Chapter 54 Hiring a Caregiver: Peach Blossom and Big Laugh

Fifty silver dollars was not a small amount, but it wasn't anything to attract attention either. Yao Xiaoyu exchanged them at the money exchange at noon. The clerk wrapped them in paper in ten pieces and put them all in the pocket on her waist, so no one could tell that she had gained much weight.

"Now that I have money, I'll treat you to a lavish meal!"

Looking at Tao Erniu guarding the entrance of the money exchange, Yao Xiaoyu proudly waved the small bag in her hand.

That being said, the two ended up finding a small restaurant and having a meat pie and porridge.

The pie porridge wasn't any special kind of porridge; it was a set meal of pie and porridge. Yao Xiaoyu had only seen it in modern times but never tasted it. However, after trying it here, she felt that the porridge was more for quenching thirst. The beef and mutton pies tasted quite good, and the portions were large. The two of them ate as much as they could, but still left more than half of it, so they had to pack it up and take it home.

Yao Xiaoyu had to go to work in the afternoon, so she chose beef without any gamey smell. However, Aunt Gu still smelled it when she entered the room, and she once again got the privilege of being on duty alone.

Yao Xiaoyu: ...

The beef pie that followed Yao Xiaoyu home was warmly welcomed. The cooled pie was cut into small pieces along with the filling and stir-fried with eggs, turning into a delicious new dish. Zhou Chunhua wanted to say something but ultimately didn't. Ten silver dollars a month was already quite a lot. One shouldn't be a father-in-law if one isn't deaf and mute.

Yao Xiaoyu was unaware of Zhou Chunhua's thoughts. After paying the fifty yuan for the surgery and agreeing to a refund or additional payment, she began to worry—where could she find a suitable caregiver?

It takes a hundred days to recover from a bone injury. After a gentle surgery, her foot will definitely be immobile for recovery, but finding a caregiver is really difficult.

Be diligent and gentle; don't pretend to be deaf or dumb when you have needs.

Be honest; don't play games like saying one thing to someone's face and another behind their back, or steal someone's meal.

If you need to learn to read, you can help her read the newspaper when she's bored to pass the time.

You need to be strong enough to meet your physiological needs, and you must be able to provide assistance with tasks such as turning over and changing clothes.

You need to be quick and efficient; you can't spend half a day washing clothes or rinsing dishes.

You must be able to understand human language and not use being kind and gentle as an excuse to break the rules.

...

Yao Xiaoyu frowned, listed all the requirements on a piece of paper, and then started deleting those that she felt would have the least impact, until she couldn't delete any more, leaving only a few words on the paper:

Diligent, clean, and able to understand human speech.

This was a rigid requirement that she couldn't change.

"I'll go to the village and ask around; I should be able to find someone there."

Tao Erniu took the blank sheet of paper with the basic and additional requirements written on it. She didn't hide her intention to choose the nearest school first. Folding paper money paid a lot of money, but there were always some people who were not good at this or did not like to do it. Yao Xiaoyu paid money readily and generously, which was a pretty good choice.

When Yao Xiaoyu saw that Tao Erniu had agreed, she breathed a sigh of relief. She had a lot of connections, but the news that she had paid someone to help her could not get out. If the news of her not paying back the money got out, the Yao family would be finished!

Tao Erniu acted quickly, responding within a few days, and offering more than one candidate:

"Aunt Peach Blossom is extremely clean and efficient in her work."

The aunt, whose hair was completely wrapped in a headscarf, stretched out her hand, her nails clean.

"Xiaoxiao is a bit thin, but she is obedient and very strong."

The girl, who was half a head shorter than Yao Xiaoyu, squatted down and gave Tao Erniu a princess carry. She put her down after half a minute without blushing or panting.

After confirming that neither of them were unwanted mothers-in-law or sisters-in-law, Yao Xiaoyu kept them both on the family, preparing to implement a 24-hour shift system. However, she had originally planned for three people to work eight-hour shifts, but now there were only two...

"Is it okay if one person works six hours a day and the daily wage is this amount?"

Two people do the work of three, so each person should naturally receive one and a half wages. Yao Xiaoyu had heard plenty of news stories in modern times about bosses being stabbed for withholding wages, and she certainly didn't want to become a news subject in the Republic of China era.

"OK!"

Without the slightest hesitation, the two readily agreed. Yao Xiaoyu arranged the work date with them, and Tao Hua and Xiao Xiao went home together. When they reached the entrance of Taojia Village, they saw a figure standing there in the distance. As they got closer, Xiao Xiao revealed a mischievous smile:

"Aunt Peach Blossom, Uncle Peach Blossom is here to pick you up."

Li Taohua blushed at the teasing, but her steps quickened as she approached the two. She smiled and watched them draw nearer, then silently turned and walked home, refusing to be a third wheel.

The men in the village all said that Uncle Peach Blossom was a good-for-nothing, because he didn't follow the ancestral rules and called Aunt Peach Blossom "Da Shi Jia" (Big Stone Family), but instead let others call him Uncle Peach Blossom. But Xiaoxiao didn't think it was a big deal—the ancestral rules hadn't even given them enough to eat. Recently, she was only able to eat a little more thanks to the paper ingots that her sister Erniu brought her.

"I'm back."

Tao Xiaoxiao entered her own courtyard, sat down in a corner, and helped fold paper ingots. Everyone waited anxiously but didn't hear a second word, so Tao's mother had to take the initiative to ask:

"Were you elected?"

Sanni is naturally strong and is very good at farm work, but she can't do light work like folding paper ingots. She often pokes a hole in the paper. She can't compare to her brother.

"You've been selected."

Xiaoxiao gave a simple reply, not really wanting to talk. When Tao Erniu came to talk about the caregiver job, her family asked if their son could go. If Tao Erniu hadn't repeatedly said she didn't want a boy, she wouldn't have been able to stand in front of Yao Xiaoyu at all. In fact, her name was given to her on the spot.

She used to be called Sanni, but Tao Erniu said that too many people had that name and asked her family to change it. Her father didn't even think about it and said that her name was "Zouyun" (meaning "lucky"), which meant that he hoped she would have a great opportunity to go out and make money. This doesn't sound like a proper name at all!

Sister Erniu smoothed things over, saying that lucky children are always smiling, and changed her name to Xiaoxiao (meaning "smiling")

When she left home today, her family told her in front of everyone that if she was chosen, they would give the job in Shanghai to her brother, and even thought they were being generous by letting her choose between her two brothers.

"We can't agree to that. They need to take care of a woman. They never considered a man from the beginning, unless..."

Looking at the expectant eyes of everyone, Tao Xiaoxiao spoke slowly and deliberately:

"The eldest and second eldest brothers cut themselves and became eunuchs."

As soon as she finished speaking, Tao Xiaoxiao leaned back, narrowly avoiding her father's slap. Seeing that her father was still relentlessly pursuing her, she pushed her second brother forward.

"Smack!"

That sounds great, it's a really good start!

Tao Xiaoxiao looked at the slap mark on her second brother's face with schadenfreude, turned him aside, and looked directly at her father:

"I'm going to work in a few days. I'm carrying this slap mark because I'm afraid I won't be fired. Hit me, hit me if you dare!"

Tao Xiaoxiao patted her face. Her father was furious, but dared not lay a finger on her. Finally, he resentfully uttered:

No one is allowed to feed her today!

The girl, who had returned to her seat, narrowed her eyes and stared directly at Tao's father:

"Have you thought it through?"

Before Tao's father could react, Tao's mother's expression changed. She hurriedly put down the paper ingots she had folded halfway and tugged at Tao's father's sleeve.

Two years ago, when they were in a bad mood, they saw that Sanya, who had been rented out by Huang Niu, came back covered in dirt. They made up a pretext to punish Sanni by not letting her eat. Sanni didn't say anything on the surface. The next day, when most of the family members were out, she took a rope and tied up the rest of the family members. She then took a machete and chopped up the grain storage area to make herself some white flour and eggs.

That wasn't the end of it. When her family came home, Sanni would come in, tie them up one by one, gag them, throw them in a corner, and let them watch her eat and drink to her heart's content. After eating noodles, she would eat snacks, and after eating snacks, she would kill chickens and even chop off the heads of half-grown pigs. She would sell a lot of meat at a low price and then use the money to buy all kinds of snacks.

They tried everything – gagging, cursing, yelling, crying, begging – but this heartless man insisted on wasting all the precious food before releasing them.

It took them almost a year to recover from the days when San Niu went crazy.

"Eat! You'd better bring back more money!"

Tao's father's voice sounded like it was being squeezed out from between his teeth, but Tao Xiaoxiao just shrugged and didn't take it to heart at all.

"The money is in their hands; how much they give me isn't up to me to decide."

Based on what the father said, she had to take the initiative to lower the price and cooperate with the seller!

Don't think she didn't know that after she ate and sold all the chickens, ducks, geese and pigs in the family, Tao's father didn't sell her to a slave trader not because he was soft-hearted, but because she was a good farm worker and could be raised for a few more years to get a high dowry.

A young girl might not fetch much money, but a strong, able-bodied man who can bear children is highly valued in the village!

She only regretted that she had gone mad too late. If she had killed chickens and ate pigs to make noodles a few years earlier, and lived a life where she could eat her fill every day, she might have grown taller. Now she was so thin and frail. If she hadn't proven her strength today, that Miss Yao would definitely not want her.

Before the New Year, she was picking corn for someone when she saw her mother stop Wang the matchmaker. Neither of them spoke loudly, but the cornfield was a good place for people to hide. She was only a few rows of corn away from them, so she could hear everything they were saying clearly.

Her mother asked the matchmaker if there were any families willing to pay a high price. She didn't care if they were blind, lame, beat people, or from remote mountain villages, as long as they were willing to pay. The way she talked about her didn't sound like she was talking about her daughter, but rather like she was talking about livestock, saying that once they were raised and fattened up, they could be sold for money.

***

After seeing off the two prospective caregivers, Yao Xiaoyu treated Tao Erniu to a bowl of shredded chicken and cold noodles as a token of her gratitude.

Cold skin noodles are a specialty of Northeast China, similar to liangpi (cold skin noodles). The vendors are very skilled; the noodles made from starch are translucent and white as jade. When mixed with shredded chicken and seasoning, they are smooth and chewy, and the addition of a few green leaves makes them especially refreshing.

Tao Erniu ate three bowls without ceremony before putting down her chopsticks—she had searched the whole village to find two suitable people, and this meal was what she deserved!

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Author's note: Xiaoyu and Erniu really did have a big meal, but the 1,000-plus words were a bit filler, so I deleted them.

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