Jinyi Music

Chapter 90 There are fingers in the ice cellar

The ice drink business of Jia Silian and the sisters started quietly. The ice was bought and placed in the shop of the Wang family, and the mung bean water was boiled on the stove on the stall. There was a stall in the front and Sanlian sold them. In the afternoon, the sisters carried two loads of wooden barrels, with old quilts in them, and a small bucket in the middle, which contained iced mung bean water, rose water, sweet-scented osmanthus water, kumquat water, etc. , The taste changes every few days.

The weather is getting worse, and Xiang Shi is too lazy to go out. He only eats dinner after sunset and takes a walk outside. He doesn't know that the sisters take turns to sell ice drinks. I can sell dozens of bowls here, excluding the cost, earn more than [-] Wen a day, and each of the four sisters can earn more than [-] Wen. Although the sun is tired and thirsty, and the sisters are all tanned and thin, the whole After the summer, but after two months, each person has dozens of copper coins.

Jia Silian was fine, Wu Lian and Liu Lian had never had so many coins, and after two months, when Jia Silian shared the bill with the two, the two sisters stared wide-eyed, and Zhang Zhang's eldest, hugged tightly for a long while excitedly. one place,
"Fourth sister, are these all ours?"

Wu Lian asked, Si Lian laughed and said,

"Of course it's yours. I've already given Third Sister's..."

Liu Lian looked at the copper plate and her eyes shone brightly,
"Fourth sister, can I use it to buy candy?"

Jia Silian nodded,
"This is your own, you can spend it however you want, but...you have to pay attention to Jiayou Biography..."

Liu Lian nodded, after being happy, she became worried.

"Where are we hiding these coins?"

Hiding at home is no good, ever since Jia Youchuan found out that they hid candy once, he would sneak into their house from time to time to search around, their house can't hide anything.

Jia Silian thought for a while and said,
"It's better to deposit it all in the bank..."

The sisters all nodded,

"Fourth sister, can you buy a bag of candy first and then save it!"

Liu Lian looked longingly, blinked and asked, Si Lian nodded,

"We not only eat candy, but also meat, and we will save it after eating..."

This car quietly went to buy sugar and roast chicken. The three sisters ate quietly at the stall, wiped their mouths clean, and went home.

Seeing that the hottest time of summer was about to pass, the Jia sisters closed the business to prevent Xiang Shi from finding out, and the business of the ice shop gradually faded, but they planned to clean the ice cellar, taking advantage of At this time, after cleaning the ice cellar, after winter came, they were sent to the mountains outside the city to find pure water sources, and to dig lakes to get ice for sale in the next summer.

The ice shop does this every year, and the woman in charge of the backyard of the ice shop and Jia Silian have known each other for two months, but they have gotten to know each other well. Knowing that Jia Silian has a sister who opened a shop on the street, she sent someone to go to the shop. Ask Jia Sanlian,

"We need to clear the ice cellar in our shop, and we don't have enough manpower. I want to hire you guys to help, and you will pay five copper coins a day. Are you willing to go?"

In fact, this is the shrewdness of the shopkeeper of the ice shop. There are only three or five of his shopkeepers who keep the shop all the year round, and the rest are all temporary staff hired as soon as the summer comes. The work doesn't require a lot of effort, so I just hire some rough women to do it. I pay five copper coins a day and don't care about food, which is much more cost-effective than the guys.

The person in charge is the shopkeeper's relatives who can make decisions. They got to know Si Lian and the others well, so they wanted to ask their sisters to help. San Lian hurriedly helped her sisters and agreed.
"I don't know if I can only have a few, but I can have one..."

The person sent by the manager vaguely knew something about Silian's family, so he replied,

"If one can come, it's one. After all, our manager likes that girl Silian. Whoever earns this coin is not earning it. Naturally, Silian and the others are better..."

After they left, Sanlian and her mother-in-law sighed,
"Our family, Si Lian, is someone who knows how to do things. It's only been a while, but I have coaxed the lady in charge of the ice shop to fall in love with her!"

The Queen Mother laughed and said,

"Daughter-in-law, this is what our mother-in-law and daughter-in-law talk about. I'm not afraid of your narrow-mindedness. Among the sisters in your family, I only see Si Lian who is shrewd, capable and courageous. None of your sisters can match her. You In the future, you have to discuss with her more about things!"

Sanlian is good, but she is too soft-tempered. If it were Silian, her shop would probably be prosperous in her hands, but with Silian's temperament, how could she marry her willingly like Sanlian? Silly son!

So... Everyone has their own destiny, she just thinks about it, she can't force it!
In this way, Sanlian asked someone to bring a message to Silian, asking her if she would go to the ice shop to help her. Naturally, Silian would be willing to earn a copper coin, so she left Wulian and Liulian at the stall, and she was a big one. It's long gone.

The ice cellar was dug deep in the ground. Because the business of this shop was doing well, I dug out all of my shop and the courtyard behind to make an ice cellar. There was a lot of ice in it. However, [-]% of it was emptied, leaving only a lot of crushed ice that turned into sewage.

The construction of this ice cellar is also very particular. There are many ice rooms underground. The four sides are built with solid bricks, and then there is a layer of hollow bricks to keep warm, and the four sides are thickly tied with straw. Finally, ice cubes are put in. Not for a year.

There is a special drainage ditch under the blue bricks on the ground. When Silian and the others came down, they cleared away all the already soaked straw, and washed the four sides with clean water, allowing the sewage to flow into a shaft along the drainage ditch.

These tasks sound light and easy, but they are nothing more than clearing some soggy straw and washing the surrounding areas with water. In fact, because the ice cellar is huge, it takes a dozen people to do it together.

The steward led the people in the shop and the people who came to help temporarily, adding up to a total of fifteen people. This room was divided into groups of two, and each group had four ice rooms.

Jia Silian made a group with the old woman who guarded the yard. After leaving the kiln, they went to the icehouses in the north, which was the last place to be emptied. Crushed ice that has not melted, but is now too dirty to use.

Jia Silian used a shovel to shovel the crushed ice into the barrel, and the old woman dragged it outside with a rope. Later, the two of them mentioned the shaft at the end of the ice cellar and dumped it.
"Crash..."

Crushed ice and sewage were poured into wooden barrels, shoveled and shoveled, Jia Silian worked extremely hard, and in the cold ice cellar, Jia Silian's back was already wet with sweat, but in fact, working in such a place was extremely difficult. It hurts the body, sweat is coming out from all over the body, before it can turn into heat, it is forced back to the body by the cold, sticking to the body, making people very uncomfortable.

Also, the ice cellar is underground, not ventilated, so I feel stuffy after working for a while, and the old woman can't do it for a long time as she gets older, but she said to Si Lian after a while,
"Silian girl, I can't make it, let's rest for a while!"

Si Lian was afraid of being discovered by Xiang Shi, so she was anxious to go back earlier, so she replied,
"Grandma, please rest for a while, I'll come..."

Immediately, she shoveled a bucket of crushed ice, dragged it outside the door by herself, and was about to pour it into the shaft when suddenly, under the light of the torch, she saw that there seemed to be something in the ice. , but was startled, but saw that a human finger was actually frozen in the ice.

Jia Silian's courage is different from ordinary people's. Although she was taken aback when she saw this, she kept her expression on her face. She lowered her head and rummaged in the bucket, and found two fingers. It seemed that someone had been mutilated and frozen. In this ice cellar...

Jia Silian squatted beside the shaft, looked in with her head, and thought to herself,
"I don't know if this person's body is scattered all over the ice cellar, or if only his fingers are frozen here..."

No matter what, this ice cellar can no longer be cleaned!

Immediately, he put the bucket of ice in a hidden corner, turned around and went to find the person in charge.

"Miss Liu, I have something to tell you!"

Mrs. Liu was sweating profusely outside directing the crowd to carry the straw outside, she turned around and asked,

"What's wrong?"

Jia Silian took her to a room beside her, opened the veil in her hand,

"look……"

Mrs. Liu took a look,
"ah……"

A cry came out, Jia Silian hurriedly covered her mouth with her hand,
"Don't call!"

Lady Liu's face turned pale with shock, she was trembling non-stop, pointing at Jia Silian for a while and saying,

"Si...Si Lian, where did you get this, you...you killed someone?"

Jia Silian didn't know whether to laugh or cry, she pointed to the three fingers on the handkerchief and said,
"You can see clearly, this finger is frozen in the ice..."

Three fingers, bruised and stiff, with ice balls on them, obviously taken out from the ice, Mrs. Liu is not a fool if she can be a steward, after thinking about it carefully, she immediately understood, she asked Jia Silian with a white face,
"You mean... yes... it was found in... the cellar..."

Jia Silian nodded,
"I found it when I was shoveling ice, and I don't know if there is any place next to the cellar..."

Mrs. Liu came back immediately, jumped up and shouted,
"I can't let them do it anymore, quickly...call them up!"

Don't let other people know about this matter, if the people below come out with fingers, toes or even human heads, the business of this ice shop will be stopped!

Think about it, there are dead fingers in the ice in this ice shop, tell me who else would dare to buy ice!

Besides, if the customers heard that they used ice that had been frozen to death, they might all run into the shop and make trouble!

Lady Liu figured this out and immediately lifted her skirt, rushed into the cellar, and shouted,
"Stop it all, stop it all...don't do it!"

In the ice cellar, Mrs. Liu's sharp voice echoed everywhere, and everyone stopped their hands when they heard the words, and surrounded them with inexplicable faces.

"Miss Liu, what's the matter?"

Lady Liu stood in the freezing cold cellar, her face was as pale as paper, she forced a smile that was uglier than crying and said,

"No... nothing, but... it's just that the shopkeeper just... just sent someone to pass on the message, saying that he should stop doing it first, this...he...he...has other uses in this cellar !"

(End of this chapter)