Chapter 8

The night in Baotou was particularly quiet. This was the first night after the穿越 (time travel), and compared to the bustling city of 2014, this place seemed silent and cold. The thick walls of the room blocked the cold wind outside, while the fire pot inside burned brightly, filling the room with warmth and a cozy atmosphere.

Tongfujū, a guesthouse under the Baotou Chamber of Commerce, was enormous. On the寸土寸金 (highly valuable) West Street of Baotou, it occupied over a dozen storefronts. Besides the dining hall at the front, the back naturally formed several small courtyards, each wide and deep. To Yang Yuanzhao, apart from its ancient simplicity, it had no other notable features, except for its cleanliness.

Soaking his feet in the hot water brought by the attendant, Yang Yuanzhao reflected on the day's events. Meeting Liu Shu and Yang Yue was a stroke of luck. In the late Qing Dynasty, land was generally controlled by large landlords and merchants. Clearly, the Yang and Liu families, even if they did not own large tracts of land in Baotou, still had significant influence. The cultivation of cotton conflicted with the winter wheat grown in Baotou. Greenhouses could solve this problem, allowing for planting in April and transplanting by mid-May, thus enabling intercropping. This would not only solve the issue of idle land but also increase soil fertility. Leaving the land fallow without planting anything made it difficult to maintain both fertility and moisture, which was one of the main reasons why the land outside the pass was not as fertile as that in the Jiangnan region.

Not far from Tongfujū, Tianyuan Building presented a different scene. Tianyuan Building had guest rooms, and Yang Yue, as a family friend, stayed there. At that moment, he was excitedly talking to Liu Shu non-stop.

Liu Shu looked at Yang Yue helplessly. As a scholar who had turned to business, he did not understand Yang Yue's enthusiasm for technology and data. However, one thing was clear: the shrewdness of the Shanxi merchants told him this was an excellent opportunity.

Land, in the eyes of large merchants, was an essential foundation. Although the profit was not high, it had to be maintained. Any land transaction at any time involved a substantial amount of capital, especially for fertile land. Growing cotton, compared to growing grain, increased income, but the labor required was considerable. According to what Yang Yuanzhao and Yang Yue had said in the afternoon, cotton planting would start in April, and it was already February. With only a little over a month left, was there enough time? Even for 1,000 mu, let alone 3,000 mu, the investment would be substantial. At 8 yuan per mu in income, with a net profit of 2 yuan, after deducting 3 yuan for seeds and fertilizer, another 2 yuan would be needed for other expenses. This was a significant investment. The Liu family was a minor branch, and it was a considerable decision to come up with such a sum.

Tianyuan Building was one of the largest gold and silver shops in Baotou, but the city's focus was not here. The major merchants were fur traders. For example, Hengyide, backed by the Renhe Foreign Trading Company, handled over 500,000 taels of silver in fur transactions annually. Guanghengxi monopolized camel hair, sheep wool, and goat skins, which were the true pillars of Baotou's economy and the key to its commercial success.

Was this an opportunity to seize? Liu Shu knew that as a minor branch of the Liu family, they received little support. Liu Zhongwang, who had traveled west to Kyakhta and Urga, had accumulated most of the family's wealth, which was invested in Tianyuan Building. The annual returns were not particularly high, and compared to the fur merchants, the difference was vast.

Liu Shu's silence did not escape Yang Yue's notice. He gently tapped the table and said calmly, "Brother Zelun, you must understand what Yuanzhao's main expertise is!"

"Mechanics?" Liu Shu was startled, beginning to grasp Yang Yue's meaning.

"Cotton is just one type of cash crop, but it is a foundation of the textile industry. For decades, the various grand secretaries have promoted Westernization, not just the flashy ironworks, textile mills, and weaving factories, but also the substantial profits. These are the pillars of the Westernization movement!"

"What do you mean?" Liu Shu's eyes lit up in the candlelit room.

"You'll see tomorrow!" Yang Yue's voice trailed off as he left the room, the candle extinguished, and the night grew deep, leaving only the howling north wind.

Liu Shu remained in a daze even after Yang Yue left. He had always underestimated Yang Yue, thinking he was not cut out for business. The idea of importing cotton and fertilizer seemed trivial, but today's conversation had awakened him. Yang Yue's vision seemed to be much higher than his own.

At around 10 PM, the streets of Baotou were pitch black, with no light visible. The candle on the table had long burned out. In the moonlit darkness, Yang Yuanzhao waited for the familiar chime of Dangdang.

Around 11:30 PM, the surroundings were silent, filled with a sense of hope. Dangdang's long-awaited voice sounded again, as mechanical as ever. In the next moment, Yang Yuanzhao entered the integrated machine. Unlike before, the machine seemed to be enveloped in a radiant glow. Dangdang stood there mechanically and said, "Do you want to upgrade and unlock?"

"Unlock!" As soon as Yang Yuanzhao spoke, the room was filled with a radiant light. The metal room seemed to disassemble and reassemble at a speed that was hard to follow with the naked eye. Dangdang also merged into the process. When the reassembly was complete, Dangdang reappeared and said, "Reassembly complete, second-level unlock!"

The control room looked similar to before, with the engine and other components still piled in a corner, seemingly unchanged. However, the disassembly area had clearly expanded. The original 125 cubic meters had increased eightfold to 1,000 cubic meters, with dimensions of about 10 meters in length, width, and height. The area looked spacious, and the disassembly machine at the entrance had also expanded from half a meter to one meter.

After 100 disassemblies, the rock, which had been significantly reduced, looked small in the expanded room.

"Dangdang, after the upgrade, besides the size, what other changes are there?"

"Yes, the disassembly time is 9.5 minutes, and the material absorbed per disassembly has decreased to 90%!"

"Then, how can I unlock the third level this time?"

"1,000 disassemblies!" Dangdang seemed to hesitate for a moment.

Yang Yuanzhao understood. Each upgrade increased the number of disassemblies required, and the amount of material absorbed would decrease. By the time it reached level 20, Dangdang would no longer need energy.

It took only one day to complete the first-level upgrade, but Yang Yuanzhao knew it would not be that simple. Each upgrade required 10 times the number of disassemblies, and the disassembly area expanded by 8 times. This meant that each level required 80 times the previous level. The scale of resources needed to support the machine's upgrades was enormous. Who knew if he would have enough resources to sustain it? The machine, a product of an alien civilization far beyond Earth's technology, would likely consume astronomical amounts of resources, possibly more than Earth could provide.

On the disassembly area, the virtual control panel reappeared. After 70 disassemblies, he had obtained 42 grams of gold and 560 grams of silver, along with other materials. With the gold and silver, he was not concerned about the other materials. Thinking of something, he went to the scanning area.

Entering the scanning area for the first time, it did not look large, just a spacious room with numerous boxes, presumably for storing blueprints. Most of the boxes were empty. So far, Yang Yuanzhao had scanned only a little over a thousand blueprints, which was a small number compared to the vast room.

There was also a light screen in the room, which appeared automatically when Yang Yuanzhao entered. The blueprints were categorized into several types: metal, non-metal, and construction blueprints.

The categories were easy to understand. In the metal category, Yang Yuanzhao found silver dollars and copper coins. Hesitating for a moment, he asked, "How do I load them?"

"Record the code, then synthesize them in the synthesizer."

The code for the silver dollar was E01, and for the copper coin, it was G01. The specific construction blueprints were EC01 and EC02, all letter and number combinations, clearly tailored to Yang Yuanzhao's habits.

Recording the codes, Yang Yuanzhao entered the synthesizer. The synthesis area was similar to the disassembly area, and it was his first time entering. Following Dangdang's instructions, he entered the codes and the materials. The silver dollar contained over 90% silver, with the rest being copper and nickel, which he had already obtained from the disassembly pool. He marked about 780 grams of silver, and each silver dollar required less than 25 grams, allowing for the production of 31 silver dollars. A soft, yellow light flickered, making the room feel slightly warmer, as if some energy was being released.

Dangdang's voice sounded, "31 silver dollars will be produced, weighing less than 1 kilogram, with a time of 1.8 seconds. Production begins!"

31 silver dollars, weighing less than a kilogram, were a far cry from the 2 tons per hour. The synthesis process was almost instantaneous. The synthesizer glowed with alternating light, and when it opened, 31 shiny silver dollars lay inside.

Yang Yuanzhao was slightly surprised. Compared to disassembly, synthesis seemed much faster, taking only a few seconds to produce 31 silver dollars. Perhaps it was because the materials were simple, unlike disassembly, which required separating elements. This process simply combined metal elements in the correct proportions. In the future, more complex items might take longer.

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