Chapter 48
48 Start Work
Li Yu left Li Mei’s house and went to the village chief’s house. Standing at the entrance of the courtyard, she saw a 15 or 16-year-old girl sitting in the courtyard. Li Yu smiled and greeted her. “Sister, is Auntie Li at home?”
The girl looked up and rolled her eyes at Li Yu. “Who’s your sister? How do I know if she’s here?”
Seeing that she was ignoring her, Li Yu shouted into the house, “Auntie Li, are you at home?”
“Who is it?” Madam Li walked out of the kitchen and saw Li Yu. She welcomed her at the door. “Xiaoyu! Come in and sit for a while.”
Li Yu pulled Madam Li out of the door and said to her, “Auntie Li, I want to invite you to my house to do some needlework in two days. The salary is temporarily set at 15 copper coins a day. Do you have the time?”
Madam Li smiled in embarrassment. “I do have some skills, but I’m not very good at needlework. I only know how to do some simple work.”
“Auntie Li, it’s fine. Everyone’s work is different. You just have to sew the wires straight and firmly.”
Madam Li smiled when she heard that. “I thought you needed me to do those meticulous tasks. I don’t have a problem with these tasks. I’ll do it then. Let me know when the time comes.”
“Alright, I’ll go back first.” Li Yu came out of the village chief’s house and walked home.
Madam Li sent Li Yu off and turned to enter the courtyard. Just as she entered, she heard a sneer. “Hmph! You’re talking bad about me again!”
Madam Li walked up to her and looked at her. “Baozhen, what did you do to let me down? Look at how guilty you are. See how mean you are.”
Chen Baozhen threw the hemp thread away and stood up. She sneered and pointed at Madam Li’s nose. “Aren’t you talking bad about me with that slut Li Yu? Could it be that you still know how to say good things about me?”
“Don’t point and poke.” Madam Li slapped Chen Baozhen’s hand away and sneered at her. “Look at you. Can’t you put on a decent appearance? You’re simply a shrew.”
Chen Baozhen pushed Madam Li. “You shrew, who are you calling a shrew? Do you think I don’t know that you’re only happy when my mother and I are dead?”
Chen Yaohui, Chen Yaozu, the village chief, and Madam Liu all ran out of the house. Chen Yaohui walked over and pulled Madam Li behind him. He frowned at Chen Baozhen. “Who asked you to talk to your sister-in-law like this?”
Seeing this, Madam Liu clapped her hands and cried, “Baozhen’s father, they can’t tolerate us! Boohoo…”
Chen Yaozu looked at Madam Liu unhappily. “What are you saying? It’s clearly Baozhen…”
With a bang, the village chief was so angry that he picked up his stool and threw it to the ground. “Shut up, all of you. Don’t you just want to split up?! Split up, we’ll split up today.”
Everyone was stunned. The village chief looked at Chen Yaozu tiredly. “Go and call your granduncle and the others over to preside over the separation. I don’t want to see you guys fighting every day. I still want to live for a few more years.”
Li Yu didn’t know that the Chens had split up not long after leaving the village chief’s house. She was still busy at home preparing the place to process her bag. Li Yu moved the bed in the room to the inner room and vacated the room with good light outside to use as a processing place.
The next morning, Liu Changmin brought two craftsmen to paint Li Yu’s house.
Madam Qian looked at the painted house and sighed. “Xiaoyu, look at this house. It’s so bright now.”
“Yes.” Li Yu also felt that the house looked much brighter.
The two of them cleaned up the house. Li Yu took the mat and laid it in the room. Madam Qian weaved a few straw cushions and placed them on the mat. She looked at the new room and nodded in satisfaction. “This way, you won’t have to worry about getting cold.”
The next day, Liu Changmin went to the carpenter’s house to haul back the sewing board and placed it in the room. Everything was ready, and he was just waiting for Zhou Jia to send the cloth over.
At noon, the sky darkened and a strong wind blew. Xiao An came back from outside with the cows and shouted at Li Yu, “Sister Li, they brought something over.”
Li Yu went out and saw Ji Xiang driving two mule carts to the door. Ji Xiang got out of the car and handed a list to Li Yu. “Miss Li, take inventory. I sent over the leftover cloths, needles, and thin cloth. Ruyi brought tung oil and coarse cloth. Half of those oil tea seeds were pressed for you.”
“Alright! Thank you. Move them in first!” Li Yu took the list and looked at it. It said that there were 60 bolts of dark coarse cloth, 600 copper coins a bolt, 20 bolts of fine cloth, 900 copper coins a bolt, and every price was clearly indicated.
Li Yu counted the goods. Ji Xiang said to Li Yu, “Young Master tells you not to be anxious. Take your time and make more.”
“Alright, I understand.” Li Yu sent Ji Xiang away and returned to the house to get a stack of paper to cut into an account book. She also asked Xiao An to go to Li Mei’s house to invite Liu Changmin and Li Mei over. Everyone helped to brush out the tung oilcloth.
After Xiao An left, Li Yu brought the machete into the bamboo forest. The wind blew the bamboo until it swayed. Li Yu looked at the sky and felt that the weather was definitely going to change.
Li Yu cut a bundle of bamboo and carried it home. Li Mei and her husband had already arrived. Li Yu said to Liu Changmin, “Uncle, we forgot to set up two rows of shelves to dry the cloth.”
“There’s still time to build it now.” Liu Changmin took a machete and shaved the bamboo with Li Yu. Madam Qian and Li Mei washed the bamboo and dried it.
Li Yu and Liu Changmin built two rows of bamboo frames under the eaves. After the bamboo frames were set up, they carried a few sun pads out and laid them under the bamboo frames. They carried the cloth out and pulled it out to lay on the sun pads. Next, they brushed the cloth with tung oil and dried it on the bamboo frames.
Li Mei took out a sample and began to cut the thin cloth. Madam Qian made the paste. Li Yu, Zhaodi, and Madam Qian smeared the paste on the cloth head with a brush. They spread it on the door and began to make cloth shells.
Liu Changmin burned the charcoal and carried it to the room. He smiled at Li Mei and said, “The charcoal that Xiaoyu burned has piled up half of the woodshed. The firewood that Ah Qing cut has also piled up under the eaves at the back. These two children are really too sensible.”
Li Mei sighed. “Children without parents are mostly sensible. If they don’t rely on themselves, who can they rely on?!”
After the oilcloth was dry, Li Yu began to cut the oilcloth. The aunt and niece cut out two pieces of cloth of every color. Li Yu calculated that a piece of cloth could be cut into 13 or 14 bags. Then, she calculated the cost. A school bag plus the labor capital cost 135 copper coins to make. A large travel bag cost more than 200 copper coins, while a medium-sized bag was about 160 copper coins. If she could sell them for 400 to 500 copper coins on average, the profit was still considerable.
After the cost was calculated, Li Yu was filled with confidence in making bags. By the time the cloth was cut, it was already dark. When Li Mei’s family returned home, it had already begun to rain.
The next day, Li Mei called Madam Li over and everyone started working. Madam Li and Li Yu were in charge of making the straps. Li Mei and Zhaodi sewed up the sides of the bags. Madam Qian was in charge of embroidering two small pieces of green bamboo at the bottom left corner of each bag to use as the .
They divided up the work. On the first day, they used three bolts of cloth and made dozens of bags. The next day, Ji Xiang sent two more carts of cloth and materials.He handed over the goods and cut them with Li Mei.
After making them for a day, everyone became more and more efficient. It took them more than ten days to make the first batch of 60 bolts of cloth into school bags and travel bags.
Li Yu asked Li Qing to bring a letter to Zhou Jia and ask him to try bringing the selling the goods. Zhou Jia replied and asked Li Yu to make more. He would get someone to haul them after making eight to nine hundred of each color and appearance.
Li Yu felt that it made sense. After all, this thing was easy to imitate. Someone could just buy one and make another like it.