Chapter 76: How can a woman earn money?...
I suddenly understood.
"What does she need?" another guest burst into laughter. "Isn't it just gold and silver?"
I stood up with a forced smile, saying, "I don't know either, I just said it offhand." I then left under the pretext of getting some tea and snacks.
Through the curtain in the hall, I leaned against the wall, clutching my chest.
Manberia might have sent someone to follow me, otherwise why would this guest suddenly ask me such a question? If I had answered "yes" just now, perhaps he would have immediately sent someone to pick me up and take me back.
Admitting that you are a fool is tantamount to admitting your mistake to him.
Maybe he knew I was crying in the freezing cold that day; he just wanted me to surrender to him and willingly become his mistress.
But I don't want to have anything to do with this man anymore; I hate him to the core.
——
The deep winter season is about to pass, and the early winter season will soon arrive.
The deep snow on the road began to melt, and finally the dark blue bricks at the bottom could be seen.
More merchants are coming and going in the small town, and you can see horse-drawn carriages rushing about and men dressed as merchants riding horses, seemingly "slowing down."
I started thinking about how to leave if I was really being targeted.
But now that life has finally settled down, I'm about to leave again, and I feel a little unwilling.
Just when I was feeling conflicted, I heard some new gossip.
"Prince Benoit of the East has a new mistress who is incredibly charming and famously beautiful. But in the blink of an eye, her father has taken a liking to her. I heard that Prince Benoit's wife caught them in bed together."
The men burst into lewd laughter.
"How could Prince Bernard's wife catch her father-in-law in the act of adultery?"
"Silly bird, she intended to catch the chief mistress cheating, but instead she caught her own father-in-law red-handed."
The men laughed again.
I spat out my tea. This is utterly absurd! How can these upper-class elites be so ridiculous?!
Bernard, I'd almost forgotten about him.
The hardships of life and the toil of working made me forget all my previous romances.
Only people who are well-off and have no worries about food and clothing would do something so outrageous. Someone like me, who can't even afford three meals a day, would never do such a thing, not even think about it.
Not enough to eat, not enough to sleep, when you're in this state, who cares about love? Just survive.
"They're all just bored," I thought.
Daylight broke again, another night passed, and I started "bricklaying" again. I was busy until the afternoon before I finally had time for lunch. Hiding in the stairwell, munching on a piece of dry bread, listening to the sounds of men drinking and playing drinking games in the outer hall of the pub, and hearing my stomach still growling with hunger, I wondered if this was how I was going to live my whole life. If I stayed here forever, would I live like an ant at the very bottom of society, enduring a life worse than death?
The dry bread fell from my hands to the ground.
The next day, I secretly chatted with the coachman who frequently delivered supplies to the small hotel. I told him that I had a way to get some unused old bed sheets, old towels, and the like from the hotel, and that he could earn or save a lot of money by reselling them or using them himself.
“I have only one request,” I said, “take me away from the North.”
The coachman chuckled, "I'm afraid what you have won't cover the fare."
"How much more do you want?" I asked, frowning.
“What you’re saying isn’t worth anything,” the groom said.
What am I supposed to do then? Steal money? I can't do that.
In the tavern, I asked the old cook, who was chopping and washing vegetables, how she could make money. "Make money?" the old cook said in surprise. "Can you still make money in this world? Countries are at war. Even the North and the East are fighting over a piece of land that forms a border. Prices are rising sharply everywhere. Rent and food prices are soaring. Many shops have closed down. Can you still make money now? It's good enough if you can even eat."
I then turned to the old chef who earned the most wages at the tavern, and he glared at me, saying, "What money do you, a girl, make? You should just find someone to marry. I think that young man who delivers goods every day is pretty good, but he doesn't even look at you. His fiancée from the countryside has a fruit tree as her dowry. What do you have?"
I said, "Why do men have to ask for a dowry? They're lucky if they can even get a wife."
The old chef laughed so hard he almost fell over. "A woman without a dowry is definitely going to never get married, unless she becomes a man's mistress."
“There are also women who got married without a dowry,” I argued.
"I've never seen a man who doesn't want a dowry," the old chef laughed heartily.
And so, our building was built crookedly. I originally wanted to ask him which industry could make money.
A day later, after a little trouble, I asked the innkeeper's mistress. "Everyone says you're very knowledgeable, having grown up in the capital," I said somewhat obsequiously, "I'd like to ask you, how can a woman make money?"
The mistress, who was over forty, yawned. "Mistresses and high-class prostitutes make the most money, but do you know how to do it? If you do, you wouldn't be working here."
“Mistresses and high-class prostitutes are all young and beautiful women,” I said. “I’m already in my twenties, and I’m not particularly beautiful, so I can’t go down that path.”
The mistress tilted her head and thought for a while. "Oh, I'll recommend someone to you. You can ask her. She might know. She's the owner of the clothing store across the street. She comes to the store once a week. You can ask her if you have the chance."
Braving the raging snow, I waited by the clothing shop whenever I had a spare moment. After several days, I finally saw the shop owner, dressed in a black fur coat, get off her horse-drawn carriage. I rushed over, but before I could get close, her coachman grabbed me and said, "What are you doing, begging?"
"No, no, I just wanted to ask the proprietress a question..."
Before I could finish speaking, the coachman threw me aside, and I crashed into the corner of the wall outside the clothing store, wincing in pain.
The shopkeeper, wearing a black fur coat, frowned at me. With a clink, she tossed me a small purse. As she walked away with her chin held high, she said, "I'll buy you some hemostatic medicine."
That's when I realized I was bleeding from my forehead.
Holding the money bag, I was still in a daze. Suddenly, the coachman from before slipped over, snatched the money bag from me before I could react, and disappeared in the blink of an eye.
I touched my bleeding forehead, wanting to cry but unable to shed a tear.
In the middle of the night, I sat by the fireplace in the small hotel, adding charcoal to the stove while listening to a group of men bragging and drinking, muttering: "Lie down, get married, become a prostitute, become a beggar, none of these paths are easy."
There's no place for me among the beggars. The streets and alleys are full of them; I'd only get beaten up if I went there.
In this world, there aren't many options left for women.
Without an introducer, it was impossible to become a maid in a wealthy merchant's household; it was even more impossible to become a nobleman's maid. Noblemen's maids were "passed down" from generation to generation. The maid's child would then become a nobleman's maid or handyman, and the maid's or handyman's child would then become a maid or handyman. There was no room for outsiders.
Becoming a tutor in a wealthy family is even more impossible. Without noble blood, one can't even set foot on the street near a noble family's home. That's how cruel this world is.
I suddenly recalled the profound words spoken by Bernard and Mamboy earlier:
"If I miss this opportunity, I won't have another chance. I won't lower myself like this again."
"Maybe you really need a lesson."
I felt a bit cold, so I moved closer to the stove.
——
Early winter has arrived; the snow on the roads has melted completely, and the temperature has risen above zero. People who were previously bundled up in thick coats or furs have now shed their heavy jackets or fur coats, wearing only slightly thicker woolen overcoats.
Just as I was racking my brains every day trying to figure out how to make money, the mistress of the small hotel owner suddenly asked me, "There's a temporary job out there, are you interested?"
"What kind of work?" I poked at the ashes in the stove.
"Work as a temporary worker for the wealthiest noble family in the small town, helping with things like washing dishes and serving food."
"This kind of job should be something that everyone's scrambling to do, so why did you ask me?" I asked curiously, without the ecstatic joy she had expected.
"I thought you'd be happy to hear that and agree right away," she chuckled.
“I’ve been hit with too many setbacks lately,” I said. “I feel like nothing good is going to happen to me.”
"Hey, don't say that," she chuckled. "Isn't this a good thing? Someone originally asked me if I was interested, but I couldn't do it, so I thought of you. You'll give me half the wages after it's done?"
Although I found the whole thing a bit strange, I still nodded. As long as I could make money, I didn't care to think too much about it.
I was extremely busy on the day I started working, from morning till night. The food and supplies for the tavern arrived, and I had to help unload them; the daily necessities for the inn also arrived, and I had to help unload them and organize them. By the end of the day, I was exhausted and my back ached.
As it was getting dark, and he was on his way to work as a temporary laborer at a nobleman's house, his vision suddenly went black and he fainted.
I don't know how long I was unconscious. When I woke up, I had a terrible headache and vaguely heard the innkeeper and his wife talking.
"She has a fever; her forehead is burning hot," the proprietress said.
"Is it perhaps the plague?" The boss's voice trembled slightly.
"Ah? The plague?" The landlady panicked.
"Recently, the temperature has risen, and many people from other places have fallen ill. Some locals are also running fevers that won't go down no matter what medicine they take, and quite a few people have died. The higher-ups are keeping this a secret from us, for fear of unrest."
"Really?" The proprietress's voice trembled with shock. "How did you know?"
"The owner of the shop next door told me this secretly last night when we were drinking."
When the two men looked at me again, I was so frightened that I closed my eyes. In less than five minutes, before I could even resist, they tied my whole body with rope and stuffed a towel into my mouth, making it impossible for me to even groan.
I was terrified and stared at them as they blindfolded me with a black cloth.
It was freezing cold, and night had fallen; there were hardly any pedestrians on the street.
The innkeeper and his wife worked together to throw something tightly wrapped up onto the garbage truck that had just stopped in front of the door. "Brother, throw this thing far away," the innkeeper said solicitously, handing the coachman a lit cigarette. "This thing is unlucky."
The coachman chuckled, took the cigarette, and took a deep drag. "Good cigarette, boss, don't worry!"
Coachmen often delivered goods for shop owners or wealthy people, and they had seen many unsavory things, so they were used to it.
Before leaving, the boss stuffed several packs of good cigarettes into his pocket.
A light snow began to fall from the night sky. The coachman cracked his whip several times, causing the two horses to cry out in pain and gallop even faster...
Adjacent to this street was the town's aristocratic street. A magnificent black carriage, surrounded by a large number of cavalry, had just turned in when the coachman's carriage sped past. The coachman in the magnificent carriage cursed under his breath, "Are they rushing to their deaths? If their master weren't in such a hurry to pick up his sweetheart from a nobleman's house, he would have given those people in the carriage a good beating..."
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Author's Note: This is the last update for today. See you tomorrow, everyone!
Honey, you can check out my other works, they're pretty good too, mwah~~
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