her all-purpose database. No matter the dish, a search would yield all the recipes she needed.

As for clothing, Du Yun felt she was also at an advantage. Though she was a bit reclusive and her sewing skills had grown rusty, she had a millennium’s worth of accumulated knowledge and Douzhi; designs and styles could be handled in moments, perhaps even more easily than food.

With this calculation, Du Yun’s confidence surged. If making clothes was easier than cooking, she would give it a try.

But when Du Yun opened her family’s cupboard, she found only bundles of worn clothing and scraps of fabric, not a single decent piece of cloth. She couldn’t help but smile wryly.

What good were countless designs if she couldn’t find a proper piece of fabric? In this era, everyone wore blue or black. Even the most innovative designs had no stage in this small village—good things needed recognition.

“Well, looks like I’ll have to turn to food,” Du Yun sighed, accepting her limited circumstances and settling on a direction for earning money. With so many kinds of food, to sell well in the countryside, she’d have to focus on small profits and quick turnover. Her limited capital meant the ingredients couldn’t be expensive, and they had to be plentiful and easy to handle.

Turning these ideas over and over, Du Yun wandered through her backyard and vegetable patch. She saw cucumbers, eggplants, peppers, tomatoes, and all sorts of greens flourishing. Young corn was ready to harvest, and the white radishes were nearly mature. An idea sparked in her mind.

“I wonder if this could make money,” Du Yun thought, though she wasn’t confident. In these times, earning money was truly difficult. If she failed, her hard-earned savings would be gone.

She got right to work. While preparing lunch, Du Yun picked some spinach from the garden, harvested a few ears of tender corn, pulled up a white radish and several carrots. With half a bowl of rice, she traded with a neighbor celebrating a birthday for a small bag of glutinous rice flour, and spent forty cents at the corner store for a packet of sugar.

In addition, Du Yun found a stash of dried hawthorn berries in the kitchen, likely sent from her grandmother’s house for New Year. They were very sour and made one hungrier the more you ate, so the children hadn’t used them as snacks and they’d been saved.

Du Yun sorted all the ingredients and set them aside, only starting after lunch. She shredded the white radish and carrots, boiled the tender corn and stripped the kernels, and blanched the spinach before chopping it finely.

Preparing the hawthorn took some effort. She cut the berries in half, boiled them until soft, then sifted out the seeds and coarse fibers, leaving a bright red, jam-like paste.

What Du Yun had in mind to sell wasn’t anything ordinary—it was inspired by rainbow cake: rainbow pastries made with colorful ingredients, soft and sweet, their selling point being their vibrant colors and rich flavors.

The reason Du Yun opted for glutinous rice flour to make soft, sweet pastries instead of actual rainbow cake was because eggs were precious in this era, costing about ten cents each. A small cake would need four or five eggs, and if the attempt failed, the money would be wasted. She couldn’t afford such a risk.

“Sister, what are you making?” Seeing Du Yun busy in the kitchen, Du Yin, who had just woken from her nap, rubbed her eyes and followed her. The colorful bowls dazzled her; she poked her little head over Du Yun’s shoulder, full of curiosity.

“I’m making something delicious!” Du Yun smiled at her adorable little sister, lightly tapping her nose as she spoke.

“Delicious? What could need so many ingredients? It looks so pretty!” Du Yin’s eyes lit up at the words.

“You’ll see soon enough!” Du Yun replied, smiling as she kept working. At this moment, she was even more eager than Du Yin to make the rainbow pastries. If she succeeded, perhaps her plan to earn money could really come true.