The Villain's Counterattack Chapter 44

Chapter 44

After seeing Rong Xiang off, Xu Kaicheng sat alone in the room for a while longer.

This whole sea-salt refinement business really had been one thing leading to another—an idea that had come to him in a flash of inspiration. For half his previous life, he'd been chasing a better life, clawing his way upward. How would he ever have had time to study ancient history?

Whatever common knowledge he had came mostly from history textbooks back in school, supplemented by the occasional period drama he'd stumbled across after entering society.

But costume dramas in twenty-first-century China? They were just romance shows that swapped in a different historical backdrop and kept right on with the love stories. Trying to learn real historical knowledge from them was a bit of a joke.

So as for just how barren life was for the common people in ancient times, Xu Kaicheng simply couldn't empathize.

Even though his childhood had been orphan-like, he’d still had white flour buns and plain white rice, with cooking oil and table salt bought from the supermarket — fifty yuan for a big barrel that lasted two or three months, and salt on sale at fifty cents a packet, five yuan for ten packets to last a year.

Under those circumstances, how could he possibly have connected anything to making a fortune from salt?

It was the moment he saw Rong Xiang that, as if possessed, he'd thought of Jia Baoyu. And thinking of Jia Baoyu naturally brought Lin Daiyu to mind. And thinking of Lin Daiyu naturally brought to mind her pitiful family fortune, swallowed up by the Jia family.

[Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu are the main characters from Dream of the Red Chamber. Lin Daiyu's family fortune was substantial. After her parents died, she became an orphan and was taken in by her grandmother's family, the Jia family, which led the Jia family to take over her family fortune.]

Her father had served as a salt commissioner. How much he’d actually embezzled was never stated, but the fact that the Lin family fortune had kept the Jia family's extravagant lifestyle going for so many more years made it clear it was no small sum.

And then, by sheer coincidence, there was inedible sea salt piled right at the door—and he happened to have a marvelous learning panel that could teach him to purify sea salt into edible salt.

You could only say—this was all heaven's will.

"Song Ping."

"Master."

He tapped his fingers twice on the tabletop and looked quietly at Song Ping. Song Ping started, then clasped his fists and dropped to one knee. "Master."

"I need a group of men. But this could be a head-chopping business. So they have to be volunteers, with signed contracts of sale. One hundred men, one hundred taels as the buyout price for each contract. As long as they work hard, while they're alive they get a minimum of two taels of silver a month."

"Master, I'll sign." Song Ping didn't hesitate for even a second, his voice landing with weight. Xu Kaicheng gave a soft laugh and tapped his knuckles on the table twice more. "Counting you, ninety-nine more to go. Go see to it. If no one's willing, buy them from a broker."

Once Song Ping left to handle the matter, Xu Kaicheng didn't waste time—he opened the panel and purchased the sea-salt purification technique. The sea salt sitting on the ground outside now was all coarse salt bought straight from the coast—or more precisely, unfit for consumption.

It was simply the product left after boiling seawater dry. This kind of sea salt was highly harmful to the body—it could even make teeth and hair fall out and cause health problems. If people weren't driven to desperation, no one would eat the stuff.

But in fact, plenty of people were still eating it.

In the Rong dynasty, official salt wasn't terribly expensive—twenty coppers a catty. But an adult man could go through three taels (150 gr) of salt a month, and a family of five, no matter how frugal, would have to buy at least a catty or so a month.

The capital had plenty of wealthy people, so of course no one here couldn't afford it. But the Rong dynasty's territory was fairly vast, and there was no shortage of impoverished places. Take Liexi Pass, for instance—plenty of families there couldn't even earn a hundred coppers in a month.

Since they couldn’t earn a hundred coppers a month, spending twenty on official salt was a bit unrealistic. And there was another, even crueler reason: official salt might have been priced at twenty coppers, but that didn’t mean it could actually be bought anywhere, anytime.

Twenty-copper official salt was frequently out of stock.

Private salt that was in stock cost a minimum of fifty coppers a catty.

Between "if I don't eat it I'll have no strength to work" and "if I eat it I might die," many poor families would probably choose to eat it and keep working.

So why, when everyone knew sea salt was harmful, were people still boiling salt? They were all driven to it.

Thinking about it that way, the salt-making business was all benefit and no harm. Anyway, once Rong Xiang took the throne, handing the business straight over would count as a clean exit. Making Rong Xiang's purse fatter—surely he wouldn't be so short-sighted as to not let him off the hook.

Of course, he still needed to leave himself a way out.

Song Ping moved faster than he'd imagined. Xu Kaicheng felt he'd only been pondering for a moment, had only learned the salt-making method in a rough and ready way, when Song Ping came back holding a stack of contracts of sale.

"Master, there are only two hundred and seven brothers here right now, so I only wrote out two hundred and seven. When the other brothers are transferred over, I'll bring you their contracts too."

Xu Kaicheng was startled, looking at the contracts of sale already laid out before him. Each one was different, but the content was roughly the same, and each bore a fingerprint at the bottom—proper, legitimate contracts of sale.

But…

"Did you not understand what I meant? These are contracts of sale, and what I'm about to—"

"Master, you don't need to say so much. When we called you master, we'd already given you our lives. Whether these contracts exist or not really makes no difference to us." Song Ping smiled guilelessly, looking utterly unconcerned.

Xu Kaicheng burst out laughing—not because the man was foolish, but precisely because he was clever.

"Fine, I've received your goodwill. Same as I said: as long as you're loyal to me, I won't mistreat you." He tapped his fingers on the thick stack of contracts and couldn't help laughing again. "Though the buyout money may have to be paid out at intervals—after all, you've brought me so many at once, I can't produce that much silver all in one go either."

"Master, there's no need—"

"Since you call me master, there's no reason to mistreat my own people. Here's ten thousand taels—give it to the top hundred first. Keep the brothers reassured; the silver will all come through. Just give me a few days to make the money."

After a few joking words, Song Ping scratched his head and grinned even more guilelessly. At Xu Kaicheng's insistence, Song Ping took the silver notes with a simple smile and went off to distribute them. Once the room was empty again, Xu Kaicheng sped up his study of the sea-salt purification technique.

This time he'd spent a full thousand points on the learning package, so there was a great deal of technical content—from the crudest earthen methods to modern refinement techniques.

Anything too high-tech he skipped right over, finally choosing the earthen method that created nothing new—something achievable with this world's existing technology.

After all, he'd have to hand it over to Rong Xiang eventually. If he handed over only half and kept the technique in his own hands, that really would be a head-chopping business.

The simplest sea-salt purification techniques boiled down to a few steps: filtering, boiling, and sun-drying. Filtering could be done with gauze or by the plant-ash method. Xu Kaicheng decided to do both—gauze filtering took longer, but the fine salt it produced was whiter and cleaner.

The plant-ash method was quicker, but the salt it yielded wasn't as white or fine.

Do the former well, and the price could be raised a notch to sell to the wealthy. The latter looked inferior, so it could be sold at a lower price to ordinary folk.

"Master, a young man named Xu Yao is asking to see you."

His thoughts interrupted, Xu Kaicheng froze for a moment before snapping back to awareness. He strode quickly out the door and saw a thin figure dressed as a servant standing at the workshop entrance.

"Why are you here?"

"If I hadn't come, were you going to avoid me for the rest of your life?"

Song Yao's eyes reddened. He stood there, lips pursed, tears sliding silently down. Xu Kaicheng's scalp prickled. He rushed over, gathered the other into his arms, and headed back inside. "No, no—what are you imagining? How could I possibly be avoiding you? It's just been too busy here—that's why I haven't come to see you these past few days!"

"Liar!"

Song Ping rubbed his nose, pretended he'd seen nothing, and quickly looked away. Once the two had gone inside, he shut the door and stood guard a short distance from the entrance.

Inside the room, Song Yao still wore that about-to-cry look, making Xu Kaicheng's scalp prickle. "I really did have things to do these past few days. We hired so many people at once for the road repair—if I wasn't here holding things down, there'd be chaos."

Song Yao still said nothing, just watched him with red-rimmed eyes. Xu Kaicheng scratched his head and let out a long sigh. "All right, all right. From now on, no matter where I go, I'll tell you first, okay?"

"Making so many excuses—isn't it just that you want to avoid me and not have a child with me?"

"Cough, cough—you, how do you dare say whatever comes into your head!" Xu Kaicheng turned bright red and hurried to cover Song Yao's mouth.

Song Yao was even more decisive than he was. Before Xu Kaicheng could react, he pulled a medicine bottle from his bosom, tipped out a pill—Xu Kaicheng didn't even have time to see clearly what it was—and Song Yao shoved it into his mouth and swallowed.

"What is that? What are you taking? Spit it out right now!" Xu Kaicheng was alarmed, gripping Song Yao's jaw.

Song Yao dodged his hand, tilting his head aside without a shred of shame, then got up and went to sit to one side. "An aphrodisiac."

"…" Xu Kaicheng could only stare, open-mouthed, at a loss for what expression to make.

The drug worked fast. Though Song Yao still sat to one side with his arms crossed and a cold face, his cheeks had already begun to flush red. "Anyway, you don't like me either, so just let me fend for myself."

"…" Xu Kaicheng's mouth twitched. He half-rose, and the eyes Song Yao fixed on him took on a glistening sheen.

"Sigh—I never said I didn't like you, and I never said I wouldn't let you have a child. But your body's far too run-down right now. I just wanted to wait until you'd built your health back up…"

"I won't listen, I won't listen. Anyway, ten months from now I want a child born. If you won't have one with me, then I'll—"

"Then you'll what!" The helpless look in his eyes turned sharp in an instant—this time it was Xu Kaicheng fixing Song Yao with a death stare.

Song Yao's lips trembled, and his eyes reddened further. "Then I'll go die right now."

"…" So just who had taught him all this? Xu Kaicheng wiped his face in exasperation, too tired to say another word. The person across from him had already begun to squirm restlessly, his whole body flushing red.

He scooped the other into his arms, and Song Yao broke into a wide grin.

"When I find out who taught you this, just see how I deal with them!"

"Deal with me in bed."

"…" Xu Kaicheng was utterly defeated.