Reclaiming Wasteland: Carefree Mountain Farmer

Chapter 246 Maid Corps

January 11 AD

Janice Vidal, a court lady from Europe, was given the opportunity to leave the palace.

More than a dozen women from different countries left the palace together, their destination being a food stall.

Luoyang City is bustling with activity. Now, everywhere you look, there are concrete buildings that are more than ten meters high. As far as the eye can see, there are rows of connected buildings along the main street.

There are very few wooden buildings left in the city; in just a few years, they have all been replaced with cement and stone houses.

On the street, you can see rickshaw pullers and sanitation workers cleaning up horse manure.

Overall, the ground was clean and there was nothing dirty to be seen.

Wei Lan noticed that things were different here compared to when she first arrived.

"Was this place like this before? I remember coming here last year."

Wei Lan raised her own questions.

Ma Li, who was standing next to him, said with a smile, "That was when you went to the capital last year. That was last year. This year, the master went to Nanzhao Spring City for a trip. It's been a year already."

Looking at Ma Li, who was also a foreigner, Wei Lan asked curiously, "It's only been a year, and this place has changed so much!"

Ma Li puffed out her chest proudly, “This is how the capital city is under the master’s rule. You can live a good life by following the master’s orders. This is the talent of our great master and the wisdom we need to look up to.”

The others laughed and agreed.

"Yes."

“Look, the people around us give us space; they all know we are the master’s maids.”

“Listen to Ma Li, she’s one of the oldest people here and knows this place best.”

“Mali and her mother Sophie were brought back from Western Xia by the master, and it has been almost ten years.”

"Yes! Three generations of my family have been the master's most loyal servants!"

Marie is proud to be a slave girl of the Arctic King. From the age of seven to the present age of sixteen, Marie has lived in the King's palace with her stepmother Sophie and her younger sister Susan.

The group included not only the three of them, but also various female captives that Beijiwu had brought back from the Western Xia palace.

Some were given to subordinates, while others, being obedient and pretty, were kept for themselves.

The twenty-seven or twenty-eight-year-old princess of Western Xia was still working as a maid in the palace, while her mother, who was in her forties or fifties, had long been sent away to have children.

This brutal approach did not provoke resistance from the others, because such things have been commonplace for most of human history.

On the contrary, becoming a maid of the Arctic Warrior will prevent her from being easily abandoned.

Although the Wu Dynasty has only been in existence for 11 years, there are already many people whose families have served King Wu for three or four generations.

There were also grandfathers in their seventies, sons in their sixties, grandsons in their forties, great-grandsons in their twenties, and young palace maids who entered the palace at the age of seven or eight.

The maids of the Arctic Martial Arts Academy were specially selected from the daughters of hereditary nobles to serve in the palace. This was partly to support local forces, and partly because these pampered families were more likely to produce beautiful and obedient women.

Sophie Marie manages a troupe of foreign maids.

Jiang Caoxi Dan leads a hereditary maid corps, and because of their closer relationship, she is mostly a female official and manager.

There is also a group of maids selected from the public households in the palace, who are mainly responsible for basic work and operation, as well as some technical work.

Ma Li and her friends were just strolling around looking for a place to eat when they ran into 9526, who was out on business.

"9526, why are you out here?"

Ma Li saw a girl waiting for sesame cakes on the street, so she went over to ask her.

9526 is a fourteen-year-old girl with two long braids in her hair. She is 1.65 meters tall and wears a sports uniform similar to a school uniform.

When Ma Li and her companions, dressed in floral dresses and carrying parasols, passed by, it was like a meeting between a modern Western aristocratic lady and a modern rural female student.

"Do the task."

9526 glanced at the group of women, then quickly looked down and continued watching the couple making flatbreads near the tin stove.

They kept to themselves and didn't interfere with each other. Although they knew each other and studied together, their relationship wasn't particularly good.

Everyone plays their own game, and the types of games are different.

9526 is a public group, a girl from a public household who came to work for her family. Carrying the expectations and entrustments of her parents, she boarded a donkey cart to serve in the capital, escorted by the whole village.

The girls in each group were addressed by numbers. They were all working for the collective, for their respective production teams and families, and the numbers helped King Wu remember their hometown.

Ma Li and the others were female prisoners of war, female slaves who were either spoils of war or tributes from others, and then maids were selected from among these low-ranking female slaves.

The hereditary group also did not need to be numbered; those people were qualified to stand before King Wu and introduce themselves when they entered the palace.

Ma Li laughed and said, "On a mission? Then what are you doing here? Is this sesame seed cake delicious?"

The woman selling sesame cakes immediately replied, "Delicious! Our sesame cakes are generously portioned and reasonably priced!"

"Who asked you!" Mary scolded the woman unhappily. The woman immediately lowered her head in embarrassment, her face flushed, and continued working.

9526 felt uncomfortable; her family members were also mostly from the countryside.

Selling and making sesame cakes on the street in the sweltering heat is something that even local residents with household registration wouldn't do.

Many jobs in Luoyang are still done by freelancers from nearby counties.

Although 9526 grew up in King Wu's army since he could remember, and was surrounded by people who were loyal to King Wu, he also had contact with many people from his hometown.

Our family became a public household because my father was forcibly conscripted by the passing Wen Dynasty army to work as a mountain farmer, and he was a porter who transported grain along with the people.

After the Wen Dynasty army was defeated, these people became prisoners of the Shan Nong people and lived a good life as servants of King Wu.

The family was not reunited until King Wu entered Luoyang.

Grandparents, uncles, and aunts, on the other hand, don't have this blessing.

He dreamed of being King Wu's servant.

Despite feeling uncomfortable, 9526 did not speak up for the vendor couple.

This level of humiliation is negligible; when doing business in Luoyang, one must know whose territory one is in.

If you're making money on King Wu's territory, you should show respect to King Wu's servants.

Even if Mali wasn't talking about the vendors in front of her, but about her own parents and family, 9526 could target Mali, but she couldn't speak up for her parents in front of outsiders and retaliate against the maid team.

When you are out and about, you must always uphold the dignity of your master.

Ma Li said something and everything was fine. Seeing that 9526 was ignoring her, and that the person selling sesame cakes was starting to take them out with metal tongs, she became interested as well.

"Give me two sesame seed cakes, would you like some?"

"Don't eat."

"I'm not eating it either. I want to eat ice cream later."

"Me too."

"Then I won't eat it either."

Ma Li, who had originally intended to buy sesame cakes, changed her mind and looked at the girl standing next to her. "9526, aren't you hot wearing so much?"

9526 replied, "My skin is dark, so I can't be in the sun. The head maid told me to be careful about sun protection."

Ma Li smiled. "Okay, go back and rest now. Change into a cool maid outfit when you get back to the palace. We're leaving now."

"Okay." 9526 paid for two sesame seed cakes and left after Ma Li and the others had gone far away.

The two sides kept to themselves, and Ma Li and others could spend money freely to buy the snacks they liked, while 9526 still needed to send money home.

9526 was just a trainee maid. She was young, of low birth, and not good-looking. Her main duties were to deliver messages outside the city and relay oral orders.

Marie and others are high-class maids, mainly responsible for serving their masters. Once they become high-class maids, they will not be abandoned and will have a unique retirement system in the future.

When I passed by the Shannong Daily shop on bus route 9526, I glanced inside and saw that it was the place where high-ranking palace maids retired.

I haven't been inside 9526, but I know this place.

When 9526 passed by, he saw two girls looking at the little frogs in the basin at the door.

"Little frog, kick your legs!"

"Hehehehe~"

"It can't climb up!"

"Hahahaha!"

Nine-year-old Wu Yue and her neighbor's little sister watched the goldfish and frogs together, laughing happily from time to time.

This year, King Wu only brought his guards and ministers with him when he went to Chuncheng. He did not bring any women or family members.

This year, nothing much has happened in the entire Shan Nong Kingdom. King Wu's palaces and buildings are almost finished, and most people are still repeating the same old routines.

However, Luoyang and the surrounding twelve counties are renovating residential buildings, which has attracted many farmers from the Huanghuai Province to come and work.

Even people from the two northern provinces would come to work and earn wages.

Looking towards the city gate, 9526 thought that after the busy farming season was over, his parents would be able to come out to work and earn money, and he would be able to see his parents and younger siblings again.

The master will also return at that time, and there will be many things to do in the palace.

9526 quickly returned to the palace gate and, after verifying that everything was in order, entered the imposing, majestic, and magnificent palace complex.

The buildings here are as tall as mountains, and 9526 is a way of going home into the mountains, clearly distinct from the bustling city outside.

(End of this chapter)