Ice Age: I can control plant growth

Chapter 130 Plantation

Hong Pengfei scratched his head in embarrassment. "I just talked, but I couldn't do anything for you. The development of this pea rifle was basically done by you."

Because Li Mu did not deliberately hide his abilities when he was transforming the plants, Hong Pengfei has already vaguely felt that the city lord's awakening ability seems to be very different from that of others.

Li Mu can transform ordinary plants into various fantasy creatures, but other people cannot, they can only control them.

For example, his awakened earth-related ability can control the soil, or turn the soil into harder rock, but it cannot transform the soil into the Xiran in mythology and legends.

"Don't underestimate the ideas you provided, it helped me a lot."

Li Mu said this not to comfort Hong Pengfei, but it was his true thought.

For him, the difficulty is always the novel idea of ​​transforming plants, not whether the idea can be realized.

After a while, Li Mu realized that he didn't see Hu Li in the lab today. He looked at the assistant curiously and asked, "Where did the little fox go? Why didn't I see her today?"

Hong Pengfei frowned and thought for a while, "Well, I heard her mention it yesterday. She is going to build a botanical garden with Professor Shi today."

"Botanical garden? What exactly is it used for?"

Li Mu felt a little strange when he heard this, because he remembered that he had never issued this order.

"I don't know the details, but it seems to be to separate plants with special functions from ordinary crops."

Hong Pengfei replied a little awkwardly.

After listening to this, Li Mu became interested and asked, "Where are they building the botanical garden? Take me to see it."

"No problem, come with me."

As Hong Pengfei spoke, he led the way, and the two of them soon walked out of the East City Gate.

"just in front."

Hong Pengfei stopped and pointed to the right.

Li Mu walked in the direction he pointed and came to the construction site under the city wall.

The atmosphere here is bustling with workers busy shuttling back and forth, some are carrying materials, some are building frames, and others are leveling the land.

Seeing this, he walked quickly forward and saw Hu Li and Professor Shi standing on a high ground, directing the workers to build the botanical garden.

The two of them had bright eyes and focused expressions, completely ignoring the noise around them.

"Boss, why are you here?" Hu Li suddenly saw Li Mu and immediately greeted him enthusiastically.

Li Mu smiled and replied, "I've finished the experiment over there, and I heard from Ah Fei that you guys are building a botanical garden, so I decided to come over and take a look."

Then he looked at the half-built greenhouse and asked earnestly, "Did you encounter any difficulties when building it? For example, insufficient construction materials or insufficient manpower?"

Hearing the intention of helping from Li Mu's words, Hu Li nodded without hesitation and said crisply,

"Because it's too cold outside, the workers have to eat the Red Flame Fruit to keep warm before they can work. We have to distribute it for free, so we need your approval."

Li Mu didn't think there was anything wrong with this request. The temperature outside was about minus 100 degrees, and ordinary people couldn't stay there for long.

You can't ask the workers to buy the Red Flame Fruit with their own money and then come to work. Isn't that equivalent to paying to go to work?
Li Mu is not an evil capitalist, so he would not do that. So he smiled and replied,

"This is a reasonable request. Please use it as you wish."

After a pause, he changed the subject and said, "However, please note that you can only give them out when you are working, and don't give out too much at one time. Do you understand what I mean?" Hu Li was very smart. After just a little thought, she understood what Li Mu was worried about: if too much was given out at one time, some workers might take the extra Red Flame Fruits out to sell.

In this way, it is the interests of the scientific research department that will be lost.

"Don't worry, I will only send two at a time, and I will never let anyone with ulterior motives take advantage of me."

Li Mu nodded with satisfaction and asked with a smile, "Are there any other difficulties?"

Hu Li continued, "There is also the issue of wages. Professor Shi and I discussed it and decided to pay wages based on working hours, tentatively set at two copper spirit coins per hour per person."

“Do you think this salary is okay?”

After listening to this, Li Mu thought for a while. Two coppers per hour, based on working eight hours a day, the total salary is sixteen coppers; this money can buy sixteen kilograms of food, or one kilogram and six ounces of first-level mutant beast meat.

Even if there is only one able-bodied laborer in a family of three who can work, this salary is enough to support the family.

Thinking of this, he smiled and replied, "Okay."

After hearing his approval, Hu Li laughed twice, as if his evil plan had succeeded. He stretched out a hand and shouted confidently,

"Boss, send me money!"

Li Mu looked at her immature childish attitude and couldn't help but shook his head and sighed.
"How much do you want? Tell me the total!"

Hu Li did not answer immediately upon hearing this. Instead, he ran to the construction site nearby, whispered a few words to a middle-aged man who looked like a foreman, and then ran back.
"I just asked. The botanical garden will take half a month to complete. There are 4500 workers now. They work ten hours a day, so a total of copper spirit coins are needed."

Li Mu made an "OK" gesture and said easily, "I'll give you a gold spirit coin."

When Hu Li heard that the boss was going to give him a gold spirit coin, he opened his mouth wide and stars appeared in his eyes.

"One gold spirit coin is equivalent to 10,000 bronze spirit coins, which is more than two months' salary for her!"

"Is this extra money a reward for me?!"

Seeing her exaggerated performance, Li Mu rolled his eyes and broke her fantasy, "I have conditions."

"The construction period is too long. We need to shorten it as much as possible, preferably within five days."

Hu Li stretched out his right hand, spread out five fingers, stared at Li Mu in disbelief and asked:

"Five days?!"

Li Mu replied calmly, "Yes, that's five days."

"The concubine can't do it!"

Hu Li was in tears. The construction period was shortened too much!

"One gold spirit coin is enough for you to recruit twice as many people, and there will be some left over. You can use the extra 1000 coppers as bonuses. Those who work well and quickly can be given 100 or 200. It's up to you to decide the amount."

In Li Mu's opinion, there is a saying that is very true: as long as your thinking does not slip, there are always more solutions than problems!
As long as the salary is high enough, people will definitely do their job well and quickly.

Hearing the solution proposed by Li Mu, Hu Li nodded as if he understood it.

It seemed that she was like this when she was working before. If she was paid a fixed salary, she would slack off whenever she could at work, and would like to finish one day's work in three days.

I have been having a bit of a writer's block recently, and my writing is not very good, so I have changed my strategy and will post more often. Please forgive me.
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(End of this chapter)