I'll trade my labour for food.

"You hit me!" Irene rolled over and jumped up from the bed with a whoosh, rubbing her still tingling cheeks and ears and looking at the burly Mrs Cooley with cold eyes.

"That's right, all the people here have to get up and work and you're the only one still sleeping, I have the right to punish you. And if you keep this up, you're going to starve know what I mean?" Mrs Cooley, with a smug look on her face, thrust her waist and yelled at the petite Irene in front of her.

Erin knew that Mrs Cooley was definitely on a personal vendetta right now, returning the slap she had slapped her with yesterday. However, she was but Erin.

Although she was relatively small, and her weight was not at all advantageous, Irene's reach was flexible, she jumped up a step, and grabbed Mrs Cooley's thick arm, and before she had time to resist, she dragged and twisted it upwards with force, and with a "click", Mrs Cooley's right arm was dislocated.

"Ah! Murder, help ..." Mrs Cooley howled like a pig, while Irene's second action was made in a single movement, stooping down and picking up from the floor the slipper that Dilly had just changed, and shoving it at once into Mrs Cooley's mouth, which was opening wide to howl.

"Slap, slap," was the third action, as Irene gave Mrs Cooley two resounding slaps, left and right.

Irene was not unreasonable, and never bullied anyone just because she was good; but yesterday Irene had beaten Mrs Cooley because she had said that Irene had no discipline, and had insulted Irene's mother; and to-day, when she had gone so far as to beat up indiscriminately, and had slapped Irene with a personal vendetta, Irene was bound to replace her twice as much.

"唔唔...呜呜..."被拖鞋塞住了嘴巴的库利太太呜咽着,像是要喊叫又像是在哭嚎,一只还完好的左臂只能拖着被艾琳拉的脱臼 One left arm was still intact and she could only drag her right arm, which was dislocated by Irene, and she could not take the slipper out of her mouth, and she was in a terrible state.

"Enough, what is going on this morning?" Lola's voice came from the doorway, which was crowded by several more women who were watching after Lola entered. And the stoicism could be heard in Lola's voice, no longer calm and indifferent like last night.

Erin took a step back, still keeping a wary eye, but not defending herself, much less trying to explain.

"Alright Mrs Cooley, I'll get someone to help you back, I'll take care of it here." Laura didn't question Irene either, but her eyes swept over Irene's already visibly swollen little face, then she went over and pulled the slipper from Mrs Cooley's mouth, and signalled for the two women watching from the doorway to come over.

"Oh God, gently, gently, what sorcery has this vicious demoness used to make my next door hurt like it's broken. Oh God!" Mrs Cooley, who was being supported by two maid-like figures, was still screaming at the top of her voice, and her dislocated arm hurt like hell with every movement of her body, so Mrs Cooley did not dare to move any more at all, but stood in the house and screamed at the top of her lungs, "Go and fetch Dr Henry, I think I'm going to die."

"Miss Irene, I think you should at least do something." Lola frowned as she listened to Mrs Cooley's howling before turning to Irene. Lola was thinking that the young Oriental girl could probably do a better job than Dr Henry.

"Yes, I can hook her up, but she must promise to stop bullying people and not to take personal vendettas." Erin didn't think she was asking too much. From the time she knew she had strangely travelled across the world, she had been thinking about how she should survive in this feudal and backward imperialist country, not only did she want to live well, but she also wanted to live with the dignity of a modern woman, so the first rule was that she mustn't show any weakness, and then she had to argue her case.

"I think Mrs. Cooley already knows the score, but I will say this: please understand, Miss Irene, that everyone has to work here, and everyone has to work for their food, and you are not an exception; Mrs. Cooley is only using the wrong methods, but her management itself is not wrong." Lola spoke earnestly and seriously to Irene.

Lola wasn't actually excusing Mrs Cooley entirely, perhaps she just thought that the young girl in front of her was really difficult to manage, and if she agreed with her this time, perhaps it would be harder to assign other tasks in the future. And since no one other than the owner would be in charge here at all, and Irene wasn't really a young lady at all, then the necessary work would have to be done by her.

"Yes, I understand that if I have to eat, I have to work. I will do my share of the work diligently, but only if you treat me fairly and make sure that there is no favouritism in the distribution of tasks." Irene said, stepping forward and gently pushing away one of the maids holding Mrs Cooley, once again grabbing Mrs Cooley's hand as she had just done, and with a firm upward motion, helping Mrs Cooley to connect her dislocated arm back together.

"Oh God, it hurts ... Oh no, not again." Mrs Cooley was just about to howl out, but then immediately broke into a fit of giggles, it did hurt to dislocate her arm, but the fact that she was moving freely once it was reattached was truly amazing.

"Well, girls get to work. Mrs Cooley, I wonder if you'd like to take the rest of the day off?" Lola loudly motioned for those watching to disperse, then asked again what Mrs Cooley meant.

"I think I'll go get some rest." Mrs Cooley's cocky look tightened up a lot, and she stole a glance at Irene as she left the house, but immediately withdrew her eyes and walked out at a fast pace. Obviously, she was already wary of Irene.

"Well, now it's left to you Miss Erin, you just promised that you'd do a good job if you wanted to eat." Lola was back to her original calm and stereotypical self, looking at Erin fixedly.

"Yes, I know, so tell me, please, what is my job?" Erin answered seriously. She wasn't the type of woman to chirp and could accept a reality that included something as bizarre as travelling through, as she had always believed that there was some sort of intersecting tunnel in time and space; and after her parents' unexpected deaths in a car accident, Erin had been able to accept anything that included the big picture of life, death, and separation.

"Very well, what I am going to say is very simple. This is the kitchen, and you will be doing a variable amount of work, but it must be kept clean, because our master, Baron Lord Thomas, likes it clean. Now you are going to take a bath, and only when you are clean can you start working, I will assign the specific jobs later." After Lola finished speaking, she took the first step to the door and called out to a passing maid, "Take this Miss Irene to the bath."

"Yes, please follow me." The maid was also young and spoke in a soft voice, and I could tell she was a calm girl. She stood in the doorway and waited for Erin to take out of the cupboard a black dress that Kerlina had put on the very top for her yesterday, and followed that maid out.

Erin knew that from the moment she walked out of this doorway again, she had a whole new, but completely different life ahead of her.