Chapter 68: Rush Work
Zhang Pandi, upon hearing this, quickly waved her hands: “This is too much, no need for so much. We said twenty wen before, and it’s twenty wen.”
Mother and daughter each twenty wen per day, twenty days is eight hundred wen, which was already a huge sum for them.
“I say fifty is fifty. Now that you’re married, you don’t listen to big sister anymore, do you?” Zhang Zhaodi said fiercely. “We three sisters weren’t favored growing up because we were girls and couldn’t carry on the Jia family lineage. We worked the most but ate the least, and because of that, we had the best feelings from childhood. I fed second sister the first spoonful of rice soup, and I held third sister by the hand to teach her to walk. Which one of you two wasn’t raised by me? In the early years, my own days were tough too, and I couldn’t help you. Now that I’ve gotten lucky through my daughter and our days are better, I won’t stand by and watch you live badly. Unless after a long time, you no longer want to listen to big sister.”
“Big sister, we listen to you.” Zhang Yingdi said.
“Chunni and I listen to you too.” Zhang Pandi choked up.
“Then that’s settled.” Zhang Zhaodi continued the arrangement. “The reason I said twenty wen to them in front of you was to give you some sense, to save some money for yourselves.”
Mother and daughter each keep thirty wen, two people is sixty wen, twenty days total they can keep twelve hundred wen for themselves, which is one tael of silver plus two hundred wen.
For the mother and daughter who had slaved away at the Jia family for years without even touching money, this was a huge sum, and also the confidence for them to stand tall.
The newly rented house couldn’t be lived in yet, so they could only squeeze in for now. Next door Aunt Li asked Zhang Zhaodi if she wanted to borrow a stay at her place. Zhang Zhaodi quickly thanked her, then she herself went over to squeeze in with Aunt Li, letting Zhang Pandi and her daughter stay in her room. Su Yaoguang and Jiang Jing still slept in their own room, and Zhang Yingdi’s family first made do aggrievedly in the wood shed.
Early the next morning, Jiang Jing drove the ox cart taking Zhang Zhaodi to pick up the previously ordered porcelain vase. By the time they returned, Su Yaoguang had already started work with the others.
By morning, the wall was already built up, and Su Yaoguang settled the wages. At this point, when villagers looked at Zhang Zhaodi and her daughter again, they were all as if seeing the God of Wealth, attentive and thoughtful toward them.
That afternoon, Carpenter Li’s apprentices delivered a newly made bed and placed it in the rented house. Villagers saw the big commotion from Su Yaoguang and her daughter and all inquired what they were doing. Su Yaoguang didn’t hide it, saying she had taken an order, they couldn’t manage it alone, so she had relatives come help.
“Yaoguang ah, auntie is idling at home anyway, you see auntie’s hands and feet are quite nimble, how about letting auntie come help too?”
“Auntie is really warm-hearted.” Su Yaoguang said moved. “I had thought of hiring people from the village to help before, but thinking everyone has their own things to do, if I had everyone come help for free, wouldn’t that delay the field work? I felt too embarrassed to ask, so I could only find my own relatives and female cousins, after all we’re family, they wouldn’t take my money.”
“Help for free?” That auntie froze. “Even relatives probably wouldn’t help for free, right?”
“Auntie, this is my small business, where do I have money for wages? My own relatives, just helping with a little thing, providing food and lodging is already good, how could they take my money?” Su Yaoguang looked at the auntie expectantly. “Since auntie says that, then later…”
“I suddenly remembered there’s still work in the field not done, I’m off first, you all busy.” That auntie’s feet were like stepping on wind-fire wheels, running as if chased by a dog.
Zhang Zhaodi laughed beside her and said: “I was still worried you couldn’t handle these persistent people, now it seems I underestimated you.”
“If she wants to earn money, just let her give up completely. Everyone’s not stupid, who would work for free with no money?” Su Yaoguang said. “No need to say harsh words to offend people.”
Su Yaoguang here wasn’t hiring, but Aunt Li there was hiring. Aunt Li was in charge of gathering flower materials, and eighty percent of villagers turned out, the remaining twenty percent either couldn’t climb the mountains or had grudges with Su Yaoguang and her daughter, unwilling to lose face eating the rice fed by that mother-daughter pair.
“Oh my, where’d this big horse-drawn carriage come from?” A village woman looked at the oncoming horse-drawn carriage and said surprised. “Isn’t that Yihuan’s Mother?”
Zhong Lanhua sat outside the horse-drawn carriage, with a shop assistant driving beside her. Hearing the shocked voices from the village women, Zhong Lanhua’s face was full of smugness.
“Before they said Zhang Zhaodi’s mother-daughter pair bought an ox cart, look at the Jiang family, that’s real skill, directly buying a horse-drawn carriage. One such horse-drawn carriage could be traded for ten ox carts.”
“Zhong Lanhua and Jiang Yihuan both do embroidery, and every market day they send it to the city to sell. The embroidery shops in the city love their craftsmanship, selling at high prices.”
Zhong Lanhua saw ahead was Su Yaoguang and Zhang Zhaodi, signaled the shop assistant beside her to drive slower, deliberately showing off in front of Zhang Zhaodi.
“This horse-drawn carriage is nice.” Su Yaoguang said with a smile. “For this horse-drawn carriage, afraid they’d need to assign a young servant specially to drive it, otherwise who would drive the horse-drawn carriage?”
Zhong Lanhua was stunned.
Who would drive the horse-drawn carriage became a problem.
She couldn’t buy a young servant just for a horse-drawn carriage. Never mind the money to buy a young servant, just having to feed one person made it not worthwhile.
Besides, this horse-drawn carriage didn’t come free; it was the horse market manager’s son who advanced the money for them, and it had to be paid back.
Originally Zhong Lanhua thought the other side could pay for them, using it to curry favor with Jiang Yihuan, but that boy turned out cunning, only willing to advance the money, didn’t say to give it to them. In the end he even demanded Jiang Yihuan write an IOU for him, pressed a handprint before letting it go.
“Mom, let’s go home.” Jiang Yihuan said from inside the horse-drawn carriage.
The shop assistant delivered Jiang Yihuan and Zhong Lanhua home, took his hard-earned money and left.
“Daughter, why didn’t we think before about who would drive the horse-drawn carriage after buying it?” Zhong Lanhua said. “Buying the horse-drawn carriage but not being able to use it, that’s really wasteful.”
“No problem, anyway we rarely go out. When we do, we can ask some uncle in the village to help drive it, give two or three wen hard-earned money and it’s fine.”
They’d bought the horse-drawn carriage, but not hire someone to drive it? She, an unmarried young lady, couldn’t possibly sit in front driving the horse-drawn carriage. As for Zhong Lanhua, she was even less likely to drive it. She always loved enjoyment but unwilling to put in effort herself; making her drive the horse-drawn carriage was less practical than buying a young servant to drive it.
“Huan’er, this horse needs feeding, go get some grass to feed it.” Zhong Lanhua ordered. “If you don’t want to go yourself, find a man to go.”
At this point, Zhong Lanhua said: “No, wait, there are so many young lads in the village showing solicitousness to you, from now on let them drive the horse-drawn carriage for us.”
