The maid's road to success

Wen Niang and Bi He returned to Yu Fu Zhai and discussed the matter with An Ping and An Ning.

An Ning, who was making a protective fence for the family's well to prevent Anya from seeing her fall, looked at An Ning and An Ping beside her, smiled and said nothing.

"My brother and I guessed that this kind of thing would happen again in the future since you decided to bring An Ze and the others back."

Seeing that they had no objections, Bihe returned to her room and took out a ten-liang silver ingot, which she had brought with her when she left Kyoto. She had always given it to Wen Niang for safekeeping, and now that she had settled in Yuzhou, Wen Niang was afraid that she would need it, so she returned it to her.

"I will go find a craftsman with An Ze to repair the courtyard wall and the gate, and buy some quilts and food. We don't know when we will arrive at Wushan, so we should prepare it first."

Wen Niang nodded. The children at home needed someone to take care of them, and she was fine alone. She simply asked An Ning and An Ping to go over and help. The others were still young and not suitable to go with them.

"I know where to buy cheap quilts. Restaurants sometimes sell their old quilts to charity organizations. I know who might have them."

Wen Niang nodded.

"Remember to use the medicine to remove debris to fumigate the restaurant. I don't know how many people have used the quilt in the restaurant. You should be careful if you get sick or something."

An Ze nodded. Although those quilts were old, they could still keep people warm. After all, the restaurant was open for business and they couldn't let the guests freeze. But they did need to be cleaned.

"I understand, second sister."

Wen Niang was not stingy. Although they had a lot of money, they had to support so many people and didn't know how long it would last. It was better to live slowly.

Wen Niang watched several children rubbing mung bean skins in the yard, and she took a pen and paper and listed how to educate the children who came out of the charity.

Yuzhou is not big, but not small either. There are many disabled and sick children in Yuzhou. The people in Yuzhou are quite good, and the cases of child abandonment are not common compared to other places.

But if you really want to feed these children, you have to be prepared for more and more people.

They had a lot of money, but they couldn't afford to spend it like this.

Wen Niang felt that she could find a way to help those children gain the ability to make a living.

Anze's yard is originally located in the suburbs, and there are fields around it. In fact, if possible, we can buy some land and let the children farm with us. They will have food and will be able to grow crops when they grow up.

There are also female workers who do embroidery and make bamboo baskets, bamboo baskets, nets, and small bamboo items to sell, which can also provide children with more income.

After roughly listing these things, Wen Niang put down her pen. The children had already prepared the mung beans and were cleaning the osmanthus and locust flowers.

"Anya, come here, I have something to ask you."

Anya heard Wen Niang's voice and walked up to her with a bamboo stick, knocking on her.

Wen Niang and everyone else wanted Anya to have some living skills so that she could live on her own in the future, so they hardly helped her walk.

He waited until she came to him before pulling her up the stairs and sitting down.

"Do you know Wushan?"

Anya nodded, indicating that she knew him.

"Brother Wushan is Brother Anze's friend. They used to carry sacks together at the dock. Brother Wushan and his sister were driven out of the house by their stepmother. His sister was beaten and injured and has been lying in bed ever since."

Wen Niang asked again.

"Then do you know about the charity hall in Yuzhou?"

Anya seemed to have thought of something bad, her face turned pale and she shuddered.

"Well, I was actually sent to the door of the charity hall by my family at the beginning. I had to do a lot of work in the charity hall, such as washing clothes, chopping wood, feeding chickens and ducks, whipping small things with bamboo, or carving wood."

These women knew that many charity halls would take on some work for the children there to do, to provide some financial support. Otherwise, it would not be safe for so many children to just wait for support from officials' families.

"Wouldn't it be possible to learn some skills?"

Anya shook her head.

"No, the managers took the money and made the children do the work. They couldn't eat until they finished the work. When I first washed clothes, my hands were always rotten and I couldn't see. If I stained the clothes with blood, I would be beaten and not allowed to eat."

"Moreover, the managers and adults in the charity hall could eat their fill, but we could only eat dry and hard nests. Sometimes we didn't even have nests. Many children in the charity hall were beaten and injured, and some were beaten to death and thrown into mass graves."

"I'm not afraid of hardship, nor am I afraid of being beaten or hungry, but those people beat me up and thought I was unconscious. They said they would sell me to a coal mine to serve men and get some money."

"I know about coal mines. Men who are sold there are forced to do hard labor in the dark until they die. Women who are sold there are abused and persecuted. When I first went to the charity, there was a sister who was sold to the coal mine because she was disobedient and kept talking back."

Wen Niang touched Anya's hair and comforted her. This girl is pretty, but she is blind. If she were healthy, who knows how many marriage proposals would come to her door when she grows up.

"I ran away at night, and it was Brother An Ze who picked me up and fed me."

Wen Niang hated such charity halls very much. They were opened under the name of doing good deeds, taking money and food donated by all kinds of people, but they abused children like this.

"Is there no one who can manage the people in charge of the charity?"

Anya shook her head.

"In fact, there are several good charity halls in Yuzhou. The manager of this family has a connection with the backyard of a high-ranking official in Yuzhou. Under their protection, no one dares to report to the authorities. Besides, these children are unwanted. If the charity halls are gone, what will happen to so many children? Where will they go? It's better to suffer a little and go hungry than to be displaced and starve to death or freeze to death."

Wen Niang didn't know what to say. It seemed that everyone had accepted this custom. Everyone knew that there was child abuse in the charity, but so what? Without the charity, who would take care of these children and what would they eat and drink?

"I heard that there was a charity in the past where many children were abused. They took the children away to be enjoyed by the rich and powerful. They were sued and closed down."

"Those children had nowhere to go, so they went to the government and the home of the student who upheld justice, saying that they had closed the charity hall and that everyone had no food to eat and no place to live, and they wanted them to be responsible and take care of it."

"The officials had no choice but to release the charity's manager and reopen the charity. The man said that these children were rejected by their parents at home, beaten countless times and abandoned. He took in those children and only disciplined them when they were naughty. Is that a crime? Is that abuse? At least he didn't abandon these children to wander the streets."

Wen Niang knew that this was a fallacy, but it was like this everywhere. Her ancestors knew it at the time, but they just said it.

"If you care too much, these people will just give up and not want to take care of the children. It's better to take the children in. You people are thinking about the money from the charity, and most of these children still have a place to live and food to eat."

Wen Niang knew that she could not do anything for those charity halls. The only thing she could do was to raise those children who could not survive in the charity halls in houses in the suburbs.

Bihe and Anping came back in the evening, while Anning stayed in the suburbs.

"Wu Shan brought his sister Wu Lan and three children. There were seven or eight of them originally. Some heard that they also needed to do some work, and seeing that our house was not as good as the charity's, they did not want to stay and went back to the charity."

Wen Niang nodded. She had thought about this. The charity had been open for many years, and its buildings and stability were better than theirs. It was possible that the children were unwilling to go.

"Don't be angry. We do these things for our own conscience. Those children look down on us because our conditions are not good enough and they think we are not suitable for this place."

Bihe thought about it and agreed. She didn't want to take care of such a child, who was being picky even when being sponsored.

"Where is it cleaned up like this?"

Wen Niang asked about the situation over there.

"We called in a craftsman to build the courtyard wall today. The gate hasn't been replaced yet, but Wulan found some wood to prop it up. With An Ning here, there won't be any problems."

"I also bought more than ten sets of quilts. There are only five children now, so it's enough. Today I also bought 50 kilograms of rice, 50 kilograms of cornmeal, oil, salt, pots and pans, which are enough for them."

Bihe took out the remaining silver and looked bitter.

"I spent more than one tael to buy ten old quilts, and the expensive wall cost more than two taels. I also spent a lot on the food. After taking out the ten taels, I only had less than three taels left."

Wen Niang teased her with a smile.

"Are our kind-hearted people feeling sorry for the money now?"

Bihe held her face and pouted.

"Who knew that doing charity would cost so much? If I get a bunch of babies, I won't have enough money to support myself for a few years."

Wen Niang poured her a glass of warm water and said.

"It was so easy back then. When the Huaiyuan Marquisate was so prosperous, it only sponsored two charity halls. I think it must have cost a lot of money."

Bihe became even more worried.

"I plan to buy some land and let these children grow some food and do some handicrafts. I think we can save a lot. We still have money, but we don't need it much now. It's better to open a shop and buy a farm to have more income, which is worse than living off the savings."

Bihe nodded in agreement.

"It would be best if those children could be placed on the farm. It would be safer, and they could eat and drink from the crops they produce, which would save a lot of money. They could also earn some money by digging herbs from time to time. This is a way to make it last long term."

Wen Niang nodded. She was just thinking about how to make it last long. Originally, they settled in Yuzhou because the four of them depended on each other and lived together. They had enough money to spend, so she didn't think too much about it. Now that she was planning to do these things, she had to plan everything out.

"I'll go see if there's any land for sale tomorrow."

Bihe was tired after a day of work and couldn't hold on any longer. She went back to her room, washed up quickly and went to bed.

Wushan took his sister Wulan and three other friends from the charity to live in the only house with doors and windows still intact.

There were doubtful voices coming from my friends around me.

"Brother Wulan, shouldn't we be here? This place is leaky and remote. If we freeze to death or starve to death here, no one will know."

Wushan looked at the house firmly.

"No, I believe in Daniu, he won't hurt me. The charity is getting more and more excessive now. Sooner or later we will die or be sold out in the charity. We might as well come out and fight for a chance to survive."

Wulan also felt relieved and said to her brother.

"I think we should be here, too. We eat and drink in the charity only when others have leftovers after they finish eating. If there are no leftovers, we will have to starve. Although the house here is shabby, there is clean food in the kitchen, so at least we won't go hungry. To work in the charity, don't we have to wash clothes, clean toilets, and feed chickens and ducks day and night? It's good enough to have clean meals and our own quilts here."

Everyone nodded in agreement. They were either dumb, hard of hearing, or too weak to do heavy work, and were bullied by everyone in the charity.

If it weren't for Big Brother Wushan sneaking out every day to find food, they would have starved to death long ago.

"Brother Wushan, do we really have our own quilts and pillows?"

A thin child asked excitedly as he looked at the bed made of wooden boards and covered with several quilts.

"Well, Sister Bihe said that although she can't buy us brand new quilts, she can still make sure that each of us can have a thick quilt."

Wu Lan looked at the clean quilt that she had washed and dried after spending the whole afternoon washing, and felt embarrassed to sleep on it directly because of her own dirty clothes.

It was the first time for them to have their own quilts, and they couldn't let them get dirty. The charity hall also had many large bunk beds and quilts, but it was not their turn. In winter, many people were crowded together, and they could get by with quilts covered with straw.

"I've boiled some hot water. Let's wash up and go to bed and have a good sleep."

It was already very late when several people lay down in bed. Although the bed board beneath them was not very stable and made some creaking noises, it was extremely comfortable with the quilt covering them and a thick mattress underneath.

"Brother Wushan, I think this is a good place because we have warm blankets. We don't have to worry about freezing to death this winter."

They have been unwelcome at home since they were young. They are most afraid of winter. Every night when they go to bed, they are afraid of freezing to death at night and no one will know. Now that they have quilts, they no longer worry about freezing to death.

"Well, no. As long as we work hard, we won't be cold or hungry."

Everyone had a deep sleep after a busy day.

The next day, Bihe and Anping steamed cakes at home and opened for business. Wen Niang took Anze to the house in the suburbs early in the morning.

"An Ning, how was your rest last night?"

An Ning smiled and said it was okay. Wu Shan had already been very considerate and brought a few wooden stakes for Wen Niang to sit on.

"Did you have breakfast?"

Wu Shan shook his head awkwardly. It was the first time they had covered themselves with such a comfortable quilt. They had slept so deeply and had just woken up.

"Anze, go make some porridge and cut some of the pickled vegetables we bought for everyone to eat first. An Ning and I will go and see if there are any fields nearby that sell vegetables."

Wushan looked at Wenniang and Anning's backs, pulled Anze aside and asked him what he wanted to do with the land.

"My second sister said she wanted to buy some land. This is right at the foot of the mountain. We plan to build a mountain villa. We can grow some food and vegetables ourselves and feed some chickens and ducks, which will save us some money."

Wu Shan nodded. These also existed in the charity. The manager of the charity had a lot of fields. During the busy farming season, he would take the older children in the charity to harvest the crops.

"It's different from the charity. Second sister wants to grow crops so that when you grow up and go out, you can at least have someone capable. At worst, you can rent some land to grow crops and you won't starve to death. You can weave bamboo mats, so you can sell them when you have nothing to do. You can keep the money yourself, and it's your own earnings. The chickens and ducks are raised for our own consumption, not for the managers in the charity. The rest can be sold for money."

Wu Shan and several other children looked at An Ze in surprise, wanting to ask him if what he said was true.

"It's true. My elder and second sisters don't intend to use you as laborers. What you do is to earn food and pocket money for yourself. It would be best if you could learn a skill and save some money for yourself before you leave."

Wu Shan looked at An Ze in disbelief, thinking that such a good thing would never happen to them. For so many years, their father and mother had neglected them, and when they went to the charity, there was only endless work to do and not enough leftovers to eat.

"Anyway, take a look at it for yourself. Although it's not as spacious as the charity hall, there aren't many people here. It's enough for you to live in, and you definitely won't go hungry. If you have the ability to make something and sell it for money, you can keep it for yourself."

An Ze went to the kitchen to cook porridge. In order not to make everyone feel restrained, he deliberately made it thick, unlike the breakfast in the charity hall, which was thin and had only a little rice.