Chapter 27: Finding Help From Other Villages
"The Village Head didn't care to help us out, right?" Chen Xiao Mi asked Lu Lin.
Lu Lin nodded, "Correct. But I'm not mad or anything, I have totally seen it coming. Let's look for help from other villages, and we also need to buy some black bricks, I don't mind giving out current floor some renovation while we build a new room."
Chen Xiao Mi frowned, "Why bother?"
Lu Lin smiled, "We are building a new room anyways, why not make our own room more comfortable as well?"
'What a fussy rich kid!' Chen Xiao Mi rolled his eyes in the heart, but he didn't reject Lu Lin's suggestion.
Soon the villagers had heard the news that Lu Lin went to the Village Head to look for help in building a new room. And they were dumbfounded, they couldn't believe how rich Chen Xiao Mi had got! He could afford to build a new room right after he bought a mule carriage. But some villagers comforted themselves in a sour grape way, "I'd rather stay poor than being so unpopular, no one wants to work for him in our entire village!"
Lu Lin and Chen Xiao Mi went to town the next day again. They headed to the labor market directly to look for strong and healthy casual laborers.
They picked a team of five people who were experienced in building houses. The team leader was called Liu Gui Yong, he was a man in his mid-thirties, his two sons and two young apprentices were in the team as well.
Liu Gui Yong and his team were always looking for work in farm slack season, they hadn't done any work for days when Lu Lin and Chen Xiao Mi showed interest in hiring them. Liu Gui Yong really hated the feeling of returning home empty-handed.
Chen Xiao Mi and Liu Gui Yong talked about the wage quietly.
"40 cents per day, really?" Liu Gui Yong found that too good to be true.
"Only you get paid that high, your two sons will get paid 35 cents per day, and the two young apprentices are 20 cents per day, but I will provide one meal per day." Chen Xiao Mi added.
That was a very generous offer. Liu Gui Yong made that quote with the mindset that Chen Xiao Mi would haggle for sure, he was surprised to hear Chen Xiao Mi took the quote without haggling at all. But he knew why Chen Xiao Mi didn't haggle as soon as Chen Xiao Mi made a self-introduction, Liu Gui Yong had heard about Chen Xiao Mi's stories.
'He must be having a hard time finding help, so he is willing to pay me and my team a good price.' Thought Liu Gui Yong.
Liu Gui Yong was a great laborer with a lot of experience, but he was used to people haggling with him because he was disfigured from an accident several years ago, and he had suffered discrimination ever since.
Disfiguration was a huge issue in that time and space, people would discriminate you and you weren't even able to pursue a political career if you were disfigured.
Liu Gui Yong was even more surprised when he found out Chen Xiao Mi was from Big Stone Village, he wondered why Chen Xiao Mi would go through the trouble of going to town and looking for laborers from other villagers.
Usually, your own villagers would charge you less and they would work longer because they didn't need to commute. But Liu Gui Yong didn't ask Chen Xiao Mi, he just cherished this working opportunity. The last thing he wanted Chen Xiao Mi to feel was he didn't actually want to work for him.
Liu Gui Yong and his team followed Chen Xiao Mi back to Big Stone Village, a lot of villagers had seen them. They didn't know who those strangers were, so they asked around, they couldn't believe Chen Xiao Mi had actually found laborers from another village.
Liu Gui Yong and his team were stunned when they saw the kang in Chen Xiao Mi's house, but they didn't pester Chen Xiao Mi or Lu Lin with questions.
Liu Gui Yong looked around Chen Xiao Mi's house, he was confident that Chen Xiao Mi was able to pay them as he had promised.
Lu Lin cooked them lunch, it was yam porridge with minced meat and pickled vegetables made by Granny Shen.
It wasn't a fancy meal, but Liu Gui Yong and his team found the food quite hearty, they ate the porridge with relish.
Rice was expensive in that time and space, Liu Gui Yong's team had never met a boss who promised them that they could eat as much as they want. Everyone was quite grateful, the two young apprentices' eyes sparkled when they saw the minced meat in the bowl. Lu Lin cooked a whole pot of porridge for them, and they finished it all.
They had seen Lu Lin using 'muddy sticks' as the main ingredient in the porridge, they found that mind-blowing.
Lu Lin was very generous with the yam because they had money to afford real food now.
Lu Lin's generosity paid off. Liu Gui Yong's team worked so hard the whole day, none of them had slacked off a single bit. Lu Lin called it a day at dusk because he knew they all lived far away, he had even escorted them to the exit of the village with his mule carriage.