gnovel Chapter 55 The Evil Old Society
Chapter 55 The Evil Old Society
Generally speaking, in normal wealthy families, the personal maids and servants would be born into the family. Even for someone like Han Tong, who came from humble backgrounds, the real personal servants and maids in the inner quarters would often be the sons or daughters of soldiers. If all else failed, they would find some poor relatives from their hometown.
When hiring close associates, trustworthiness is paramount.
However, Wang Jun and his son Wang Lu are both oddballs. They have no hometown, no ancient roots, and no cultural heritage. They are also somewhat wary and distant from Han Tong, and the inner quarters are unwilling to use his people.
There's no one available.
The servants and maids could be bought and sold through brokers, and the father and son were too lazy to even care about it, leaving it all to Liu Shi to handle. However, it was not appropriate to buy personal maids from outside.
So Wang Lu thought of Tongfu Inn. The inn had a lot of freelance prostitutes who worked there for a long time, and Wang Lu wanted to see if they had any suitable people or if they could help introduce someone to someone.
At least we know each other, which is more reliable than buying people from some random broker.
In an era where cannibalism could be made into a recipe, women who became prostitutes were not necessarily prostitutes; they were often truly forced into it. Moral standards differ between chaotic times and peaceful, prosperous years.
At this moment, Wang Lu was sitting behind a large table, with a piece of paper in one hand and a pen in the other, writing and drawing on it, scoring the girls from multiple dimensions such as appearance, personality, and talent.
In ancient times, in feudal society, this was the only good thing. In those days, buying and selling people was considered doing good deeds. Besides, there were no household appliances at home, and it was indeed inconvenient if there was no one to serve you.
"Next batch," Wang Lu said, waving his hand.
He has looked at more than twenty so far, only a few of which are barely acceptable, but none of them meet his expectations.
Four prostitutes who had a long-term cooperative relationship with Tongfu Inn came up, each leading a young girl, all around fourteen or fifteen years old. Wang Lu's eyes lit up without him even realizing it.
I thought one of them was very good in both appearance and temperament, so I immediately gave him a score of 95 in the appearance column of the rating sheet.
"Name."
"May you be well and have good fortune in your military career. My name is Xiao Tao. I am from Hedong and am Qinghua's cousin."
"Ah~, Xiaotao, your voice is so beautiful, is it Qinghua's sister?"
"Ah, yes." The woman behind him named Qinghua nodded somewhat awkwardly.
She had just received a gold ingot and asked her to introduce this "cousin" to the young master for selection. Those people were very fierce and said that if she dared to disobey, they would kill her whole family and sell her to the Southern Han to be tortured to death as a military prostitute.
There was really no other way, so I had to agree.
Wang Lu didn't notice her expression, mainly because he hadn't expected anyone to plant a spy next to him.
He wasn't some big shot, so how could he have imagined that the eldest son of the famous Zhaoyi Army military governor, Li Shoujie, would happen to be right next door, and that he would be so willing to send his personal maid as an undercover agent?
"You're Xiaotao, right? You have a lovely voice. How old are you?"
"Replying to your question, young master, this servant is fifteen years old this year."
"Ah~, okay, okay, what are your special skills?"
"I know a little about arithmetic, can manage accounts, am literate, know how to pronounce words, understand etiquette and rules, can sing a few songs, and also know a little about martial arts."
"Huh? You know so much? You can do math?"
"I know some."
A table of guests ordered five dishes, priced at 78, 64, 53, 21, and 108 coins respectively. What was the total bill?
"It's three hundred and twenty-four coins," Xiao Tao answered quickly.
"Wow, that's impressive! You know martial arts too?"
Xiao Tao immediately demonstrated a set of boxing techniques to Wang Lu. Wang Lu couldn't understand it, but he felt that the set of boxing techniques was very powerful.
In the Five Dynasties period, the standards for good maids were different from those in other dynasties. After all, this was an era where it was easy to die or exterminate an entire family, and there were bandits everywhere and butcher shops outside the city. Therefore, top maids who knew a little bit of martial arts were considered a plus.
"This servant also possesses exceptional dart-throwing skills; please allow me to demonstrate, young master."
"You also know darts?"
"I know a little."
As she spoke, Xiao Tao swung her hands repeatedly, and with a series of whooshes and thuds, more than a dozen willow-leaf darts rained down on the pillars in the room, much to Wang Lu's delight, who clapped his hands repeatedly.
"Good, good, good, this is good, how come the young lady has so many things?"
"My family used to be an official family, but unfortunately, we fell on hard times. That's why I had to rely on my cousin for a living. If I hadn't met you today, I would have been destined to be a prostitute, using my looks to serve men."
"I see."
Wang Lu had no doubts about this. After all, it was during the Five Dynasties period, and dynasties were changing so frequently that it was all too common for official families to fall into decline.
"Very good, very good. How about this, I won't sign a contract of servitude with you. We'll sign a long-term contract, and I'll pay you a monthly wage. How about that?"
"It's entirely up to you, young master."
"Okay, okay, okay, from now on you're mine." After saying that, Wang Lu took out another piece of gold and gave it to his cousin Qinghua as a settlement fee. Since no indenture was signed, it wasn't considered a payment for selling herself.
As a modern person, Wang Lu didn't really like the practice of selling oneself into servitude. Besides, this was the Song Dynasty now, and Wang Lu remembered that the Northern Song Dynasty didn't allow people to sell themselves into slavery; they all had long-term contracts. He was just adapting to the new era ahead of time.
In this interview, besides Xiao Tao, Wang Lu also hired a girl named Qing'er, who was extremely beautiful. In her previous life, she would definitely have been the school beauty of some junior high school. It's just a pity that she can't do anything except be pretty.
Wang Lu planned to make Qing'er his personal maid, that is, his bed warmer. He planned to take her as a concubine after she matured in a few years.
As for Xiao Tao, she is already a talented person. Wang Lu plans to make her his head maid, in charge of all the servants and maids in the east wing, and responsible for external communication.
Hey ~
Corruption!
Oh, the evil and dark feudal society!
I guess I'm just adapting to local customs.
After finishing, Wang Lu instructed Manager Tong, "Give everyone who came today two hundred coins, put it on my account. Also, it's already this late, have the kitchen prepare some wine and dishes for me and send them up, I won't be going home to eat."
"Yes, but boss, speaking of accounts, I just remembered something. Our inn's account book was taken away by Commander Zhang, and it's been several days now. He hasn't returned it yet. We don't dare to ask Commander Zhang for it."
"Which Grand Commandant Zhang?"
"The Minister of Finance, Grand Commandant Zhang."
"Zhang Mei, why would someone as high-ranking as the Commissioner of the Three Departments want to check our accounts?"
"That's right. He came to collect the debt from us personally, so we didn't dare refuse to show it to him."
"It's quite strange. We're about to attack Li Jun, and instead of focusing on procuring supplies, he's busy checking accounts. Oh well, never mind him. He's definitely after my father. What does it have to do with me?"
My father is nothing like a biological father. I don't know if he forgot about his son after marrying a stepmother, but he insisted on forcing me to go with him to fight against Li Jun. Don't you think he's crazy? I'm only twelve years old. Who forces a twelve-year-old son to go to the battlefield?
"Hey? Xiaotao, why do you suddenly look so pale? Are you feeling unwell?"
"No, no, it's just that the thought of war scares me. Young master, is there really going to be another war?"
"It's alright. Li Jun is nothing. The Emperor can easily defeat him with a flick of his hand. It won't last long. Don't worry."
[What's so scary about war? I'm not going to take a maid with me to the battlefield. In this world, when hasn't there been war? This girl... she has a Hedong accent, that's quite strange.]