Outside Jiangning City.
The sky was gloomy, pressing down so heavily it made it hard to breathe.
In the fields, hundreds of sallow and emaciated tenant farmers shivered in the cold wind.
Old man Zhao Laogen squatted at the edge of the field, his calloused hands tightly gripping a newly planted cotton seedling.
The seedling was wilted.
"It's a sin..."
Zhao Laogen's voice was hoarse.
"The Wang family is trying to force us to our deaths! Growing this damn cotton, we can't eat it or drink it. Are we supposed to let our whole family gnaw on cotton quilts in the winter?"
On the loess slope next to him, his wife, Mrs. Liu, was crying while holding their three-year-old grandson.
The child was so hungry that his crying was very faint, his little face sallow, and his eye sockets deeply sunken.
"Old man, if it really doesn't work out... sell me too."
Mrs. Liu wiped away a tear, her eyes hollow.
"I heard there are still brokers taking people in the city. If you sell me, you can at least get two bags of aged rice and leave a way out for this child."
Zhao Laogen suddenly raised his head, his eyes red.
"Sell? Where to? Even the noble families are laying off people now! Who would want mud-legged farmers like us who only know how to farm?"
"This is a dead end! This is pushing us to our deaths!"
Despair spread through the crowd.
The cold wind howled, mixed with low whimpering sounds, making people's scalps tingle.
Just then, a man with a sharp mouth and monkey-like cheeks squeezed out of the crowd.
This man was Lai San, an idle loafer, but he was very excited at the moment.
He jumped onto a big rock, waving his arms and legs, spit flying.
"Fellow villagers! Stop crying! Crying is useless!"
"That newly arrived County Princess Xu is a Bloodsucker Xu who eats people without spitting out the bones! She took this land just to let us starve to death here!"
"Since we're going to die anyway, we might as well fight her!"
Lai San shouted at the top of his lungs, a strange light flashing in his eyes.
"Hundreds of us, let's rush into the county office! Even if we get beaten to death, it's better than gnawing on mud here!"
"I heard there's rice and meat in the county office, let's rob the bastards!"
Desperately hungry people instantly lost their reason.
The dead ashes in the tenant farmers' eyes began to burn, the madness of beasts right before death.
"Right! Rob the bastards!"
"Rather than starve to death, it's better to die with a full stomach!"
The crowd began to stir, looking as if it was about to lose control.
Right at this critical moment.
Clang——!!!
A piercing sound of a copper gong rang out, making everyone's eardrums buzz.
The crowd, which had been about to rush out, was abruptly stopped in its tracks by this noise.
On the dirt road leading to the county town, a cloud of dust rose.
There were no official troops surrounding them as imagined, nor were there any fierce-looking yamen runners.
There was only a team of uniformed domestic servants, carrying several large black pots, running over panting heavily.
The man leading them wore a long robe, with a golden abacus hanging from his waist, walking with a swagger, his nostrils pointing to the sky.
This was Xu Qinghuan's number one lackey—
Li Sheng, the master adviser of the Jiangning County Office and the chief steward of the Hundred Flowers Pavilion.
Li Sheng held a tin megaphone in his hand, looking nothing like a butler.
"Shut up, all of you! What are you howling about!"
Li Sheng shoved the tin megaphone to his mouth, his voice exceptionally loud.
"Who said you're working for nothing? Who said you're going to starve to death?"
"Are your heads full of mush? Didn't you go and ask around about who our Eldest Miss is!"
"That's the County Princess! The Goddess of Wealth!"
Li Sheng kicked aside a domestic servant next to him, pointing at several mahogany tables in front of him.
"Set them up! Set them up properly for me!"
"County Princess Xu said, our Jiangning County doesn't support idlers, nor do we give handouts to beggars!"
"Want to eat? Want to live? You can!"
Li Sheng pulled a stack of papers from his chest and slapped them onto the table.
The papers were densely covered with words, along with red inkpad stamps.
"Come! As long as you press your fingerprint on this, we're all one family!"
Zhao Laogen was stunned.
Lai San was also stunned.
What kind of routine was this? Not giving out porridge? Changing to signing papers?
Lai San rolled his eyes and immediately jumped up and shouted: "Fellow villagers, don't believe him! This must be a contract selling yourselves into slavery!"
"Once you press your fingerprint, we'll be slaves! We'll have to work like horses and oxen for that Bloodsucker Xu for generations!"
The crowd stirred again, fear once more gaining the upper hand.
Li Sheng rolled his eyes massively, almost rolling them to the top of his skull.
He sneered, looking at Lai San.
"So what if it's a slavery contract."
Li Sheng picked up a piece of paper, although he didn't quite understand what the "five insurances and one housing fund" and "paid leave" written on it meant either.
But he just needed to remember the sales pitch the Eldest Miss had taught him.
"Listen up! Once you sign this contract, you'll be official employees of the Jiangning Number One Cotton Mill!"
"Food and lodging provided! And a monthly salary every month!"
"At the end of the year, those who do well will also get what the County Princess calls a year-end bonus! If you get sick, the mill will pay for your treatment! If you die, the mill will bury you!"
"But!"
Li Sheng's tone changed, his eyes instantly becoming sharp.
"Since you're taking the money, you have to be obedient! If you're told to go east, you can't go west; if you're told to grow cotton, you can't grow rice!"
"Also, signing this is a lifetime contract! Starting at five years, with no upper limit!"
"If anyone dares to run away halfway, or leak our divine techniques... hmph hmph!"
Li Sheng made a throat-slitting gesture and smiled sinisterly.
The tenant farmers opened their mouths wide, feeling like they were listening to a heavenly book.
Food and lodging provided? And a monthly salary?
Which immortal had descended to earth? In this day and age, you have to pay to be a servant, where could you find such a good thing?
Zhao Laogen tremblingly shuffled forward two steps, ignoring Lai San pulling his sleeve from behind.
"Um... Chief Steward, is what you said true?"
"You really provide food?"
Li Sheng glanced at him and didn't speak.
He just waved his hand.
The several burly men behind him took a step forward and lifted the lids off those large black pots in one fell swoop.
Boom——!
A rich aroma of meat immediately swept across the entire area.
That was the real smell of meat!
Fat and lean braised pork belly, bubbling in a thick, dark sauce.
Large chunks of meat, radishes that had soaked up the broth, and white rice!
This was the secret braised pork base that Xu Youde had specially brought out from the mansion yesterday, stewed with hundreds of catties of pork.
This smell, to this group of people who hadn't had a full meal in years, was simply a top-tier mind-altering drug!
Gulp!
Gulp!
The sound of thousands of people swallowing saliva rang out in unison.
Zhao Laogen's eyes went straight, his soul hooked away by the meat in that pot.
What dignity, what freedom, what bullshit from Lai San.
In front of that piece of braised pork, they were nothing!
"I'll sign!"
Zhao Laogen roared, bursting out with the greatest strength of his life.
He rushed to the table, not caring whether the paper said he was selling his soul to the devil or to Xu Qinghuan.
He directly slapped his entire palm into the red inkpad, and then pressed it hard onto the paper.
Smack!
A bright red handprint was pressed onto the paper.
"I only have this one life! As long as you give me food, let alone growing cotton, even if it's growing iron flowers, I'll grow them for you!"
Li Sheng nodded in satisfaction, picked up the paper with the handprint, and blew on it.
Then he took a large, coarse porcelain bowl from the side.
That bowl was really big, like a small washbasin.
The large ladle scooped into the pot, pulling up a heaping portion of braised pork over rice. Complete with meat and savory broth, it was piled high like a little mountain.
"Take it! This is your monthly wage in advance!"
"Next!"
Zhao Laogen held the bowl of meat and rice, tears streaming down his face.
Ignoring the heat, he grabbed a piece of fatty meat and stuffed it into his mouth.
With one bite, rich oil filled his mouth. It was the taste of being alive!
This scene completely ignited the crowd.
Those who had been hesitating instantly went wild.
"I'll sign too! I'll sign!"
"Don't push! I'm a great farmer! I have a lot of strength!"
"Grandpa Butler, I have two sons. Can I sign three contracts?"
Thousands of people squeezed toward the table like madmen, terrified that if they were even a step too late, the meat in the pot would be all gone.
Lai San was pushed back and forth, even losing one of his shoes to the trampling crowd.
He looked at this scene in despair and shouted, "You are selling out your integrity and ambition! You are selling yourselves to... to the Xu family!"
Slap!
Madam Wang, who had been silent all this time, slapped Lai San across the face.
"Get out of the way!"
"I'm about to starve to death, what the hell do I need integrity for! Do I look like I have integrity?"
"County Princess Xu is giving us food to eat, so she is our second mother! If you dare to spout any more nonsense, I'll stew you!"
The situation instantly reversed.
The so-called riot was incredibly fragile and collapsed instantly under the offensive of the braised pork.
In the distance.
A carriage was parked under a tree.
The carriage curtain was lifted just a crack, revealing a pair of eyes.
It was none other than Xu Qinghuan.
Holding a cup of hot milk tea in her hands, she looked at the scene of people frantically pressing their thumbprints in the distance, and the corners of her mouth couldn't help but rise wildly.
"Tsk, tsk, this batch of gullible workers is so easy to manage."
Xu Qinghuan shook her head, her eyes flashing with the light of an industrialist.
"An indentured servitude contract, a few pots of pork stewed with radishes."
"And in exchange, I get thousands of dead-set, cheap laborers."
"This isn't just signing contracts; this is clearly the foundation-laying ceremony of my textile empire!"
She looked at Xu Wuyou beside her, a hint of smugness in her tone.
"Brother, look, this is what you call vision."
"The noble families think these thousands of mouths are a burden, a bottomless pit that will eat me into poverty."
"But in my eyes, they are my first batch of industrial workers, the living engines for my spinning jennies!"
Xu Wuyou hugged his sword, looking at his sister's expression that screamed she wanted to hang the whole capitalist world from the streetlights, and silently shrank back a little.
"Sister, although I don't understand what an industrial worker is..."
"I feel like that Lai San was quite right about one thing."
"You really look like a villain right now."
Xu Qinghuan rolled her eyes and sucked up a tapioca pearl.
"A villain?"
"You couldn't be more wrong!"
"This County Princess is doing targeted poverty alleviation! It's called providing relief through work! Forget it, you wouldn't understand anyway."
She pointed at Zhao Laogen, who was crying while holding his bowl in the distance.
"Look, he's crying from being so moved."
"What does this show? It shows that giving people food is an art form!"
At this very moment.
Zhao Laogen, who was frantically stuffing rice into his mouth, only knew that the County Princess sitting in the carriage with a pained expression was the savior of his entire family.
He swore that in this life, even if he rubbed his hands raw, he would spin this cotton into golden threads for County Princess Xu!
"Line up, everyone! Those who have signed, go over there to get your clothes!"
Li Sheng stood on the table, looking high-spirited and vigorous.
"From today on, forget your surnames! Forget your past!"
"You only have one name, tenant farmers of the Jiangning Cotton Textile Factory!"
"Our slogan is..."
"As long as the work doesn't kill you, work yourself to the bone!"
"For the braised pork! Charge!!!"
The roars of hundreds of people echoed through the clouds, even scattering the dark clouds in the sky a bit.
Meanwhile, not far away, Lai San, who had initially incited the riot...
Was currently being held up by several strong men and thrown straight out.
"Bah! What a piece of trash!"
"Dare to delay us from working like horses and oxen for County Princess Xu? We'll beat you to death, you bastard!"
The wind stopped.
Because the passion of the crowd was fiercer than the wind.
Xu Qinghuan dropped the curtain and sighed.
"This kid Li Sheng really has a knack for brainwashing."
"Looks like I'll have to give him a raise later... No, never mind."
"After all, I am a ruthless, emotionless County Princess. I should save money wherever I can."
