Song Yubai stood rooted to the spot, as if his skull had been struck by a bolt of divine lightning from the ninth heaven.
His lips trembled slightly, his gaze fixed dead on the slip of paper poking halfway out of Lao Zhang's pocket.
Extreme heat... allowance?
Chilled... mung bean soup?
If he suffered heatstroke from not drinking the soup, it would be considered a work-related injury? And his medical bills would be reimbursed?
Was... was this still a night soil collector?
With these benefits, even the clerks in the Six Ministries of the capital didn't have such fortune on a scorching summer day!
"Is this... the abuse you were talking about?"
Song Yubai slowly turned his head, his voice faint, betraying neither joy nor anger.
Su Bingzhang and Li Wencheng were already drenched in sweat, their calves cramping with fear.
"This... this... witchcraft! Young Master! This must be witchcraft!"
Su Bingzhang defended himself incoherently, "These are sugar-coated bullets! This is buying people's hearts! That mung bean soup... might even be spiked with a mind-bewitching drug!"
Song Yubai ignored him. Like a walking corpse, he followed Lao Zhang into the so-called Staff Break Room.
As soon as he stepped through the door, a blast of cool air rushed against his face.
Inside the spacious room sat four massive bronze basins, piled high with crystal-clear ice blocks.
One had to know, it was the height of summer!
In the capital, even princes and nobles had to budget their ice usage carefully.
Yet here, in the break room of night soil collectors, ice blocks were piled up as if they cost nothing, just to cool down a bunch of hard laborers?
There were no torture devices hanging on the walls of the room.
Instead, there were several large charts.
Night Soil Department Employee Benefits Chart, Monthly Outstanding Employee Honor Roll, Safe Production Guidelines.
A long table in the corner was laden with white steamed buns, sliced watermelon, and an unlimited supply of herbal tea.
Several disabled men, also wearing yellow vests, were half-reclining in bamboo chairs with their legs crossed, loudly chatting and laughing while munching on watermelon.
How was this a living hell?
This was clearly an immortal's paradise!
Song Yubai felt his worldview collapsing, shattering into pieces on the ground, impossible to pick up.
Just then, a sudden commotion erupted at the door.
A pungent scent of cheap face powder drifted in.
A matchmaker dressed in garish red and green, a large red flower pinned to her head, bustled into the break room, swaying her barrel-like waist.
Song Yubai subconsciously stepped aside, afraid that the matchmaker was coming for a noble young master like himself.
After all, with his looks and wealth, he was the target of matchmakers wherever he went.
However.
The matchmaker didn't even spare Song Yubai a glance. Like a whirlwind, she swept straight over to the one-armed Lao Zhang, who had just sat down.
"Oh my, Uncle Zhang!"
The matchmaker waved her scented handkerchief, laughing so hard she trembled like a branch in the wind, the powder on her face practically flaking off into the mung bean soup.
"It's a done deal! It's a done deal!"
Lao Zhang set down his bowl and wiped his mouth. "What's a done deal?"
"What else could it be? Widow Li from the east side of town!"
The matchmaker slapped her thigh in excitement. "She finally agreed! She said that as long as you have this official staff position at the Night Soil Department, and when you get old you'll have that... oh right, a pension!"
"She won't mind that you're missing a hand! And she won't mind your age!"
"Widow Li said, as long as you save up enough work points to exchange for a two-bedroom house in the Anju Neighborhood in the south of town, she'll immediately bring her dowry and marry you!"
"Lao Zhang, this is a joyous occasion! You have to invite me to the wedding banquet, and you must give me a big red envelope!"
Hearing this, Lao Zhang's wrinkled old face instantly broke into a smile as bright as a blooming chrysanthemum.
"Really? Did she really say that?"
"How could it be fake? Who doesn't know nowadays that in Taoyuan County, apart from the managers of the Xu Manor, the official workers of your Night Soil Department are the most sought-after!"
The matchmaker looked enviously at the yellow vest on Lao Zhang. "A guaranteed income regardless of droughts or floods, great benefits, and the government even provides for your old age. Tsk tsk, if it weren't for my old age, if I were twenty years younger, I'd marry you too!"
The roomful of disabled men started cheering and jeering, their laughter almost blowing the roof off.
Song Yubai stood in the corner.
With a crisp crack, the ribs of the priceless folding fan in his hand were forcefully snapped.
A night soil collector... had become a hot commodity in the marriage market?
And there was a pension?
And subsidized housing?
He, the dignified son of the Prime Minister, who read the books of sages and studied statecraft, had never heard of such logic in the world!
What happened to all professions are lowly, only scholars are held high?
In this Taoyuan County, in this place filled with the smell of mugwort and mung bean soup, the principles from those books of sages seemed to have been thrown by Xu Qinghuan into the dung buckets of this Night Soil Department and stirred into a mush!
Song Yubai slowly turned around.
His eyes were no longer confused, but became piercingly cold, like two sharp swords thrusting straight at the two ashen-faced figures by the door who were already scared out of their wits.
Su Bingzhang.
Li Wencheng.
"A living hell?"
Song Yubai viciously smashed the broken folding fan onto the floor and approached the two men step by step.
"If this is hell..."
Song Yubai pointed at Lao Zhang, who was happily discussing the bride price with the matchmaker, his voice hoarse, carrying a kind of madness born from the collapse of his beliefs.
"Then I would like to ask, what kind of life are those commoners in the capital living? The eighteenth level of hell?!"
Song Yubai slumped onto a soft cushion, his eyes hollow, the broken fan rib in his hand creaking under his grip.
The scenes he had just witnessed in the Night Soil Department flashed through his mind like a revolving lantern.
Were those night soil collectors? They were clearly lords holding official government posts and drinking chilled mung bean soup!
"Fake... it's all fake..."
"Is this still the Great Qian Dynasty?"
Song Yubai muttered to himself, blankly trying to convince himself.
Su Bingzhang sat to the side, cold sweat dripping from his forehead down his unevenly trimmed beard.
He knew that if he didn't salvage the situation now, once Young Master Song came to his senses, their charge of deceiving their superiors would be set in stone.
Su Bingzhang's old fox-like eyes darted around.
Ah! He got it!
"Young Master! You are right! It is all fake!"
Su Bingzhang slapped his thigh fiercely, squeezing an expression of all-seeing grief and indignation onto his old face.
"That Night Soil Department is right on the edge of the city, with people coming and going. Naturally, the Xu family has to put on a good show to save face! That's just a staged performance!"
Li Wencheng also reacted and quickly leaned in to add fuel to the fire.
"Exactly! Young Master, think about it, how could a real slaughterhouse be placed on the main street for anyone to see?"
Li Wencheng lowered his voice, his tone as eerie as a ghost crawling out of hell.
"The real sins are all hidden deep in the old mountain forests! They are all at the iron mine on Niushou Mountain!"
Song Yubai's eyes shifted, and he turned his head to look at Li Wencheng.
"Niushou Mountain?"
"Exactly!"
