Royal Gold Medal County Magistrate

The night passed.

Zhou Maoxue and the other three were called up by Su Tian with dark circles under their eyes.

The night's sleep was not peaceful. The strange smell in the room was tolerable, and they got used to it after ten minutes or so.

However, the self-proclaimed nobility of scholars, coupled with the constant snoring, made them feel annoyed.

They spent the night in both psychological and physical torment.

By the time they started work the next day, Zhou Maoxue was already beginning to regret his decision.

Fortunately, seeing Su Tian's enthusiasm as before, he felt a little better.

The four changed into their work clothes and followed Su Tian back to the factory.

The factory was already busy. Su Tian led them to the area where they would be working. The ground was covered with many large and small spare parts that had been produced.

Su Tian pulled over a man who looked to be in his thirties and seemed rather quiet, and introduced him: "His name is Zhang Dali, you can call him Old Zhang. You'll be learning from him from now on."

"Old Zhang, teach them carefully. The owner is coming to inspect the factory today, don't let our group lose face."

After giving his instructions, Su Tian immediately went to busy himself with his own work.

Old Zhang didn't waste any words, picking up a caliper from the ground and began explaining to Zhou Maoxue and the others.

In reality, the work was very simple. It was just to grind the burrs or non-standard parts of the components to meet the standards.

With the intelligence of Zhou Maoxue and the others, they naturally got the hang of it quickly.

Such work was considered idiotic in their eyes.

Soon, the four quickly put it into practice. Working with them were Old Zhang and four other people.

After only working for half an hour, Zhou Maoxue and the others noticed something was wrong.

Although the work was exceptionally simple, without any technical content, doing it was a huge test of physical strength and energy.

The noise in the factory and the monotonous repetition of grinding were all destroying the spirits of the four scholars.

They were used to moving in and out of high society, doing this kind of dirty and hard work... was far inferior to ordinary workers.

However, seeing that Old Zhang and the others looked normal, as if nothing was wrong, Zhou Maoxue could only grit his teeth and persevere.

They worked for three hours straight.

Zhou Maoxue felt severe pain in his arms, waist, and feet.

Although the range of motion while working was not large, he was already covered in sweat.

The other three scholars were not doing any better, groaning and moaning, their hand movements were obviously much slower.

As they were working, a crisp whistle sounded.

Zhou Maoxue suddenly felt someone pat his shoulder twice. He looked up and saw Old Zhang.

"Brother, it's time to eat."

Zhou Maoxue felt as if he had been granted amnesty and breathed a sigh of relief.

It was finally over. Although he felt that the working hours were not long when he entered the factory, it was not the same once he started working.

Especially since the work they were doing was relatively easy. He had already seen many people who were specifically responsible for transporting and handling heavy objects.

If he were to do that, he was afraid that he would have already fallen apart.

If there was overtime... abusing workers, then this place would truly be a sweatshop!

In the moment he was stunned, the workers in the factory who were originally busy had already stood up one by one and ran out.

"Hurry up and eat, don't just stand there!" Old Zhang shouted and ran out of the factory as well.

Wasn't it said that there was an hour's break at noon? The cafeteria is not small, is it possible to not get food?

Zhou Maoxue's eyes lit up, feeling that he had discovered something.

He immediately greeted the other three scholars to run to the cafeteria together.

When they arrived at the cafeteria, Zhou Maoxue was dumbfounded.

The originally large cafeteria was now crowded with people, shoulder to shoulder.

The line for food was very long.

Zhou Maoxue touched his nose, feeling somewhat regretful in his heart.

It seemed that he had misunderstood. There was no trickery, it was purely because there were too many people.

He hadn't eaten breakfast and was now hungry and tired. It was reasonable for the workers to rush to eat.

Since there was no special discovery, he had no choice but to join the line behind the crowd.

Although he was hungry, he had no expectations for the food in the cafeteria at all.

What good food could a broken factory provide? It must be some bland boiled vegetables or something like that.

Thinking of this, he seemed to have lost his appetite.

After waiting in line for a long time, he finally reached the food window.

Looking at the variety of dishes inside the window.

Zhou Maoxue was stunned. It was not the bland meal he had imagined, but trays of stir-fried dishes.

They looked oily, and there were quite a few slices of meat inside.

Is the food in the factory always this good?

Zhou Maoxue finished getting his food with doubts in his mind.

At this moment, there were no seats in the cafeteria, so he took the other three out to eat.

At the entrance of the cafeteria, there were also groups of two or three workers squatting on the ground, chatting and eating.

The four found a relatively private location, learned from those workers, squatted on the ground, and ate in silence.

"Brother Zhou, do you think we came to the wrong place? Although the food is not exquisite and delicious, it doesn't seem to be bad."

"Yes, even the hired laborers in my family can't eat this."

"Not only can't they eat this, but compared to the factory, it's like treating them worse than pigs and dogs! I feel like my family is running a black factory..."

"Brother Zhou, you are from the capital, is the capital so rich? Do ordinary people eat so oily every day."

Listening to the chatter around him, Zhou Maoxue had an unusually headache.

How the hell would I know what ordinary people usually eat? I've never seen it before.

"This is only the first day, what are you guys anxious about? Tonight, why not build a good relationship with the workers in the same dormitory, and get some information from them. After eating, go to the lounge and take a look, I feel like that place is a bit strange."

"Yes, that's also a way."

The four finished their lunch in silence, which only took about ten minutes.

After returning the bowls and chopsticks to the cafeteria, Zhou Maoxue led the way to the lounge.

There was no one in front of the lounge, it was quite secluded.

Zhou Maoxue went straight to push open the door of the lounge, only to see two rows of bookshelves and a pile of newspapers in the room.

The rest were some tables, chairs, and benches.

The scholars entered the room and casually began flipping through the books on the bookshelves.

"These are all idle books, things that waste one's ambition, it doesn't seem to be of any use."

"No, this side is all textbooks from Dongjiao University."

Zhou Maoxue walked to the pile of newspapers, took a few and looked at the dates.

They were all old newspapers... no gain.

"Forget it, it doesn't seem like there's anything useful, everyone might as well rest here for a while, we still have to work in the afternoon."

Zhou Maoxue dropped the newspaper, casually took a book from the bookshelf, and started reading.

Several tens of minutes passed as he read. Seeing that it was almost time to go back to work.

Zhou Maoxue thought for a while, took two books in front of the bookshelf and stuffed them into his arms.

It seemed that life in the factory was quite monotonous, and no one read the books in the lounge, so it was better to take those few back to read at night, as a pastime.

Returning to the factory again, Zhou Maoxue and the others continued to busy themselves with their previous work.

Just like the work in the morning, monotonous and tiring.

Except for the owner who came once, who was a chubby man with a kind face.

He always had a smiling look on his face, and he didn't ask much about the new workers when he saw them. He just made a simple inspection and left.

Zhou Maoxue secretly sized him up a few times, and couldn't see anything unusual about him, so he gave up observing.

Until five o'clock in the afternoon, the whistle for getting off work sounded again.

The four scholars dragged their extremely exhausted bodies, wolfed down their food in the cafeteria, and returned to the dormitory...

.......