"Resign? No! That's an iron rice bowl job. Do you know how difficult it is to look for a job right now? What are you going to do after you quit?" Zhang Huafeng's mother was strongly against that idea. "Besides, why would you want to quit your job as a laborer to go and work for a capitalist? All of your friends and family would make fun of you. Did someone say something? The factory is hitting a bump right now. I am sure the country will figure it out and you will be paid after a while. Mom and dad can support you."

(T/N: An iron rice bowl job refers to an occupation with guaranteed job security as well as steady income and benefits.)

Wu Xiuyue, who was insinuated in the speech was infuriated. She was too nice. She never should have said anything; Xiuxiu wasn't her sister after all.

"Mom, don't say that. We only have Xiuxiu's best interest in mind. Xiuyue even offered to chip in and help Xiuxiu buy a house as her dowry." Zheng Huafeng quickly stood up for his wife.

Mother Zhang went quiet. Her daughter, being still single at 28, had also brought upon her a lot of pressure, which caused her to be a little oversensitive on things.

"Go check out the job first. If it's desirable, then just resign." Father Zhang could see the big picture better than Mother Zhang could. Many of the country-ran factories had closed down and all the workers were still waiting at home for "arrangements". Has anyone of them been arranged so far? No, they were still waiting.

"But that's an iron rice bowl job." Mother Zhang was still struggling with the idea.

Zhang Huaxiu, who hadn't said a word this entire time, suddenly chimed in decisively and said, "I have decided on resigning. Better to do it now when they could still give me my final pay. If we wait any longer, I might not even be able to get that. I have saved up some over the last few years as well. I can take out a loan and get a small place for myself. I have been thinking about this for a while now. I've just been worried about talking to you about it. I want to thank my sister-in-law for referring me to a job; otherwise, I'd have no idea where to even start."

Wu Xiuyue lowered her head. She had her own ulterior motive as well. She felt a little shameful after hearing her sister-in-law's words.

Zhang Mother still resented the idea. Who quit their iron rice bowl job to go work for capitalists?

"Mom, have you seen how many people have been laid off recently? Our factory has not been doing well. I worry that... it won't be around for much longer." Zhang Huaxiu had thought about resigning for quite a while now. She only worried that her mom and dad would object, so she was taking this opportunity to share her thoughts.

***

Zhang Huaxiu arrived at West City Nan Road West City Nan Road at 8 AM. She purposefully arrived a little earlier to leave a better impression with Shu Yan. There was only one storefront on the entire West City Nan Road with its sign removed. She figured that must be the one that her sister-in-law had mentioned. Not long thereafter, a man in his thirties carrying a black suitcase had arrived as well. He was a little bit surprised when he saw Zhang Huaxiu, but he nodded at her a little and stood to one side.

When Shu Yan arrived, she saw the two of them each standing to one side and the atmosphere was a little bit awkward. She looked from one to the other then. Smiling, she said, "Are you Zhang Chenghan's aunt?"

"Yes, I am." Zhang Huaxiu shook hands with Shu Yan, a little bit reserved.

Shu Yan opened up the door as she said to her, "We are still remodeling right now and the place is a little bit messy. Please take a seat on the couch for now. I have something else to take care of right now, then we can talk?"

"Yes, that is fine. I took the day off today. I have time." Zhang Huaxiu didn't get too close to the two of them. In fact, she stood quite a bit away; she wasn't a nosy person.

"I have shown the design of the light and couch to the designers. This is their price list." The man who came after her was obviously Chen Fei, the architect. He needed to confirm some details with Shu Yan.

The pricing was a little bit higher than buying finished product from the market, but not by much. Shu Yan felt that the price tag was acceptable. She signed off on a few more details and everything was ready to get started that afternoon.

"If there's nothing else, I will head back to my office now." When he walked past Zhang Huaxiu, Chen Fei slowed a little, smiled, and nodded at her before he walked on.

"Hi, I am Shu Yan and you are Huaxiu? Come and have a seat over here." Shu Yan looked Zhang Huaxiu up and down. Sure enough, she was everything that Wu Xiuyue had said about her. She was quite pretty with light-skin, thick brows, and big eyes. Her height was about 1.65 ~ 1.67 meter. She'd make a good model for the clothes. "Your sister-in-law mentioned that you work at a country-owned factory. That's like an iron rice bowl job. Sure you won't regret just resigning like this?"

Zhang Huaxiu smiled bitterly. Everybody said how great an iron rice bowl job was, but looking at the current situation of the factory, could that really still be called an iron rice bowl job?

"Truth be told, the factory hadn't paid us a salary for six months already. There's no guarantee that it'd stay open for much longer. I figured it probably best if I take what I can get and resign now. It's better to have the money in hand." Zhang Huaxiu was open and honest about her situation.

Shu Yan hadn't expected Wu Xiuyue's sister-in-law to be such a resolute person. '92 was the time when most left their factory jobs. It was best to get out early. Shu Yan stopped trying to talk her out of it.

"Your physical appearance is not a problem at all, but my work here won't start till a month from now. Plus, you will need to sell and there will be a sales goal. It might be more stressful than working in the factory. Are you sure you are okay with that?"

Many feel that all a sales person needed to do was to make money by talking and was much cozier than working at a factory. In truth, it was a different kind of tiring. From a certain perspective, one could say that being a sales person was more stressful than working in a factory.

"I can handle stress." Thinking about all the pressure for her to get married over the years, if she could handle that, what else couldn't she handle?

"Hours are 8:30 AM to 9 PM. We provide food but not boarding. Salary is made up of base pay plus commission. Base pay is set at $200 plus 1% of sales. The more you sell, the more you make. If you are okay with the terms and conditions, I will count you in." Shu Yan told her the working hours and terms and conditions and just waited to hear her answer.

Two hundred dollars plus 1% commission. In the event that she didn't sell anything at all, she would just be making $200 a month. Zhang Huaxiu hesitated for a little bit before she said, "Okay, no problem. Do I start a month from now?"

"If you don't mind the job being difficult, you can start as soon as you want. You know that I have two kids. If you can start, I'll have to oversee the progress of the remodeling. Possibly, I will be needing your help to grab a few things from the renovation shops. Once the remodeling is done, you will have to do inventory and put everything on the rack with me. But there's added benefits to that – managing the inventory with me means you will be familiar with all our products and their pricing. You will ramp up a lot faster. We won't be selling anything this month, so there will be no commission. I will just pay you $500 for the month. Once we are open for business, we will move to our agreed upon wages."

Shu Yan needed to drop her kids off and pick them up in the mornings and evenings and to look for bringing in merchandise on top of that. If Zhang Huaxiu could come and help out, it would free her up some. Overseeing the construction project might not sound like a lot of work, but there was a lot to take care of. Toward the end, she'd also need to clean up, categorize, stock, etc. Might as well pay her a higher amount to make up for that.

$500? Zhang Huaxiu didn't expect Shu Yan to offer her such a high amount. Did Shu Yan think that she could make even more with commission later on?

"Okay. I don't mind more work. When the factory was doing well, it wasn't unusual to pull all nighters all the time. This won't be a problem at all." Zhang Huaxiu really didn't think this was a big deal. She just wanted to make more money right now. She refused to believe that she couldn't live a good life without getting married.

They chatted for a little longer, and Zhang Huaxiu took off for the day. She needed to go back to the factory to resign. That might take up to a few days. Once she received the approval, she could start right away.

Zhang Huaxiu had grown more comfortably around Shu Yan, and Shu Yan had noticed that Zhang Huaxiu was a very articulate person. Her tone was neither fast nor slow, it was a steady pace and good for a sales person. Maybe with some training she could even become the store manager. This was just her thinking right now. She knew nothing about clothing, and she couldn't possibly hire another person who was not familiar with the industry to be the store owner. Perhaps, when she opened up more branches one day...

But that was too premature to think about right now.

Shu Yan cleaned the place up personally and had a simple lunch before Boss Zhang and his team arrived. Chen Fei was there as well. He walked through the store inside and out as though he was looking for something.

"Yes? Something's the matter?" Shu Yan thought that the discussion that they've had covered all the details. She wasn't expecting any issues with it.

"Oh, no. I just came with them to go over some details with them, just in case." Chen Fei asked in a seemingly casual manner, "Boss Lady, the person I ran into this morning was here for a job interview?"

"Yes, she's the aunt of my daughter's classmate." Shu Yan's eyes rolled and she smiled. "The factory she was working at wasn't doing too well, so she planned to resign and get a job outside. She happened to find out that I was hiring so she came and took a look. She is two years older than me but looks about ten years younger. That's the difference between a single woman and a married woman."

Chen Fei already looked somewhat disappointed when Shu Yan said Zhang Huaxiu was two years older than her but his eyes lit up again when he heard the part that she was still single. "She's still single."

"Yeah, she never found that right person. I think that's a good way of looking at it. Marriage is no simple matter. You don't just get married because you are at the right age." Shu Yan glanced over at Chen Fei and asked, "I seemed to remember that Architect Chen is also single? Well, are you interested in Xiuxiu?"

Chen Fei blushed right away and said, "No, no such thing. I'm just.... Just asking was all. I still have something else to take care of back at the office. I will be back." Chen Fei was almost out the door before he came back and asked, "Will she be working here?"

"Yes, that's the plan. But she needed to take care of matters at the factory first. I am not sure exactly which day she will be starting." Shu Yan raised her brows. And he still said he wasn't interested in her? Yeah, right.

After Chen Fei had taken off, Shu Yan couldn't help but went to find out more about him from the foreman.

"How old is your Architect Chen? He looks much younger than me?" Even though the female being the older one in a relationship wasn't too much of a problem, those of the older generations would gossip about it. So it's always better if the female was younger.

"He's 29 years old. They are white-collared workers. All he does is sit in the office and draft plans all day long so naturally he looked much younger than us." The foreman was quite envious of him. "Plus he has part ownership. Just his bonus is higher than our salaries combined."

"Oh, so he is one of your bosses?" That was unexpected.

"Yeah. He was recruited over from a big company by our boss. Other than his high income, we've heard that he even has 10% ownership of the company."

"More than that. I heard 20 %," said the concrete man next to the foreman.

"What? I've heard 30%," said the electrician.

Yup. Women were not the only ones who loved to gossip; men, too, enjoyed it as well.

Well, no matter the actual percentage, one thing for sure was that Chen Fei has ownership of the company. His income wouldn't be bad at all. He has a pretty good appearance and mild temperament. Seemed like he'd be a good catch.

"Where is he from? So mighty." Shu Yan looked gossipy.

"Province Chuan. Architect Chen doesn't talk much normally. We don't know much more beyond that." The foreman turned and chatted with the others about how much of the company did Chen Fei own.

Shu Yan listened to them for a while. Not gleaming any more new information, she bid the foreman farewell and went to pick up her kids.

"Mom, I got a little red flower again." Tianbao lifted his head up high and showed Shu Yan the little red flower on his head.

"Our Tianbao is so awesome! Earning his little red flower again! Mommy will go buy a new notebook today just for your little red flowers." In order to encourage Ye Tianbao to be more proactive, Shu Yan figured she'd adopt the little red flower system at home as well. Hmm, maybe one for Ye Jingjing as well. That's right, she could have a spot at home dedicated to measure their heights and also a wall for all their awards. These would all become the milestones of the kids growing. It might not look like much right now, but they'd all become good memories once they were grown.

She made a mental note to go tell the master at Nanfu Mansion tomorrow to make some modifications to the wall in the living room.