A thin little girl had joined the laborer team. Walking among a group of big men carrying bamboo baskets, she was conspicuously shorter by a whole head.

Wang Quan was eager to chase after his silver and temporarily couldn’t be bothered to manage her.

Tea was a major export commodity from China during the late Qing period. Lin Yuchan had never seen so much tea piled together. The dried tea leaves were compressed very tightly, with each basket weighing at least forty to fifty jin.

Lift the bamboo basket, carry it on her back, walk to the pushcart, squat down, unload the bamboo basket…

Lin Yuchan had thought that as a young lady brazenly mixing into the laborer team, she would at least receive dozens of eye-rolls. But unexpectedly, her fellow laborers had little reaction to this, just glanced at her sideways a few times, then went about their work.

Walking on the street, people pointed and whispered, but no one came to trouble her.

Although sages of old said women shouldn’t show their faces in public, those who could truly achieve “never stepping out the main door or the second gate” were pampered daughters of wealthy families, belonging to scarce resources. In late Qing Guangzhou, hardworking women could be seen everywhere on the streets, some even carrying children on their backs, selling their labor just like men.

Moreover, Lin Yuchan was so thin that she was flat front and back. With her long hair pinned up behind her head, at first glance she looked like an underdeveloped young man. Even fewer people paid attention to her.

The laborers had sallow, emaciated faces with expressionless features, as if all their facial features were frozen. Their thin muscles couldn’t cover their protruding joints, and blue veins bulged on their arms with every exertion. They wore ragged clothes, and with bamboo baskets on their backs, each vertebra of their bent spines was visible.

Walking beside them, she could hear several people’s stomachs rumbling.

Though it was said to include food and lodging, Lin Yuchan hadn’t seen the laborers’ quarters, which should be cramped communal bunks, because they all carried the same kind of stench.

After loading and unloading all the bamboo boxes, the sun had climbed to the top of the highest banyan tree, scorching people’s scalps with heat.

Lin Yuchan followed the cart, walking slightly downhill for about ten minutes until they reached the Pearl River waterfront. She saw wharves scattered about with signs like “Pearl River Ferry” and “Hong Kong Steamer Freight.” Shops lined the streets, pedestrians flowed like clouds, boats came and went, and chickens, ducks, geese, and dogs also walked the roads—extremely lively.

…Much like the Pearl River waterfront two centuries later. She suddenly felt melancholy.

Among them, a three-story grand shop with carved flower gates was the most luxurious, with a large embroidered flag bearing two big characters: Defeng.

Entering the backyard through the side door, someone called out: “Time to eat!”

The laborers’ faces finally showed some life as they revealed expectant expressions, craning their necks and crowding forward.

In the bucket was thin millet porridge so watery it was transparent, served with pickled vegetables salty enough to kill, and sweet potato strips hard as leather.

The laborers rubbed off the black dirt from their hands and wolfed down their food. Only after eating their fill would someone occasionally chat a few words in heavy dialect, complaining about the hot weather.

Lin Yuchan was so hungry that her front was touching her back. She pushed through several broad backs surrounding the wooden bucket and grabbed a bowl of porridge and a handful of sweet potato strips.

The lunch was filling, and no one competed with her for it. Everyone just looked at her numbly a few times.

Lin Yuchan found a corner to squat in and silently gulped down a bellyful of thin porridge. Drinking too fast, all the blood in her body rushed to her stomach, making her feel weak in waves.

Recovery from illness was like drawing silk. She thought: I need to get healthy quickly.

Then someone called “Back to work!” The laborers hurriedly stuffed in their last few bites, then entered through a back door from the courtyard into the warehouse. The warehouse hall was neatly divided into sections by rough wooden shelves, with several doors open on the inner side, occasionally with people entering and exiting with keys. Behind those door cracks was another world, probably tea processing rooms, with stoves, round baskets, tables, chairs, and benches.

Besides the batch of bamboo baskets Lin Yuchan had carried, many different styles of bamboo baskets, bamboo boxes, and back-baskets were scattered on the ground, all containing tea leaves, presumably collected from different tea farmers.

The laborers uniformly poured the tea into cloth bags marked with “Defeng,” then tied them up, carried them on their backs, and climbed up ladders one by one to the top shelves, crawling on their bellies to stuff the tea into the innermost layers of the shelving.

There were few ladders but many people. Carrying cloth bags up ladders was also physical work, so only the strongest few laborers climbed up and down, while the rest below had nothing to do.

One ladder was set particularly high, and everyone was afraid of heights and wouldn’t go up.

A tea shop clerk wiped sweat with a dirty towel and urged, “Are you all blind? Someone come put the goods up there!”

However, the laborers were like a flock of sheep—obedient when they listened, but unanimous when they wanted to slack off.

“Let’s wait for Big Yellow,” someone said roughly. “We can’t climb that high.”

The laborers lounged against the wall base to rest, the tea shop clerk cursed, then turned to see Lin Yuchan and became even more irritated.

“Who let a woman in here?” He looked around. “Whose wife is this? Take her away quickly!”

Lin Yuchan answered without thinking: “Here to work!”

She climbed up that highest ladder in a few moves, lay on the shelf, and reached down.

“Big Brother Chen Afu, pass me a bag!”

Based on a morning of observation, she had picked the most honest and submissive laborer.

The named Chen Afu looked up dumbly: “Ah?”

“Pass me a bag! You don’t need to climb the ladder, just hand it over.”

Chen Afu had a long-suffering face and silently raised a cloth bag without a word.

Lin Yuchan: “Come up two steps. I can’t reach it.”

She saw Chen Afu’s lips move, seeming to want to ask “Who are you, what gives you the right to order me around,” but he ultimately said nothing and obediently climbed two steps up the ladder.

Lin Yuchan caught the cloth bag just right, turned, and pushed it onto the shelf. Her small stature made her more agile than other laborers.

When she worked at the supermarket, her stocking speed was the fastest.

Chen Afu was still standing confused at the bottom of the ladder. Lin Yuchan turned her attention to the second laborer.

“Big Brother Li Facai, pass that bag to Afu.”

Li Facai glanced at her sideways, muttering something about “Big Yellow.”

Lin Yuchan urged: “The head shopkeeper will come later, we should at least look like we’re working.”

Li Facai had indeed seen her with Wang Quan in the morning, so he nodded skeptically and, following her instructions, passed a cloth bag to Chen Afu.

On the long ladder, a small assembly line was constructed. Li Facai and Chen Afu only needed to transfer cloth bags from left to right without the effort of climbing up and down. Lin Yuchan pulled up the cloth bags at the highest point, then moved them onto the shelves, nimbly arranging them neatly.

The cargo efficiency of this ladder immediately increased several times.

The tea shop clerk found it interesting and looked up for quite a while.

Actually, the other laborers weren’t necessarily unable to think of this cooperative method. But the shelves and ladders were very narrow, unable to accommodate a big fellow standing steadily on them. Only someone of Lin Yuchan’s build could anchor herself there to work back and forth.

She wiped away sweat, taking the opportunity during the labor break to look around.

This warehouse was huge but crude, seemingly without any moisture or waterproof facilities, just rows of simple wooden boards.

In the midsummer weather, tea leaves spoiled easily. Even if the warehouse was ventilated and cool, these tea leaves couldn’t be stored long-term.

It seemed these were all goods to be delivered in the short term.

Each cloth bag was half a person’s height, each shelf layer held five bags, each row had two layers, and the entire warehouse had about twenty rows.

“Collecting several hundred bags of tea in one day, truly a major household,” Lin Yuchan calculated silently. “How many branch offices do they have?”

Suddenly, there was commotion at the door. Someone called: “The shopkeeper is here!”

Wang Quan had finally recovered his silver and came to inspect the warehouse, pushing his greasy glasses.

“Arrange everything neatly for me!” he shouted orders to those beside him. “Whoever is on night duty tonight, no slacking! All the tea in the warehouse is counted—if even one or two go missing, I’ll send you all to see the magistrate!… Where are the tea roasters? Why aren’t they working yet?…”

Wang Quan inspected the laborers moving tea, and suddenly saw—

“…Eh?”

He squinted, staring at that unusual assembly line and the agile thin person at the top of the ladder, immediately becoming furious.

“Hey, what are you doing here? Come down quickly!”

When Lin Yuchan followed the laborer team out of the courtyard, he thought she wanted to escape. He wasn’t afraid of escape. Defeng’s business spanned the entire city, and with just a word to his subordinates, thousands of eyes would help him find people. Once found, he’d give her a harsh lesson, and she’d certainly become obedient.

Who would have thought she not only didn’t run but was working diligently! What was this performance about?

Lin Yuchan jumped down from the ladder and shamelessly said: “Shopkeeper, ask them how many bags of tea I carried just now?”

Wang Quan looked around. Seeing the shopkeeper had arrived, the laborers all began working diligently. But obviously, Lin Yuchan’s work group had loaded and unloaded far more cloth bags than others—it was clear at a glance.

Wang Quan’s brow furrowed into a knot as he quietly ordered the servant beside him: “Get this maidservant out of here!”

Lin Yuchan guarded the ladder and wouldn’t come down. The ladder was narrow and shaky—one person holding the pass could prevent ten thousand from entering, and no one was willing to risk going up to catch her.

Among the tea shop clerks, one bold enough quietly asked: “Shopkeeper, whose girl is this? She worked all morning and is quite diligent.”

Wang Quan coldly glanced at her and ordered again: “Get her down!”

Lin Yuchan climbed down the ladder herself and said earnestly, “Shopkeeper, I can transport goods for you here without wages. Calculate this account—it’s worth it!”

Xiao Feng had told her that bought-out maidservants like them would all be paired off by their masters when they reached age. Whether married to a servant, farm hand, vegetable delivery man at the gate, or by some miracle becoming the master’s concubine—it depended on fate.

Living in the Qing Dynasty, Lin Yuchan’s bottom line kept dropping. If it were “marry or die,” then life was indeed precious, but the problem was that she had already witnessed the medical conditions of this era. At her mere fifteen years of age, if she went full-time to “continue the family line” for someone, she probably wouldn’t live past the average lifespan.

So she couldn’t take that path. She’d rather sell her labor in exchange for survival.

She thought that she could do the same work as others and didn’t eat more than others—such fragrant surplus value had great potential for exploitation.

Capitalists pursue profit, so Wang Quan had no reason not to agree.

But Wang Quan had no capitalist consciousness whatsoever. He irritably fanned himself and grabbed her arm to drag her outside.

“I’m not short of money! When has Defeng ever had women working? Unlucky or not! Someone come!”

Lin Yuchan suddenly grabbed the door frame and looked up to ask: “You still want to sell me?”

Wang Quan gave a cold snort.

Lin Yuchan took a deep breath and said quietly: “Fine, then when people ask why the Qi family doesn’t want me, I’ll tell the truth…”

Wang Quan’s face changed: “Shut up!”

“…It’s because Young Master Qi had no money to redeem a brothel girl, so their Shopkeeper Wang tried to read his master’s mind and secretly found him a good family’s daughter who looked similar. Who knew the young master was only momentarily interested and then didn’t want her, so they had no choice but to sell me off—Shopkeeper Wang, if these words reach the master’s ears, you’d better think carefully about how to answer.”

Wang Quan’s face alternated between blue and white: “I… I’ll beat you to death…”

Before finishing his words, he shut his mouth himself. Fifteen taels of silver—even breaking a bowl would make a sound!

Moreover, what if the young master had a change of heart?

Lin Yuchan seized this moment of his hesitation and quickly said:

“Either give me my indenture contract and let me go free, or keep me working at Defeng. Rest assured, I’ll keep my mouth shut and absolutely won’t betray you and the young master.”

Wang Quan never expected that this maidservant, whom he had personally inspected and bought, who had been timid as a mouse when purchased and didn’t dare cry loudly, would become so sharp-tongued after dying from illness once, and even knew how to threaten him!

A tea shop clerk poked his head around cautiously: “Shopkeeper, there’s a customer at the front…”

Wang Quan huffed and puffed, had no choice but to stride away. Lin Yuchan followed beside him.

“Shopkeeper, you’re keeping me?”

Wang Quan straightened his collar and braid, frowned, and had an idea.

“Want to work? Fine.” He squinted his eyes, the corners of his mouth spreading into a sinister smile. “But I only have big men here—everyone relieves themselves in the small alley behind the warehouse…”

Lin Yuchan was startled, recalling that when delivering goods in the morning, passing by a certain place, there was indeed a pungent… smell.

Wang Quan: “If you can eat, drink, and relieve yourself together with the laborer brothers, I’ll keep you, hahaha!”

Saying this, he pushed open the front shop door and strode away.

Lin Yuchan gritted her teeth, momentarily at a loss.

Even worse, the two bowls of thin porridge she had gulped down at noon were now mostly digested. Leaving behind a belly full of water that now seemed to have nowhere to go.