In ancient times, I just wanted to be a salted fish

The next day, Qi Si drove a horse-drawn carriage and took Chen Ruotong, Old Man Chen and Chen Erjiang to a farm in the suburbs. The head of the farm came out to greet them warmly.

The tall courtyard wall, the solid gate, and the large house with two entrances in the farm. There are two rivers in front and behind the house, with white geese and ducks swimming and playing on the river, and large tracts of green rice fields growing well. Old man Chen was overjoyed to see all this. He didn't expect the farm to be so beautiful and so good. He never dared to think about it before. He was afraid that he was dreaming, so he pinched his thigh. Hiss, it hurts. This is real. This huge farm belongs to him, old man Chen, and he was very happy.

Old Man Chen looked around the farm and asked the farm owner about some daily affairs, field yields, grain storage, etc. Then he called the farm owner's family of seven and Qi Qi and three others to hold a small meeting to assign work and plan some things on the farm. Old Man Chen's talk was very logical and reasonable, which impressed the farm owner, who had many years of farming experience.

This time, Chen Ruotong was completely relieved. Grandpa had his career here and would not leave. And under Grandpa's careful care, the farm would become better and better.

The three of them stayed at the farm for a day. At night, Old Man Chen stayed at the farm, while Chen Ruotong and Chen Erjiang returned to the Chen residence.

Chen Erjiang came, so Chen Ruotong planned to hand over Zhenpin Pavilion to Chen Erjiang for management, and Chen Sanhe withdrew to prepare to open Huicui Building.

Zhang Yishun has already completed all the procedures for opening a jewelry store, so he just needs to wait for Chen Ruotong to finish tidying up the store before it can open for business.

Chen Ruotong has already asked Zhang Yishun to find the silversmiths from the original silver shop and hire them, and they are just waiting for her to assign tasks to them.

On June 16, Chen Erjiang was already familiar with and mastered the business of Zhenpin Pavilion. So Chen Ruotong brought Chen Sanhe to the nearby silver shop. The decoration of the silver shop didn't need to be changed, and the layout was good, so as long as there were goods, they could open the shop directly. Chen Ruotong brought Shen Bing, Qi Er, Qiuyue, Dongxue (two of the five girls who came with Qi Lao Da), and four children to clean up the counters upstairs and downstairs.

This was Chen Sanhe's first time in this silver shop, and he liked it very much: "Fourth brother, this silver shop is great, it's much bigger than my old one, are you planning to hand it over to Third Brother to manage?"

"Yes, I must do what I promised you. You will be the shopkeeper and accountant of the silver shop, so your monthly salary will also increase. One person will do the work of two people, so how about giving you 50 taels a month?"

Chen Sanhe said seriously: "It's too much, twenty taels is enough!"

"Don't argue with me. I said fifty taels, so it's fifty taels. Why don't you mention that you do a lot of work and are tired? When the silver shop is on the right track in the future, the monthly salary will have to increase, and my third brother still has to save money to marry a wife. If I give him less, his future sister-in-law will be unhappy!" Chen Ruotong teased.

Chen Sanhe's face flushed. His little sister was really getting more and more outspoken. How could she say anything? He was speechless!

Four guys were tidying up in the silver shop. Chen Ruotong and Chen Sanhe went to find Zhang Yishun and went to the old silversmith to investigate the silversmith's craftsmanship. Some craftsmen in ancient times were very skillful, and modern people could not imitate or surpass them. Chen Ruotong hoped to get such a folk master.

The three of them came to Qiu, the silversmith's home on North Street. Although it was a brick house, it was not big and there were not many rooms. Three generations of the family were squeezed into this small courtyard, and their life was quite good. Three generations of the family were silversmiths, so it could be said that they were a family of silversmiths, so their craftsmanship was unique, and they could make many difficult and complicated jewelry. But these craftsmen received very little monthly wages, and the former master only gave them 800 coins a month. Grandpa Qiu had the best craftsmanship, but he only gave him one or two taels of silver. The six men in the Qiu family all had good craftsmanship, and their wives and daughters could also make silver jewelry, so Chen Ruotong asked the six of them to move into the staff room in the backyard of the silver shop with their tools immediately.

There, Chen Ruotong took out several boxes of jewelry she had received from Liu Fugui, and selected out five hundred pieces of oxidized silver jewelry, two hundred pieces of stolen gold jewelry, and two hundred pieces of jade jewelry, and asked them to clean and reprocess them. It would take several days just to clean and process these.

Wow, these are stolen goods, I hope they won’t be discovered. As for the jewelry, there are no marks, and there are so many of the same jewelry, it’s not easy to be discovered!

Chen Sanhe led six people to work together, and they worked very hard, because he liked to tinker with these gold and silver jewelry, jade and gemstones, etc. This was an occupational disease. He no longer thought about how the girl got these jewelry, because he knew that she would not tell him even if he asked.

In order to motivate the six people to complete their work faster, better and more seriously, Chen Ruotong gave them a very high monthly salary, three taels of silver per person per month. If they did a good job and had new ideas in the future, their monthly salary could be increased.

So with the motivation of money, all the accessories were restored to their new look after a dozen days.

On June 28, Huicuilou officially opened. This time, more people came because more and more of Chen Ruotong's friends came. Her former customers and merchants who cooperated with her also came to support the business. The jewelry did not have many highlights and was not much different from the goods sold in ordinary silver shops, so it was impossible to make money like Zhenpin Pavilion. The turnover on the first day was not much, only two thousand taels of silver, which was not bad.

Since Chen Ruotong likes gold and silver jewelry, she spends most of her time in Huicui Building, exploring and watching, and discussing new techniques and styles with Chen Sanhe. Zhenpin Pavilion also has good sales, with customers coming in an endless stream every day.

In this way, Huicui Building gradually got back on track.

The farm, Zhenpin Pavilion, and Huicui Building were all managed. Chen Ruotong could rest without worrying too much, so she had time to eat, drink, and go shopping.

It was almost July, and the weather was getting hotter. In the era without air conditioning, summer was really hard to bear. So Chen Ruotong hid in Chen's house and entered the space to escape the heat, because the temperature in the space was 21 degrees, neither too cold nor too hot, just right. There were also ice cream, popsicles, and various fruits in the space, so she could eat whatever she wanted. But she couldn't stay in the space all the time, after all, there was a lot of business waiting for her. For example, a big customer would come to Zhenpin Pavilion every now and then and buy a lot of goods. There was no other way, she had to insist on going to work for a while every day, and at two or three o'clock in the afternoon, she would be lazy and go back to Chen's house.

Chen Ruotong was a considerate boss. She was afraid that her employees would get heat stroke, so she sent Qi Si to drive a horse-drawn carriage to deliver two large buckets of ice drinks every noon. The so-called ice drinks were made by freezing ice cubes in the refrigerator in the space, and then mixing ready-made sour plum powder with ice water. They cooled down and quenched thirst, and were very popular with everyone.

So, Chen Erjiang suggested: "Fourth brother, this ice drink is so delicious. If we sell it outside, we will make some money."

"Brother, how much can it be sold for? It's just a small amount of money. Can it make as much money as your Zhenpin Pavilion?"

"We ordinary people don't dare to come to Zhenpin Pavilion because we can't afford it, but we can buy ice water. We can sell it at a lower price. We make money while ordinary people cool down. It's a win-win situation. How great!"

"That's a good idea, but we don't have enough manpower!"

"We can sell it wholesale to others and let them sell it. Look at the civilians in North Street. Their lives are so difficult. If they have such a livelihood, they can earn back their food and clothes for the winter in one summer. You have done a good thing!"

Chen Ruotong felt that what Chen Erjiang said made sense. She couldn't just think about herself, but also had to think about others. She had a lot of sour plum powder in her space. Even if she sold it all, she still had so many drinks that she could sell with ice water!

Eh? That's not right. How come I found myself a job without knowing it? Shouldn't I lie down?