Chapter 173 Hopefully, the master is a good employer; how many people does he hire?

My aunt was a clear-headed old lady; she didn't engage in any vague or ambiguous talk. After finishing her son's funeral, she clearly and explicitly stated the meaning conveyed in the letter:

She's now an old, widowed woman who can't earn money, and she plans to have the Pan family take care of her in her old age, taking care of chores like washing, cleaning, and preparing three meals a day. In return, she won't charge the Pan family rent—her aunt's family has lived in Shanghai their whole lives and earned enough to buy two rooms. The room they give to the Pan family can only be rented out for two yuan a month, which is actually quite low compared to the old woman's request, but that's not how the calculation works.

First, there are the three meals a day. In this era, they still use wood-fired stoves. Although the time spent cooking for one person is different from that spent cooking for multiple people, my aunt does not ask for special cooking. They usually eat from the same pot. The Pan family now has four members. Adding one more person is just a matter of adding more vegetables and rice, and washing an extra set of dishes and chopsticks does not take much time.

Even if they don't earn much money during holidays, they can only afford the small amount of meat and eggs they promised to give to their aunt. It's not much trouble to prepare them—old people take care of their teeth, so the eggs are usually steamed into egg custard or made into egg drop soup, and the meat is chopped into meat patties and used to make soup. These small portions are served in a bowl, and they can be easily placed in the bowl while cooking rice. When the rice is cooked, the food in the bowl is also cooked, so there's no need to put in any effort.

Moreover, the more people there are, the lower the per capita consumption of firewood and food expenses will be. The old lady eats with them, so the food expenses are actually not much.

The same goes for laundry. When we change our clothes at home, we just give them to my aunt to do. There's no need for anyone to take care of us. On the contrary, since my aunt is around, we can leave our children with her. Even if we don't have time to go out and earn money, it's good that there are no troublemakers around when we're doing housework.

Who knows how many times Pan's mother had a heart attack after finally cleaning up the house, only to turn around and see her youngest son coming back covered in mud, grinning!

Besides these miscellaneous benefits, the cousin had another major advantage: she was the Pan family's guarantor and guide. These two roles, which seemed to be unrelated to money, were key to the Pan family's smooth integration into Shanghai.

A guarantor is someone who, through various relationships, ensures that the person coming to the meeting is someone you don't need to be wary of.

Although the household registration system during this period was not as strict as it was during the Qing Dynasty, integrating into a new place was not an easy task. Although there was no clear guarantee system, without the help of acquaintances, many people could not settle down smoothly—who knew whether the certificate in their hand was real or fake, who knew whether the person coming was a ghost or a ghost.

For ordinary people, there are only a few ways to become a legitimate resident: be born in Shanghai, have a stable residence, find a job that they can talk about, or be adopted or enter into a marriage. Employees, on the other hand, take the route of settling down through work.

The reason why workers and employees are able to rent houses or have their own places to live is largely because they have a fixed work address. The company, shop, or factory can provide them with an intangible guarantee. If they default on payments, run away, or have other problems, at least they know where to look for them. And these places that need to hire workers are more inclined to hire people with stable residences, thus forming a strange cycle:

You need a job to settle down smoothly, and you need a fixed place of residence for a job to be considered. The Pan family obviously did not meet these conditions. Under these circumstances, although the cousin did not make a request for adoption, allowing them to stay was equivalent to making an invisible guarantee and giving them the qualification to find a job.

Besides the guarantor, the guide is also very important: when they first arrive, the Pan family is unfamiliar with everything, including fluctuating prices, local taboos, and social interactions such as weddings and funerals. If no one is there to guide them, being ripped off is a minor issue; the real danger is making enemies without even knowing why.

The Pan family, with clear minds, agreed to their cousin's request to take care of them in their old age and successfully settled down in Shanghai. Because they even brought their parents' memorial tablets with them, they never returned to the village. Pan Jinfeng, who dressed up as Guanyin every year, also became the generous and magnanimous Pan Tiefeng, but she developed a habit of not being able to stand dirt.

Because the Pan family reconnected with their relatives in their hometown after establishing themselves, they occasionally learned about village news, such as how their houses and fields had been sold to different buyers, and how the people living and farming were not the same group. They also learned about Gouwa's fate.

Life in the village wasn't wealthy. Although people often came to the Pan family's door for Gouwa when they were still alive, no one was willing to adopt him when they were alone.

The difference in leg length doesn't affect fertility, but it does make them less capable. If it were a girl, they could grit their teeth and raise her for a few years before she got married. But a boy... no family needs a complete biological child. Why would they adopt a disabled one, especially one that's heartless!

Not every family in the village is discerning, but there are always some who understand. Besides, even the stingiest family couldn't say that the Pan family had done anything wrong to Gouwa, yet they still raised him like that. And yet, this person could say things like Jin Feng. Who would dare to raise such a wolf in sheep's clothing? Aren't they afraid he'll be devoured when he's weak?

The letter said that Gouwa continued to live in the village after they left. Because he had nowhere to live, he went to the mountains to find caves and dig wild vegetables to eat. When Old Man Dou was alive, he only had a dilapidated thatched house and two plots of land. He sold them along with his belongings when he was buried. If the Pan family hadn't taken him in, he would have been living this kind of life.

Gouwa barely survived the first winter after the Pan family left, and miraculously survived the second winter as well. He finally starved to death in the summer. Since he died in a cave, the people filled in the cave to make it his grave.

When Pan Tiefeng learned of Gouwa's fate, Gouwa had already been dead for several years. She had no particular emotion about the news—her new younger siblings were born one after another, and she barely remembered him anymore. Only her resistance to marriage and having children, for some reason, had never disappeared from her heart.

My cousin was well taken care of by the Pan family for several years, and she passed away peacefully in her sleep. According to her age at that time, it was a happy death. The Pan family held a funeral for her and then went on with their lives. Pan Tiefeng also learned a few characters from someone. Not many, just enough for her own name and her parents' names. It was only after she learned to read that she learned that her mother's full name was Water Magnolia, which is a very beautiful flower.

Days passed by, and although there were occasional unpleasant things, they were still able to survive. If there was anything unsatisfactory, it was that Pan Tiefeng was just too tall, and all sorts of oddballs and ugly girls dared to come and propose marriage.

Pan Tiefeng was so annoyed by the pressure from her family and friends to get married that she secretly went to a matchmaker and used her future wages to ask the matchmaker to find her a job. Who knew that she had only told the matchmaker about her situation for a few days and before the matchmaker even had a chance to find out if it was true or not, Yao Xiaoyu took a liking to her. The contract was signed and the seal was pressed in one go, which gave her the confidence to talk back to her family.

Oh right, she also agreed to pay the middleman two months' wages as compensation. This amount hadn't been included in the previous calculations. Two months' wages amounted to four yuan, which would leave her with only eighty-four yuan, making her even less able to make any money.

Pan Tiefeng sighed softly, hoping she could find a good employer. She didn't expect to be idle during the day, but if she could squeeze out some time to do handicrafts in the evening, even if she earned little, she would still have some money to spare.

...

"Why is it so hard to find the right people!"

Yao Xiaoyu scratched her head and went crazy for a while. She looked at her staffing list and sighed. Her house was only two stories with a small yard. She didn't plan to hire too many people, but in this era with little mechanization, she still needed quite a few people to do the work.

Of course, if people are not treated as human beings and are made to live the lives of Vanka and Varika, the labor shortage will be greatly reduced. However, Yao Xiaoyu really couldn't get over the mental hurdle, especially since she earned enough money to hire many people. So she could only recruit people according to the workload of divorce. However, she did not expect that she would not be able to find suitable employees until now. [1]

Fortunately, after repeated disappointments, Aunt Pang reached a mutual agreement with the cook. Aunt Pang plans to find a few more people, so that at least Yao Xiaoyu can have a decent hot meal at home after the New Year, and won't have to wait for vendors to come for late-night snacks.

Regarding cleaning services, Yao Xiaoyu has only found one person, Pan Tiefeng, for the two cleaning jobs she has planned to hire. There is no suitable candidate for the outdoor cleaning. She plans to go back and urge the person in charge. Besides, the outdoor cleaning does not require particularly detailed cleaning, so it would be fine to find someone older.

As for the cleaning job inside and out, Yao Xiaoyu hadn't even considered it. Putting aside the fact that she was paid for one job, the houses in this era didn't have shared areas, and the workload of cleaning two floors was considerable. If it weren't for the fact that she cleaned the rooms inside for the hired workers herself, Yao Xiaoyu would have planned to hire two full-time cleaners for the house.

However, although not all the cleaning staff were available, the driver and errand runner were all there, and they could even sleep in one room and receive a salary in a very space-saving way. Yao Xiaoyu was not a miser; the main reason for this arrangement was that the driver and errand runner were a mother and daughter. The errand runner was seven years old according to current age, but she had just turned five.

Yes, Yao Xiaoyu is that cruel. She even exploits a five-year-old child to do things, only giving him food but not money. She is really too evil!

The mother and daughter approached Yao Xiaoyu after hearing rumors about her recruitment. Before signing the contract, the mother had been disguised as a man and pulled a rickshaw for several months, basically covering all of Shanghai. As for why she wasn't discovered...

First of all, rickshaw pullers are mostly bent over, and unless they gather together to chat and talk about things like syphilis, they don't pay any attention to the bodies of other men.

Apart from lacking an Adam's apple, this mother was practically a man in both voice and physique; she wasn't particularly strong, but she was a size larger than the average man.

As for why she wanted to offer monthly subscriptions, it was mainly for her daughter's sake.

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Author's note: [1] Varika: The protagonist of the novel "Sleepy" (also known as "Sleepy"). She had not rested for a long time and wanted to sleep, but her master kept asking her to do things. Finally, when she was so sleepy that she was delirious, she strangled her master's child and fell asleep on the floor.

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