Witty Wife, Better Life

Chapter 643: Chapter 633: Payday

Time hurried by, and by mid-June, the farm had already planted one hundred and twenty-three acres of soybeans.

At the beginning of June, Director Bai had brought good news to Shen Yunfang: the batch of modern machinery products ordered by the government from abroad had arrived.

Shen Yunfang was extremely pleased when she heard this, and immediately took her team and money to go collect the machinery from Director Bai.

The machinery they acquired this time was quite a lot, including several seeders and harvesters of different types. There was a precision planter that could be attached to the back of a tractor and was capable of sowing up to four acres of land per hour—at least, that’s what the manual claimed. Shen Yunfang and her colleagues spent a long time studying the manual to figure out how to use it. After many trials, they finally mastered it and realized that the manual listed idealized figures. In reality, the planter typically sowed at a speed of two and a half to three acres per hour.

However, this still greatly improved their sowing speed.

The three groups discussed and decided to divide a full day’s time into three shifts—from five in the morning to eight at night, which was exactly fifteen hours, giving each group five hours a day.

If they sowed at the speed of the planter, they could cover almost fifty acres a day, and in half a month, they could finish sowing all the land on the farm.

But in reality, after half a month, they had only sown a little over a hundred acres. The main issue was that the fallow land was overrun with weeds. After plowing the land with tractors, the most time-consuming task was to pull out the roots by hand since no machine could do it, and this was what caused the delays.

Nevertheless, Shen Yunfang was very satisfied to have sown so many soybeans before the planting season.

From mid-May when they arrived, until mid-June when they rushed to plant the soybeans, the sixteen people worked tirelessly day and night for a whole month.

Whenever Shen Yunfang had the time, she would cycle over to check on them, and thus she highly commended everyone’s hard work.

That evening, as usual, after supper, she let the children go out to play with their friends, and then Li Hongjun came to the farm with his wife, not empty-handed—Shen Yunfang carried a bag full of money, ready to pay the workers their salaries with Li Hongjun.

"The team leader and his wife are here," Miao Shan saw Li Hongjun and his wife riding their bicycle from afar and, excited, stood up waving his arms vigorously to catch their attention.

Li Hongjun and his wife would come over every now and then after dinner to chat with everyone, check on the crops, and more often than not, Shen Yunfang would bring them something tasty, like fried fish from home, which they would share as a late-night snack, or she would bring some watermelon or other seasonal fruits to help them cool down. That’s why Miao Shan was so excited to see them arrive.

Miao Shan’s loud voice caused everyone to pause their work and look towards the field’s edge.

By this time, Li Hongjun had already stopped his bicycle and, noticing everyone looking his way, waved his arm, gesturing for everyone to gather around him.

Thus, within three minutes, everyone had converged.

"Sis-in-law, what delicious treats have you brought today?" Miao Shan had just shouted and dropped what he was holding to run over here, so he was the first to gather around, eagerly looking to see if sis-in-law had brought something tasty.

"Today there’s nothing to eat, just this." Shen Yunfang said with a laugh, patting the pouch in her hand.

"What is it?" Miao Shan was somewhat disappointed, losing interest when there was nothing edible. The pouch wasn’t large either, what good stuff could it possibly hide?

Once everyone had arrived, Shen Yunfang called everyone over to the grass shed and then announced, "You’ve all been here for a month now, so today I’m going to pay your wages." She said this while shaking the bag in her hand.

Chen Jing heard her say this and glanced at Li Hongjun, then somewhat awkwardly said, "Yunfang, there’s no rush. To be honest, we’ve only been here for twenty-eight days, not even a full month yet."

"Yeah, we’re not in a rush. Besides, sis-in-law, managing such a big farm isn’t easy. We can talk about the wages later," added Zheng Hao, who was on his own at the side. He had food and a place to stay, and the money didn’t really matter to him.

Everyone agreed with what he said.

Li Hongjun, finding their hesitation irksome, interjected, "Enough already. If your sis-in-law says she’s paying the wages, then she’s paying the wages. Whatever she gives you, just take it. You’re all grown men, stop dawdling."

At his words, everyone fell silent.

Shen Yunfang smiled upon seeing she had control of the situation and first pulled out a sheet of paper from her bag—data reported by the team leaders that she had requested that afternoon. It listed the area each team had cleared and sown.

Shen Yunfang reviewed the totals at home, and they roughly matched, so she decided to calculate the wages and bonuses based on these figures. Mainly, she trusted the character of Li Hongjun and his comrades.

"I’ll read out your workloads for the past month, and if there are any discrepancies, speak up quickly so we can make adjustments. If you come to me after I’ve distributed the money and say it’s incorrect, I won’t be responsible," Shen Yunfang said, shaking the paper in her hand with a smile.

"Just go ahead and read it, sis-in-law. The team leaders have kept track, it shouldn’t be wrong."

"Alright then, I need to announce it here whether it’s correct or not. Now, I’ll begin. Team one has cleared and sown forty-five acres, team two has cleared and sown forty-three acres, and team three has cleared and sown forty-four acres. We had an agreement beforehand that the base wage for everyone is fifty yuan. Afterwards, clearing and sowing will be calculated by team. So, the total bonus for team one is ninety yuan, to be divided among five people, plus the base wage, each person’s wage is sixty-eight yuan... Team two’s wage per person is sixty-seven yuan and twenty... Team three’s is sixty-seven yuan and sixty..." Shen Yunfang announced the wages and bonuses each person was entitled to according to the list.

"This, this is too much," Miao Shan stammered after hearing his own wages, feeling a bit overwhelmed. The salary really wasn’t small.

But Shen Yunfang didn’t see it that way, she felt she had given them too little. Doing the math, over sixty yuan a month was almost the same as what Li Hongjun, the team leader, was paid. It sounded like a lot, but when divided by thirty, it worked out to only two yuan a day. Shen Yunfang thought that was practically hiring cheap labor. To work from dawn till dusk for only two yuan a day made her feel almost like Huang Shiren, a notorious cheapskate from a story. So, after discussing it with Li Hongjun, she decided to boost the morale of her employees, who had worked hardest during the first month, by giving them extra bonuses.

"Not at all, I still think I haven’t given you enough. I’ve seen firsthand how much work everyone has done this month, and how you did it. So, after talking it over with Old Li from our house, we’ve decided to give everyone a bit of extra bonus money this month. It’s a token of our appreciation for all your hard work," Shen Yunfang said while distributing envelopes, each marked with a name, into everyone’s hands.