A young boy from the 1970s, separated from his family, fled famine and led his younger brother into

"I have a secret recipe that will make your family business so good that you and your mother will be counting money until your hands cramp up."

Su Nianci's tempting words were like a boulder crashing into Ya Ya's heart, stirring up a tidal wave.

Counting money until your hands cramp?

For Ya Ya, a little girl who works hard from dawn till dusk, shouting in the cold wind, but may not even earn a penny a day, this is simply a sentence with fatal magic!

Her breathing quickened, and her face flushed crimson with excitement. Looking into Su Nianci's confident eyes, her initial doubts were replaced by intense longing. Regardless of whether this girl named Nianci was telling the truth, she decided to take the gamble!

"Okay! I...I'll take you home!" Ya Ya nodded vigorously, then hurriedly packed up her straw target. "My mom's home; she's probably preparing the hawthorns to sell tomorrow!"

"Let's go now!" Su Nianci grabbed Ya Ya's hand, as if she were the one who owned the place.

Ya Ya's home was deep in the alley, in an extremely rudimentary shanty built with wooden planks and tarpaulins. Such shantytowns were common on the outskirts of cities in the 1970s, inhabited by impoverished families without formal employment who lived at the very bottom of society.

Before even entering the door, Su Nianci smelled a strong, sweet aroma of boiling sugar, mixed with a hint of coal smoke.

Ya Ya pushed open the creaking door pieced together from wooden strips, and a wave of heat rushed out. The room was small and dark, lit only by a dim kerosene lamp. In the center of the room, there was a small stove burning honeycomb briquettes, and on the stove was a black iron pot, inside which white sugar bubbles were bubbling.

A haggard-looking woman, appearing to be in her thirties, sat on a small stool, carefully stirring the syrup in a pot with a chopstick. She wore an old, patched cotton-padded jacket, her hair was somewhat disheveled, and her face bore the weariness of years of hard work. This was Ya Ya's mother, Aunt Wang.

"Mom! I'm home!" Ya Ya shouted as soon as she entered the door.

Aunt Wang looked up, saw Ya Ya, and a kind smile appeared on her face: "How did sales go today? Are you cold?"

When her gaze fell on Su Nianci, who was behind Ya Ya and looked like a little beggar in a big old military coat, her smile froze, replaced by a look of vigilance.

"Ya Ya, this...whose child is this? Why did you bring a stranger home?" Aunt Wang immediately stood up, pulled Ya Ya behind her, and scrutinized Su Nianci in a protective posture.

In this era of scarcity and complex human nature, a mother's instinct to protect her child makes her wary of any stranger.

"Mom! Don't be afraid! Her name is Nianci, she's my new friend!" Ya Ya hurriedly explained. Then, she leaned close to Aunt Wang's ear and whispered excitedly, "Mom! She... she said she has a secret recipe! It can make our candied hawthorns even better than the ones from the supply and marketing cooperative! Her mother used to be a head chef at a state-run restaurant!"

"What?!" Aunt Wang's voice instantly rose eight octaves! She looked at Su Nianci in disbelief, her eyes filled with shock and doubt.

A five- or six-year-old beggar child, claiming to have a "secret recipe"? And a master chef at a state-run restaurant? This sounds like something out of a storybook!

Aunt Wang's face instantly turned cold. She thought Su Nianci was the kind of petty swindler who would freeload off others.

"Little girl," Aunt Wang's tone turned harsh, "our family is poor and we don't have much to give you. If you're hungry, I have half a cornbread here. Take it and eat it, then hurry up and leave."

This is practically an invitation to leave.

Su Nianci had anticipated this reaction. She remained calm, looking at Aunt Wang, and said, "Aunt Wang, I'm not here to beg for food. I'm here to discuss a business deal with you."

"Business?" Aunt Wang scoffed, finding it even more absurd. "I'm just a guy making candied hawthorns at home, what business can I possibly have with a... little kid like you?"

"Of course we can talk." Su Nianci's gaze fell on the iron pot where sugar was being boiled, and she pointed out incisively, "Judging from this pot of sugar, it's not boiled right."

Aunt Wang's expression suddenly changed!

Her skill in making sugar is the foundation of her livelihood. Being told to her face that she's "wrong" is more painful for her than being verbally abused!

"What do you know, you little brat! I've been making this candy for almost ten years! Everyone in the surrounding area knows about Wang's candied hawthorns!" Aunt Wang said, somewhat embarrassed and angry.

"You've endured ten years of hard work, but just now, a customer still said that your candied hawthorns were sour and sticky, and that they were 'rubbish'." Su Nianci mercilessly exposed her most painful wound.

These words instantly deflated Aunt Wang, her face turning utterly dejected. She vividly remembered the disdainful look and words the official had given her. Over the years, her business had declined, precisely because her skills hadn't kept up; the taste had remained unchanged, and she had long been outcompeted by others.

"I..." Aunt Wang opened her mouth, but couldn't utter a single word in rebuttal.

"Aunt Wang, I'm not mocking you. I just want to tell you that I have a way to solve your problem."

She paused for a moment, then stated her conditions.

"I don't want your money or your things. All I need is a temporary place to stay. A place where my brother and I can stay temporarily and not go hungry or cold anymore."

"I'll trade my 'secret recipe' for it."

"You only need to provide the hawthorns and sugar, and I will personally make a brand new batch of candied hawthorns. You can take them to sell, and if business is good and you make money, you can take us in. If what I make is the same as what you have now, or even worse, my brother and I will leave immediately without saying a word, and we will never cause you any trouble."

"You have nothing to lose. At most, you'll lose a few pounds of sugar and hawthorns. But you might gain an opportunity that could completely turn your family's fortunes around..."

Su Nianci's words were well-organized, clearly distinguishing between advantages and disadvantages, and were undeniably persuasive.

Instead of empty talk, she proposed a concrete, enforceable "betting agreement" with minimal risk to her side.

Aunt Wang was completely stunned.

Looking at the calm, collected, and sharp-tongued girl before her, all the contempt and doubt she had felt vanished. She began to believe that this girl might truly... possess some unknown talent.

Just like Su Nianci said, she suffered no loss. Failure would only mean wasting some raw materials. But what if... what if she succeeded?

Looking at her small, dilapidated home, at her daughter wearing a patched cotton-padded coat, and at Su Nianci's brother still in the air-raid shelter, his fate unknown... her heart, which had long been worn smooth by life, began to beat violently again!

Take a gamble!

"Okay!" Aunt Wang gritted her teeth, as if she had made a huge decision. She looked at Su Nianci and nodded heavily. "I'll trust you this once! Tell me, what do you want me to do!"

A victorious smile finally appeared on Su Nianci's face.

"It's very simple." She pointed to the pot of syrup that was almost ready and said bluntly, "The first step is to pour out this pot of syrup."

"It...it's spilled?!" Aunt Wang's heart was bleeding. This was all the ingredients she had prepared to sell tomorrow!

"Yes, pour it out." Su Nianci's tone was resolute. "Using white sugar to make syrup is the most basic method. From now on, we're going to use rock sugar."

"Rock sugar?!" Aunt Wang's eyes widened. "My goodness! Rock sugar is so expensive! One pound of rock sugar is enough to buy three pounds of white sugar! Using rock sugar to boil? Isn't that a losing proposition?"

"Aunt Wang," Su Nianci looked at her, her eyes becoming incredibly sharp, "you must remember. In business, cost isn't the most important thing; profit is. Using three times the cost to get ten times the profit—you can do the math yourself to see if it's worth it."

"Moreover, rock sugar alone is not enough."

Su Nianci paused for a moment, then revealed the most crucial element of her improved formula, a key element that people of this era would never have imagined.

"We need two more things."

"Same as above, they are roasted white sesame seeds."

"Another thing..." She smiled mysteriously and slowly uttered two words.

"Yes, vinegar."

"Vinegar?!" Aunt Wang and Ya Ya exclaimed at the same time!

Adding sour vinegar to sweet syrup? Isn't that insane?! How could anyone eat something like that?!