Lin Yuchan held her breath.

Inside the red box, with white base and azure trim, lined with velvet cloth, lay a pistol.

Brand new, compact, with a walnut grip and white copper trigger guard, about one and a half hand lengths long. She couldn’t tell how powerful it was, but she could be certain the recoil wouldn’t send her flying.

“I won’t give you ammunition for now,” Su Minguan leaned forward and said softly, “Wait until you’re familiar with disassembling and assembling it, then we’ll start the second lesson.”

He watched with satisfaction as the little girl’s face turned rosy red, surprised yet not daring to shout aloud, her shoe tips under her skirt twisting back and forth on the ground. If not for the people around, she probably would have jumped three feet high.

He cupped his hands toward Lin Yuchan and said politely, “I’ll go outside to attend to a few business partners. Please excuse me, Lin…”

Suddenly realizing her identity today, he quickly corrected himself, “Su…”

Those three words ultimately couldn’t leave his mouth. He shook his head, his smile suddenly tinged with bitterness, and turned to leave.

The business of “Boya Trading House Hongkou Branch” was specialized—it sold only tea.

The main office had a dazzling array of merchandise with diverse categories, including many excellent, unique pieces, making it a place that sold sentiment and atmosphere. The branch’s tea leaves were assembly-line processed products with stable quality and a resounding brand name.

Such “business segmentation” also facilitated precise marketing.

Lin Yuchan had carefully arranged the small courtyard. Knowing her cultural cultivation was limited, she specifically hired a Suzhou garden designer to redesign it, with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and Qing government fighting over Suzhou in a tug-of-war, refugees fleeing in waves, and unemployed garden experts were plentiful. Some didn’t even want wages, just meals.

As for construction after the design—moving stones, digging water channels, planting bamboo, pruning branches—Lin Yuchan wouldn’t hire anyone else. She rolled up her sleeves to do it herself, even calling Aunt Zhou to climb up and down together.

At first, Aunt Zhou was shocked, thinking how could this be women’s work?

Lin Yuchan laughed, “It’s much easier than moving tea leaves.”

After several days of stumbling through it, they made it look quite presentable. When the unemployed garden expert came to inspect, he only said, “Where did you hire these workers? They’re a bit lazy—didn’t even clean the corners properly.”

After finishing the courtyard, Lin Yuchan borrowed Rong Hong’s connections to invite a Western naturalist to identify all the flowers and plants in the garden, creating English and Latin name cards like those in botanical gardens of later generations, inserting them among the lush greenery.

The Chinese-style garden donned a Western coat, elegant and authentic, instantly surpassing by several leagues those affected Orientalist gardens in contemporary European wealthy estates.

She also planted several different varieties of tea trees to highlight the shop’s theme, though limited by soil and climate, they wouldn’t produce very good leaves. It was all about atmosphere.

Miss Compton’s ladies’ tea parties soon moved to Hongkou. Besides a few regular friends, she would bring new faces every few days to see the novelty. Some came once and left, others became regular customers, bringing more orders.

Lin Yuchan spent half a month correcting Aunt Zhou’s hygiene habits and training her to serve tea and water as a servant for the ladies.

Aunt Zhou was slow, but once she learned, she didn’t slack off. Moreover, she didn’t understand English, so she couldn’t be affected by the unconscious discriminatory language of the Western ladies.

Since it was a shop run purely by women, aside from these ladies, few other customers came. Lin Yuchan wasn’t in a hurry to hire help, though the two of them were tired; it was sufficient.

A month later, Lin Yuchan calculated the accounts. Excluding fixed costs since opening, just the operating costs alone showed a floating loss of over thirty taels of silver.

This was within her expectations. Now she handled enormous amounts of tea leaves—retail sales alone could never break even.

The “ladies’ afternoon tea” was just a marketing strategy. Her focus was on finding major clients.

This was the path she had planned long ago. Though she had some client resources now, their purchasing power was limited—they couldn’t buy even thirty percent of her inventory.

Her original employment contract with Rong Hong was for her to handle only processing, leaving tea sales to employees in the main office. But now she had convinced Rong Hong to open this branch by patting her chest in promise, transferring all the tea business to herself. If she didn’t secure some orders of her own, it would be too embarrassing.

Lin Yuchan summarized this month’s experience and restructured her schedule, deciding to keep the shop open only half-days—retail revenue didn’t suffer much loss. Compared to the main office that operated sporadically, her half-day efficiency was actually higher. She used the remaining time to visit tea houses, shipping companies, warehouses, printing workshops, and clients…

One person doing the work of several. But even if she opened her shop, she’d initially have to wear multiple hats—there were no shortcuts to avoid hard work.

Sundays were closed. Most customers were foreigners who had to go to church on Sundays anyway.

But she wasn’t idle. She borrowed Saturday’s edition of The North China Herald from Rong Hong, studying every piece of news carefully and taking notes on important items.

In this era, without electronic products or developed information networks, much news was spread by word of mouth, becoming distorted in transmission. In comparison, she trusted black-and-white newspaper print more, though it was a foreign-funded newspaper with imperfect content and stance, it was still a rare news source.

Lin Yuchan occasionally wondered how wonderful it would be if Chinese people could run their Chinese-language newspaper.

Unfortunately, running newspapers was risky. Not just financially—the Qing Dynasty’s literary inquisition was severe, with countless forbidden words. One careless step could trigger trouble, and being shut down by authorities would be getting off lightly.

Foreigners had extraterritorial rights, which allowed them to say whatever they wanted.

After a day’s work, she was dizzy and exhausted again.

Aunt Zhou looked at her, puzzled: “Madam, I’m the servant and you’re the master, yet you live more tiredly than I do every day.”

Lin Yuchan, learning from Rong Hong, had gotten herself a reclining chair. Now she lay sprawled on the bamboo chair without regard for appearance, saying weakly, “If you know I’m tired, bring me a towel to wipe my sweat.”

Aunt Zhou quickly handed her a towel.

Finally getting to be an evil feudal landlady for once, enjoying being waited on by servants…

It didn’t feel particularly great.

Aunt Zhou brought her clothes to cover herself and said casually, “Madam, actually, why exhaust yourself like this? Let me speak presumptuously—with your unbound feet, your good life shouldn’t be ruined because of this. Shanghai has many progressive people who surely wouldn’t mind such things. With your qualities and appearance, marrying a good man to be a pampered wife would be better than this exhausting toil, wouldn’t it? Business is men’s affairs. Why must we women compete with them?”

If it were her previous masters, Aunt Zhou would never dare speak this way. But Lin Yuchan treated her with full respect, even saying “please” when giving orders and letting her eat together instead of leftovers… Given time, Aunt Zhou inevitably became “presumptuous.”

Those novel plots where “little servants, treated equally by transmigrated heroines, become grateful and devoted, becoming even more servile” were pure fantasy. The truth was that people naturally sought advancement—give them sunshine and they’d shine.

Lin Yuchan patiently waited for her to finish, then said mildly, “I want to change the bedsheets and covers again. Please go wash the old ones for me.”

Aunt Zhou was startled, still absorbed in her lecturing, and after a while said, “Change them again after just a few days?”

“I say change, so change. Next time you lecture me about such boring topics, I’ll deduct ten wen from your monthly allowance for each sentence.”

Though servants were bought outright, decent masters would give small allowances. Lin Yuchan was especially generous.

Having money deducted after receiving it was particularly painful.

Aunt Zhou had to bow and withdraw, muttering as she left, “Madam, I was wrong. I won’t talk too much anymore.”

Lin Yuchan coldly acknowledged with a “mm.”

She didn’t want to callously treat people like beasts of burden, but couldn’t let them become too presumptuous either. Managing servants was quite an art—she had to find a balance.

Since arriving in the Qing Dynasty, she’d spent most of her time working for others. Now she had to change her mindset and learn how to be a boss.

The first principle of being a boss was maintaining clear boundaries between public and private matters, not allowing interference in her personal life.

Otherwise, rewards and punishments should be given accordingly. This rule had to be established quickly.

Lin Yuchan was busy from the moment she opened her eyes each day. Since she was starting her own business, she had no fixed work hours, and rest days became luxuries.

Arranging “military training” also had to be squeezed into gaps in her schedule. Moreover, Boss Su wasn’t any less busy than she was.

The series of unequal treaties in the late Qing Dynasty granted foreign merchants various privileges, especially in shipping. Foreign-flagged steamships gradually encroached on China’s waterways, compressing the survival space of domestic transportation.

The profits from rivers and seas were almost entirely taken by foreigners. Many established shipping companies had already collapsed. The shores of Huangpu River were littered with countless broken, stranded sand boats. Surviving Chinese ship owners could only use every means at their disposal, working doubly hard to eke out precarious profits in increasingly harsh conditions.

So Lin Yuchan made several appointments before finally arranging a mutual morning off with Boss Su—just one morning. She still had to inspect processed tea leaves in the afternoon.

Before dawn, as the curfew was just lifted, she arrived at the dock.

The dock workers and laborers were there earlier than her, working bare-chested, the diligent ones already wiping sweat.

A gust of autumn wind suddenly rose, making the quiet Suzhou River ripple like a stretch of water in the early morning.

With creaking sounds, Su Minguan walked quickly across the dock’s wooden planks, still instructing his subordinates: “…Leasing is acceptable, but it must include insurance contracts… That ten silver yuan reward from early this year, still no one has claimed it? Deploy more people must resolve this matter quickly. Also…”

With dawn not yet breaking, pale moonlight washed over his face and body, as if covering him with a layer of water-colored foreign glass.

He suddenly paused, waved his hand dismissively, and said, “As for Scholar Guan’s matter, decline it quickly for me—I don’t want to appear personally. Be polite about it, don’t let him lose face.”

His subordinate looked troubled and replied with a few words.

The response was too stupid. Su Minguan snorted with laughter, impatient: “Can’t you think of this? Just pick one of those reasons you usually give when marriage proposals are rejected—poor, not good enough, can’t support a wife, monthly salary of one tael, oh and I have shareholders greedily waiting to divide my profits—Scholar Guan doesn’t understand business anyway, can’t you just make something up?…”

The subordinate still shook his head, this time hearing: “…The scholar says he doesn’t care about money, he values character and appearance…”

“I had my fortune told as a child—I bring misfortune to wives. I can’t marry anyone.”

Su Minguan was still half-seriously fabricating, when he inadvertently looked up and saw a delicate young girl standing in the dawn light—his very “greedy shareholder”—the corners of his eyes crinkled as he quietly stopped talking.

“Go on, I won’t blame you if you mess up.”

He dismissed his subordinate and casually untied the rope of a small single-person sailboat nearby.

“Get on.” He skipped greetings entirely. “Time is tight today.”

Lin Yuchan jumped onto the small boat, placing her bundle in the dry compartment.

“Boss Su, despite your high position and great responsibilities, still makes time for my affairs. This little woman is deeply honored.”

She casually offered some flattery while expertly pulling out a grass mat from the cabin, spreading it to sit at the bow.

Su Minguan unfurled the sail, smiling, “Shareholder interests cannot be neglected.”

Lin Yuchan couldn’t help giggling: “This shareholder isn’t a good person—greedily waiting to divide your money. You must be strictly on guard.”

Su Minguan’s smile froze: “…”

Her hearing was quite sharp!

Lin Yuchan didn’t pry into personal matters. After making a joke, she pulled out an oil-paper package from her bundle, taking out a steaming meat bun. She bit open a small opening, and the hot fragrance turned into a wisp of white steam, covering half her small face.

“Sorry, I didn’t have time to eat before coming, luckily there were already breakfast stalls open.” She smiled while holding the hot bun in her mouth, “Are you hungry?”

Su Minguan felt the greasy aroma wafting straight into his nose, actually making him feel somewhat hungry.

He deliberately said, “Hungry.”

Lin Yuchan made an “oh dear” sound and considerately said, “Then I’ll move to the stern, so you won’t smell it.”

Su Minguan gritted his teeth in a cold smile, secured the rudder, and dragged out a bamboo basket from the cabin. Opening it, he brought out a two-tiered tray displaying osmanthus sugar rice cakes, sesame crab shell pastries, red bean strip cakes, and two plates of pear syrup candy!

“Sorry, I also didn’t eat.”

He bit into a sugar rice cake and considerately asked, “Should I sit downwind?”

Lin Yuchan: “…”

Busy business people juggling countless matters, having to arrange meals while discussing business—she finally understood the hardships involved.

She obediently moved closer: “All sweets? Be careful of tooth decay. Let me help you overcome this.”

A rare hour of sailing, eating breakfast, enjoying scenery, and sharing the month’s news.

Actually, Lin Yuchan had nothing particularly fresh to share—just various busy work. A pile of trivial matters that, when summarized, were as tasteless as chewing wax, nothing like the dramatic waves portrayed in workplace business dramas.

So she didn’t elaborate much.

Su Minguan was concerned about other matters: “How’s the security? No one coming to extort autumn tribute?”

This was also a test of Yixing’s current strength and influence among Shanghai’s various secret societies.

Lin Yuchan thought about it and answered honestly: “I don’t know if any thieves are eyeing the place, but I sleep quite soundly every night. Even troublemaking drunks are rare. Though there are often elderly, weak, sick, and disabled beggars who come, sometimes sleeping at the door. I assume you haven’t forbidden this.”

The Heaven and Earth Society was originally an organization that fought the strong to help the weak, providing mutual aid. Only landlords and reactionaries drove away beggars.

Su Minguan nodded, indicating he understood: “Whether real or fake, give them something depending on the situation. There are too many beggars in Shanghai. If anyone pushes too far, you’ll have to find the patrol police. Keep some spare change ready.”

Lin Yuchan agreed.

This was all within her acceptable range. The Qing Dynasty had too many demons and monsters—without some “criminal forces” as protection, her business would lose everything on the first day.

Only one sesame ball remained on the plate. Lin Yuchan pushed it outward: “I’m full.”

Su Minguan held the rudder, not lifting his eyes: “You seem to have lost weight.”

“Even if I’ve lost weight, I won’t eat sweet sesame balls.” Lin Yuchan smiled, “Keep it for yourself, heretic.”

Polite people would decline three times and accept three times. Su Minguan felt that once was enough with her, so he calmly picked up the sesame ball.

A ray of sunlight fell on the girl’s face, illuminating her bright eyes. She probably found it dazzling and yawned several times in succession, rubbing her eyes, which became somewhat red.

She was getting drowsy before they’d even started. Master Su, the time management expert, was quite puzzled—how had she spent this past month?

“Why don’t you hire more people?” he asked.

“I’d like to.” Lin Yuchan stifled another yawn, a bit embarrassed. “I posted hiring notices at the door. At first, people did come, all men, but once they saw what their female boss looked like, they all ran away. Some even cursed at me. Later, I added a word, changing it to hiring female workers…”

Su Minguan suppressed a smile.

“Two or three came, but none were qualified.” She yawned again. “Fortunately, I can borrow workers from Mr. Rong’s side, or hire day laborers from the labor market. I can manage. It also saves finding lodging for workers.”

In this era, barely one in a hundred women could read. Having lived long in inner quarters, they had limited vision and fewer were clever. Even fewer were willing to work outside. Lin Yuchan wouldn’t lower her standards, so naturally couldn’t find anyone.

Su Minguan listened helplessly—this girl made trouble for herself.

“When you urgently need people, if I have idle workers, I can lend them to you,” he finally said. “Market rates, daily wages, more reliable than market day laborers.”

This was resource sharing. Lin Yuchan quickly thanked him.

“Also, when someone spits at you, don’t forget to spit back,” he said. “Twice.”

Lin Yuchan smiled bitterly, her peripheral vision catching the gray-brown tidal flats on both shores growing farther apart.

She couldn’t completely copy his experience. She was neither Ip Man nor 007—she couldn’t be too willful.

The rising sun showed an edge from behind the layered clouds over the tidal flats. The morning’s crisp air drifted away with the wind, replaced by warm, cozy air that even tasted sweet when breathed in. Having risen too early today, Lin Yuchan found herself surrounded by this sunny atmosphere, unconsciously leaning her head against the cabin wall and beginning to nod off.

Su Minguan shook his head—he couldn’t in good conscience laugh at her. He’d also risen early today, and the warm river breeze was just right. The sweet food in his belly made him feel heavy all over. If he didn’t have to steer, he’d want to treat himself to a nap, too.

He used a wrench to secure the rudder, fixing the course, then went into the cabin and brought out a pile of his clothes, gently placing them around her neck.

A small wave hit, turning the bow slightly. The sail couldn’t catch the wind and began flapping left and right. He quickly got up to adjust it. When he came back down, he found the girl had slid onto the deck, taking it upon herself to nestle in his pile of clothes, her small body almost buried within.

His clothes were mostly gray-blue. She wore a gardenia-yellow top and plain blue-trimmed narrow trousers, buried among them like a new moon in the deep night.

Her braid was black and neat, habitually adorned with a simple small flower to match her “official” identity.

She didn’t like spending effort on personal grooming. That little cloth flower was very simple in style, still made according to how he had casually folded napkins originally.

Morning winds were always stable, and the small boat drifted downstream very obediently. With the wrench securing the rudder, it required almost no effort.

Su Minguan boldly released the helm. The rudder was freshly oiled and got on his hands, so he washed it off with water, then quietly sat beside her.

This girl was indeed thinner than a few months ago, though it might just be due to rapid development. When he first met her, she was skin and bones, but her features and face shape still held childish innocence. Now her brows and eyes had opened up, her features were graceful, adding charming beauty to her stubborn cleverness, truly becoming a budding young woman, but without the gentle, wooden expression common on contemporary beauties’ faces.

He watched for a while, suddenly wondering how he could have been so obtuse—when had she grown into this appearance without him noticing?

Some others had noticed much earlier.

She rubbed her cheek against the pile of clothes, her well-defined little red lips parting, probably dreaming of something. Her dreams were probably more complex than most people’s, too.

He remembered her bold declaration from long ago: “Don’t worry about worldly propriety with me.” She was indeed consistent in word and deed—occasionally, when he overstepped, she responded with various light “don’t mind”s, “you don’t need to take responsibility”s, and “really don’t need you to take responsibility, I’m begging you”s.

Little weirdo. She knew he was a bad person.

A very selfish one.

He suddenly wanted to know just how far his misbehavior would have to go before she would truly “mind.”

He bit his lower lip and carefully extended his index finger.

A ray of sunlight poked out from the clouds, flashing a warning at him. When Su Minguan opened his eyes, his finger had already touched the corner of her lips, pressing lightly at the distinct boundary between red and white.

“Bite once,” he wickedly prayed. “I still don’t know what it feels like to have someone suckle my finger.”

But she couldn’t fulfill his wish. After a moment, her head tilted away instead.

He maintained that position without moving, a scale in his chest swaying between “crossed the line” and “no taboos,” sawing his heart up and down.

He remembered another thing she’d said: “…Not minding doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want!… You need my consent!”

Bristling with righteous indignation, as if without warning, he really would do something improper.

He slowly withdrew his hand.

When he suddenly realized the water surface seemed too broad, the small boat had sailed out of Wusong mouth, carried by the rushing Yangtze River around a bend, cheerfully heading toward the vast Pacific Ocean.

Su Minguan leaped up, adjusting sail and rudder, taking up oars to row against the current.

Fortunately, an east wind was blowing. The small sailboat smoothly turned around, having drifted several li out of the way before finally reaching shore as planned.

Su Minguan’s heart beat slightly faster as he moored the boat in the reed marsh, tying the rope knot several times.

Searching through Lin Yuchan’s bundle in the cabin, he found she had indeed brought rain boots as promised.

The little girl still hadn’t awakened—she hadn’t gotten to witness that difficult maneuver, and it had probably made her even dizzier.

He looked up at the sun’s position, unwilling to wait longer.

But reluctant to wake her.

Wusong Battery stood dejected in the distance. Surrounded by a layer of mist, it made that ring of broken stones look like a mirage.

“A’Mei?” He leaned down and called gently in her ear, “Time to get up.”

She murmured twice, probably trying hard to get up in her dream, but her hands and feet only stirred slightly.

“We can’t delay anymore.” Su Minguan softly changed his approach, respectfully requesting permission: “I’m going to carry you out, okay? You can refuse. One, two, three.”

So light.