212 Chapter 212 Reward
“No, there’s no problem,” Fang Qing shook his head and continued, “It’s the owner and his wife who are kind. Anyone else wouldn’t have focused on teaching others who didn’t have a slave contract.”
Qiu Yu grew up in the town, so he understood what he meant.
For example, if an apprentice wanted to learn a craft from their master, they would have to work for one or two years for the master to affirm their character and make sure that they liked the craft before they were accepted.
However, it would take a few years for the apprentice to learn any essential skills after joining. Although he would earn a small income at this time, festival gifts for his master must not be lacking.
Therefore, before finishing an apprenticeship, they were basically doing free work for their masters. The main issue was that the master might not even teach all of their craftsmanship.
There was also a clear difference between long-term workers and servants. Although long-term workers had quite a lot of freedom, they did the most challenging work, except for those with skills. The key was that servants could command and manage long-term workers under normal circumstances.
Therefore, in general, the treatment of long-term workers wasn’t as good as that of servants.
However, servants had their difficulties too. First, they were contract-bound. Second, their lives were no longer in their hands. Of course, this was also the main reason why they could gain the complete trust of their master.
Thinking of this, he fell into deep thought. What was he going to do?
On the other end, Sun Hongliang also found Zhou Ying and asked, “Mistress, do you really intend to teach those children?”
“That’s right. They need to survive, and we need people. We each take what we need.” Zhou Ying nodded, then looked at him and said, “But I’ll have to trouble you to help me inspect them.
“Let’s see who we can use and who we can’t, and what the useful ones are good at.”
“Understood. I will test them.”
“Please do so.” After that, Manager Liu came in with Zhou Huaiming, and Zhou Ying immediately greeted them, saying, “Brother Zhou, Uncle Liu, you’re here. Come in and have a seat.”
“You’re willing to spend so much money just to get the temperature down here? From the outside, it seems like there are two different worlds.” Zhou Huaiming sat down and waved his fan.
“That’s because you’re hot internally. Hurry up and sit down to rest. I’ll go get you a glass of water.” After Zhou Ying finished speaking, she went to the kitchen. She got them a bowl of cold water, took two small bowls, and made them each a bowl of ice cream with crushed peaches.
“Is this the ice dessert Uncle Liu was talking about?” Zhou Huaiming looked at the ice cream and asked in surprise.
“Yes, this is ice cream. Try it and see how it tastes.” Zhou Ying sat down too.
Zhou Huaiming and Manager Liu didn’t hesitate and drank a sip of the cold water before slowly eating the ice cream.
After a mouthful, Zhou Huaiming’s eyes lit up. “Such softness, what is it made of?”
“It’s mainly cream, a cream made with egg white, white sugar, and milk.”
“I see. This is a must-have for summer. One mouthful can already reduce my heat and fill me up.” Zhou Huaiming exclaimed as he buried his head in his food.
After he was done, he finished the rest of the cold water and said, “Let’s go to the backyard. I have something to tell you.”
“Sure.” Zhou Ying responded and took them to the living room in the back courtyard.
The child beggars who had been playing around immediately ran out.
Zhou Ying asked them to sit down and said, “Brother Zhou, if you need anything, just tell me.”
Manager Liu did not take a seat. Instead, he went to the door to keep a lookout.
“This time, I’m not asking you for something but to give you something.” After Zhou Huai finished speaking, he passed her 20,000 taels of silver and continued, “This is the reward for the waterwheel, given by the third prince.
“Because of the Gu clan’s special status and the first prince’s interference, the waterwheel invention was rewarded to the Qian clan’s head.”