Murong Yan

The female villager has come to collect her wages, Ruoyan directly explained to Li Zhan.

Li Zhan had learned from Zhou Min's report beforehand that the female villager's deft hands skill was extremely beneficial for improving clothing production speed, making him all the more eager to keep her in Yanhuang Village. If her deft hands skill was at the advanced level or above, she could lecture at the academy and allow other villagers to try and comprehend this skill.

Seeing Ruoyan bring the female villager to find him now, Li Zhan instructed Zheng Jun and the other construction workers behind him to finish laying the foundation and then call it a day, while he led the two of them back to the village town hall.

Inside the town hall, Li Zhan took a sip of tea, looked at the female villager with a smile, and said, "Have a seat, don't be shy."

The female villager glanced at the empty seat beside her and shook her head. Ruoyan chimed in from the side: "Sit down. You've worked all day, take a rest first. Don't worry, with me big sis here, he wouldn't dare bully you."

Li Zhan was stunned. There were only three people in the entire reception room, and the "he" in Ruoyan's mouth naturally referred to himself. Offering a bitter smile, Li Zhan said to the female villager, who had finally taken a seat: "What is your name? Where do you come from?"

The female villager replied in a soft voice: "My name is Murong Yan, and I come from Xuchang in the Central Plains region."

Ancient Chinese compound surnames were relatively common, so Li Zhan didn't find her name strange, but upon hearing that Murong Yan came from Xuchang, he asked in surprise: "Xuchang? That place must be a thousand miles away from here, right? How did you run all the way out here?"

Murong Yan bit her lip. Li Zhan's words touched upon her sorrowful past. Fighting back the tears threatening to spill from her eyes, Murong Yan did not answer his question and instead asked: "Town Mayor, may I collect my wages now? I would like to rest early."

Li Zhan and Ruoyan exchanged glances, knowing that Murong Yan must have some unspeakable hidden circumstances, so they decided not to press further. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a handful of copper coins and roughly counted them. There were seventeen coins in total. He stood up, walked over to Murong Yan, handed the copper coins to her, and said: "Here are your wages, take them. Also, I see you are covered in dust; you must have suffered a great deal of hardship and fatigue on this journey. Stay at the inn tonight. There is a small bathhouse in the back courtyard of the inn—take a hot bath and get a good night's sleep."

Murong Yan hurriedly stood up, accepted the copper coins from Li Zhan's hand, and bowed deeply. Without saying anything, she turned and ran out.

In the reception room, Li Zhan and Ruoyan gazed at the retreating figure of the female villager, lost in their own thoughts.

A short while later, Zhou Min arrived at the reception room holding a yellow villager's garment. When reporting Murong Yan's situation to Li Zhan earlier, Zhou Min had mentioned that Murong Yan had a particular fondness for yellow clothing. During garment production, whenever she finished making a yellow piece of clothing, she would examine it closely for a while. Upon hearing this description, Li Zhan had asked Zhou Min to bring a yellow villager's garment to the town hall after work that evening.

Seeing Zhou Min walk over holding the yellow villager's garment, Li Zhan thought for a moment and gave her some instructions. Understanding his intent, Zhou Min nodded and walked toward the inn holding the clothing.

Murong Yan had finished her evening meal at the inn and, guided by a female attendant, went to the bathhouse for a hot bath. When getting dressed, Murong Yan looked at her own dust-covered silk garment and shook her head. She couldn't wash it because she had no change of clothes, so she would simply have to wait until she earned enough copper coins as quickly as possible to buy a self-made garment from the village.

However, she had heard the clothing production workers say that a single self-made garment cost three gold coins. Since she could earn at most twenty copper coins a day, it would take a full month and a half of work just to buy a new piece of clothing—such a long time.

Murong Yan silently shook her head. After putting on her clothes, she looked at the copper coins lying in her wardrobe. This was the first wage she had ever earned in her life. She picked them up one by one and counted them carefully, only to be startled to find that there seemed to be two extra coins. She recounted them several times, and indeed, there were two extra coins.

This town mayor was truly careless; he even managed to count a dozen or so copper coins wrong. Murong Yan recalled that Li Zhan had only given the wages a quick glance when handing them over.

Pocketing the copper coins, Murong Yan decided to return the two extra coins to Li Zhan shortly. Although she was currently destitute, she still couldn't bring herself to comfortably accept such petty gains. Furthermore, the town mayor had treated her very well—truly different from many lord players—making it even more impossible for her to pocket these two copper coins.

On her way back from the bathhouse, as she passed the front desk, the female attendant called out to her and handed her a yellow villager's garment, explaining that the town mayor had asked her to give it to her as a change of clothes.

Murong Yan was pleasantly surprised, but immediately felt troubled, saying: "But I don't have that much money on me right now to buy clothing."

The female attendant smiled and said: "The town mayor said you can wear it right away. As for the cost of the clothing, a portion will be deducted from your wages every day until the full three gold coins are paid off."

In truth, a single garment was completely insignificant to Li Zhan; he could easily have given it to the female villager as a gift. However, Li Zhan had done this deliberately so that Murong Yan would receive a pleasant surprise through the form of "wear first, pay later." Given Murong Yan's current circumstances, he was, after all, a person of higher status; giving things away for no reason would not only seem overly eager but might also easily arouse her suspicion.

Murong Yan was so happy she was almost moved to tears. She excitedly accepted the new clothing and repeatedly expressed her thanks. The female attendant chuckled and said, "Why thank me? If you want to thank anyone, you should thank our town mayor."

Hearing a villager call Li Zhan "Town Mayor" once again, Murong Yan no longer found it abrupt. Such a wonderful town mayor—which villager wouldn't hold him in high regard and deep affection? Even she herself felt an urge to call him town mayor...

No, I mustn't do that. That would bring trouble to the town mayor.

Suppressing her complex thoughts, Murong Yan hurried back to her upstairs room, changed into the new clothing, twisted her waist to admire herself excitedly for a moment, and then washed her silk garment and hung it on the clothes rack. Remembering that she had received two extra copper coins in her wages, Murong Yan stepped out of the inn and headed to the town hall to find Li Zhan.

By now, night had fallen, and the village was brightly lit. Wooden residential houses, small wooden courtyards, quadrangle dwellings, the inn... everything was brilliantly illuminated. The reception room on the first floor of the town hall had its doors wide open, and Murong Yan stood outside the entrance, looking inside to find no one there (the town hall could be set to "open" or "restricted").

She asked a passing villager, who told her that the town mayor was likely over at the academy. It was currently the time for evening lectures at the academy, and the town mayor often went there to observe the villagers attending classes.

The village even had an academy? This news came as quite a surprise to Murong Yan. She remembered that along her journey through over a dozen villages, she hadn't seen a single one with an academy built, let alone settlements. Feeling curious and wanting to see what the Yanhuang Village academy looked like, Murong Yan walked toward the academy under the guidance of the villager.

Outside the academy windows, a crowd of curious wandering players and subordinate villagers had gathered. While the academy was free for the village's own residents, subordinate villagers of wandering players had to pay a fee to enter and study, though it wasn't very high—five copper coins per class. During the evening lectures, a few wandering players' subordinate villagers would also come to listen, but their numbers were not large, and the audience remained primarily composed of the village's own residents.

Watching the commotion from outside the academy did not constitute eavesdropping or stealing skills; as long as these villagers did not disrupt the normal lectures inside, the village naturally did not restrict them. Murong Yan squeezed herself among the curious onlookers and peered inside through the window.

Today's class was an advanced session for clothing production personnel, taught principally by Zhou Min, who provided a detailed explanation of her working experience and technical essentials while dozens of clothing production workers below listened attentively.

Murong Yan gazed infatuatedly at Zhou Min lecturing on the platform, imagining what it would be like if she were the one standing up there. She would probably be very nervous, wouldn't she? With so many villagers down below, would they listen to her lecture as attentively as they were doing now, or would they look at her in utter bewilderment, unable to understand a single word?

Murong Yan chuckled at her own whimsical thoughts.

Li Zhan walked out of the academy's research room, accompanied by three dock workers.

After finishing their evening work meal, these three dock workers had come to find Li Zhan to propose a research project aimed at improving dock workers' operational efficiency. The dock workers' loading and unloading skill could not be upgraded; it only had proficiency (experience) levels. Therefore, even though these dock workers had changed professions relatively recently, they were still able to conduct research work.

Li Zhan had agreed to the dock workers' request and personally led them to the academy's research room. The three dock workers' research progressed very quickly, producing results in about two hours:

Pulley:
Description: A simple machine consisting of a grooved wheel on a frame that can be fitted with a rope or chain, mostly used for lifting heavy objects.
Function: Increases loading and unloading efficiency by 20%.
Research Cost: 150 food, 280 wood (standard) ---- 137 food, 252 wood (actual).
Production Cost: Pulley (1 wood), crossarm (5 wood), total 6 wood.

As he walked out of the academy, Li Zhan received a message from Wan Huai stating that he and his maternal uncle E Teng had already discussed the matter of clothing production. However, a minor unexpected issue had arisen in E Village, the details of which were difficult to explain clearly in a message; he would explain everything face-to-face with Li Zhan in detail when he returned to the village in a couple of days.

Li Zhan put away the message and furrowed his brow, unable to figure out what kind of unexpected issue could possibly happen in an officially administered settlement like E Village. Shaking his head, Li Zhan instructed the three dock workers to go to the quadrangle dwelling, explain the design results in detail to Wang Hui, and have him manufacture six sets tomorrow to be installed on the docks all at once.

As he stepped out of the academy, he happened to see Murong Yan peering through the window, gazing fixedly at the lecture inside.

Li Zhan smiled and walked over...