"Hey, did you hear? That scoundrel who showed up a few months back is at it again."
"Scoundrel? Which scoundrel?"
"Hmph — how many scoundrels does Qingniu Town even have? I'm obviously talking about the worst of the lot."
"Oh, you mean that grain merchant, Master Zhao? What's he done now, besides selling that Immortal's Bliss of his?"
"Word is he's gone off the deep end. Made a bit of money and let it go straight to his head."
"They say he's out recruiting people left and right to clear wasteland — and apparently if you work hard, you can earn ten wen a day!"
"Ten wen a day? That's a tael of silver in three months. I don't believe it."
"I don't believe it either, but apparently there are fools who do. Ha — and quite a few of them at that."
…
Over in the gorge, Builder Wang was busy with his crew on the south side of the small lake.
This was the commercial and residential district Zhao Baihui had planned out, taking up two-thirds of the gorge.
This time he was putting up a commercial street, with residential areas to be built along either side once it was done.
For quite a long stretch of time to come, Builder Wang would have no need to go traipsing around looking for work.
With Immortal's Bliss now turning a profit, Zhao Baihui's development had hit full stride — a virtuous cycle that would only pick up speed going forward.
This commercial street, however, wouldn't go up quite as quickly.
Because this time it wasn't earthen huts they were building, but proper structures — multi-storey ones at that.
The plan called for two rows of two-storey buildings — which, given the standards of the era and the capabilities of Builder Wang's rural crew, was just about as ambitious as things could get.
Zhao Baihui had heard from Jinyi, though, that in order to keep pace with the rate of development here, Builder Wang was apparently looking to recruit skilled workers from the county town or even further afield.
Sure enough — demand drives progress.
Demand is the engine of social advancement.
And he was the one creating the demand.
As evening fell, thin wisps of cooking smoke curled up from every corner of the gorge where people had settled.
Zhao Baihui and the maids took their meals in the rear courtyard, while the three households living in the compound generally gathered in the middle courtyard to eat together.
Cooking was handled by the women of all three families, with Jinwen's mother taking the lead — she had the best hand in the kitchen — while the other two served as her helpers.
The kitchen was a room near the rear end of the middle courtyard, converted specifically for cooking.
Jinwen's mother did genuinely have a slight edge over Jinyi in the kitchen, though in truth the bigger reason was that Jinyi was simply far too busy these days.
There was a mountain of things to manage every day, and she still kept to her studies every afternoon and evening without fail.
The other three maids were much the same — they had all started taking on responsibilities of their own.
Jinyi was the head steward; the three of them were junior stewards.
For now, there wasn't too much on their plates, and they were still young besides — but in a few more years, they'd be shouldering the same heavy load as Jinyi.
"Is dinner ready? I'm a bit hungry." Jinxiu, her brain practically turned to mush from the lesson she'd just finished, drifted into the kitchen.
"Just the last dish to go — it'll be out any moment." Jinwen's mother, busy at the stove, called back quickly.
The other two women were occupied as well, ladling out rice and peeling eggs.
Even four-year-old Dama and three-year-old Huzi were earning their work points by feeding sticks into the fire.
Today, Zhao Baihui had suddenly had a craving for eggs — hard-boiled and paired with a savoury minced-meat sauce, each bite salty, fragrant, tender, and silky all at once. A dish built for one purpose: to make the rice disappear.
So the kitchen had ten eggs on the boil.
"Jinwen's mother, the Master says your cooking is excellent. From now on your daily wages will be raised to ten wen."
"Truly?" Jinwen's mother was overjoyed.
The other two women looked on with undisguised envy — Jinxiu's mother among them — staring at her with longing in their eyes. But she carried on as if she hadn't noticed. "The Master says that as long as everyone works hard, things will only get better and better."
"Yes, yes, of course — I'll work even harder from now on."
Once the food was ready, the three women carried it through to the rear courtyard.
Jinxiu picked up a small basin of eggs, saw the two little boys eyeing it with desperate longing, and smiled — reaching in to pull out two smooth, pale, freshly peeled eggs and hand them over.
"Eat up quickly — if your older brothers and sisters spot those, watch out."
"Thank you, Sister Jinxiu." The two boys crammed the eggs into their mouths without a moment's hesitation.
Only once the women had seen to the master household's meal did they start on their own.
White rice and fine flour were beyond their means, naturally, but they could now afford coarse grain without having to bulk it out with wild herbs — and that alone was more than enough to be grateful for.
Before long, Jinxiu and the other maids brought back the dishes and serving vessels with a little food still left in them. It wasn't much, but it made the three women happy all the same.
When cooking for the master household, they always had to judge the quantities carefully — too much was wasteful, too little and there wouldn't be enough to go around.
Deliberately making extra to skim a share for themselves was an offence that would earn a punishment.
So when the master household happened to leave a little behind, they could give the children a taste of something good — but it wasn't something that happened at every meal.
As the Zhao household sat down to eat, much the same scene was playing out elsewhere.
The workers at the commercial street construction site south of the small lake were eating too — nothing special, but there was enough to fill a belly.
This was largely thanks to Builder Wang having secured so much work from Zhao Baihui, which had put him in a considerably more comfortable position.
Over at the distillery, the ten households — fifty-odd people in all — were working for Zhao Baihui. Their treatment was a notch below what the three families at the compound received, but compared to the outside workers on the construction site, they were far better off.
The work at the factory was assigned by the task, and Zhao Baihui had laid down a simple rule: the more you do, the more you earn.
Whoever put in the most work walked away with the most pay.
An adult man could average six or seven wen a day, and his wife and children were welcome to help out as well — whatever you contributed, you were paid for.
Work at the distillery wasn't heavy at the moment, and everyone threw themselves into it eagerly, so the day's tasks were usually wrapped up by mid-afternoon — after three or four o'clock there was nothing left to do.
So they finished their meal early, and some of the men gathered in clusters to talk.
The women gathered too when they had free time, though they could never truly be idle — some were minding young children, and those without little ones to look after chatted while their hands worked at needlework.
The slightly older children played together in groups, while the bigger ones had run out of the compound entirely.
"Today's payday, isn't it? Do you think the new Master is a man of his word?"
"Hard to say. Before, you'd always wait until year's end for a whole year's wages at once. And now here he says we settle up every ten days — I find that hard to believe."
"What's the rush? With everything Master Zhao has, would he really short us on a bit of wages?" The man's restlessly tapping fingers betrayed exactly what was going through his mind.
"Let's just wait and see — might not be until tomorrow, for all we know."
"She's here, she's here — Miss Jinyi's here!" A half-grown child came running in from outside the gate, face beaming.
Everyone got to their feet. As Jinyi and Jinxiu entered with two men in tow, the crowd greeted them with stiff, self-conscious politeness.
Jinyi smiled. "No need to be so tense, everyone — I'm not here to collect debts. I'm here to hand out money."
"Today we'll hand out wages here in the main factory hall — after this it'll be done in the office."
Doing it today in full view of everyone was a way of telling them plainly: the Master would not shortchange them.
And it was a way of using these wages to give everyone a boost of motivation.