Transmigrated into a seven-year-old child, my fate is in my own hands, not in the heavens.

"Haha~"

Zhao Lian sneered, "You chased away my guests and now you want to collect protection money from me? What have you done to protect me? Do I need your protection?"

"You are the most despicable. You claim to protect people, but you do things that bully people."

"Little sister~"

Hearing Zhao Lian's scolding, Zhao Di felt a throbbing pain in her temples.

"It's alright, Second Sister, don't be afraid, I'm here!"

Hey!

The scarred man was furious: "You little girl, you don't know what's good for you, do you! Brothers, smash it!"

"stop!"

A loud shout rang out, and a figure flashed before his eyes. A knife was held to Scarface's neck, terrifying him to the point of utter panic.

It turned out to be Song Wenjie, who was staring at the scarred man with a sinister look, sending chills down one's spine.

"Hero, this knife has no eyes, spare my life!"

"You dare to take our protection money? You're asking for trouble."

The other men, seeing this, immediately froze and didn't dare to move.

Scarface cried, "Can't I just not take it? Please, have mercy!"

Their line of work is all about bullying the weak and fearing the strong, but they never expected to run into a tough nut to crack.

"Hehe~ Who told you to run into me today? You have no choice in the matter."

Seeing that their pleas were ineffective, the men exchanged a glance and began to slowly encircle them.

Their tricks could not escape the eyes of Zhao Lian and Song Wenjie.

"If you want to live, tell them to back down." As he spoke, Song Wenjie pressed down on the knife in his hand, the sharp blade cutting his skin, and a sharp pain shot through his neck.

"Ah~ Don't do anything rash!" The scarred man was almost scared to death and cursed at the group of men, "You're deliberately trying to kill me, aren't you? Put the knife down right now!"

After much hesitation, the men put down their knives.

Enraged, Zhao Lian immediately started punching and kicking them: "Just because I'm not showing my teeth doesn't mean I'm a pushover! I'll teach you to collect protection money!"

"Girl, please spare us! We'll never do it again!"

"Liu Yu, Afu, quickly tie them up." Seeing this, Sun Shangxiang and Zheng Xiuzhen quickly found a rope and handed it to Liu Yu, who then tied them up tightly.

"My lord, what should we do with these people?" Liu Yu was undecided.

"Send it to Shuntian Prefecture."

"okay!"

"Wenjie is really amazing; he subdued them in no time." Sun Shangxiang gave a thumbs up.

This commotion did affect business a bit, but it wasn't a big problem. Everyone clapped and cheered when they saw them being arrested, and many more people came in.

By evening, there were nearly 1000 orders, and a lot of rice cakes were also sold on site, with the turnover reaching more than 300 yuan.

Zhao Lian calculated that the net profit was nearly 240 coins.

To everyone's surprise, business was booming on the very first day of opening. This made everyone extremely excited.

Considering the increased orders in the future, which would make it difficult to operate from home, Zhao Lian rented another workshop not far from the shop, which could also be used as a warehouse.

At the same time, they began to expand recruitment, hiring 20 people, each paying 15 coins a day and including one meal. As soon as the notice was posted, the positions were filled quickly.

Zhao Lian handed over the purchasing work to Liu Tiezhu, asking him to be in charge of purchasing glutinous rice and brown sugar.

Liu Yinzhu was the warehouse manager, and Liu Tongzhu was in charge of transportation, bringing the finished products from the workshop to the store.

As for Sun Shangxiang, she took on the role of manager, while Zheng Xiuzhen was in charge of cooking. Everyone was busy with their own tasks and cooperated with each other.

As for Jiang Si, she is now pregnant again, and Zhao Lian told her to stay home and rest, and didn't let her get involved.

Besides rice cakes, Zhao Lian has developed new products intermittently, including cat ear-shaped pastries, open-faced dates, and twisted dough sticks. She has developed nearly ten new products in a row.

Every new product launched is met with enthusiastic support.

To ensure that these items could be supplied to customers smoothly during the Lunar New Year period, the workshop worked day and night.

Time flew by and it was already past the twelfth lunar month. With orders piling up, Zhaolian started hiring again.

With the Lunar New Year approaching, this time we're hiring temporary workers, but the pay is one cent less per day than for permanent employees.

This time, a total of 30 temporary workers were recruited, which, together with the previous 20 permanent workers, makes a total of 50 people.

Starting from the 20th of the twelfth lunar month, everyone put the gift wrappings on the counter, and the whole family pitched in. The daily turnover was at least 500 taels.

Soon it was the 25th of the twelfth lunar month, and Zhaolian paid each employee their wages and gave them gifts.

These gifts were products from He's Rice Flower Shop, and each person also received an extra 50 coins. This made everyone extremely happy.

Because there were dozens of temporary workers, those who performed well and were diligent could be promoted to permanent positions. Before the holiday, a total of 22 people were successfully promoted to permanent positions.

New Year's Eve arrived quickly, and Sun Shangxiang and Zheng Xiuzhen prepared a table full of dishes. There was braised chicken with mushrooms, stir-fried duck with bamboo shoots, braised goose, steamed grass carp, and braised pork—a total of 12 dishes.

Looking at the dishes laid out on the table, their aroma filling the air, Liu Yao beamed with joy and took a deep sniff: "Mmm, so delicious!"

Not only were the children happy, but the adults were overjoyed too, as the family hadn't had such a lavish meal in a long time.

"Mom, I want to eat fish." Liu Yan's eyes lit up as he looked at the dishes on the table.

"Mom, I want to eat more chicken." Liu Yao loved that plate of chicken the most.

"Mmm, this is delicious."

Looking at the dishes on the table, Yan Guihua couldn't help but nag, "You two spendthrift women, making so much food, it's such a waste if we can't finish it."

“Grandmother, you’ve misunderstood my aunt and uncle. I’m the one who asked them to cook so many dishes.”

Seeing Yan Guihua blaming them, Zhao Lian quickly clarified.

Yan Guihua frowned: "Zhaolian, you can't spend money like this. It's hard to earn money, but easy to spend it. You have to be more frugal."

Zhao Lian looked relaxed: "It's alright, the shop is making money now. I want to discuss something with everyone today."

As she spoke, Zhao Lian took out a money bag and distributed wages to Liu Tiezhu and the others. In addition to the wages, each person also received a commission.

They hadn't expected to receive much money, but to their surprise, each of the three brothers received almost 20 taels of silver, which astonished Liu Tiezhu and Liu Yinzhu.

They never imagined they would receive so much money.

“Zhao Lian, did you miscalculate? How come there are so many?” Liu Tiezhu was afraid that Zhao Lian had made a mistake, so he quickly asked again.

“Yes, that’s right! This is all you deserve.” Zhao Lian began to explain to them how the commission was calculated.

After explaining it to them in this way and that, everyone finally understood.

Liu Tiezhu and his brothers handed the silver over to their wives for safekeeping, and they were overjoyed.

They never imagined they would earn so much money; it's all thanks to Zhaolian.