Xue Huan took a pen from the pen holder, dipped it in ink, and wrote a short poem.
Yuan Ji: "Not bad, the handwriting is elegant and quite graceful. If you want to take on the job of copying books, I happen to have a job that is more suitable for you."
He took a collection of poems from the shelf behind him and said, "Look, for every copy you make, I'll pay you three hundred coins. Of course, your copying must be of good quality and not perfunctory, otherwise I'll send it back and ask you to rewrite it. I'll also pay for the pens, ink, paper, and inkstone. What do you think?"
Xue Huan took a look at the poetry collection. The book was quite thin, and there were probably less than a hundred poems in it. The total number of words in the book should not exceed ten thousand. Let's just assume it was ten thousand words. Ten thousand words cost three hundred wen, which means thirty wen for one thousand words.
It would probably take an hour to write a thousand words, which meant she could earn thirty cents an hour.
Although it is far less than Yuanji's price of one penny per word, she can get this price when she just entered the industry. It must be that Yuanji is taking care of her.
Xue Huan naturally had no objection and readily agreed: "Okay, thank you, Master Yuan."
Yuan Ji: "This is because you have good handwriting. If it were someone else, even if I wanted to introduce her, she wouldn't be able to accept it."
Xue Huan: "No matter what, you've helped me a lot. When I make some money, I'll definitely treat you to a nice meal."
Yuan Ji curled his lips: "Okay, then I'll wait."
After finishing the task of grinding ink, Xue Huan was about to say goodbye. After all, Chen Shi was still waiting for her at home, but Yuan Ji had already said, "You go back first. Take this poetry collection with you. You can memorize it beforehand so that you can copy it more smoothly. Come back to me tomorrow and come with me to copy."
"Okay." Xue Huan took out the one tael of silver she had just received as a reward, "This is the one tael of silver you just lent me to buy books."
Yuanji nodded, accepted it, and touched her fingers with his when he borrowed the money.
Xue Huan didn't care. She withdrew her hand, picked up the book, and left happily.
After returning home, Xue Huan told Chen the good news that she had found a job copying books. Chen was a little surprised, "Liu'er, can you do it?"
Xue Huan nodded affirmatively: "Mr. Yuan said that my handwriting is elegant and graceful, so why not?"
Chen then smiled happily: "That's good, you don't have to do the housework anymore, just concentrate on copying books."
A book costs three hundred coins, which can buy a lot of rice, flour, vegetables and meat.
Then life at home will be much more relaxed.
Xue Huan advised her, "Mom, don't take on laundry work anymore. It's very tiring. I can earn money now and support you."
Chen disagreed: "Copying work isn't always available. You have to make enough money to survive, so you don't need it in the future. You're not young anymore, you have to think about your future..."
Xue Huan sighed inwardly. Chen had been used to a hard life and was always worried about the future. She was afraid that only when she brought real money to her would she feel at ease.
Now no matter how much she said, it was hard to believe.
While it was still light, Xue Huan opened the poetry collection and started flipping through it.
Cao Xun rarely came home at night, and Chen was reluctant to waste lamp oil, so at night he would do some work that did not require much light in the dark or by moonlight. After a long time, his eyes were damaged.
Fortunately, Cao Liu's eyes are still good and he doesn't have any problems like myopia or astigmatism.
Xue Huan flipped through the poetry collection and tried to recall it. She was surprised to find that the poems she had just read were clearly imprinted in her mind. Did she actually have a photographic memory?
In this way, the copying work can be carried out more smoothly.
After all, if you copy while reading, it will greatly affect your speed.
The next morning, Xue Huan began copying books. She left early and returned late every day, spending most of her time with Yuan Ji.
While making money, I also completed a lot of tasks. In addition to copying books, I earned a lot of extra money, which greatly improved my family's life.
Of course, it only improved her and Chen's lives. She didn't care about Cao Xun and never let him know that she had made money.
Otherwise, the money will never be kept warm and will be plundered by him to drink and gamble.
Chen also remembered her daughter's instructions and did not tell Cao Xun.
Every night when Cao Xun went out to fool around, Xue Huan would take out the food she had bought during the day, such as braised meat and pig's trotters, from the rice jar and have a snack with Chen.
Chen was very resistant at first, feeling guilty for eating these things behind her husband and daughter's backs, but after being forced to eat by Xue Huan, she gradually stopped saying anything.
After all, the meat is so delicious and fragrant.
Xue Huan saved one third of the money she got back and gave one third to Chen. Having money in hand made her feel at ease. Seeing that her daughter really had a stable source of income, Chen listened to her advice and stopped taking on dirty and tiring work such as washing clothes.
Do something lighter instead.
Xue Huan used the remaining one-third to improve her life, mainly on food.
After a while, both mother and daughter gained some weight. Of course, they weren't fat, they were still very thin, but compared to before, they were a little fuller and their complexions were more rosy and radiant.
But Cao Xun never paid attention to the mother and daughter. He slept and ate at home during the day and went out at night. Even though the mother and daughter lived under his nose, he never paid much attention to them, so he did not notice the changes in the mother and daughter.
At this time, Xue Huan couldn't help but thank him for ignoring them.
Otherwise, the fact that the mother and daughter secretly added extra food would probably be impossible to hide.
It would be nice if life could always go on like this, but unexpected events always come unexpectedly.
That day, Xue Huan did not go out to copy books, but was carving things at home with radishes. Two days ago, she followed Yuan Ji to the bookstore. When she saw the books being printed on wood boards, a word suddenly flashed through her mind - movable type printing.
Nowadays, when printing books, the content of the book to be printed is basically engraved on wooden boards or stone slabs first, and then handed over to the printer. This method is time-consuming and labor-intensive, because every time a new book is printed, the wooden boards or stone slabs must be re-carved, and the number of sets of wooden boards (or stone slabs) owned is the standard for measuring the size of a bookstore.
The more sets of wood blocks there are, the larger the bookshop is and the more books it can print.
Why are books so rare and expensive these days? The reason is that the cost of making a set of wood boards is too high.
Because if one word is carved wrong during the carving process, the entire wooden board will be scrapped.
On the other hand, there are very few skilled craftsmen and their wages are extremely high.
The cost of the wood board and the carving master is quite high, and the bookstore has to pay a high cost before printing a book.
The movable type printing method is to carve all the characters individually, like seals. When printing, the individually carved characters are taken out and arranged according to the characters needed for a book. In this way, efficiency is greatly improved and costs are greatly reduced.
Of course, the actual operation is definitely not as simple as it sounds, otherwise why has it not been invented yet?
Now, Xue Huan thought that what she needed to do was to straighten out all the links and make movable type printing feasible, so that she could bring it out intact.
On the one hand, she can make a lot of money with this technology, which makes her profit, and on the other hand, it improves printing technology and benefits all mankind.
Just as he was thinking about it, Cao Xun suddenly came back, followed by several burly men with big arms and big waists. They were wearing shorts and looked fierce and not to be messed with.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
