Because the soy sauce pancake has a layer of minced meat on top, it’s priced at two yuan apiece, equivalent to ten cents in the 1950s and 1960s, due to severe currency devaluation nowadays, sometimes changing monthly. Thus, they must constantly monitor it, otherwise, the losses would be significant, and if they can exchange for copper or silver coins, they’d definitely not take paper money.

She prepares one hundred in the morning, but on the first day morning, she only sold about thirty, leaving the rest for Noon sales, selling until evening, before managing to sell out all one hundred meat pancakes. Perhaps because they’re expensive, few customers came. The next morning, she made fifty, and unexpectedly, they all sold out in the morning.

"Your pancakes are delicious, truly, everyone at home says it’s delicious after buying them, we waited for you early this morning."

So, these fifty pancakes were sold to regular customers, no wonder it went so smoothly!

Business is like this, many times it depends on luck, and the weather also plays a part.

After selling out in the morning, she takes a break at Noon and prepares to bake bread in the late afternoon, baking one tray at a time and placing one tray in space, while still hot so that when she secretly moves them, others can take hot bread because it’s fragrant and glutinous, no need to advertise, people chase her asking what she’s selling.

That old-fashioned baked bread, crispy on top with layer upon layer on the bottom, sweet and glutinous, she sells them for ten yuan each because she uses eggs, sugar, and fresh milk, all good stuff, and they’re big enough that an average person can get full eating just one. Ten yuan sounds expensive, but once tasted, it’s definitely worth it.

Worried it might not sell, she only made twenty, and indeed, many people ran away as soon as they heard the price. Later, she specifically went near the Western Restaurant to sell along the street; compared to the bread inside the restaurant, her ten-yuan bread seemed like a steal. Many women in cheongsams approached asking prices; seeing its appearance and her stall’s hygiene, they readily paid, and she wrapped it up in paper, saying, "Enjoy, come again!"

Due to initial investment needing to buy meat, eggs, milk (subscription), and seasonings, there was nearly no profit for the first three or four days. But after a week, once the costs were recovered, she could net earn about 1,500 yuan a month by running the stall for about twenty days each month. If converted to silver coins, it’s roughly a little over thirty; this is quite a significant amount!

With this stable income, she’s even more motivated in her writing, especially with more than a month of promotion, her novel renamed "Jinxiu Nongmen" is gaining reputation, more people are inquiring about it at bookstores, and although the initial investment was large, she isn’t in a hurry to receive dividends, planning to wait half a year.

She and Zhang Jie have agreed to publish one book a quarter, one novel a year, and distribute dividends at year-end, she has agreed.

The novel is set at four hundred thousand words, producing four hundred thousand words a year is not particularly difficult for her, and soon she also began interacting with some newspapers, magazines, absorbing contemporary popular elements, then submitting short stories, earning herself ten to twenty silver coins each month, totaling forty to fifty silver coins. It’s known that Li Man earns perhaps only two silver coins working tirelessly for a month.

But she keeps all this money herself; Li Man doesn’t know the costs or sales of the goods she sells, nor does she need to report it deliberately.

Currently, they’re mutually reliant; she needs a partner, she needs a daughter, so they align seamlessly, but both should have their own considerations since no one knows what the future holds, they should remain vigilant.

Ma Lu doesn’t save the money she earns each month; she primarily buys grain, besides essentials for daily life, she also prepares rice, flour, oil, seasonings, cloth, cotton, and other necessities for the future.

She also never asks how much Li Man earns or saves, Li Man doesn’t ask her, claiming she writes for bookstores and newspapers.

The house is rented by her, everyday household items, they pay separately; although she built the oven in the yard, the chickens were bought by others, and the feed was also bought by others; her main responsibility is feeding them. Both inside and outside the house, although not evaluated meticulously, they have maintained relative harmony.

The original owner’s constitution is too weak, mental power can’t keep up; she feels tired once she starts speaking because she has to rely on her spiritual power to translate and convert language—it’s extremely exhausting. Therefore, while trying hard to earn money, she also makes sure to exercise in space, consuming more protein and meat to supplement nutrition.