Chapter 9: Planning

After parting with the Fourth Miss Tang, she encountered the Fifth Miss Tang at the courtyard gate, who might have been waiting there like a "waiting for a rabbit" strategist for a long time.

During dinner, the Sixth Miss Tang suddenly had her maid bring over rock sugar bird's nest with ulterior motives, specifically to curry favor with her. This intention was also to marry into the Ou family alongside her.

It seemed that being wealthy was truly powerful! Even when it came to marrying in as a concubine, people were scrambling and competing, even causing one to change their temperament momentarily.

She couldn't miss this great opportunity to play a prank on those four young ladies for nothing! Lying on her bed, Xiao Xi smiled faintly.

The next day. As expected, Steward Fang brought the banknotes over. Upon hearing the servant report that the Ou family's steward had arrived, the four young ladies could no longer sit still. They all rushed to the northern courtyard to investigate.

Xiao Xi deliberately looked outside and found that none of her four sisters were left out; they all appeared in her remote and simple little courtyard with polite and enthusiastic expressions. The smiles on her face grew even wider.

As her four sisters wished, Xiao Xi mentioned to the steward that she wanted to bring her sisters along to marry into the Ou family. However, she did not specify which sister. Upon hearing this, Steward Fang frowned on the spot; he could not make such a decision and had to return to seek instructions from the Master.

"I wonder which of these four the Miss Xiao Xi mentioned is the one? That way, it will be convenient for me to report this matter clearly to the Master!" Steward Fang asked respectfully.

"Oh, well!" Xiao Xi deliberately procrastinated, turning back to look at her four sisters, each harboring their own schemes. She let out a soft laugh. "If all four sisters could marry in together, that would naturally be best! But if that is not possible and only one or two can be chosen, then let Master Ou decide!" Xiao Xi appeared generous, as if she didn't mind sharing a husband with others. In reality, there was a hidden trap, and she was simply waiting for the show to begin!

Steward Fang felt embarrassed; were the people of the Tang family a bit too eccentric? To actually want to marry together with their four sisters to serve one husband! This was the first time he had ever witnessed such a preference!

After Steward Fang left, Xiao Xi called out to the shadow guard hiding in the darkness: "I have some business to attend to outside. Help me protect my mother; you don't need to follow me!"

For a moment, there was no response. However, Xiao Xi knew the shadow guard had heard her, so she walked out of the Tang residence with great confidence. Since she had money in hand, she couldn't just sit around; she had to do something productive. She planned to first buy a residence, so that when she married, she could have Xiang'er and her mother move out of the Tang residence.

Hmph, that old man wanted to use her mother to threaten her; she couldn't give him the chance to bully her mother.

In the past, Xiao Xi specialized in dealing in second-hand goods, cheaply acquiring unwanted clothes from wealthy families and then reselling them to commoners. Now that she had a large amount of banknotes, she didn't intend to go back to her old trade; the money came in too slowly!

Her dream was to open a processing factory, specifically to process and sell modern bras. In the Yunxiang Continent, the underwear women wore close to their bodies was merely a thin layer of a bellyband, with absolutely no effect on lifting or enhancing the bust. As long as she found a way to produce them, she could fully imagine the sensation of excitement they would cause across the entire continent. She intended to use this opportunity to make a massive fortune.

This was only the first step. The second step was to open a chain of grand theaters, step by step abolishing places like the Chunyi Garden or Yixiang Garden—anywhere that harmed women. She wanted to bring over all the famous TV dramas, American shows, and novels she had seen in the modern era, find writers with good literary skills to turn them into scripts, and then have the beauties from those gardens play the roles. She would then recruit some handsome men from poor families to play the male leads, second leads, and so on, using them for a few days of trial performances as promotion.

This second step of the plan was indeed quite massive and risky. But if successful, it would both rescue the women selling themselves in brothels and help the handsome men from poor families achieve wealth. And she, in turn, would earn vast amounts of money from it.

Therefore, Xiao Xi had decided: this second step was the most important part of the earth-shaking and magnificent grand enterprise she was about to undertake.

Not far from the Ou residence, she bought a small three-entry courtyard. The house had all kinds of furniture; one could simply move in. Although she had a lot of money on hand, her business had not yet started, so she couldn't just live off her savings. Thus, she did not plan to spend money on new furniture for the time being and would use the furniture left by the previous owner, which was still about eighty percent new.

After buying the house, she ran to her maternal grandfather's home to visit him. Her grandfather had been released from prison, but he had suffered a lot while inside. Additionally, during the days he was captured, all the family's wealth had been swindled away by that former stepmother. After suffering these successive blows, his health was not what it used to be.

Fortunately, Tang Lifu, who lived next door to her grandfather, helped look after him. Tang Lifu was Xiao Xi's good friend and also an orphan who had lost his parents at the age of ten. Since then, he had lived on his own, often suffering from the bullying and cold eyes of outsiders.

It was just very strange that not long after his parents passed away—in the year Xiao Xi was six and used her blood to save a strange boy—Tang Lifu suddenly disappeared. It wasn't until five years later that Tang Lifu returned. However, he seemed to have changed completely afterward.

Although he acted the same as before, Xiao Xi felt faintly that he had changed somewhat, though she couldn't quite grasp exactly what had changed for the time being.

Xiao Xi had already decided to have Tang Lifu move into her newly purchased courtyard with her grandfather.

Once everything was arranged, Xiao Xi set about arranging the opening of the processing factory to manufacture unique, shaped bras. First, she went to the homes of her regular customers from her second-hand clothing days to win over the maids who specialized in selling old clothes for their masters. After long periods of interaction, she knew their characters to some extent, which was much better than buying new, strange maids from the outside.

After some negotiations, several maids were willing to work for her. With a smile in her eyes, Xiao Xi took out banknotes to redeem the indentures of these maids who wanted to follow her.

To be honest, as long as they worked for her, they would not lack good food and drink in the future. Xiao Xi led the maids back to her newly purchased residence and had them each sign a copy of a pre-written agreement.

Holding their contracts of sale, along with agreements that they could not disclose her business secrets to anyone, she smiled and hid these important items in a secret place.

Then, she took out her self-made bras and let the maids try them on. As soon as they put them on, every one of them blushed and offered endless praise. Xiao Xi naturally knew the benefits of a bra, and she smiled as she taught the maids how to hand-sew this special type of underwear.

Upon hearing this, the maids were all eager to try. It felt as though being able to sew such miraculous and useful bras themselves was a once-in-a-lifetime blessing that would bring them glory.

"Then let's do it this way! From now on, your daily work will be sewing these bras in this room. Once the quantity reaches a certain amount, we will go to the market to sell them. Of course, I will calculate your wages based on the quantity, meaning the more you do, the more you earn. In the future, when customer demand increases, we will recruit more workers. But by then, you all will be the founding veterans of my bra factory. There will be many benefits. I will give each of you a one-twentieth share of the stock, and you will receive monthly dividends based on profits!" Although Xiao Xi was very money-hungry, she also understood that at the appropriate time, one must appropriately throw out some money. Only in this way could she both retain people's hearts and strengthen their sense of responsibility to work hard for her.

After Xiao Xi finished her instructions, the maids were all beaming with joy, as if they could already see their bright futures ahead, with glittering gold waving at them. Their motivation was instantly at its peak.