Shu Guan looked back and saw a woman standing behind him.
The woman is in her late twenties, about 1.7 meters tall, with her hair tied up in an exquisite bun. She wears a slim-fitting women's suit with a snow-white butterfly collar chiffon shirt and a A beige windbreaker, very stylish and elegant.
As for the woman's appearance, she is not the kind of beauty that makes people stunning at first sight. Compared with Zhang Yadan or Xu Chuxiang, the daughter of the warlord, she is not so breathtakingly beautiful, but she gives people a fresh and refined look, and is intellectually sophisticated. With a bit of a capable feel.
In short, this is a woman who, although not stunning at first glance, is very pleasing to the eye.
So Shu Guan took one more look, then another.
"Director Fang, what's going on with the recruitment? My classmate just helped me contact a few big orders in Shanghai. We have just built a factory in Lixing. Whether we can make a name for ourselves in those cities in the south depends on these deals. , but don’t delay the delivery date.”
"Director Rong, you know that our factory has very high requirements for workers, so it is not easy to recruit enough people."
While the two were talking, the woman seemed to notice Shu Guan looking at him, so she also glanced at Shu Guan.
"who is he?"
Then the woman said something steady to Director Fang.
Director Fang quickly explained Shu Guan's purpose, and the woman's eyes suddenly lit up.
"You said there are more than a hundred of you?"
The woman asked Shu Guandao excitedly.
Shu Dian nodded.
"Director Rong, all the female workers he introduced are illiterate."
At this time, Director Fang said again:
"So even if we recruit them, it will take a long time to train them to operate the machines, which will not help us guarantee our delivery date."
The woman frowned and pondered for a moment, then waved her hand decisively and said:
"No, let's recruit them first. We can temporarily transfer all the literate workers in the factory to the production line and let these newcomers take over other positions."
"In addition, Factory Director Fang, I think we didn't think carefully about the conditions for recruiting workers in the past. We set the conditions so high from the beginning. I'm afraid it will be difficult to find full people. After all, this is not Shanghai, and there are women with a certain level of education. It’s still a lot less.”
"So I plan to make a change. When the time comes, I will set up a night school specifically in the factory to train industrial workers with a certain level of education."
Are you actually planning to hold night classes?
Shu Guan's eyes suddenly lit up. At this moment, he was thinking about letting the women from Taoyuan Village live directly in the factory.
"Director Fang, please discuss the details with him. It's best to ensure that the female workers who come here are all under thirty years old. This way they can learn things faster. If there is no problem, we will sign the contract and we will be there in the next two days. come to work."
"Okay, Director Rong."
The woman told Director Fang a few words, and then turned around and left.
"Thanks."
Shu Guan quickly and sincerely thanked the woman.
To be honest, if the women from Taoyuan Village can come to work in this factory, they will be very lucky indeed.
The woman nodded politely to him, smiled slightly, and then walked out of the office. However, when her slender and elegant back was about to reach the door, she suddenly turned around and glanced at Shu Guan again.
This time, I saw it very carefully.
…
On the large mahogany table, two printed contracts were placed in front of Shu Guan.
"Mr. Shu, take a look at it carefully. If there are no problems, we will sign the contract."
Director Fang, who was opposite, said to Shu Guan with a smile.
Now that Director Rong had agreed, Factory Director Fang was very efficient and prepared the contract in ten minutes and placed it in front of Shu Guan.
Shu Guan picked up the contract and glanced at it quickly.
He was no stranger to this kind of thing, having done it many times in his previous life.
But when he saw the terms of treatment, he was suddenly startled.
"Five silver dollars a month?"
He looked up at Director Fang in disbelief.
"Our Lixing Spinning Factory uses mechanized production. The output efficiency of each worker is completely different from those of old-fashioned factories, so the wages can naturally be much higher."
Director Fang explained quite proudly.
Shu Guan naturally understood what Director Fang meant. He was just shocked by the salary amount.
Five silver dollars are enough for an ordinary family of four in Jingcheng to live a good life.
Then Shu Guan looked at other treatment terms. There were four days of rest every month, subsidies for working during pregnancy, and young children could be taken care of for free in the factory... These treatment guarantees were almost no better than the one he had traveled through time. The treatment of office workers in this era has become worse.
However, there is also a stipulation in the contract that once you become a worker of Lixing Spinning Co., Ltd., you are not allowed to resign at will without special circumstances within three years.
Shu Guan also understands this clause very well. People spend a lot of time and money to train a skilled worker, and naturally they don't want to train a skilled worker and then leave.
After thinking about it, Shu Guan felt that if it was this factory, it would be no problem to work for three years.
Then he picked up the pen.
Shu Guan no longer had to hesitate, he also believed that there could be no better choice than this factory.
On one of the signature lines of the contract, a name has been stamped.
That name is: Rong Miao.
Is this the name of the woman just now?
Shu Guan thought so and signed his name.
…
Soon after, Shuguan walked out of the gate of Lixing Textile Factory with relaxed steps.
He was in a very happy mood at this time, a pleasure that came from seeing that the lives of the villagers in Taoyuan Village would become better and better.
Although in this contract, the other party is willing to recruit women under the age of 30, so only about 80 people can come to work by then, but it doesn't matter, he will find a way to deal with the rest of the 8 factories. .
It's just that the factory is not far ahead, and the older women in the village haven't found jobs yet, so Shu Guan still plans to stop by and have a look.
This is a flour mill, its name is Jiusheng. The person who received Shu Guan was a middle-aged man with a fleshy face and a big black mole on his face. He was wearing a black silk coat with his sleeves rolled up high.
When he saw this middle-aged man, Shu Guan felt a little strange at first.
Director Fang of the Lixing Textile Factory just now was clearly a scholar at first glance, while Director Zhou of the Dachang Textile Factory and Manager Liu of the Guangming Match Factory, although they looked a bit vulgar and philistine, they were still serious. People should have risen through the ranks by working honestly in the past.
But the manager of the Jiusheng Flour Factory has a strong aura about him and a fierce look on his face. He doesn't look like a normal factory manager at all.
What's even stranger is that when the manager heard that the people introduced by Shuguan all had local household registration in Jingcheng, the manager suddenly showed a look of disgust on his face, indicating that their factory no longer needed workers.
But obviously what Shu Guan saw in the advertisement yesterday was that their Jiusheng Flour Factory needed to recruit a large number of workers urgently.
It’s impossible to recruit all the people in one day!
The strange feeling in Shu Guan's heart became stronger.
After coming out of the gate of Jiusheng Flour Mill, Shu Guan frowned and stayed at the door for a minute or two, looking at the wall of Jiusheng Flour Mill.
The fence was very high, much higher than the walls of the three factories he had visited today. The top of the fence was covered with sharp barbed wire.
Then Shu Guan took out an invisibility charm and returned to the flour mill again.
Isn't this just that kind of factory...
Shu Guan decided to go in and take a look.
…
Twenty minutes later, Shu Guan's figure appeared again outside the wall of Jiusheng Flour Mill. He stood at the entrance of a secluded alley, his face was slightly pale, his body was trembling slightly, and he stood there numbly.
"I'm selling cigarettes, I'm selling cigarettes..."
"Laodao cigarettes, Daqianmen cigarettes, Hardman cigarettes, Fairy cigarettes, Sanliu cigarettes..."
A cigarette vendor passed by Shu Guan. A cigarette case hung around the vendor's neck, filled with all kinds of cigarettes.
"Bring me a pack of cigarettes."
Shu Guan raised his hand to stop the vendor, his voice a little hoarse.
He didn't bring the old cripple's cigarette rod with him today.
"Okay, sir, what brand do you want?"
Shu Guan glanced into the cigarette case.
"It's the Sanliu brand. Give me another pack of matches."
He remembered that he had smoked this kind of cigarette, it was very strong, and he needed something strong now.
"Okay, sir, it's five cents."
The cigarette seller picked up a pack of cigarettes with three "6"s printed on the box and a box of matches and handed them over. Shu Guan also took out six cents and handed them over.
The next moment, the cigarette seller made a cry.
"Sir, why is there blood on your hands? Are you injured?"
Shu Guan lowered his head and glanced at his palm, and then realized that there was blood dripping on his palm.
"Yeah, I accidentally scratched it just now."
Shu Guan forced a smile at the cigarette vendor, took the cigarettes, and without waiting for the vendor to get the change, he turned around and walked towards the river in the vendor's slightly suspicious and frightened eyes.
Shu Guan walked to the embankment by the river, found a bench and sat down, wiped the blood on his hands on the bench, then silently tore open the cigarette case, took out a cigarette, and then took out the cigarette from the seal. He took out a match from the matchbox with "Guangming Brand" on it, struck it, and lit a cigarette.
Then, Shu Guan stared at the river and smoked cigarettes one after another.
The setting sun casts a dull golden glow on the beautiful white bungalows on the other side of the river.
There is the embassy area of the powerful countries in the Western Continent at Jiangkou.
The river is surging and rolling eastward.
Shu Guan's heart wave at this moment is as turbulent and ups and downs as the waves.
He finished smoking one cigarette, then lit another, one after another, and threw the cigarette butts next to his feet, still stained with blood in his hands.
Not far behind, there were many noisy sounds coming from a factory. It seemed that many people were screaming in fear. Soon after, a piercing siren sounded.
Shu Guan did not turn around or look back.
He knew exactly where those sounds were coming from.
Shu Guan just looked at the river in silence, smoking one cigarette after another until he finished the whole pack, leaving cigarette butts all over the ground. Then he got up and walked towards the dock.
Shu Guan came to the pier, bought a ticket, got on the ferry, crossed the river, walked through Taoyuan Village, went up Guishan, turned onto the path, entered the mountain gate, walked past the pavilion, walked across the lake, and walked up to the top of the cliff. , walked into Li Zhixia's residence, walked up to Li Zhixia, knelt down, lowered his head and said with a trembling voice:
"Master, I killed someone today."
"A mortal!"
Yes, Shu Guan just killed a person, the steward who received him at Jiusheng Flour Mill and had a mole on his face.
He didn't even know the person's surname or name, but he couldn't help but kill the person directly.
…
Two hours ago, Shu Guan walked into Jiusheng Flour Mill for the second time.
He wanted to see if the factory was the kind of factory he suspected.
Facts have proved that his guess was not wrong, but the scene inside was beyond his imagination.
Everything that happened in that factory area, within the high walls covered with barbed wire, didn't look like the world at all, but like hell.
Shu Guan originally thought that the situation of the female workers in Dachang Textile Factory was miserable enough, but after walking into Jiusheng Flour Mill, he discovered that at least the workers in Dachang Textile Factory were still alive as human beings.
In the Jiusheng Flour Factory, the workers lived like pigs.
Shu watched a lot of female workers, and also saw a lot of child workers who were only in their teens. They were all unkempt and barefooted, with sallow faces and thin bones, and sunken eyes. Each of them had various skin diseases or sores. Or his feet are rotten, and his eyes are lifeless, as if he is already a walking corpse.
The place they had to cook was a small room of less than ten square meters, but they had to accommodate more than ten or twenty people. Each bunk was covered with some straw, and a straw mat was covered on the straw. As for the food they ate, it was all moldy. Brown rice, rotten vegetable leaves.
The dust inside the workshop was flying, the steam was like mist, and the air was polluted. Women and children with arms as thin as poles were working hard inside. Outside the workshop stood some big-bodied supervisors, holding whips in their hands, staring at the workshop. If any of the women or children who were working were a little slower, they would be dragged out and whipped, and then rushed back to the workshop to work.
Shu Guan was walking in the factory area and looking at the horrific scenes, he felt as if a huge boulder was pressing down on his heart, making him unable to breathe.
He wants to do something.
But I know I can't do anything.
Immortals return to immortals, and mortals return to mortals.
He is the guardian of heaven, and it is not these things that he has to deal with.
Shu Guan told himself over and over again that such things may happen in many places in this world every day, and he just encountered one of them by chance.
Shu Guan suppressed the impulse in his heart again and again, telling himself that he could not kill these mortals, no matter what the reason was.
Then, he met the middle-aged steward with a sinewy face and a black mole on his face who had received her just now.
At that time, the middle-aged manager was asking two of his men to pull a little girl in ragged clothes into his office.
That little girl is only thirteen or fourteen years old at most.
The middle-aged steward pressed her down on the table and took off the little girl's tattered pants.
The little girl didn't struggle or cry, she just stared blankly with her eyes wide open, her eyes so numb.
And it was that numb look that hurt Shu Guan's heart.
So Shu Guan, who was about to leave, walked over and slapped the middle-aged manager's head to pieces.
Some things cannot be tolerated.
At least Shu Guan couldn't do it.
…
Li Zhixia looked at the disciple kneeling in front of her in silence. After a long time, he asked.
"Is that mortal involved with other practitioners?"
"No."
"Did anything strange happen there when you killed him?"
"No, just some tragedies, tragedies in the mortal world."
So Li Zhixia was silent for a long time, and his pair of thick, straight, black eyebrows frowned tightly, and then the gap between the eyebrows disappeared, so there was a straight horizontal line on Li Zhixia's forehead.
Li Zhixia's life was as straight as his eyebrows.
Also very stubborn and rigorous.
He has the persistence and perseverance to never allow others to desecrate the heavenly rules he protects.
But now, his disciple has personally violated the rules of heaven.
After a long silence, Li Zhixia sighed deeply, stood up, walked to Shu Guan, and slowly raised her right palm above Shu Guan's head.
