Chapter 128

"Brother Mingyu, will he repent and turn over a new leaf?" On the carriage, Jiang Sheng cocked his little head.

Zheng Ruqian was rather melancholy, "I don't know, hopefully."

After sending Wang Fufeng back to rest in his own residence, the six siblings hurried to Hairpin Courtyard.

There were still internal struggles to be dealt with in the Wang family, but they could only be left to Wang Fufeng.

They now needed to deal with their own affairs.

For example, Xu Mo needed to attend lectures at the prefecture school to prepare for next year's provincial examination.

Zheng Ruqian needed to go to Leisure Residence to discuss the sausage business, then transport the sausages to Anyang County.

Fang Heng was considering taking the eight servants to train in situ, just theorizing was useless after all.

Wen Zhiyun then looked around for a suitable storefront to open a medicine shop.

Even Jiang Sheng was excited to reopen the workshop.

By comparison, Little ChangYan suddenly became the most idle person.

"Little Five, come to school with me." Xu Mo said with eyes closed, "The prefecture school stipulates that you can bring a pageboy. When you get there, you can listen to the lectures, nothing else to worry about."

Zheng Ruqian turned his head, "One bookworm brother is enough, Little Five can come do business with me. The Anyang County route is still short on people."

Fang Heng looked at him in disdain, "Little Five isn't even as tall as a horse, letting him drive carriages, are you not afraid of losing the child? He's better off coming to train with me, at least he can protect himself."

Wen Zhiyun raised his head, thinking it might not be appropriate to hire Little Five brother to gather medicine.

Even Jiang Sheng looked over in concern, "Fifth brother, why don't you come open the workshop with me? You can have Auntie's sausages every day." When everyone was busy, the one with nothing to do was most likely to overthink.

Wen Zhiyun was an example.

In the dead of night, the siblings always had to run out to find him and make sure nothing was wrong before they could breathe a sigh of relief.

But ChangYan was not Wen Zhiyun.

He had long found something for himself, "I'll go help Big Brother Fufeng."

Compared to these, the internal struggles of the Wang family interested Little ChangYan even more.

"You sly little rascal." Zheng Ruqian glared at him. "Going with Wang Fufeng is more fragrant than being with us, isn't it?"

Seeing his brothers about to be jealous.

ChangYan hurriedly went over to pull his sleeve, smiling obediently, "How could that be? When the Wang family is at peace, we will be safe, right?"

Those who had bullied his brothers and sisters should pay an even greater price.

The ten-year-old boy looked up, his increasingly outstanding looks concealed the ferocity in his eyes.

Three days later.

Xu Mo got his xiucai status and smoothly enrolled in the prefecture school.

He didn't look for a pageboy yet, thinking that if Little Five was uncomfortable with the schemes and plots of the Wang family, he could come back and attend lectures together.

Jiang Sheng also brought Zhang Qiquan back to Dafu Village to find the aunties they had hired before to teach them sausage making again, and signed new contracts.

Of course, not including that gaunt woman who had betrayed them.

"Really, can we really work again?" The woman in charge of housework saw Zhang Qiquan and Jiang Sheng at her door and was so excited that tears were about to flow out, "Can I really earn money again?"

Five coins a day was not much, but in the barren times, it was enough to feed a family.

What's more, an earning woman always stood taller than a non-earning one.

"Of course, Auntie." Jiang Sheng smiled, "We even have bonuses. As long as the aunties work cleanly and carefully, there will be an extra 20 to 50 coins per month."

Last time Auntie Zhang was careless and Jiang Sheng ate a strand of hair in the sausage. She was shocked at the time.

Not that she minded the hair herself, the little street urchin would eat anything just to live.

But those wealthy people outside were most concerned about these things. Jiang Sheng remembered when she was six, she passed by a wealthy household. The lady of the house ate half a dog hair in the meat and was so angry that she fired the cook and dumped the entire plate of red braised pork into the dog bowl.

That was steaming hot, fatty but not greasy red braised pork!

Little Jiang Sheng was overjoyed and pounced to fight the dogs for it. The big yellow dog bared its teeth, yet it didn't snatch any from her. If it wasn't for the maid servants of that household hearing the noise and coming out to check, she could have licked the bottom of the bowl clean.

So Jiang Sheng understood very well the significance of cleanliness for food.

Sausage was different from cured meat.

Cured meat could be washed before eating, so even if there was a strand of hair, most people wouldn't mind.

But the sausage stuffing was stuffed into the casing. Finding hair and grass roots in the meat paste would definitely shock the diners.

To prevent this possibility, Jiang Sheng discussed it at length with Uncle Zhang before finally deciding to implement a bonus system.

Sure enough. Hearing her words, the already excited woman's eyes brimmed with tears. "Of course, of course! I will work very carefully, even more so than when cooking for my own family. Absolutely clean and meticulous."

After visiting one family after another, bringing all the aunties who worked cleanly and briskly back and signing new contracts.

When they had visited the last family, Jiang Sheng took out the last contract from her arms, "Uncle Zhang, this one's for you."

The workshop at Hairpin Courtyard had changed owners.

Naturally, the contracts also needed changing. The only thing that probably wouldn't change were the people signing the contracts and the contract terms.

Zhang Qiquan casually looked through it and found it was still a profit sharing system, still 10% of the net profit. His eyes reddened slightly, "Boss, 10% is really high. For someone like me managing affairs, ten taels of silver a year is sufficient."

Judging by the current popularity of the sausages, the annual profit would at least be 200-300 taels. 10% of that would be 20-30 taels, really not low.

"Ten taels of silver does not match Uncle Zhang's hard work." Little Jiang Sheng put her hands behind her back like her big brother. "There will be much more to worry about in the future. I hope Uncle Zhang will not dislike the hard work."

"Oh, oh no, of course not." Zhang Qiquan pressed down the red handprint, laughing.

Jiang Sheng carefully folded all the contracts and put them in her arms, just waiting to go to the prefectural government to formalize them.

As the two sat in the carriage passing through the village entrance, a household door suddenly opened.

Then, a gaunt woman knelt in front of the carriage, kowtowing to them, "Boss, hire me too. I know I was wrong, I absolutely won't reveal the boss's secret recipe again. Please give me food, I'm starving to death."

Zhang Qiquan was startled and urgently pulled the reins to stop the carriage before running over someone.

That gaunt woman still kowtowed, "The boss is kindhearted and magnanimous. Please give me food, if you don't give me food, we'll starve to death." The subtext: If I starve to death, it'll be on you.