As Xiaoyao Tower was about to open for business, Du Heng ran into a problem, because the glass stove in the back kitchen shone from being scrubbed spotless and the wooden tables in the front hall were lined up neatly, yet “being short-handed” weighed on him like a boulder and made his heart race with anxiety.
In Chang’an City, taverns and eateries always liked to use young waiters and kitchen women recommended by labor brokers, but the quality of those people was wildly unreliable.
Some took advantage of a moment’s inattention to steal a taste of a customer’s dish, poking oily fingers into the plate.
Some rolled their eyes at the old and weak in coarse commoner clothes, but nodded and bowed when they saw people dressed in silk and satin.
Others even secretly pocketed the copper coins customers forgot on the table.
Du Heng understood perfectly well that service was the signboard, and employees were the shopfront, so if their character was crooked, then no matter how good-looking the glass stove was or how exquisite the gewu diagrams were, it would be like fine pearls covered in dust and all go to waste.
“No, I have to build my own team, set rules, and come up with some new ideas!” he said while complaining to Changle, his eyes shining as if they held light, “What I want isn’t servants I can bark orders at, but partners who can get things done together, and not hired hands just killing time, but ‘spokespeople’ who can explain the gewu principles to customers!”
Changle was holding the mint candy Du Heng made in her mouth, and when she heard that, her eyes curved like crescent moons as she smiled and nodded.
“Looks like you’ve got taste!”
“I just so happen to have 2 candidates here, and I guarantee they’re reliable.”
Early the next morning, an old man and a young girl stood at the entrance of Xiaoyao Tower.
The old man was nearly 60, with a slightly hunched back, and the coarse commoner clothes on him were washed so pale their edges had frayed, yet his gaze was as bright as autumn water.
He called himself “Old Zhou,” and he used to be an old servant of the Eastern Palace, but because he was blunt and dared to speak up whenever he saw something wrong, he offended a powerful eunuch and was driven out.
The girl beside him was called A Ruan, only 16, with two braided pigtails, bouncing with energy, and she looked quick and capable with lively eyes like a little squirrel.
She was Du Heng’s neighbor-village Granny A Ruan’s granddaughter, and since her family was poor, she wanted to come out and find work, and she had even helped Du Heng dry vegetables and pound herbs for making fragrant ointment before.
“Old Zhou can read and write, so managing the accounts will definitely be fine, and A Ruan is hardworking and clever, so she’s best suited to handling odd jobs,” Changle whispered into Du Heng’s ear, blinking at him on the sly, “Neither of them has any backing, so they can only rely on working hard to earn their food, and that actually means they won’t have those messy thoughts. They’re not like some scions of noble families who come here to work and still want to put on airs.”
Du Heng quickly pulled the two of them over to chat.
Only after talking did he discover that Old Zhou could actually recite passages from The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art and even understood “double-entry bookkeeping,” speaking of “debit” and “credit” in a whole system that was clearer than even specialized accounting office misters in the city.
A Ruan was even more impressive, because not only could she read people’s expressions and know when a customer wanted more tea and when bowls should be cleared, but she also knew quite a few herbs.
Previously, when a child in the village got scalded, she picked mint leaves, mashed them into a paste, and applied it, and the child got better quickly.
When an elderly person was afraid of the cold in winter and coughed, she boiled ginger tea and delivered it, and it worked even better than the doctor’s medicine.
“Keep them! We have to keep them!” Du Heng decided on the spot, even raising his voice on purpose.
“Monthly pay is 300 wen, with meals and lodging included, and if you get injured while working, then even if you get old and can’t work anymore, Xiaoyao Tower will still support you!”
The moment those words came out, Old Zhou’s eyes turned red, and A Ruan clenched her clothes in excitement and almost jumped.
But Du Heng felt this still wasn’t enough, so he wrote up a copy of 《Xiaoyao Tower 员工regulations》 overnight, copied it neatly with a large brush, and posted it at the busiest crossroads in West Market, drawing passersby to crowd around and read.
The regulations listed “Recruitment Requirements”: be at least 15, with no major illnesses, be able to recognize 100 characters and do addition and subtraction, and have never stolen anything, with all the neighbors saying this person was good.
The “Benefits” were even more tempting: 300 wen a month, 50% higher than other places, 3 meals a day provided, plus a communal bunk to sleep in.
At year’s end, if business was good, there was also profit-sharing, with more work earning more and no upper limit.
If someone suffered a severe injury on the job and couldn’t work anymore afterward, Xiaoyao Tower would provide meals for life.
If someone died in an accident, Xiaoyao Tower would also send the family 3 years of bereavement payment.
Finally, it also wrote the “Three No Principles”: do not bully customers, and treat everyone the same whether old or young, poor or rich.
Do not adulterate ingredients, because fresh means fresh, and never use bad ones to fool people.
Do not neglect customers, and answer whatever customers ask properly, without pulling faces.
As soon as the news spread, it stirred up everyone in West Market, and people who came to sign up crowded so tightly they nearly broke down Xiaoyao Tower’s door.
In 3 days, over 100 people came to sign up, including scholars who failed the imperial examination, discharged soldiers, and the sons of widows whose fathers had died, all drawn by “as long as you’re literate you can come,” “the benefits are good,” and “even without backing you can still work properly.”
Du Heng simply set up a “Three-Gate Assessment,” so strict it was like taking the imperial examination, and anyone wanting to coast through had no chance of passing.
The first gate was “Literacy and Arithmetic.”
Du Heng had someone write a menu entry for “shepherd’s purse cured meat stir-fry” and had the applicants copy it, and he also gave them a question.
“A plate costs 15 wen, a bowl of rice costs 5 wen, and the customer paid 20 wen, so how much change should be given back?”
Anyone who wrote a single character wrong or calculated a single number wrong was eliminated on the spot, and more than 30 people were cut at once, with one scholar even leaving red-faced because he wrote “shepherd’s purse” as “qi greens.”
The second gate was “Scenario Response,” and it was even more interesting.
Du Heng had Old Zhou and A Ruan pretend to be picky customers and deliberately make things difficult for the applicants.
Some pretended to be angry and yelled, “This dish is way too salty! I want my money back!”
Some deliberately spilled oil on their hand and shouted, “Look at your dish, the oil splashed onto my hand and it burns!”
Others pretended to knock over a bowl and asked, “My child broke the bowl, so are you paying or am I paying?”
Anyone who opened their mouth and said, “It must be the customer’s fault,” was directly asked to leave, while those who apologized first and then thought of ways to solve it stayed.
This gate eliminated more than 20 people, and one young man even started arguing with the “customer,” so Du Heng smiled and advised him.
“Kid, your temper’s too hot, so go home and practice some patience before you come back.”
The third gate was the strictest, and it was “Character Investigation.”
Du Heng had A Ruan and Old Zhou go separately to the applicants’ homes and ask the neighbors, “Does this person usually steal? Is he good to his parents? Has he ever helped people in trouble?”
One applicant had no problems with literacy or arithmetic and handled scenarios appropriately, but when A Ruan asked around, she learned he had bullied a blind old grandpa next door before and even snatched the old man’s candied hawthorn skewers.
Du Heng immediately crossed out his name and said, “Bad character means we won’t use him no matter how capable he is!”
In the end, only 12 people were kept: 6 waiters, 3 men and 3 women, all looking spirited and energetic.
There were 4 kitchen women, all of whom Du Heng personally tested for knife skills, because they chopped vegetables fast and evenly.
Old Zhou remained in the accounting office, while A Ruan worked as an odd-job hand, and Du Heng also had her manage the medicine chest and mint balm as well, so customers could use it if they got scalded.
On the first day of work, Du Heng deliberately gathered everyone in the courtyard and stood on the steps, his voice booming like a struck bell, as he taught everyone the “Xiaoyao Service Method.”
When customers came, they had to smile and say, “Honored guest, please come in,” and treat them with the same enthusiasm whether they wore silk or coarse cloth.
When serving dishes, they had to clearly say the dish name, and also give customers a small slip of paper that read, “This dish uses shepherd’s purse freshly picked this morning from Dujiawa, and the cured meat was cured for 7 days,” so customers ate with understanding.
When customers left, they had to be escorted to the door and given 1 mint candy, and this candy was made by Du Heng with honey, mint, and glass sugar, sweet and cooling.
They also had to say, “Take care, and come again.”
Every morning they had to hold a morning meeting and read through customer feedback, and fix whatever they did poorly.
At night they also had to do a review and choose “Best Service of the Day,” and whoever was chosen got an extra candy.
“You are not lowly servants, but the face of Xiaoyao Tower!” Du Heng looked at everyone, his gaze exceptionally serious, “Customers respect you because you respect customers. This building looks good not because the glass tiles are bright, but because your every word and action makes people feel at ease!”
As Old Zhou listened, tears nearly fell, and his voice trembled a little.
“I’ve lived most of my life as a servant, speaking with my head lowered every day, and only today did I learn that work can have this much dignity, because this isn’t lowly work, but a proper responsibility!”
A Ruan listened with intense focus, writing down Du Heng’s words one by one in a small notebook, and at night when she returned to the communal bunk, she even practiced smiling in a bronze mirror until the corners of her mouth ached, yet she refused to stop.
She also portioned the mint balm into small boxes and placed 1 on each table, afraid customers might get scalded by accident.
When Changle heard about it, she specifically had people make blue-cloth uniforms and gave each person a set.
The top and skirt were tailored to fit perfectly, and the left chest was embroidered with the 2 seal-script characters “Xiaoyao,” with stitches so fine and dense that it looked especially good.
She even personally ran to Xiaoyao Tower and helped each person put on the uniform, smiling as she said, “From today on, you are Xiaoyao people! You don’t have to feel inferior because of a bad background, because your character is even nobler than those people up on high!”
On the night before opening, Du Heng walked around the building once, feeling especially steady and reassured.
He saw the waiters still practicing serving dishes, holding a tray in the left hand and shaking a small bell in the right, their steps steady and quick, and not even a drop of water spilled from the tray.
The kitchen women were in the kitchen testing the final wok of dishes, repeatedly adjusting the heat and discussing among themselves, “This dish will be just right if we add half a spoon less salt.”
Old Zhou was in the accounting office checking the accounts, and even though the candle was almost burned down to the end, he still wore reading glasses and calculated stroke by stroke.
A Ruan was sewing sachets beside the medicine chest, stuffing them with mint and dried roses, saying she wanted to hang them in every room so customers would feel comfortable when they smelled them.
Looking at all this, Du Heng felt warmth in his heart, as if he were watching spring seedlings break through the soil, full of hope.
He suddenly understood that true gewu did not mean only staring at whether an object was good or not, but also watching whether people’s hearts were kind or not.
Pulleys could save effort, and glass could let light through, but only when people’s hearts turned toward goodness and service was sincere could the principles of gewu truly enter people’s hearts.
Outside the window, Chang’an’s lights shone like stars, the cooking smoke from each household gradually dispersed, and the night was so quiet one could hear dogs barking in the distance.
But inside Xiaoyao Tower, the stove fire still burned strong, and everyone’s hearts were warm as they looked forward to tomorrow’s opening.
Tomorrow morning at the chen hour, they would raise the wine flag and open the doors to welcome customers.
When the first “Honored guest, please come in” rang out, it would be a new beginning, because from then on, service could have dignity, work could have good rewards, and gewu could have warmth.
Du Heng walked to the main stove and gently touched the wooden plaque that read, “Heat control is the human heart; a tiny difference leads to a thousand-mile mistake,” then quietly said, “Today, people’s hearts are finally aligned, and tomorrow, the heat will definitely be right.”
Chang’an’s morning would begin with a steaming, fragrant shepherd’s purse stir-fry with cured meat, and Great Tang’s civilization would slowly unfold from the hands of this group of dignified, passionate workers, growing warmer and brighter.