Wang spoke first, "Village head, I'm sorry, but I'm doing quite well working at Qing's house. I even get a bonus at the end of the year, so I'm very content."
Erdanzi chuckled and said, "The work at the Chen family's place is easy and not tiring, and the pay is high. Who would be stupid enough to earn ten coins? Let whoever wants to go, go. I'm not going."
Da Longzi shrugged. "I'm not like some people; I wouldn't do something so heartless."
"Yes, yes, we're not going," everyone chimed in.
"You..." Liang Fugui was furious and about to say something when Liu Laohan kindly reminded him.
“Fugui, every family in our village has someone working at Chen’s sugar mill. Where would we find anyone else to go to your house? In my opinion, before it gets dark, you should hurry up and go to the neighboring Willow Village to find a few people. Don’t let it interfere with tomorrow’s work.”
“Uncle Lao Han is right.” Wu Baoan nodded, then frowned and looked at Liang Fugui and his wife. “Fugui, Fugui’s family, since you can’t hire anyone in our village, you should hurry up and go to Liutiao Village. After all, that’s 10,000 catties of sugar beets. If they spoil in this hot weather, wouldn’t that be a real problem?”
"Wait, count me in. I'm just lazing around at home with nothing to do, and I don't mind earning less." Ru Hua's simple-minded voice rang out from outside the crowd.
Upon seeing the newcomer, Madam Liang was secretly pleased, but she still maintained a stern expression and said...
“Scholar’s wife, this job is probably not something you can do. If we use you, and the scholar comes back complaining, I can’t bear the responsibility!”
She said that, but she was secretly overjoyed. Someone was supporting her, and it was even the wife of a scholar, which proved that the couple wasn't completely without connections.
Ru Hua grinned dismissively, "Sister-in-law Fu Gui, what are you saying? What's there to be unable to bear? You know, we don't have any fields to tend to now, and there's not much work to do at home. I'm so bored every day that my whole body aches. I might as well do some work to stretch my muscles and get some exercise. You can't not give me this opportunity!"
Although Ru Hua has a carefree and easygoing personality, she's not stupid.
The Chen family now only has some unpolished rice and rice bran left, not even enough to sustain them until Chen Zhancai returns after passing the imperial examination.
If she doesn't find ways to make money, her whole family will probably starve to death.
My mother-in-law absolutely refused to let me go to Chen Zhanshan's house to work, feeling it would be a disgrace.
That's why she deliberately said she was so bored that her body ached, so that others would know that she wasn't working for money, but simply because she had nothing better to do and wanted to find something to do to pass the time.
Madam Liang raised the corners of her mouth and smiled smugly, "Don't worry, scholar's wife, I'll reserve a spot for you. You can come to my house to work tomorrow morning. I'll find you an easy job."
"Okay, it's settled then. You guys go ahead with your work. I need to go back and tell my mother-in-law. I'm afraid she won't want me to go." After saying that, Ru Hua turned around and left in a flash.
As everyone watched her retreating figure, a wave of pity washed over them. She was clearly so poor that she couldn't even afford to eat, yet she spoke so sweetly. No wonder she was a frivolous woman from a brothel; she wasn't good-looking, but her words were so charming.
Madam Liang rolled her eyes at everyone, looked at her husband, and said sarcastically, "Fugui, since no one is going to take our family's food, why should we force it? Three-legged toads are hard to find, but two-legged people are everywhere. There are plenty of idle people. Let's go elsewhere and hire someone."
“Yes, let’s go.” Liang Fugui agreed, and the two hurriedly walked out of the village…
The next morning, everything at Chen's Sugar Workshop proceeded smoothly.
The villagers who came to work saw no sign of worry on the faces of the Chen family.
Chen Zhanshan set up a room overnight to store the special raw materials for boiling white sugar.
While no one was looking, Chen Qingqing bought several bags of lime powder in her spatial storage and put them all into a large vat.
After giving him repeated instructions, he went to town.
The Liang family was also bustling with activity. As pot after pot of brown sugar was boiled, the two of them finally felt relieved.
But they had no donkeys, and their cooking pots, stoves, and stone mills were limited. Even with all their might, they could only use two hundred catties of sugar beets a day, producing forty catties of sugar.
However, they were already quite satisfied with this.
On this day, having finally collected 500 jin of brown sugar, Liang Fugui hired an oxcart and went to Qingshui Town.
He wanted to show off in front of Li Jiang and let him know that the money hadn't been wasted.
The couple had already calculated it out: 85 copper coins per catty, 500 catties would cost 42.5 taels of silver.
With this money, we can pay off Manager Li's initial investment, and the remaining beets will all be profit!
The oxcart finally stopped in front of Li's Grocery Store.
Liang Fugui was the first to jump off the oxcart, a smug look on his face. He strode inside, adopting a self-satisfied posture.
Seeing that Manager Li was sitting listlessly in front of the counter, he shouted loudly, "Brother, I've come to bring you good news."
Manager Li glanced at the two of them indifferently, his face showing no sign of joy.
Following closely behind, Madam Liang seemed a little confused, thinking that he hadn't understood her husband's words. She quickly smiled and added, "Brother, we've made brown sugar. We've collected a full five hundred catties, and it's all sitting on the cart outside."
"You guys really screwed me over!"
Upon hearing this, Liang Fugui's smile immediately froze. "Brother, what do you mean by that? We work so hard, and you don't even offer a few words of praise? What do you mean we've screwed you over?"
"Yes, we've finished making the sugar, why aren't you happy?" Mrs. Liang asked, looking puzzled.
Manager Li sighed helplessly, "This can't be entirely blamed on you. It's already quite an achievement that you were able to produce brown sugar. It's all fate; I deserve to be unlucky!"
"What do you mean by that?" Liang Fugui asked, looking completely bewildered.
Manager Li frowned, somewhat incredulous. "You really don't know what happened?"
"Look at you! If I knew the answer, why would I be asking you!"
"Take a look at this first," said Manager Li, bending down to take out a packet of white sugar from under the counter and pushing it in front of the two men.
Liang was taken aback at first, but after seeing the snow-white granules in front of her, she couldn't help but laugh. "Brother, you're so funny. You don't even recognize this stuff? It's just white salt."
Liang Fugui's mouth twitched. "That's right, how could we not recognize white salt? Why are you showing us this stuff?"
"Try it, see if this is white salt?"
Hearing what Manager Li said, Madam Liang frowned, pinched a little bit with her hand and put it in her mouth. Her eyes widened immediately, her face full of disbelief. "Why is this white salt sweet?"
"Oh my goodness, it's really sweet! What kind of novelty is this?" Liang Fugui exclaimed in surprise...
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