A fierce wife enters the house: She helps up a house full of spineless people.

Li Ersao stormed out of the courtyard, cursing and swearing, but the atmosphere in the workshop turned cold.

They never expected that Wang Jinzhu, who seemed so amiable, could be so terrifying when she got serious.

Nine hundred coins—that's the amount an ordinary man could earn in two or three months of hard labor, and she was made to pay it back like that.

The women looked at each other, their eyes filled with panic. They had come to work today, but who knew if they would even be able to continue their jobs?

"What are you all standing there for? Aren't you going to do any work?" Wang Jinzhu's voice broke the silence. She seemed completely unaffected by what had just happened, her face still bearing that indifferent expression.

She walked up to the pile of aloe vera pieces that Li Ersao had ruined and kicked it with her toe.

"I saw everything clearly."

As soon as she opened her mouth, everyone craned their necks.

"My workshop makes products that you put on your face. Just imagine, if you bought a box of lip balm and it smelled like rotten leaves when you opened it, how would you feel? If you used face cream and got red spots on your face the next day, wouldn't you hate the person who sold it to you?"

"Here, as long as you're diligent and hardworking, earning thirty or forty coins a day is no problem, which adds up to more than one tael of silver a month. Do the math yourself; which man in the village has that kind of ability?"

Upon hearing this, the eyes of several women below lit up.

Yes, their men work themselves to the bone outside, and they're lucky if they bring home even a tael of silver a month. Here, they don't have to endure the wind and sun to earn more money than men.

Thinking about it this way, the fear I felt earlier turned into relief.

Fortunately, Wang Jinzhu got rid of that troublemaker, Li Ersao; otherwise, she would have been lazy today and caused trouble tomorrow, and sooner or later she would have ruined this perfectly good workshop.

"I'm putting it this way," Wang Jinzhu said, observing their changing expressions. "From now on, I'll personally oversee quality control. I'll be doing spot checks every night. If anyone dares to do what Li Ersao did again, it won't just be a matter of paying a few hundred coins."

Everyone felt a chill run down their spines, and when they looked at Wang Jinzhu again, their eyes held a greater sense of awe.

"Of course, there are rewards as well as penalties." Wang Jinzhu changed the subject. "As mentioned before, the quality control will be evaluated monthly, and the group with the highest pass rate will receive an extra fifty coins. Starting today, I'm adding another rule. Every day, the person who produces the most materials with the best quality will personally receive an additional five coins."

Five coins a day, that's one hundred and fifty coins a month!

With a "whoosh," the crowd immediately stirred.

I thought Wang Jinzhu was strict just now, but now I think these rules are good. As long as you work hard, you can not only get paid, but also receive extra bonuses. Where else can you find such a good deal?

"Alright, I've said my piece. Those who want to stay, go wash your hands and get to work now. Those who don't want to, you can leave now, I won't stop you." After saying that, Wang Jinzhu turned and walked into the house, leaving the work to them.

The seven women looked at each other, and none of them moved.

Zhao Xiulan was the first to react. She exclaimed "Hey!" and rolled up her sleeves, running towards the well: "What are you all standing there for? Let's rob them! I, Zhao Xiulan, am taking those five coins today!"

Her shout brought everyone to life.

"Why should it be yours? I'm quick on my own too!"

"That's right, Sister Xiulan, you can't earn all the money by yourself!"

The women chatted and laughed as they rushed to fetch water and supplies, instantly bringing the courtyard back to life. The earlier unpleasantness had long been washed away by the daily five-copper-coin reward.

Chen Xinghua silently walked to her stove, not joining the scramble. She only glanced back at Wang Jinzhu's retreating figure as she entered the house, then lowered her head and examined her tools more carefully than ever before.

She knew that this workshop was her and Cao'er's only hope. She not only had to do it, but she had to do it the best.

Li Ersao ran all the way home. As soon as she entered the house, she kicked over all the dried vegetables drying in the yard and sat down on the ground, slapping her thighs and wailing.

"We can't live like this anymore! We can't take it anymore! That heartless Wang Jinzhu, she's trying to drive our whole family to our deaths!"

Her husband, Chen Ergen, was lying in the house groaning and pretending to be sick. Hearing the noise, he shouted impatiently, "What are you howling about! Did someone in the house die?"

"I'm dying! Your wife is about to be forced to hang herself!" Li Ersao scrambled into the house, tearfully recounting the events that had occurred at the workshop that day, embellishing the story.

"I made a small mistake, and she pointed her finger at me and yelled at me, saying I wasn't working carefully and demanding 900 cash! 900 cash! Why doesn't she just rob me! She even said that if we didn't pay, she would sue us in the county government and make our family pay 100 taels of silver!"

Upon hearing "county government office" and "one hundred taels," Chen Ergen was so startled that he sat bolt upright on the kang (a heated brick bed): "What? One hundred taels? Has she gone mad?"

"I think she's gone mad! Just because she has a few stinking coins, she doesn't treat us poor people like human beings!" Li Ersao cried even harder. "Husband, we can't give her this money! Nine hundred coins, that's going to kill me!"

"She won't give it to you? It's written in black and white in the contract. If you don't give it to her, she might actually take it to court!" Chen Ergen paced restlessly in the room. "That Wang Jinzhu really doesn't show any mercy at all."

Li Ersao wiped away her tears, her eyes filled with resentment. "Anyway, I don't have the money! I have no money, but you can take my life! I'll go to the village and make a scene tomorrow, let's see how Wang Jinzhu will face the world after that!"

Chen Ergen's eyes darted around, and he stopped in his tracks: "What's the use of just yelling? We need to hurt her badly."

He leaned close to Li Ersao's ear and whispered a few words in a low voice.

As Li Ersao listened, the crying expression on her face gradually faded, replaced by a sinister smile.

"You always have the best ideas. Okay, that's the plan! I'll make sure she can't open this workshop!"

The next day, a gust of wind began to blow through the village.

Gossiping about everyone, several women gathered under the old locust tree at the village entrance, sewing shoe soles while exchanging the news they had heard in a mysterious manner.

"Hey, have you heard? Wang Jinzhu's workshop is incredibly unscrupulous!" a weasel-faced woman whispered. "Li Ersao works for her, working herself to the bone all day, her hands are all raw from being soaked in water, but Wang Jinzhu complained that she was too slow. Not only did she not pay her a single penny, she even extorted nine hundred coins from her!"

"My God, nine hundred coins? Really?"

"Of course it's true! Li Ersao said it herself. She's been crying at home every day. I heard Wang Jinzhu even threatened her, saying that if she didn't give her the money, her husband Chen Tianfang would beat her up and send her to the authorities!"

"So ruthless? Chen Tianfang looks so honest and unassuming, how could he do something like this?"

"You can know a person's face but not their heart! How could a man not change after marrying such a formidable wife? Let me tell you, Wang Jinzhu's workshop doesn't even use clean ingredients! Sister-in-law Li said she personally saw Wang Jinzhu mix in rotten aloe vera covered in mud. Who knows if the stuff she makes will ruin your face!"

Upon hearing this, everyone gasped in shock.

"No way? She sells it for such a high price, and she's using cheap stuff?"

"The more expensive something is, the more unscrupulous they are! Think about it, good materials are so expensive, how much money can they save by using shoddy materials? Wang Jinzhu is building workshops and buying people now, where does that money come from? It's all squeezed from us poor people!"

The story spread and became increasingly outrageous. By the afternoon, the version had changed to: Wang Jinzhu's workshop used grass dug up from mass graves, mixed with dead people's oil, to make lip rouge, and whoever used it would be unlucky.