Chapter 115: The Fashion of Maids

Shan Liang continued, “As for the specific floor, orientation, and location of the residential units, I think they can be divided into two situations—special cases will be taken care of, and for those without special circumstances, a lottery will be held to decide.”

This allocation generally took into account the needs at this stage, and the veterans were generally satisfied. However, some people raised different opinions, believing that this kind of housing allocation had the suspicion of “institutionalizing social life.”

“I don’t know why the Senate has to manage the details of everyone’s housing to such an extent,” a veteran complained. “Don’t we have a lot of money in our accounts that we can use? We can just buy a piece of land and build a house ourselves. We can build whatever we want. Are we going back to the old road of welfare housing allocation?”

Although some veterans believed that the welfare housing allocation policy was not bad, most people still hoped to build their residences according to their own needs. Besides, the cold interior of the apartment buildings really made it difficult for some people to fully satisfy their “sexual fantasies.”

Shan Liang originally thought his plan was very good, but the policy he had worked so hard to formulate was immediately questioned, and he felt very unhappy. He patiently explained that this was a temporary measure, not a long-term one.

“…Everyone used to live in simple collective dormitories, and now they have been upgraded to apartments. In the future, of course, they will be upgraded to single-family villas with gardens…” While explaining, Shan Liang suspected that he had been tricked. How did the explanation for this matter fall on his head—it was not him who decided to build the apartments!

However, the realists still defeated the romantics. First, the strength of the transmigrator group was not yet sufficient to build luxury villas for all the veterans. Second, the factor of security was still an important consideration. After seeing the cruelty and ruthlessness of the officials in this time and space, everyone thought that it was better for their residences to be safer. It would not be good if they were captured by the legendary Jinyiwei or the eunuchs of the Dongchang.

Although the intelligence agencies and the Grand Library sneered at the Ming’s secret service agencies, believing that they absolutely did not have such strong operational capabilities, everyone had been brainwashed by movies and novels and could not turn around for a while.

With the abolition of the “Bairen City Veteran Accommodation Regulations,” the native life secretaries swaggered into the life circle that was originally exclusive to the veterans. Although Ran Yao was very opposed to the maids entering the veterans’ living area, he had to make concessions at this time. He ordered that each maid be given a special ID card and dog tag as a credential for the maids to enter and exit Bairen New City and certain facilities.

The veterans’ houses had not yet been built, but the life secretaries in maid uniforms had already begun to appear in various corners of Bairen City.

Compared to their appearance when they first arrived in Lin Gao, the image of the life secretaries had changed a lot. Because they no longer worked under the sun for a long time, and they took “three white soup” and used various pure natural skin care products every day, their skin tone had lightened, and their skin had become delicate.

Nutritious food supply, sufficient rest, appropriate exercise, and the conditioning of a large number of Chinese medicine supplements prepared by Liu San made their cheeks and figures fuller, and their withered yellow hair became black and shiny. Compulsory physical training and temperament cultivation made their steps light and their posture graceful. Although their Mandarin still had a dialect accent, communication was no longer a problem.

Their status as slaves and the compulsory training environment in the training class made the life secretaries show a submissive and obedient temperament. This temperament made the veterans feel itchy and unbearable as soon as they saw them. So as soon as the lottery auction for the life secretaries began, except for the veterans who had wives and girlfriends and those who were temporarily not interested, most of the single veterans bought one.

The most beautiful and best-figured life secretaries had to be decided by lottery for the right to purchase, so they were still living a semi-imprisoned life in the training class. Most of the more ordinary life secretaries were sold out. Because the veterans’ residences would not be completed for a while, the life secretaries who already had masters still lived a student-style collective life. Wen Desi instructed that before they were taken away, they should continue their various training and studies.

“The focus is on how to better meet the basic needs of the veterans,” Wen Desi instructed Dong Weiwei. “This aspect may need to be strengthened.”

Dong Weiwei felt embarrassed. She was really not used to such instructions. Although she had been training life secretaries here in addition to her work in the social work department for the past few months, she said, “I’m afraid I can’t obey your order. It’s not appropriate for me to handle this matter…”

“Oh,” Wen Desi said no more, so this matter was handed over to the already very busy Fang Fei. Of course, working part-time at the maid training class also made Zhen Qian’s surprise inspections of him more frequent.

The small episode did not affect the veterans’ great enthusiasm for the life secretaries. The veterans were like a long drought meeting a sweet rain. For most bachelors, women not only satisfied their physiological needs for “sex,” but also their spiritual needs for psychological comfort.

Although the hotel rooms were very tight, every weekend evening, the entrance of the life secretary training class was crowded with the veterans’ electric cars and bicycles. They were here to pick up their secretaries for a night of leisure—watching movies, eating at the commercial guild restaurant, and drinking coffee at Wu Nanhai’s farm cafe.

“This is not a maid anymore, it’s almost like a girlfriend,” Fang Fei said with such emotion, looking at the electric cars and bicycles gathered at the door every weekend.

“I think it’s more like a mistress,” Shan Liang said tasteless.

“You didn’t buy one?”

“I want to buy an S-class one by lottery,” Shan Liang said. He had long wanted to train a female slave himself.

Since he was going to spend a lot of effort to train her himself, of course he had to train the best quality one and couldn’t make do.

“You’re really patient.”

“Of course, if you want to choose, you have to choose the best,” Shan Liang said righteously. “Besides, I can use this to observe whether the Executive Committee is playing tricks in it to ensure that the interests of the veterans are not harmed.”

Fang Fei almost fainted: he didn’t expect him to say such a great and glorious reason so seriously.

The maids also gradually appeared in Dongmen Market, the county town, and Bopu. The appearance of this new image of women caused a great sensation among the local natives. Especially their maid uniforms. The local weather was hot, so they could not be made of pure black wool, but the simple beauty outlined by the dark silk dress, white apron, lace, and the wide-brimmed straw hat used when going out was refreshing. Coupled with their unique temperament, the “Australian maids” became the new focus of Dongmen Market. So much so that when a maid went out to buy things, a crowd of onlookers would appear.

The veterans were very proud. And those veterans who had gotten their maids earlier were now regretting it—how could the female students they had casually selected from Fangcaodi in the early days compare to such specially trained maids?

Those veterans who had gotten their maids earlier now demanded that their maids be “re-forged” and receive re-education. For example, Xun Suji—who was currently discussing his wedding with the Liu family. However, after seeing the demeanor of the maids, he quickly called Xiao Zishan and strongly demanded that Jin Xishan be sent back to the training class for re-training.

“Even if I have to pay for the training, I’m willing. You must agree to this!”

“This issue needs to be studied.”

“Don’t study it anymore,” Xun Suji’s voice was almost crying. “I’m a maid lover—I heard you are too. I have a lot of resources. When can we exchange…”

And some of the local wealthy families were even inquiring about how to buy such maids. The “Australian lifestyle” once again set off a second fashion trend in Lin Gao.

Unlike the first fashion trend, which was mainly daily necessities and food such as small mirrors, kvass, and cigarettes, this time it was more about fashionable clothing.

“Australian-style” hair bands, hair accessories, dresses, knitted half-stockings, women’s straw hats, decorative belts, and gloves triggered a new fashion trend.

Li Mei lost no time in opening an Australian clothing store in Dongmen Market, specializing in selling various “Australian-style” women’s clothing and accessories. It also sold the less beautiful “Australian-style” men’s clothing—cotton clothes made based on the style of training uniforms. These clothes, mass-produced by the clothing factory, were much more regular and beautiful than the clothes made by the clumsy local tailors or housewives. And they also had a great advantage in price: modern-style clothes used less material than the clothes of this time and space, and the utilization rate of raw materials was also high. Coupled with the large amount of cheap Indian cotton cloth imported, it made even handmade clothes by family members completely uncompetitive.

“…Using industrialized manufacturing to eliminate the handmade clothing industry, until the elimination of handmade clothing as a family labor, not only has economic significance, but also political significance,” Ma Qianzhu said at the “Propaganda Department Ideological Work Conference.” “Using powerful economic power to slowly change their clothing habits. People are always greedy for cheap things. As long as the price is cheap enough, they will gradually choose to wear convenient, cheap, and better-quality industrial ready-made clothes, rather than handmade clothes that are costly in materials and labor. This is not only to break the natural economy, but also to subtly change the social clothing system through economic means, so that they will identify with us more, not the Ming.”

“Changing the clothing system—I think it won’t be long before we have to keep our hair and not our heads…”

Ma Qianzhu said, “I didn’t say that. Voluntariness is the basic principle. If someone is willing to resolutely maintain the old clothing system, we will not force them to change.”

“But this is tantamount to eliminating Hanfu!” He Xie, the representative of the extreme Hanfu faction in the ideological field, was very clear that economic means and social fashion changes were more terrifying than political persecution methods such as “keeping the head but not the hair,” and were almost devastating in destroying tradition.