Chapter 378: The Maid at Home

“Don’t talk nonsense. How do you know they’re lip-syncing?” said Qian Duoduo.

“Isn’t it obvious? Even if they are singing for real, it doesn’t matter. The Senators aren’t there to listen to the songs anyway. Men, hmph, their intentions are never what they seem. Did you guys hear? Director Fang even went to Chairman Wen to ask for silk stockings. Hahaha. I can’t even imagine what Chairman Wen’s face must have looked like.” Zhang Yunmi, probably thinking of the scene, couldn’t help but laugh.

“He probably had a straight face, but was secretly delighted inside: more legs to look at,” Lin Ziqi chimed in.

The girls all burst out laughing.

The carriage stopped at the third gate of the South China Sea Farm. Lin Ziqi didn’t want the school bus to make a special trip into the farm and circle around for her, wasting everyone’s time, so she got off here.

The South China Sea Farm was a green zone, so there was no safety risk for Lin Ziqi to walk alone. No naturalized citizens who were not farm employees or their families could enter. Even naturalized citizen personnel who were here on business could only enter and exit the office compound with a pass. To go to other places, they had to apply for a special pass and be accompanied by a designated person. The strict security system was not only to ensure the safety of the Senators—the farm was responsible for supplying food to the Senate, and the cafe was a popular leisure spot for many Senators—but also to ensure that the various seedlings and seeds on the farm were not stolen or damaged.

“Please be careful and watch your step on the road,” the young man from the guard company said politely, holding her hand and helping her down the steps.

“Thank you,” Lin Ziqi smiled sweetly. The soldiers of the guard company were now all selected jointly by the Political Department of the General Staff, the Political Security Bureau, and the General Office. They were not only required to be absolutely politically reliable: having served the Senate for more than two years; having family members with good family relationships living and working in Lingao; having good military skills and quick reactions; and having actual combat experience. There were also considerable requirements for their appearance: a height of no less than 165cm, regular features, a loud and clear voice, and a new speech level of at least Grade 2, Class B.

Among the naturalized citizens, they were tall and handsome soldiers. Their military posture was erect, and even in a simple cotton uniform, they looked capable, upright, and heroic.

“For the Senate and the people!” The soldier saluted and watched her walk into the farm gate before returning to the back seat of the carriage. At the same time, the other three soldiers remained on alert, ready to draw their guns at any time.

Lin Ziqi nodded slightly in response to the salute of the petitioning police at the gate. As soon as she entered the gate, she was on a tree-lined path. The windbreak forests planted on both sides of the road were already quite large. The road was bustling with farm workers wearing conical hats and work clothes, and carriages and handcarts passed by from time to time. Some of them recognized her and would take off their conical hats to greet her from a distance. She was not stingy with her smiles and words.

The road was very long, and it took nearly half an hour to walk, but Lin Ziqi refused her father’s offer to send a rickshaw to pick her up—she didn’t consider walking a burden. The fields, forests, and gardens on both sides of the road were like the most beautiful pictures, and walking among them gave her a sense of happiness as if she were in a painting.

After walking for more than half an hour, the residential area of the farm finally appeared. From the outside, it looked like a clean and beautiful village, surrounded by trees and fields. The main part of the village was the dormitory for the naturalized citizen cadres of the farm. Next to it was a separate small community where the Senators who worked in the Agriculture Committee lived. There were also some Senators in the biology major who were allowed to live here because of their early service to the Agriculture Committee.

There was also a guard post of the guard company at the entrance of the Senator’s community. Originally, Wu Nanhai felt that this was a bit detached from the masses and suggested using petitioning police instead. However, the General Office disagreed, believing that the close protection of the Senators should still be the responsibility of the guard company.

“Sister Ju, are you busy?” As soon as Ziqi entered the residential area, she saw Wu Nanhai’s maid, Sister Ju, drying vegetables.

Although every house here had a courtyard, the maids were still accustomed to drying vegetables in the public areas: it was more open and the sun was better. So, as she walked in, the roadsides and open spaces were covered with drying vegetables. If it weren’t for Wu Nanhai’s firm ban, there would have been a large number of stinky preserved products like salted fish and fish sauce drying here.

Sister Ju turned around and saw that it was Lin Ziqi. She quickly wiped her hands on her apron and smiled in greeting.

“Oh, Ziqi, is school out?” Wu Nanhai called out with a kind smile as he came out of the small church at one end of the residential area.

Ziqi’s smile became even brighter. “Yes, Uncle Nanhai.” She had always called Chu Qing “sister,” but she called Wu Nanhai uncle, which was a little bit of Ziqi’s mischievousness.

It was not yet five o’clock. Although Wu Nanhai was one of the few “new good men” among the Senators, he rarely came home before getting off work. This made Lin Ziqi feel a little strange.

Overtime was a common occurrence in the Senate, and it was “normal” to continue working for a few hours after getting off work. Like the few families in Lin Ziqi’s neighborhood, she basically never saw the masters at home. They would not come home until the middle of the night. Every time Lin Ziqi saw their maids sweeping the front of the house or going out to buy things, she would imagine whether their mood was very lonely and desolate, neglected by their men, and full of all kinds of emptiness, loneliness, and cold…

This fantasy only ended after the maids of these families became pregnant one after another, and then someone had a baby. Obviously, they were not as empty, lonely, and cold as she had imagined.

She responded to the greetings along the way, carefully avoiding the toddlers who were “running rampant” and learning to walk, and came to the gate of her own courtyard.

Lin Ziqi’s father, Lin Fatian, was a horticultural technician at a greening company before he transmigrated. After D-Day, he was naturally assigned to the Agriculture Committee as an agricultural technician. He now had seven or eight official titles, but Lin Ziqi didn’t remember any of them. Her father was a Senator, a “chief,” and that was enough.

The courtyard gate was open. This was the one thing she couldn’t stand about her personal secretary: the door was always open, and she never knocked when she came in, just pushed the door open no matter what you were doing.

This Meng Lan was not bad looking—that’s why Lin Ziqi had been interested in giving her a “very nice, very artistic” name in the first place. But her grades in the maid training class were obviously not very good.

But if you tried to talk to her about it, she would just lower her head and listen with teary eyes. If you were a little fiercer, she would just kneel down. Once, when Lin Ziqi lost her temper, Meng Lan, with tears in her eyes, brought over a cane and knelt before her, handing it to her with both hands, which let Lin Ziqi know what “bearing the rod and pleading guilty” meant.

“Good attitude, but she resolutely refuses to change.” After a few rounds of this, Lin Ziqi couldn’t be bothered to nag about this issue anymore. Every time she went back to her room, she would lock the door.

Fortunately, she was quite good at housework and cooked well. The hygiene habits she was most worried about at first were also not bad—according to Meng Lan, they were all “beaten out” with a cane. Every time she heard Meng Lan talk about her experience in the maid training class: “I don’t know how many canes were broken,” “I was beaten so much that I couldn’t sit down, so I had to sleep on my stomach every day,” “I cried several vats of tears,” she felt a little sorry for her. To be honest, Meng Lan was only in her early twenties, not much older than herself. Although she always saw her father in a favorable light, he was still a man in his forties, tanned from working in the fields every day, not exactly a handsome man.

If she had to marry a man with such an image, she, Lin Ziqi, would resolutely refuse.

However, she usually didn’t seem to have suffered so much “pain.” Meng Lan happily did her housework every day, serving her father meticulously. If she was at home, she would also serve her like this, or even better. In short, no woman in the old time and space, including her mother who had divorced her father, would ever, absolutely never, serve her father like this. Lin Ziqi somewhat understood why the uncles, and also her father, had come to this different time and space at the risk of their lives.

Entering the gate, the small courtyard was not large, but it was clean and tidy. The center was paved with stone slabs, and flower beds were built along the walls, planted with various flowers and ornamental plants. One of the flower beds was planted with various herbs—this was Ziqi’s “little flower garden,” but now her father was taking care of it. In one corner was a wisteria trellis, under which was a round table and rattan chairs. Lin Fatian often sat here smoking, drinking tea, and resting.

There were also a few long stone tables in the courtyard, on which were various stump bonsai. This was Lin Fatian’s love. When he had too many, he would give them away. The office buildings of the Executive Committee and the Senate were decorated with his works.

Meng Lan was sweeping the courtyard. She was only twenty this year. She had been living with them since she became Lin Fatian’s personal secretary three years ago. She was not necessarily beautiful, but she was very well-proportioned and of medium height. She wore a black and white maid’s uniform, which was quite good-looking. Although she knew it was the Senators’ perverse taste, it was fine as long as it looked good.

Seeing that the young lady who rarely came home had returned, Meng Lan immediately put down her broom and came over to greet her, taking Ziqi’s canvas bag. “The chief did say you were coming back. I thought it would be later. How long is your holiday this time? Are you hungry? Dinner will be a while. I’ll go get you some snacks first.”

“No need. I already had some snacks on the way. I’m not hungry now. I only have a two-day holiday. I’ll probably have to go back to school early. Is the bathwater ready?” Ziqi said as she walked.

The hot water supply in the Senator’s dormitory relied on a copper heat exchanger installed in the stove, which used firewood or coal briquettes to heat the tap water. It was similar to a gas water heater, but Lingao lacked high-calorific value gas, so it had to rely on firewood or coal briquettes from the stove. And this kind of stove had to be refueled and heated up every time it was used.

“It’s all ready. Are you going to take a bath right away, miss? I’ll go add some firewood for you.” Meng Lan followed her across the courtyard and into the entrance hall. She immediately knelt down, took out a pair of straw-woven slippers, and helped her take off her shoes and put them on.