Joyful Motherhood in a Rural Family

Chapter 460: Chapter 460: Hard Labor
After staying at the clinic for several days and recovering, Mother Zuo’s condition finally stabilized. Liu Sisi thought it was not appropriate to stay in the clinic any longer, so she brought Mother Zuo back to her home and arranged for her to stay in the guest room.

As Liu Sisi’s pregnancy progressed, she asked the old woman to serve her.

Mother Zuo tried to decline, but she couldn’t refuse Liu Sisi’s kindness, so she had to accept the arrangement.

However, she secretly vowed to herself that she would have a good talk with her son Yu Er in the future so that he could find a good daughter-in-law like Liu Sisi.

Recently, Liu Sisi has been training the newly bought house servants.

These house servants who had signed dead contracts were different from those who had signed open contracts. In the future, they would live in Di Family all year round. It was not good if they had ill intentions or were unwilling to put in their best efforts.

Especially the necessary rules, which were even more important!

Worried that she might not teach them well, she specifically asked Old He for advice. Old He used to be an Imperial Physician, and he should know more about these etiquette rules than ordinary people.

Upon seeing a few servants, Old He directly lent her one of his personal old women to help at Di Family for some time. In fact, she came specifically to train these house servants.

After being trained by the old woman, the servants showed remarkable improvement in their behavior and work.

Old He earnestly advised, “It’s not good for you to do all the work and worry on your own. It would be better to find a professional accountant to help you manage your household finances. Besides, your gatehouse is now managed by the coachman, which is not good.”

Liu Sisi reluctantly smiled, “It’s not that we can’t afford it, but I don’t know how to deal with the spring corvee labor by buying more people.”

“Why did you buy all dead contracts? You could have bought open contracts. Open contracts seem simple, but they’re actually more convenient than buying dead contracts.”

It wasn’t until then that Old He told her some details she didn’t know before.

“Open contracts usually last from one year to thirty or forty years, with strong laborers earning half a tael of silver a year without needing to provide food and shelter. As for children around ten years old, signing a contract for twenty or thirty years would only cost 2-3 taels of silver. When the contract term is over, the child would have already started a family by then. You can give them a house servant, and as long as you’re not a cruel master, they will stay with you forever.”

“Oh! I see!” Liu Sisi suddenly realized.

These children were brainwashed from a young age in the master’s family. With the desire for a stable life and having their own families, house servants were naturally passed down from generation to generation.

“What’s even more important is that open contracts do not require registration with the government office and are still valid!”

This struck a chord with Liu Sisi.

At present, Di Yelei is working day and night, and it’s all because of the spring corvee labor. The promised holiday has also been canceled because of it.

Fortunately, because of Di Yelei’s connections, both Hu Daniu and Hu Erniu were assigned to corvee labor on the riverside and engaged in relatively light work like digging trenches.

Since the beginning of this year’s early spring, there has been continuous rain without a sunny day.

The accumulated snow on the mountain began to melt, and the water level rose rapidly. Di Yelei and others started living on the riverbank, and it had been three days since they returned home.

“Madam, don’t worry too much. This hard labor is the same every year, it’s just tiring and exhausting, but generally, there are no problems,” Ms. Gao saw that Liu Sisi’s eyebrows were tightly furrowed and couldn’t help comforting her.

“Even so, this work is too tiring and exhausting,” Liu Sisi turned her head and asked, “By the way, have you prepared the food to be sent to the riverbank?”

During this hard labor, the imperial court doesn’t provide food. There are people who are responsible for cooking, but that food is hard to swallow, so most families send food to the embankment. The meals provided by each family vary, so many people work on an empty stomach and get sick from exhaustion after a few days, eventually dying on the riverside.

“Madam, the food is ready. The steamed buns are still steaming, but they should be almost done,” After Ms. Gao finished speaking, she hurried back to check on the stove.

After the food was ready, Liu Sisi put it in a carry basket padded with thick cotton wadding, carefully covering it with a lid to seal and keep warm. Then she called Old Cheng to help lift it onto the carriage, and then sent it to the riverside.

Liu Sisi thought for a while and got onto the carriage: “I have never been to the riverside before. Today, I will accompany you to have a look at the bustle and see how the embankment is being built.”

In fact, she was not going to watch others build the embankment, but to check on Di Yelei, who hadn’t been home for several days.

“Is it okay for Madam to go like this? Your body is heavy now, and the road is bumpy. What if something happens?” Old Cheng hesitated.

“Don’t dawdle, are you not confident in your driving skills?”

Please encourage rather than deny, Liu Sisi directly countered Old Cheng’s question.

“My driving skills will certainly not be a problem!” Old Cheng immediately slapped his chest in confidence.

The drizzling rain continued, and it seemed to be getting heavier.

Since they were going to the riverside, Old Cheng tied straw to the carriage wheels in advance to prevent skidding, before steadily driving to the embankment.

At first, they galloped all the way until they got off the official road and began running along the path. The carriage frequently got stuck in puddles, making the ride bumpy.

“Madam! You’d better sit tight; there’s no other way with this road…”

This was originally a mountain path, which had been repeatedly trampled by countless carriage wheels. Coupled with the erosion of rainwater, the road finally became like a dancing ground for carriages.

“I know!”

As Liu Sisi spoke, she was bouncing around. She tightly held onto anything she could so as not to be thrown off the carriage.

When they finally arrived at the embankment, Liu Sisi’s buttocks were aching from the bumpy journey.

Now, everyone was working on reinforcing a section of the riverbank between two mountains. From the terrain, it seemed that a breach had once occurred here. The nearby rocks still faintly preserved the traces of erosion.

There were people working everywhere on the embankment, with many foremen supervising the work and occasionally waving whips in their hands.

As soon as Liu Sisi got off the carriage, her arrival attracted many eyes.

She didn’t care and walked ahead empty-handed, while Old Cheng followed behind carrying the basket. Hu Daniu and Hu Erniu were easy to find, but despite scanning the crowd several times, Liu Sisi couldn’t spot Di Yelei’s figure.

“Madam, are you looking for the Old Master? He’s over there!” Hu Daniu noticed Liu Sisi and the others and hurriedly said something to the foreman before running over to them.

Following the direction Hu Daniu pointed out, Liu Sisi finally spotted Di Yelei.