If Cao Meng just felt that he was wrong before, then at this moment, he felt guilty.
He was such a bastard that he stabbed such a poor man. Fortunately, that man had great medical skills. If the stabbed person died, he would never be able to forgive himself in this life.
Although Li Erniu was angry, when he saw Cao Meng's sincere apology, he finally couldn't bear to blame him, "Okay, get up. If you really want to apologize, when Laifu wakes up, you can apologize to him, and you can eat quickly!"
After saying that, Li Erniu stopped staying and turned around to leave.
"Brother, eat."
Cao Mengyao carefully brought the breakfast to Cao Meng and said: "Only when we are full can we have the strength to work, and when we have the strength to work can we have the money to make up for the mistakes we made."
Cao Meng, who felt extremely guilty, suddenly had two rays of light flash in his eyes, and nodded vigorously, "Sister, you are right, I want to eat well, I want to work hard, and I want to make it up to him."
With that said, Cao Meng grabbed his breakfast and ate it.
When Cao Mengyao saw this, a smile appeared on her baby-fat face, and she picked up the rice bowl in front of her.
It's been a long time since the brother and sister had such delicious food.
The fragrant rice is topped with gravy, and from time to time you can also eat pork as big as a bean, and there is enough salt. It sells for six copper coins a portion, which is not too expensive.
There were two big bowls of rice, but not a single grain of rice was left by either of them, and even the bowls were licked clean.
As soon as the brother and sister finished breakfast, Li Erniu came with Daya. After telling Daya to take care of Cao Mengyao, he took Cao Meng to work on the coal mountain.
Along the way, Li Erniu introduced Mei Village and Mei Mountain to Cao Meng.
"There are many jobs in our coal village, and there are many types of jobs. In my benefactor's words, they can be divided into three types: private, collective, and public..."
"Private ownership refers to the villagers' own businesses, such as the blacksmith shop of Lao Li at the head of the village, the tailor next to the shop... these are all privately owned, and you can contact them if you have corresponding needs."
"The collective is the entire village, and everyone holds it together, such as pig farms, chicken farms, and the land we live on... These are not allowed to be bought and sold by private individuals and must be distributed uniformly by the village. The benefactor said that this can avoid any annexation. I don’t understand either.”
"Public ownership means ownership by the benefactor. This involves many things, such as the particularly large shop in the center of the village, private schools, coal mines, and paper mills. These all belong to people."
Cao Meng was a little puzzled when he heard this, "Why are the benefactor's things called public property?"
Li Erniu explained: "The benefactor is also called the benefactor. If it is owned by the benefactor, it is naturally owned by the public."
"That makes sense!"
When Cao Meng heard this explanation, he nodded in agreement and continued to ask: "Isn't the private school free? If it is publicly owned, wouldn't he suffer a loss?"
"The benefactor does things for us not just to make money." Li Erniu said: "Private schools, roads... these are all publicly owned, and any investment in these will result in loss of money."
"Why would he pay for it?"
“If you want to be rich, build roads first, have fewer children, and study more.”
Li Erniu grinned and pointed to the road at his feet, "This is the road from Mei Village to Mei Mountain. It used to take half an hour to go back and forth, but now it saves half the time, which is much more convenient than before. The benefactor also said , we will also build a road to Sioux City in the future to save everyone’s time in traveling to Sioux City.”
Cao Meng said enviously: "Your benefactor is so kind."
When Li Erniu heard Cao Meng praising Jiang Yifeng for being such a nice person, he couldn't help but grinned. He was even happier than when he was praising himself.
The two of them walked and chatted all the way, and soon came to Meishan.
Li Erniu took Cao Meng to where he was digging coal, taught Cao Meng the techniques and essentials of coal digging, and then waved his tools and started digging coal.
Cao Meng was very strong, and he was a farmer. He worked well and was able to dig coal skillfully in a short time.
Ding ding ding…
Cao Meng kept swinging the iron pickaxe until he heard the sound of a bell striking the iron tool, then he raised his head blankly and looked at Li Erniu who had stopped.
"Brother Erniu, what's going on?"
"it's time for lunch."
As Li Erniu spoke, he called over to the accountant responsible for weighing and recording, "Old Sun, please weigh Brother Cao Meng first. I estimate that this weighs 1,150 kilograms."
There are no supervisors in the coal mountain, only dozens of counting rooms. Their main task is to record how many kilograms of coal each person dug.
These accountants are all from Mei Village. Compared with ordinary people, they all know some words. Their monthly salary is two taels of silver, which is slightly lower than the income of scholars in Sioux City.
The main reason why Jiang Yifeng gave them such high salaries was to make the villagers read and write.
"One thousand two hundred and ten pounds, this little brother is pretty good!"
Soon, Lao Sun finished weighing, recording and praising at the same time.
"hey-hey!"
Cao Meng scratched his head in embarrassment.
At this time, Li Erniu said: "Let's go eat!"
Cao Meng was startled, "Brother Erniu, don't you see how much you have dug?"
Li Erniu shook his head, "Don't look at it, it's about 1,400 kilograms every day, just leave it to Lao Sun."
"oh!"
Cao Meng responded and followed Li Erniu to the place where the food was served.
In fact, the place where the meals were served was the porridge shed that had been built before. Later, when the victims were moved to Coal Village, the porridge shed was transformed into a canteen, so that there was no need to waste time going back to the village to eat.
"Those big wooden barrels contain egg soup and wild vegetable soup. You can drink this for free without paying..."
"Inside the steamer are big meat buns, which cost two coins each, but most of the time they are hard to grab and will be sold out quickly."
"There is a standard meal here for ten copper coins, rice for three copper coins, pig water for five copper coins, and vegetables for two copper coins."
Gulu!
Cao Meng had been working all morning and was already hungry. When he heard Li Erniu's words, he kept swallowing his saliva.
"Brother Erniu, I..."
Li Erniu didn't wait for Cao Meng to finish what he said, then handed over an IOU, "I know you have no money, so I lent this to you. Just pay me back after you pay your salary."
Cao Meng was startled, "Is this what people in our village call an IOU?"
"Um!"
Li Erniu's face turned ugly and he cursed: "The people in your village are really nothing. They want to exchange ten copper coins for our IOU of twenty copper coins. If you don't exchange, you will bully us."
Cao Meng was so ashamed that he said, "Brother Erniu, I'm sorry, I didn't expect them to be so bad, but I promise you, I have never done anything like this."
"I didn't tell you, don't be nervous, hurry up and line up to buy food."
"Um!"
Cao Meng nodded and was about to line up, but was stopped by Li Erniu, "Before you line up, go to the side and wash your hands and face. My benefactor said that if you wash your hands and eat well, you won't get sick easily."
With that said, Li Erniu took Cao Meng to wash his hands and face before going to line up to buy food.
What Cao Meng bought was a standard meal, which was more rice than breakfast. The rice was covered with a large spoonful of pig meat, as well as some fried shredded carrots, spicy cabbage, pickles...
This lunch meal is much richer than breakfast.
"Delicious."
Cao Meng took a voracious bite. The taste of the food stimulated his taste buds. This was a delicious taste he had never experienced before.
Suddenly, he had the idea of staying in Coal Village forever.
