Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
“What are you drawing, Langjun?” Taxue lifted her sleeve with one hand and milled an ink stick with the other hand. There was the smell of diffused ink in the air.
Jiang Pengji took a brush, let it absorb some ink, and started writing on a paper made of bamboo. All the different width strings on the paper mangled up the drawing into a weird painting. No matter what angle Taxue looked at it, it didn’t make sense to her at all.
“Something useful.” Jiang Pengji stood up in the middle of her drawing and took a book from the bookshelf. She unfolded the book and read the contents carefully before she sat back down at her desk. She made some modifications to her sketch after her research. “If it is doable, it might turn out to be a revolution for us.”
Jiang Pengji’s purpose was to improve the current farm tools in order to enhance the work efficiency and reduce the human work.
She wouldn’t be qualified to do some mechanical designs or an energy core for carriers with her limited knowledge, but the difficulty level was much lower if she only designed some wooden mechanisms. Besides, she had bunch of viewers in the streaming room providing her with the latest references from their world.
It wouldn’t be extremely hard for her to improve the tools, but the real difficulty was that the tools she designed had to match the technology in the current era so that they could make the tools in the future. She needed to take account of the cost of making the tools and the maintenance of them afterwards.
At least, the amount of time they took and cost shouldn’t outweigh the possible resources the tools could save for them.
Jiang Pengji kept working on the sketch and left Taxue lost in her confusion.
As Liu Xi’s closest servant, she had some education. She had good handwriting, but that was all she could do.
The paintings in this era were more about artistic expression than reality and most of the paintings were abstract. Taxue naturally wouldn’t have a clue about a tridimensional sketch like Jiang Pengji’s. It was very likely that no one else except Jiang Pengji and her viewers in the streaming room would recognize it.
“Since you say so, it must be very important.” Taxue nodded at her and continued milling the ink for Jiang Pengji.
After a short time, Jiang Pengji stopped what she was doing. Taxue lowered her voice and asked Jiang Pengji, “Do you want to have a bath now, Langjun?”
Jiang Pengji had run back home right after she finished the farm work. There was some mud left on her legs and her sleeves because she had rolled her pants up for the field work. She had been soaked with hot sweat when she came back. If it wasn’t for her face being recognized by the guard, she might have had trouble getting back into her own house.
Just from her appearance, it wouldn’t have been hard to believe that she worked as a farm hand for someone.
“Right, you go prepare some clean clothes for me. I just realized that it would have been uncomfortable if you didn’t remind me.”
Jiang Pengji had never been a neat freak, considering that she had been a gene warrior in her last life. She had been through all sorts of nasty environments when she was working in the operations assigned by her boss. Not to mention her body covered in mud, it was also routine that she had the flesh and smashed organs of her enemies all over her body.
It was simply that the conditions allowed her to treat herself well at the present time.
She turned off the stream and had a bath. Jiang Pengji put on a light green outfit before sitting back at the table, her hair slightly wet.
She turned the stream back on and put her attention back to the sketch she was working on earlier. She wore a frown at first, but it went away soon after with a feeling of relief.
“Why haven’t I seen Xunmei lately?”
Jiang Peng didn’t stop revising on the paper with her one hand while she dried off her hair with a cloth in her other hand.
Taxue continued milling the ink for her and said, “Xunmei has been working night shifts recently. You went to sleep early so you didn’t see her. Do you need her for something?”
Jiang Pengji responded to her with a positive “yeah” and she asked, “I just remembered that I decided to go along with my father to the Capital soon. I was planning to take one of you with me. It’s going to be exhausting during the long journey, especially for girls. So I was just wondering if you guys would like to go with me.”
Taxue burst into laughter. “It’s funny that you say so, Langjun. You forget about your own conditions. It won’t be painstaking for me and Xunmei if it is not painstaking for you. We are both your servants; naturally we need to be wherever you are going to be. It wouldn’t make sense if we were reluctant to go along. Xunmei would say the same to you, I’m sure. Why do you only want to take one but leave the other one at home?”
Jiang Pengji shook her head and said simply, “I’m leaving home for further study, not for pleasure and enjoyment. It won’t be necessary to have too many people taking care of me.”
“Even so, you shouldn’t mistreat yourself.” Taxue looked at her with an expectation. “I’m going with you, Langjun.”
Jiang Pengji didn’t agree right away; she needed to double check with Xunmei as well.
As a result of suppressing a large group of the ferocious bandits, the harvest season in Hejian County was peaceful and smooth. It was overall a bountiful harvest year, and it turned out that they would have some stock of grain left, after all. Jiang Pengji asked Xu Ke to do an audit of the income from several thousand dans of grain before the harvest season and they would use the profit to acquire more grain for a cheap price.
By doing that back and forth, they increased their fortune multiple times from the original 5,000 dans of grain.
With the fortune, Jiang Pengji, a person who had started in poverty, had her wallet somewhat full.
Xu Ke felt like a butler who was careful and meticulous with budgeting. He used his abacus proficiently, like using chopsticks, and split a penny in half for saving money. He believed that there were more usages of the money they obtained from the 5,000 dans of grain that were waiting for them to explore them… He blamed his Langjun for pushing him so hard to be so particular.
“What…”
Jiang Pengji flipped over the wall of her place in the middle of the night to avoid being caught before she left for the Capital. She managed to see Qiguan Rang with the same method; instead, it was Wei Yun’s wall.
Qiguan Rang thought it was almost guaranteed that he was being attacked by some random person at night.
Once he realized it was just Jiang Pengji, he rearranged his clothes and took the sketch from Jiang Pengji, which had some weird shapes of objects on it.
“These are the farm tools after some modifications.” Jiang Pengji took a sip of tea. “But the reality is I still lack experience. I’m afraid the real effect of the tools won’t match the expectation, considering the sketch is drawn entirely based on my imagination. I’m leaving this to you. I also talked to the craftsmen in the Liu’s earlier; you can discuss it with them in private. You guys can work on a plan for how to make it more functional and practical.”
Qiguan Rang was shocked while he listened to her. He went mute as soon as he remembered the crossbow. “If you focus on working in this field, Langjun, you might have a chance to be a great designer, like the giants in the Mo’s.”
It was a shame that, even though Liu Xi had the gift, he never aimed at making a contribution in the field. He was targeting something bigger: the whole country.
Jiang Pengji chose to ignore him. “Make sure you keep it low key and don’t leak the information.”
Qiguan Rang was born in the current era and he was aware of the importance of secrecy. He clasped his hands in front of his chest and promised her, “I will take care of it––just leave it to me.”
Jiang Pengji said, “Okay, thanks for doing everything.”
Qiguan Rang was a shrewd and paranoid person. He sensed something weird from her from the timing that she chose to come to him. She came to visit him by jumping over the wall in the middle of the night––the night before she left for her trip.
He asked her while he was putting the sketch away, “Are you suspecting that you have a mole?”
“Actually yeah…” It was out of Qiguan Rang’s expectations that Jiang Pengji gave him a clear response to his question. “But it’s not the main reason; it’s only one of them. The other reason is that it’s rather handy for us to do it while you are here in Hejian County. I won’t be able to spare myself for this work because I will be staying in Langye.”
“I know exactly who the mole is… Only I’m still not sure who is behind this and his purpose… but isn’t it fun?” Jiang Pengji sneered and said, “I will keep this mole with me for a while. I want to find out what else he has learned.”
