Chapter 33 The Village Packer
"Fourth Grandpa, are you basking in the sun?"
"Yeah, Xiao Wu, where are you going?"
"I'm not going anywhere. I'm just wandering around the village."
Xia Wu wanted to solve the problem of insufficient manpower to pack strawberries, so he turned his attention to the old men and women in the village. When winter comes, some of the elderly can still play with the children, while some can only lean against the wall and do nothing, which looks very boring.
Mr. Yang Siye has three cows at home, but the buffaloes cannot go into the water in winter. Every day, apart from feeding the cows, he strolls around the village. When he gets tired, he comes back to bask in the sun.
Xia Wu asked him, "Fourth Master, didn't I plant some strawberries? They're ripe now, so I thought about selling them online."
"Selling strawberries online? How do you do it?"
"The Internet, your phone..."
Mr. Yang Siye’s cell phone is an old one. It can only be used to make calls and listen to music. Apart from the loud volume, it is not very entertaining.
Xia Wu took out his mobile phone angrily and showed him the powerful functions of the smartphone.
Fourth Master Yang smiled and said, "I know, just like a TV, Qiangzi's cell phone is like this."
Qiangzi is the grandson raised by Fourth Master Yang. Now he has graduated from university and started working. He only comes back occasionally during long holidays and for a few days during the Chinese New Year.
"Mobile phones are so powerful nowadays. They can do everything, including buying and selling things. I'm selling strawberries online, and a lot of people want to buy them. Fourth Master, do you think the strawberries I grow are delicious?"
"It's delicious. I'm an old man with no teeth, so everything tastes bland. Only strawberries taste good."
"Fourth Master, you're just sitting at home anyway, why don't you come to my house and work for me? It's not a strenuous job, just put foam nets on strawberries, and I'll pay you. How about that?"
Xia Wu laid the groundwork for a long time and finally asked the question.
Fourth Master Yang readily agreed, "What money do you want? I'm free anyway, so I'll go and help you."
"That won't do. Let's put it this way. You work for me and I pay you. Otherwise, the rest of the village will definitely not work for me, right?"
"Are you still looking for someone?"
"Yes, we need to recruit at least three or five people and pay them according to their hours of work."
"Okay, I'll go to the village and ask for you."
"Okay," Fourth Master Yang was willing to help Xia Wu find help, and Xia Wu would definitely be happy.
Soon, Mr. Yang Si found the other three people, all from Yanggou Village, Guihua Niang and Shi Hongniang. These two old ladies were over sixty years old and in good health.
The other one was also a woman, but she was not very old, only in her thirties or forties, with rough and dark skin, a big frame, and was silent. Her name was Qiu Lan.
He took them through the process of picking strawberries, packing them and delivering them. They were all experienced in farm work and got the hang of it quickly. Xia Wu discussed their wages with them. Because the number of orders placed each day was not fixed, sometimes they might do more and sometimes less, so they were paid according to the time they spent, which was fifteen yuan an hour.
This hourly wage was set by Xia Wu after considering many factors.
There are several factories in Donghua Town, all of which are small. Workers work from morning to night, at least ten hours a day, and the monthly salary is only two to three thousand yuan.
It can't be any lower.
On the other hand, she also didn't want to offer too high a salary, so that the villagers would think she was a sucker and easy to bully.
She still remembers that some time ago when they rented out the mountain, some people in the village wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to raise the price.
Although the salary is low, Xia Wu provides them with good benefits. They can have breakfast in the morning and lunch if they work long hours.
In this way, with the addition of Yang Mingyuan, a child who can only work for one hour a day, Xia Wu now has five people working.
The strawberries in the two-acre greenhouse have begun to ripen, and large quantities of strawberries will mature every day. After Xia Wu signed a contract with Kuaishou Company, her video creation will be supported. As her fame grows, the number of orders will only increase, not decrease.
Hiring a few more people would also free Xia Wu from the tedious work so that he could continue to do other things.
After the people he had called left, Xia Wu poured the dates he had brought back from the mountain into water to wash them.
They were all ordinary wild dates, small in size and quite sweet. They were picked down with bamboo poles after being dried on the trees. Yang Guojun took Xia Wu and Yang Hongwen to pick them on the mountain for half a day.
Liu Guizhen planned to make a soup with red dates and white fungus to nourish yin and replenish blood. While working, the mother and daughter chatted about the people they had recruited.
"Mom, are the people that Fourth Master Yang found reliable?"
Xia Wu picked out the leaves from the red dates and threw the dates into a basin of water. Liu Guizhen rubbed them with gloves. After washing them, they had to be dried again.
"Both Guihua Niang and Shi Hong Niang are veterans at work. They're a bit older, but they're very honest. Their families haven't been easy, otherwise they wouldn't come and work for you just to earn a little money."
"Why is it not easy?" Xia Wu asked curiously.
"Guihua's mother married for the second time. Yang Sihai wasn't Guihua's biological father, but he was her second father. After she married him, she and Yang Sihai had three more sons. Guihua was lucky. When she was in junior high school, the national army was recruiting, so she signed up and became a member of the country. After she was released, she was assigned a job and a partner. She lived a good life. Her three brothers were not very successful, and they always wanted to take advantage of Guihua."
"That thought wasn't easy. Guihua was almost divorced because of her three younger brothers. Later, she refused to care about them and moved away from home. Guihua's mother's three sons gradually got married and started their own families. After Yang Sihai died, they were unwilling to support their own mother and wanted Guihua to take her mother to the city."
Xia Wu frowned upon hearing this. "Isn't this their biological mother? Why does she have to be raised by Guihua?"
"That is, Guihua was happy to support her mother, and there was no shortage of food in the city, so she took her mother to live in the city for two years. Everything was going well at first, but then Guihua's mother's sons became unhappy, saying that her mother was taking care of her daughter's grandchildren while her own grandson had no one to look after, making her a laughing stock. So they took Guihua's mother back home."
"Bah, what kind of person is this? So since your own mother can't enjoy life, you can only work for them?"
"Ah, that's how women of the older generation are. I can't understand it. Even after Guihua Niang has raised her grandchildren, no one will remember her kindness. Her daughters-in-law dislike her age and body odor and dislike of cleanliness, so they won't let her live in the new house and make her move back to the old one. She's all alone, so pitiful."
"Then why doesn't Guihua take her mother back to the city?"
"A few years ago, Guihua fell ill and died not long after. Otherwise, why would people say that Guihua's mother had a miserable life?"
"It's true..." Endless emotions surged in Xia Wu's heart, and he didn't know what to say for a moment.
"They say raising a son is a way to prepare for old age, but your mother and I have been in the village for so many years, so this is not necessarily true."
Xia Wu smiled and patted Liu Guizhen's hand: "Don't worry, Mom. I will definitely take care of you, Dad, and Grandpa in your old age."
Liu Guizhen was so happy that her face was wrinkled with joy. "Mom is still young, and you don't need to worry about her retirement. While I'm still healthy, I'll do as much as I can for you."
"Okay, you will definitely stay healthy and accompany me. We will slowly make up for the time we missed before."
This one sentence made Liu Guizhen's eyes sore and she almost cried.
Xia Wu then asked, "What about Shi Hongniang? Is her son also unfilial?"
"No, not really. Shi Hongniang only has one son. He was a bad boy in his early years. He got into a fight and stabbed someone in the kidney. His family had to pay for the damages, and he was imprisoned for a few years. When he got out, he was almost 30 years old. He finally got married through an introduction, but she had some problems. She couldn't work and couldn't even take care of the children. Shi Hong went out to work, and his mother stayed at home to take care of her daughter-in-law and grandchildren. We were poor, so there was nothing we could do."
Xia Wu was embarrassed and didn't know what to say.
"Where's Qiu Lan?"
"Her husband is gone, and there's no one at home to help her take care of the children. So she grows vegetables and raises chickens and ducks in the village, and then takes them to town to sell for money. As long as she can make money, she works very hard."
"We're all from the same village anyway. There aren't any bad people. It's just that life is not easy."
Xia Wu nodded to show that he understood.
Before going to bed at night, Xia Wumei enjoyed a bowl of red dates and white fungus soup, wrapped herself in a quilt and fell into a warm dream.
As expected, Brother Snake came again at night. Xia Wu forced himself to stay sleepy, yawned, took out the small bowl that he had prepared long ago, poured some spiritual spring water into it and let it out.
After Brother Snake finished drinking, he left leisurely. She closed the window and went to sleep. It took less than five minutes.
The next morning, Xia Wu got up early, thinking that Mr. Yang Si and his companions were still not done yet.
A little after six o'clock, Mr. Yang Si, Guihua Niang, Shi Hongniang, Qiu Lan and Yang Mingyuan all arrived.
Liu Guizhen prepared breakfast early and asked everyone to start working after they finished eating.
Xia Wu prepared low stools for them so they could sit down and pick strawberries, saving them the trouble of bending over.
Old Master Yang was practicing Tai Chi in the yard. After finishing a set of Tai Chi, he chatted with Fourth Master Yang for a few words, then squatted down and started picking strawberries.
After picking the strawberries, Yang Mingyuan should go to school. Since he had plenty of time today, Xia Wu didn't send him off. Before leaving, she gave him two boiled eggs.
They had eaten breakfast too early today and had to work for another hour, so she was worried that Yang Mingyuan would be hungry at school.
With the addition of several skilled workers, the speed of packing and express delivery has been significantly improved.
Today, there are more than 200 orders on Kuaishou and WeChat stores. Fortunately, the strawberries in the greenhouse are ripening one after another, otherwise there really wouldn’t be enough.
There are more than 400 kilograms of strawberries, and each strawberry needs to be covered with a foam net one by one. This is an extremely large project.
If it were Xia Wu, she would have collapsed long ago, but the villagers she invited did not find it tedious at all. They chatted about family matters, occasionally got up to drink some water or go to the toilet, and the rest of the time they sat in their seats and worked in an orderly manner.
There's no intention of being lazy at all.
Yesterday, Xia Wu asked Liu Guizhen about the character of these people. In fact, she was a little worried that they would slow down their work efficiency because they wanted to increase their wages. Although fifteen minutes an hour is not a lot of money, Xia Wu did not want to be taken advantage of from the beginning.
Now it seems that she was just thinking too badly of others.
Xia Wu needs to make two trips to deliver more than 200 express parcels. After packing a part of them, she loads them into the truck and sends them out to the town, and then delivers the other batch in the afternoon.
Looking at it this way, apart from delivering express packages, Xia Wu indeed has a lot of free time.
Worried that the elderly people would get bored while working, Xia Wu also found ways to entertain them. He asked them to work in a place with sunlight all day long, and there was hot water in the thermos all day long. He also washed strawberries for them to taste.
However, they all felt that it was too cold in winter and their stomachs couldn't handle eating strawberries, so they didn't eat many.
Xia Wu did not specifically give these workers spiritual spring water, but a lot of spiritual spring water was mixed into the Yang family's drinking water. It was basically contained in the Yang family's meals and drinks.
Because Xia Wu would always admit that he poured spiritual spring water into the well at home when he wasn't paying attention.
Food and drink are one thing, and on the other hand, Xia Wu bought an opera player for the elderly online. It has a large high-definition screen and comes with thousands of operas for free. Such a good thing costs less than three hundred yuan.
Xia Wu asked three elderly people what kind of operas they liked to listen to, and downloaded them specifically. When they worked, they played the background music specifically for the elderly, which improved their mood while working.
After making some time, Xia Wu focused his attention on video shooting, and spent the whole day running around the village and mountains with his brother Yang Hongwen to look for materials.
She filmed a video of the elderly people in the village listening to opera and packing express deliveries. In the video, the elderly people were so happy that they couldn't see their teeth or eyes, and it was very happy to watch.
Xia Wu specially posted this video online. Although it was short, the response was unexpectedly good.
When I decided to find a part-time job for the elderly in the village, the comparison before and after work
Xia Wu learned from previous lessons and nipped any doubts that netizens might have had in the bud.
In the video, she compared the footage she had previously shot of the elderly in the village leaning against the wall to bask in the sun, and their mental state after packing strawberries for delivery. It is obvious that whether it is Mr. Yang Si, or Guihua Niang who was squeezed dry and kicked out of the house by her son and daughter-in-law, and Shi Hongniang and Qiu Lan who are tired of making money to support their families, their mental state is much better than before.
Humans are social animals after all and need to communicate with others. Even if it is not the care of their family members, being cared for and noticed is a great comfort to these elderly people who have nowhere to vent their worries.
This video went viral for three days and unexpectedly became Xia Wu's most-played video. Many people said in the comment section that they thought of the elderly in their own families.
"When I was little, I always saw elderly people in the village sitting at the foot of the wall basking in the sun. They were like silent walls, and I always wondered what they were thinking about when they were silent. Later, my grandparents also became one of those elderly people basking in the sun. When they saw me coming home for the holidays, the silent trees instantly blossomed brilliantly."
"Old people need companionship. Even if there's no salary, being able to get together like this to chat and listen to opera is better for them than sitting alone at the door in the sun, bored, right?"
"My eyes are watering. I'm thinking of my grandpa. I don't want to go to class B for a day. I want to take a leave and go home!"
"As we grow older, we have less and less time to spend with our elders, but the distance between the city and the countryside is really too far!"
Xia Wu's videos attract both urban people who yearn for pastoral life and the so-called "downstream market" who have left the countryside.
That's why this video resonated so much with so many people after it was played.
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