Chapter 17 Chapter 17 (Revised) Brother and sister share the responsibility for peace...
Seeing that all the neighbors had come out, Xu was slightly relieved and said to Ah Xiu, "I'll go to the alley entrance to find a midwife."
No one knew which house the midwife lived in. The Zhen family had a good relationship with their neighbors and often sent food and vegetables to each other. Another tall woman knew that she might not know which house she lived in, so she went with her to look for her.
Dalang ran fast, and Xu called him out, "Hurry up and go to Huichuntang and tell them that a woman is about to give birth. Go and get a doctor who specializes in pediatrics and gynecology!"
Zhen's eldest son took off running. Ah Xiu followed him in a panic and ran for two steps before falling again. Dalang turned around and easily picked her up. Xu looked at the chaotic scene and said loudly,
"Don't go with me. Go back and boil some water. Then boil the scissors in another pot and find some clean cloth to iron them."
Ah Xiu seemed to have found her backbone after hearing these words, and she immediately went back to the kitchen to light a fire and boil water. The young lady of Mr. Zhao's family was crying with tears and snot on her face, holding the door. Fearing that she would get lost in the chaos, Xu called Baozhu from a distance to take her back and keep an eye on her.
Baozhu went to take the child, but heard bursts of howling in the yard. The scholar's wife's voice was miserable. The women who had given birth before just told her to save her strength and hold on until the midwife came.
Ah Xiu had already lit the fire and started to boil water. Baozhu didn't dare to look at her any longer and took the scholar's wife's daughter back to her room. In the evening, before they had even taken two bites of food, the scholar's wife had a miscarriage.
The little girl was so frightened that she screamed loudly. Baozhu coaxed her for a long time before she stopped crying. However, her eyelids were still red and tears had already formed in the corners of her eyes. After all, she was a little girl, so Baozhu couldn't bear it. She carried her to a stool and sat her down. She also picked up two cakes from the cabinet and asked her to eat.
She was also hungry and ate everything in a short while. I got some water and gave her two sips to moisten her throat. I then took a plate and filled it with half a plate of cakes and asked her to eat some more. The little girl waved her hand shyly and said no.
There was still work to do at the stall tomorrow, so Baozhu waited until the moon was at its highest point in the sky. There was still a commotion next door, but she couldn't stand it any longer. Everyone in the alley knew that the little girl was at her house, so she simply washed the little girl's face and put her to bed.
The next morning, at daybreak, I heard a cry not much louder than a kitten's humming coming from the next yard.
Everyone's worries that had been hanging in the air all night were finally put to rest. Xu had also been busy all night and only just returned home. After all, she had rented the house to someone else and it would be unpleasant to see them run into trouble.
I looked at the sky, washed my hands and changed my clothes. Just as I was about to lie down for a while, I heard the midwife and the doctor from next door knocking on the door.
Baozhu woke up but couldn't fall asleep again, so she came out and opened the door.
"The lady next door has fainted from exhaustion, and the little girl said she has no money on her. This..."
Xu, who came out to see what was happening, looked helpless. After all, she was the one who had called these people here yesterday, so it was difficult for her to argue. She had no choice but to pay them with silver. She did not give them any extra wedding money, but told the two to come back and ask for it themselves in a few days.
The midwife and the doctor also felt helpless. The family didn't look poor, and they made a trip in the middle of the night, but the amount they gave was not as much as those poor families did.
Let’s talk about Mr. Zhao. The next day, Baozhu went to the Imperial College to deliver food and told her second brother what happened last night. Her second brother was shocked and went everywhere to look for Mr. Zhao.
Zhao Xiucai only realized that something serious had happened to his family after hearing this. At this juncture, he still wanted to ask whether the baby was a boy or a girl. Zhen Jia Erlang rolled his eyes at him and said, "My sister didn't tell me, and now she's gone. You'll know when you go back."
When Xu saw the man coming back, she stopped being polite to him. This scholar Zhao used to hide in the back and let her wife go to the front. At this moment, his wife was lying on the bed, so Xu stopped him directly.
"Last night we hired a midwife and a doctor. Since your family had no one to take care of things, I paid for them first. It was six hundred yuan in total."
Mr. Zhao's face flushed red, as if asking a scholar like him for money was a sign of contempt. He muttered a few rude words and turned back into the house.
Xu was stunned by what she saw. For a moment she was confused by his behavior and didn't know whether he really felt it was an insult or was just unwilling to pay. Ah Xiu came out and said that the scholar's wife was still lying in bed, so Xu didn't dare to go in and ask for the money.
As for Baozhu, the three siblings now have a clear division of labor. However, it is inevitable that Baozhu will be a little late to deliver meals to everyone at noon every day. Moreover, more and more people are ordering meals now, and she is not very confident in delivering them alone.
This job still needs to be done separately.
So after closing the stall today, I went to the carpenter's shop to ask the craftsman to make some matching cards. When there were diners who wanted to order food, they would take a number card back and use the wooden card to pick up the food when it was delivered the next day.
The number plate is not a big thing and it is carved quickly. I got it in the afternoon. It is simple in style and does not need to be painted. There is only a number carved on it. For example, the number one plate is carved on it. The person who orders the meal will take one number one plate after paying, and the other will be left on the stall. It is used to record what meal the number one customer wants and then ask the runner to deliver it to the customer at the appointed time.
Guests pick up their meals with their number tags, and then hand their number tags to the errand runners. Baozhu also pays the errand runners with the tags.
This way, she no longer had to run to deliver the food herself. It would have been very time-consuming for Baozhu to run by herself. She was not familiar with the roads in Bianjing, so she could leave the job of delivering the food to the idle men who were used to running errands and knew the streets and alleys very well.
When the meal is delivered, if the guest feels that there is something wrong with the meal, he or she will not give the ticket. If the guest does not give the ticket, he or she will not be paid for running errands. This way, there is no need to worry about any problems occurring in the middle.
There were many people in Bianjing City who were looking for work. They could earn two cents for one job and deliver goods to more than a dozen places during the lunch hours. In just one or two hours, they could earn enough to feed their family for the whole day. There were many people waiting for work at the dock. The job was easy and there was no fixed price. The more work you did, the more you could earn. There was no lower limit and naturally no upper limit.
As soon as Baozhu assigned the job, many people came to inquire about it, and naturally one person could not handle it all. Moreover, this job could only be assigned if someone ordered food.
Because she only runs the section near noon and can only do it for one or two days, she is afraid that it will be unstable and trouble will arise if people are replaced frequently. Therefore, she wants to find someone who can run errands for a long time.
Many people came to ask, and Baozhu explained everything. With more monks than porridge, Baozhu had more options. After all, it was food to be eaten, so she had to find someone who was clean and reliable. If the person was sloppy, the customers might not even want to eat.
After looking around like this for a whole day, she finally decided on two people. Baozhu was very strict. She asked the people to stretch out their hands and looked at their nails. She also saw that they were neat and tidy. After asking them questions and finding out that they were reliable, she finally decided on them.
This guy is younger than Baozhu and is the fourth child in the family, so everyone calls him Liu Si'er. Originally, people were worried that he was not steady enough due to his young age. But after asking, they found out that he had been running errands for people at the dock for three or four years. However, because he was young and not strong enough, people were unwilling to hire him for hard labor.
The other one was older, looking to be in his thirties, but upon asking I found out he was only twenty-five this year. He asked the Zhen brothers and sisters to call him Wang Da. He had injured his arm from moving and carrying a few years ago, and now it was difficult for him to carry heavy objects, so naturally he earned much less money. He could not do any heavy work, so he could only find some errands and odd jobs. However, he was honest and dull, so few people asked him to work. He often stayed at the dock for a whole day and could not find any work.
Now that the right person has been found, the errand job can be handed over. The number plate has been tested for two days. Baozhu and the eldest brother have both made two trips without any mistakes. The diners who ordered meals today have also been given number plates. Tomorrow, Brother Liu Si and Brother Wang can be asked to deliver the meals.
"Come over in the first half of tomorrow afternoon. There are eleven meals to be delivered to the outer city, and Brother Wang will deliver them. There are thirteen meals to be delivered to the inner city, and Liu Si'er will deliver them."
Baozhu explained to the two of them which places they were going to. Liu Si'er and Wang Da were both frequent runners, so they each wrote down the places they wanted to run and nodded in agreement. As for whether to run to the inner city or the outer city, neither of them had any objection.
"Bring back your number plates and you'll get paid." Baozhu showed the number plates on the stall to the two men and reminded them, "If you do a good job, you won't need to replace anyone else in the future. You can keep working as long as there's nothing wrong."
Unexpectedly, this was a long job, and both of them were busy nodding their heads.
The business at the stall was steady, with regular customers coming in from all quarters and new customers, all knowing that there were fresh delicacies at the pier. Brother Wang and Brother Liu ran errands for one day and were fully skilled the next day. The two were both steady and nothing went wrong.
At the end of the month, Baozhu took stock of her accounts. She had only been running her stall since the 15th, and after deducting the loss of firewood, pots, and bowls, and the wages of her two errand boys, she had made a net profit of 18 strings of cash in just half a month! She didn't count the remaining loose change; it was simply added to next month's capital.
The capital for next month has already been set aside. Of the eighteen strings of cash, Dalang and Baozhu will each receive seven strings, and the remaining four strings will be given to Baorong as wages.
The brothers settled their accounts clearly. The three of them, like misers, put the money into their respective boxes. Baozhu then took the box to the vegetable shop where he usually bought vegetables and exchanged it for small change.
In the evening, Baozhu secretly gave a dime of silver, about one or two taels in weight, to her second brother who was returning home. Her second brother was amused.
"Brother and Baorong also gave me some money just now."
It turned out that the siblings had the same idea. Baozhu smacked her lips and said, "We made some money from the stall this month. My eldest brother Baorong and I don't usually have much to spend. If you have any personal relationships at school, and you need to buy some pens, ink, paper and inkstone, you will have to spend money."
"You are good at talking." Erlang poked Baozhu's forehead.
In fact, Erlang also has his own private property, but it is always comforting to see brothers and sisters thinking about each other.
It rained a few days ago, and I thought business would be slower. Unexpectedly, although business was slower, there were many more people ordering meals. So the business was somewhat affected, but not too big.
The weather has been getting hot these days, and business is not as good as before.
In June, cicadas are buzzing noisily. In the alleys, naughty children gather in groups of three or five to make circles with thin bamboo sticks, insert them into bamboo poles, and stick spider webs and cicadas on them to play with.
Baozhu used a hand-made fan to fan away the sweat beads dripping down her forehead.
The author has something to say:
----------------------
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
