Chapter 71

Chapter 70>

"Ah! This is it!"

Zhuge Yun, holding the completed model of the Zhaofu Complex Heavenly Tower, was moved to tears.

Among the craftsmen who brought the model to Zhuge Yun, some were also shedding tears.

In this Central Plains world, where even proper mechanics did not exist, building a ten-story high-rise was an extremely difficult task.

Despite countless precise measurements and experiments, the structures would collapse due to poor design, unable to withstand wind and rain, or crumble under the tension of the load, time and again.

The first few times, the causes were quickly identified, but the problem was the collapse of the model for which no cause could be found.

The repeated failures and setbacks over the years had driven the craftsmen to despair countless times.

Today's model was the compensation for all those hellish years!

The emotion was something that those who had not experienced it could not understand.

This was the achievement of a professional.

The result of such passion sometimes surpassed any value in life.

Zhuge Yun, hugging the model, continued with a trembling voice.

"Did it really withstand all the experiments this time?"

Nan Tianyi, the chief craftsman, nodded firmly without a moment's hesitation.

"Absolutely! The model withstood a load ten times its weight for over two months!"

"The foundation itself was indeed the cause."

The reason it took so long to complete the model was that Zhuge Yun and the craftsmen had been obsessed with the design of the model.

In modern times, all buildings are built with a solid foundation before construction begins.

However, with the Central Plains' construction methods, which only involved leveling the site, building a ten-story high-rise, especially one with a steel structure, inevitably led to the collapse of the foundation.

Perhaps it was a natural trial and error for the Central Plains' craftsmen, who had never built a steel structure over ten stories.

"You're right! We managed to stabilize the foundation with the new Zhanxiong soil we developed! Even placing the planned weight of the water tank at the top of the model was sufficient!"

Shuiwangku is the name given to the giant water tank that will be placed at the top of the Zhaofu Complex Heavenly Tower.

Shuiwangku was the core device that would revolutionize the residential civilization of the Central Plains.

"What about the Realking Furnace?"

Realking Furnace is the Central Plains' name for a modern boiler.

"Hahaha! Don't worry! I said it withstood ten times the original weight! There's no need to experiment further!"

At that moment, Zhuge Yun's eyes changed.

As a chill spread across his face,

Chief Nan Tianyi, extremely tense, wiped the smile from his face.

"What did I say I hate the most?"

"It's... I judged that there was no need to waste resources on another long experiment..."

"Why are you making that judgment, Chief Engineer? What did I clearly say?"

"To withstand the load of all structures..."

"Yes. I clearly said 'all loads.' You can't leave out the Realking Furnace. If your confidence is based on just experimenting with a small model, you shouldn't have come to me."

Zhuge Yun demanded perfect experiments, even with the actual model.

Just as Nan Tianyi was being harshly reprimanded, Zhaohui finally arrived.

"Ah! Is it finally completed!"

Zhuge Yun shook his head firmly.

"Not yet. Not yet."

* * *

"Chomp chomp."

When he was spending three thousand years in the void, he thought that even a sip of water or a breath of wind would be enough to die contentedly, but now, despite eating so much, he still felt hungry and couldn't stop using his chopsticks. It made him think that humans are truly shallow and pitiful beings.

Yes, this is how humans must eat to survive.

He couldn't believe that he hadn't felt this simple law of nature for three thousand years.

Zhaohui marveled at himself for maintaining his sanity without going mad.

"Exactly..."

Watching Zhaohui devour the feast without restraint, Zhuge Yun couldn't believe his eyes even though he saw it with his own eyes.

How could a human consume such a large amount of food so quickly?

Twelve plates of bao, five bowls of five-spice braised pork, and he even lost count of how many bowls of the large pot of chicken soup he had eaten.

Zhuge Yun knew that Zhaohui was not a big eater.

Rather, Zhang Yilong and Nan Gongzhanghu were much closer to being big eaters.

Zhaohui had always maintained a diet close to a light eater, and after reaching a high level of martial arts, he rarely took care of even such a small meal.

That's why Zhaohui's appearance, hastily devouring such a large amount of food, was even more difficult to adapt to.

"Are you possessed by a hungry ghost?"

Zhaohui grumbled for a while, finally swallowed, and wiped his mouth, still full of rice and grease, glaring fiercely at Zhuge Yun.

"Try starving for three thousand years. See if you can become like this. So don't look at me with those eyes. It's inconvenient to eat."

Zhuge Yun glanced at him.

"Then why the informal speech since yesterday?"

"I'm worried you might feel awkward. Now, only the vice president and I use formalities."

Suddenly, he realized that Xiaojianxin now treated all his colleagues informally, except for himself.

"Still, I'm a year older..."

"Wow, even as Xiaozhuge, are you this petty? I'm the patriarch! The leader of the faction! Besides, the distribution is incredible!"

"..."

Zhaohui put down his spoon and joked even more.

"Besides, didn't you hear earlier? I'm over three thousand years old now. Still don't believe it? Huh?"

"Talk some sense. Such a place can't exist. From what I see, you're definitely not normal right now."

"Wow, there's a witness, you know?"

"Did you spend that time in the void with them?"

"No, that's not the case."

"Alright, let's stop it."

"Really! Can't I inspire such trust? Besides, your tone! It's always so feminine. Oh, are you in disguise? Your face is really delicate."

With bloodshot eyes, Zhaohui scrutinized him from head to toe, and Zhuge Yun couldn't help but burst out laughing.

"Haha! Because I trained with my sister when I was young? It's troublesome to treat a man casually. Why don't you check it out?"

"Alright, I've lost my appetite."

As Zhaohui got up, brushing off his seat with a sullen expression, Zhuge Yun's face turned serious.

"Xiao Xiaohui, are you okay?"

Not Xiaojianxin or President, but Xiao Xiaohui...

Suddenly, Zhaohui recalled the first time he met Zhuge Yun at a guesthouse in Hefei.

Back then, he didn't even know that 5×0=0.

He has grown so much.

"You said it yourself, now Xiaojianxin is one of the absolute figures in the martial world. Ten thousand people look up to you. Your safety is no longer just your own."

"Besides that."

Zhaohui was pointing at Zhuge Yun's chest.

"Speak from your 'heart'."

Zhuge Yun sighed and slumped into his seat.

"Don't worry your friends, Mr. President."

Indeed, you also possess the 'flame' of a human.

Zhaohui smiled contentedly and looked out the window.

"When do you think the experiments with the actual model will be completed?"

"Two months."

Zhaohui shook his head firmly.

"Too long. Reduce it to a month."

"That's not such a simple matter..."

"It's an order. From the President."

"Damn! Damn it!"

As Zhuge Yun cursed, Zhaohui laughed more wickedly.

"Originally, work is about doing what you're told. Receiving a salary means doing all of that."

"Ha..."

Zhaohui crossed his arms and turned to leave the room, then suddenly looked back.

"Where is he now?"

"Who?"

"Xiaotianhua Danxi."

"Xiaotianhua? Oh, so you're also Xiaozhuge, and Nan Gong is also Xiaojianzhu... Is it a trend among the young talents these days to add 'Xiao' to their names? Oh, damn! Come to think of it, I'm also Xiaojianxin, right?"

Zhuge Yun's face crumpled.

He was quite upset about being grouped with Nan Gongzhanghu, who was on par with Xiaotianhua.

* * *

"Ah!"

The man who was groaning in frustration while touring the Cao Family Leather Workshop was none other than Xiaotianhua Danxi.

Just like when he toured the Cao Family Iron Foundry, this place was a series of shockingly mind-blowing scenes that could drive him to the brink of insanity.

There were no tailors here.

People were spreading large pieces of leather and cutting them precisely to the original pattern.

Others were sewing the cut pieces together to form the basic shape of clothing.

There were those who were branding patterns with hot irons, those who were engraving various decorations, and those who were finishing the leather clothing with their tools to enhance the quality.

Watching all these processes mesh together like gears, without a single moment of delay, it was almost like watching a performance of art.

A cultural shock that completely destroyed the concept of a craftsman in his mind!

A renowned tailor would take at least four days to make a single piece of clothing, no matter how hurried.

But what was this?

Leather clothing was being completed and shipped out every quarter of an hour, and it was hard to believe even with his own eyes.

How many pieces could be produced in a day?

Moreover, the texture of the leather, the lavish decorations, and the precise finishing were all of a higher quality than the leather clothing being produced every quarter of an hour at the Cao Family Leather Workshop.

With such productivity, it would be impossible to compete in terms of product quality and price.

It would destroy the existing market order, and only the leather clothing from the Cao Family Leather Workshop would stand at the top.

Until now, Danxi had tried to ignore the Cao Family Trading Company.

No matter how famous they were in Anhui and Jiangxi, they were still a new trading company.

New trading companies had clear limitations.

In front of the absolute ruler of the Central Plains' business world, Tianhua, they were merely fireflies in the moonlight.

However, now he had completely erased that evaluation of the Cao Family Trading Company from his mind.

Instead, his heart was filled with extreme fear.

He prided himself on having the eyes of a merchant, and that's why the fear of the Cao Family Trading Company was even more bone-chilling.

Now that he had secured the cooperation of the Cao Family Trading Company's patriarch, all he had to do was absorb the power of the Manjin Trading Company.

Yet, his feet wouldn't move easily, all because of that.

He had to absorb as much of this as possible.

And he had to apply this advanced system to the Tianhua Trading Company to compete with the Cao Family Trading Company in the future.

The biggest obstacle would be convincing his conservative father, but he had to do whatever it took to convince him.

"Is it livable?"

"Ah, you scared me!"

Danxi, startled, turned around to see Zhaohui smiling broadly.

"Could you at least make some noise?"

Zhaohui's mischievous voice continued as Danxi, with an annoyed expression, wiped his chest.

"Are you going crazy, wanting to return to your trading company as soon as possible to apply the production system of the Cao Family Trading Company? Are you already feeling suffocated, thinking about how to convince your stubborn father and the elders of the trading company?"

"......Huh!"

Danxi's face turned pale, as if he had been caught red-handed by Zhaohui's question, which seemed to read his mind.

"What are you talking about? I had no such absurd thoughts! I was just looking around out of curiosity!"

"According to what you're saying... Isn't it written in such fine, black ink right there?"

"Ah!"

Only then did Danxi realize that he had been frantically taking notes and quickly hid it behind his back, trying to joke around.

"Haha! Did Xiaojianxin not hear that he is also involved in Confucianism? I just occasionally scribbled a few poems."

But it was already too late.

"Who are you trying to fool? If it's not a poem, I'll cut off your wrist, okay?"

Danxi's face turned red and then pale, and he finally burst out in a rough voice.

"What! So what! I just entered the den of tigers and kept my wits about me!"

Zhaohui smiled again with his usual peculiar expression.

"Who would have thought a merchant could be so shameless?"

"......"

Then Zhaohui climbed onto a pile of leather in the corner of the workshop, spread out a seat, and sat down.

"Want to make a bet with me?"

"What, what kind of bet?"

Zhaohui's face took on a more meaningful look.

"Whether you can do that job or not. To me, it seems absolutely impossible."

Danxi's face, wounded in pride, was getting more and more crumpled.

Who was he?

Xiaotianhua, the famous name of the Tianhua Trading Company.

No matter how conservative his father was, he was confident that he could convince him once he started showing results by taking charge of a small subsidiary.

"Isn't it just a simple repetitive task? When you go back, you can just follow what you saw, right?"

Zhaohui swept his gaze over the workshop and continued in a solemn tone.

"Are they just ordinary workers? Do you think such high-quality leather clothing could be produced by just gathering people from here and there? Absolutely not. They are all well-known tailors from all over, whose names you would recognize. Making such tailors do simple repetitive tasks is like denying their life. It's like making them give up the methods they've been proud of all their lives."

"......"

"How are you going to persuade the spirits of such craftsmen? How are you going to make them give up the methods they've been proud of all their lives? Can such a workshop be maintained without resolving these simple issues?"

"......"

"Moreover, their monthly salaries differ according to the difficulty of the tasks in each process. The amount of physical labor, the fatigue from repetitive tasks, the degree of risk, all of these are meticulously calculated into their monthly salaries. How fair are the monthly salaries of each worker in such a gear-like production system to prevent any complaints? People are inherently subjective. If they think they're not being treated fairly, all kinds of problems will arise in the system, and it will inevitably collapse."

Zhaohui smiled wickedly again and looked at Danxi.

"I only pointed out the issues of managing people and the salary system. This is the first step. Do you really think such a huge system has only these one or two problems?"

"......"

"Who is in charge of the authority to allocate the expenses for the work? Power and rivalry arise among the workers at that moment. Who is suitable for that? Will you give the authority to the workers, or set up a separate department to manage it? This is also related to loyalty and dedication. A position can make a person, and the nature of power is like that. From the user's perspective, it's money if used well, and poison if not. Do you want me to say more?"

Danxi shook his head with a stiff face.

"Enough, that's enough."

Danxi was staring at his trembling hands, biting his lips until they bled.

It's like talking to his father.

Xiaojianxin Zhaohui.

This man is not just a martial artist or a merchant; he is something beyond explanation.

The world only knows a fraction of Xiaojianxin.

"Can you avoid something just because you don't want to hear it?"

"No, wait a minute..."

Zhaohui's sharp words, piercing to the core, showed no sign of stopping.

"Managing people is all like that. Do you know how exhausting it is to manage production? People suddenly get sick, have to go to their in-laws' house, or remember their ancestors' memorial days. They are all just the most filial sons and daughters. On average, more than ten people are absent every day. If ten people are absent in such a gear-like collaborative system, the remaining craftsmen might as well not show up. A gear with a missing tooth can't turn, can it? Are you going to let them sit around idly, or send them all home?"

Zhaohui's eyes blazed with anger.

"If you send them home, they'll probably quit from the next day, right? If you have to fill the gaps with less skilled, useless people... this will create problems with productivity. Now, tell me, how are you going to solve this problem?"

Danxi