On the 28th day of the twelfth lunar month, according to custom, every household will carry out a thorough cleaning to prepare for the new year.

The Cheng family also left the county town early in the morning with large bags and small bags of luggage, heading to Lishan Villa. They planned to do a thorough cleaning of their new home and then happily celebrate the New Year. The whole family planned to stay until before the Lantern Festival before returning to the county town. In modern terms, they would go on vacation to their villa in the suburbs.

The family of eight, along with their luggage, almost filled the entire carriage to the brim. However, Cheng Yan and Cheng Yunping insisted on sitting outside to experience the joy of driving. In the dead of winter, Cheng Ruyi was too lazy to argue with the men, so she and the other women stayed inside the carriage chatting and eating melon seeds.

After drinking the spiritual spring water for a few days, the donkeys' physical condition improved a bit. Although they were still a bit dazed, they were quite energetic along the way, and with two donkeys pulling together, they had more than enough strength.

When they arrived at Lishan and entered the village, the Cheng family members vaguely saw a group of people standing orderly on both sides of the gate, seemingly waiting for their arrival.

A closer look reveals that many of these people are familiar faces; they are the migrants and their families hired when the houses were built.

The migrants who gathered at the South Gate a few months ago have almost all disappeared. Most of them have scraped together enough money and food to continue south or head to the capital. A small number of them have found work and a place to stay in Huaishan County.

Those standing at their doorsteps right now are clearly some of the people who have found jobs.

Speaking of which, Lishan Villa is a proper five-courtyard house with twenty or thirty rooms of various sizes, covering an area of ​​nearly five acres. If it were just the family managing it on their own, they would definitely be exhausted.

In addition, the Cheng family also owns ten acres of medium-sized paddy fields and ten acres of dry land that were later reclaimed, as well as woodland, a mountain, and a nearby breeding farm that is not yet completed. All of these need to be managed by hired people.

So when the house was almost finished, Cheng Ruyi posted a notice on her front door, announcing that the villa needed to hire long-term workers to maintain various tasks.

The main reason for choosing to hire rather than buy people is that these jobs do not involve any secrets or require much technical skill, and it would not be a problem to replace them with other people in the future.

Most importantly, she still had a bottom line in her heart. Although many people thought it was ridiculous to talk about human rights in ancient times, Cheng Ruyi found it hard to accept the arbitrary buying and selling of people. This inevitably reminded her of the pitiful women she occasionally saw in modern times who were sold to remote rural areas and went insane.

How others choose to act is their business, and she can't control that. The only thing she can control is herself. All a person needs to do in this world is to be true to their own conscience.

Moreover, her employment contracts are not short-term; they are all long-term contracts of three years or more, and they are family-based, meaning the whole family needs to sign a contract. Wages are paid according to the family's contribution and performance. There are rewards for good performance and deductions for bad performance, which ensures protection for both parties.

After rigorous screening and consideration, Cheng Ruyi finally established employment relationships with three families: the Meng family, the Tao family, and the Ding family.

All three families had participated in the previous house construction, so Ruyi was quite familiar with them. It was after spending time with them that she confirmed they were all of good character before making the decision.

The Meng family was the first to sign a three-year contract. Their main duties were to act as caretakers and long-term laborers, with room and board provided. Their wages were tentatively set at 800 wen per month. The family of four would continue to live in their original house.

The Tao family also consists of four members, but they signed a ten-year long-term contract.

They were originally servants of a wealthy family in a border town. When they fled, the wealthy family very unusually returned all the indentures of their servants to them, allowing them to escape on their own.

Unfortunately, servants like those from the Tao family had lived in the mansion since childhood and their survival skills were much weaker than those of ordinary farmers. The family had spent all their money and gone through many hardships to finally arrive here. Having survived the ordeal, they really didn't want to run away again, so they were determined to get the job from the Cheng family. Fortunately, their majors were very relevant, so they were able to stay.

Tao Fei is thirty-eight years old this year. He was mainly responsible for managing the various chores in the wealthy family's house. He was the second-in-command of the household. He had experience in helping to build the wealthy family's estate and was literate, so he was able to successfully apply for the first type of technical talent. His wife, Wen, is thirty-seven years old. She is a cook and was also responsible for the chores in building the Cheng family's house. She has the basic skills in cooking and can skillfully prepare ordinary home-style dishes.

The couple had two daughters, aged fifteen and thirteen, who had served as maids to the wealthy family's daughter since childhood. The eldest daughter, Tao Xiaochun, was skilled in needlework and embroidery, while the youngest daughter, Tao Yingdong, was quite talented in playing the zither and painting.

Besides their relevant expertise, a key reason why Ruyi chose them was that Tao Fei, a man who had fled with his wife and two daughters all the way, never considered selling his wife and daughters even when he was penniless. In this extremely patriarchal society, his character was quite good. Moreover, although his wife and daughters looked delicate, they were surprisingly resilient and hardworking. It was more reassuring to use such a family.

After signing the contract, the family only needed to continue with their previous duties, which was enough for the two little girls to have playmates.

The Tao family is currently living in the back house, next to the Meng family, with room and board provided, and one tael of silver per month.

As for the Ding family, compared to the Meng and Tao families, they could be considered a large family.

Old Ding is fifty years old this year. He originally lived in a village on the northwestern border. His family owned fields and land. Although times were tough, his family was still able to barely have enough to eat.

His wife, surnamed Chen, is from the same village and is two years younger than him. Over the decades, the two have raised three sons and two daughters together. Now, their children are all married and they have more than a dozen grandchildren. The whole family is very united and lively.

Unfortunately, faced with their home destroyed by war, they had no choice but to leave their homes and flee all the way. Fortunately, their family was large and united, and they were able to reach the prefectural city smoothly.

They originally planned to settle down temporarily in the prefectural city and then make further plans, but unexpectedly, the prefectural city did not open its gates at all. The refugees were forced to gather at the city gates. Over time, there were thatched huts everywhere outside the city gates. As the number of refugees increased and no one managed them, things naturally became more and more chaotic.

Finally, one night, a fire suddenly broke out, and people took advantage of the chaos to rob and kill. Fortunately, Old Man Ding was very alert and immediately told his family to leave their luggage behind and escape from the shack area. Unfortunately, his youngest son's family lived in the innermost part of the shack area and were so eager to help everyone throw their luggage out that they ended up being trapped in the fire and unable to escape in time.

Old Ding and his family hid on a nearby hilltop for three days, and only returned to the shantytown after the chaos and fire had subsided, where all that remained was ruins.

Misfortunes never come singly. Not long after leaving the prefectural city, the group encountered bandits, and the eldest daughter and her family were also lost in the chaos. The series of blows almost broke the Ding family, but for the sake of their several hungry children, they managed to hold on until they reached Huaishan County.

When they were devastated by the city entry fee, it was the Cheng family's recruitment that gave them hope for life again. For them, the Cheng family was their savior, so they signed a ten-year contract.

In fact, besides repaying their debt of gratitude, they stayed for another reason: this place was not far from the prefectural city, making it convenient to offer sacrifices to their youngest son and his wife and to inquire about the news of their eldest daughter's family.

It just so happens that Old Man Ding's family are all old farmers, and farming skills are definitely ingrained in their genes. The whole family are skilled farmers, and the women are also capable. They have mastered all kinds of skills, such as chopping firewood in the mountains, picking wild vegetables, fishing in the river, raising chickens and pigs. So, the paddy fields, dry land, and pear woodland are temporarily entrusted to their family to manage!

Because the Ding family was so large, they had to live separately. The men lived in the remaining two rooms of the back building, while the women lived in the back building. The whole family was provided with food and lodging, and their monthly wages were one tael of silver.

After the three families signed the contract, Cheng Ruyi first gave them a month's wages as a New Year's gift, and also gave them a day off to pack up their belongings and make some good repairs. After all, they had been wandering for so long and now that they had finally settled down, there must be a lot of things that needed to be sorted out and purchased.

Today is the first day back to work for the three families after their holiday. They are all incredibly excited, eagerly awaiting their new employers' move-in.

As soon as the Cheng family's donkey cart stopped, someone brought over a wooden box for them to stand on tiptoe onto. After the whole family got off, before they could even react, a unified voice suddenly rang out: "Welcome, Master Cheng, to Lishan Villa! We wish you a happy new year, long life, and even greater success in your business!"

The Cheng family members had never seen such a scene before, and they were all stunned, completely unsure how to react.

Although Cheng Ruyi was also startled, she was mostly speechless. She didn't like these boring formalities anymore, so she couldn't help but wave her hand at the workers, "Alright, alright, we're just ordinary people, we don't care about these formalities. It's freezing cold, everyone go inside!"

It seems she needs to find an opportunity to talk to Tao Fei and tell him not to pull this trick on her again. Everyone is just an employee, not a servant. Just do your job!

Just a few days before the housewarming party, Lishan Villa has already undergone a complete transformation!

The entire courtyard was well-maintained and clean. Although the landscaping was not yet completed and it looked a little lacking in greenery, it was winter, so it wasn't a big problem.

After discussing it, the Cheng family decided to go back to their own rooms to organize their belongings and have lunch before starting the formal cleaning work.

Actually, there wasn't much room to clean, because apart from the few rooms where people lived, the other rooms were basically empty, and these empty rooms had already been cleaned in the morning. So they gave up on cleaning and simply happily decorated the new house together.