“No wonder your face looks ashen—how many days has it been since you ate? In Shaozhou—” The first person cursed. “Whenever something happens, it’s us common folk who suffer. I came from Nande, driven here by those officials until there was no way to make a living. Like you, I have no household registration documents. I originally wanted to try at Hongyu too, but let me tell you, the shipbuilding industry’s rules here are very troublesome. If you don’t listen, you’ll end up on every shipyard’s blacklist in the future—forget about getting ahead. I can see you’re no ordinary person; you have a pair of hands made for skilled work. Don’t be hasty and ruin your prospects.” The first person was quite righteous.
Listening in, Mo Zi gathered that this person also had some skills—otherwise why would he be thinking about getting ahead?
“I can wait, but my son cannot. I don’t care about prospects—I just want to save my son’s life. Old brother, thank you for telling me this, but no matter what, I have to try at Hongyu Cove.” The second person was a devoted father.
The first person sighed. “Little brother, even if you go, I’m afraid Hongyu wouldn’t dare hire you. Who would dare offend the shipbuilding industry’s top dog, Sunrise? Unless the shipyard doesn’t want to operate anymore and closes down entirely. You should pawn something. Whatever you have on you, pawn it—however much you can get. Then we’ll just hope that Hongyu’s boss isn’t so cowardly and can pass the three trials. Once they open for business, we’ll all go together. The local shipwrights with any skills will go to Sunrise. Hongyu won’t be able to recruit anyone decent, so they’ll definitely have to use us.”
The second person squatted on the ground, holding his head. “If I still had anything to pawn, I’d have exchanged it for money long ago.”
“Then use your own craftsmanship as collateral for silver.” Mo Zi stepped forward, standing at the alley entrance with a smile.
The two men turned to look at her, asking in unison, “Who are you?”
Both men were around thirty years old, wearing old short jackets and tattered cloth shoes in the height of summer. Their arms were thick and shoulders broad, skin sun-darkened—clearly craftsmen capable of hard work but facing difficult circumstances.
The one standing had a shaved head with stubble, a large bulbous nose, and a yellowed sweat cloth tied around his neck.
The one squatting had messy hair like straw with a loose topknot, but very proper features. Seeing her, he quickly stood up, revealing a tall, slender frame and a pair of hands with long fingers and large palms—truly excellent hands. Yuling was known for producing beautiful men and women; this claim seemed far from baseless.
Mo Zi cupped her hands. “You two, I am Mo Ge, steward of Hongyu Shipyard.”
Hearing Mo Zi announce her name, the two men couldn’t help but exchange glances.
The bald man reacted quickly, immediately waving his hands. “I don’t care who you are—don’t try to drag us to work at your place.”
“I accidentally overheard your conversation just now and understand your difficulties. I certainly won’t force you. However, I see this gentleman seems urgently in need of money?” Mo Zi always encountered such coincidences—or rather, her powers of observation were very sharp.
The one from Yuling was about to speak when the bald man from Nande blocked him and countered Mo Zi, “No need for your fake sympathy, talking about using craftsmanship as collateral for silver—aren’t you just trying to get Brother Ding to work for you?”
Mo Zi nodded. “Yes, that’s exactly the plan. Otherwise, why would I give him silver? I’m not doing charity work.”
The bald man from Nande was stunned, not expecting her to admit it so readily.
Mo Zi smiled. “However, I’ll give the silver now, and the work can wait until after passing the three trials. Would that work?”
The bald man was somewhat suspicious, snorting at her through his bulbous nose. “Is there really such a good deal in this world—payment first, work later? I can see you’re not someone who works with your hands but a merchant who works with their mouth, trying to deceive my anxious brother here. But let me tell you, no chance. Don’t think we craftsmen are easy to bully. Besides, passing the three trials—where is it so easy? I heard that no one has been able to pass all three of Sunrise’s trials. Whether your Hongyu can even open is uncertain.”
“About those three trials—” Mo Zi got to the main point. “This big brother, let me ask, what exactly are they?”
The bald man was dumbfounded and shouted loudly, “You don’t even know about the three trials, yet you’re opening a shipyard?”
Mo Zi grinned slickly, bowing slightly with repeated requests for instruction.
After chattering on for quite a while, Mo Zi ended up helping the big brother from Yuling after all, lending him five taels of silver to buy medicine for his son, and agreeing with the bald man that regardless of whether they passed the three trials or not, she would come notify them.
Two days later, Mo Zi brought Zan Jin and the Stinky Fish, Fat Shrimp, and Water Snake trio to Sunrise Shipyard. On the morning of the third day, they arrived at the Ya River’s edge.
The land stretched long and narrow; the river seemed boundless.
Four large-scale shipbuilding platforms, seven or eight medium-sized platforms, and about ten small platforms were arranged in a line along the riverbank. Every platform had ship frames with hundreds of men bustling about energetically in the sweltering heat—a cacophony of shouts and hammering piercing the clouds. The flying wood shavings, river water scent mixed with wood fragrance, plus tung oil, canvas, and hemp rope smells all stirred together—it truly made Mo Zi feel invigorated throughout her body, blood surging.
Some things were impossible to let go of even if you wanted to. She had originally learned shipbuilding because she loved water. Just as some people loved flying and went to learn how to pilot and build aircraft, she wanted to build the best boats and explore everything in the water. Now, having experienced so much, though she understood the need to hide her abilities, her passion for shipbuilding in her bones refused to be extinguished. This was her lifelong ideal, and she wouldn’t abandon it just because time had flowed backward.
The shipbuilding techniques since the Great Tang dynasty had been at the world’s peak. To her, coming from the future, it didn’t feel backward or dull—rather, there was much to learn, and the designs were full of challenges. Using primitive lumber with no engines and no power—how to break through current limitations? This goal alone gave her plenty to work on.
“This is my first time knowing a shipbuilding place could be so huge. Mo Ge, following you has really opened my eyes.” Stinky Fish was restless, unable to sit still on his horse.
Mo Zi still obediently sat in the carriage, carefully descending, taking a deep breath in and out. “Never mind you—I haven’t seen anything like this myself either.” How pitiful—Great Qiu’s imperial shipyard was probably similar in scale, showing that Great Zhou being the strongest among the four kingdoms wasn’t just empty talk.
“If a private shipyard is this big, how impressive must the government ones be?” Fat Shrimp threw out a comment.
Stinky Fish twisted around on his horse as if his whole body was cramping. “Everyone watch—this is how impressive.”
Even Water Snake laughed.
Zan Jin looked up. “You call that impressive? I think it looks like someone about to croak.”
Stinky Fish rolled his eyes. “Zan little brother, what kind of eyesight do you have? Watch—croaking is like this.” He suddenly stepped on the stirrup, whooshing through the air in two complete three-hundred-sixty-degree flips, falling straight and stiff to the ground. Eyes closed, tongue lolling out, both hands hanging at his sides, completely motionless.
Zan Jin leaped off his horse, extended an index finger to check, and shouted at Mo Zi who had just reached the ground, “Mo Ge, Stinky Fish has stopped breathing! My sword needs to drink blood. It’s been so long since it left its sheath—should I let it taste some?”
Stinky Fish jumped up with a yelp. “Who the hell stopped breathing? I was pretending, you big white fool Zan Jin!”
“You can pretend, but Zan Jin can’t?” Mo Zi smiled watching the two clown around, feeling very relaxed.
Stinky Fish immediately circled around Zan Jin, shaking his head with clicking sounds, then tiptoed to pat his broad back. “Zan Jin, you’re getting smarter and smarter—you even understand jokes now?”
Zan Jin looked quite pleased with himself. “Of course. Look who I follow. Besides, I was always very smart, though I can’t compare to Mo Ge, and even less to First Young Master and Second Young Master…” He began rambling like an old melon seller named Wang praising his own wares.
Mo Zi thought to herself that in the future, she should bring Zan Jin less often to occasions where Yuan Cheng and Jin Yin were present. Such a good kid, being corrupted by those two cunning, devious fellows. Of course, she herself provided Zan Jin with absolutely positive, bright, and progressive influence. Also, listening to Zan Jin’s words, did he mean she couldn’t compare to those two?
Tch—Jin Yin absolutely couldn’t out-argue her.
Yuan Cheng?
She admitted she couldn’t compare to him. How terrible he was—growing up strong amidst bitter hatred from childhood, awakening at age five, more than ten years earlier than her—how could she compare? If she had awakened the moment she transmigrated, now it would definitely not be Great Qiu destroying Yuling, but Yuling destroying Great Qiu.
“Who are First Young Master and Second Young Master?” Stinky Fish didn’t understand.
“Mo Ge’s newly sworn brothers—one looks like an immortal, one looks like—” Zan Jin rummaged through his limited vocabulary.
“A gold ingot.” A gleaming gold ingot. Though Yuan Cheng looked like an immortal? Ha ha, what kind of immortal? More like a smiling fox under some immortal’s seat.
“Right, a gold ingot.” Zan Jin agreed wholeheartedly.
Stinky Fish was left completely confused, looking at Mo Zi. “Mo Ge, although you wear men’s clothing, walk with wind when you move fast, row boats better than men, and speak coarsely to us without blushing—you’re still a woman, right? How did you become sworn brothers with people?”
Mo Zi spread her hands and shrugged. “Don’t ask me, I don’t know anything.” Woke up from being drunk and became Mo San.
“Stinky Fish, something sounds wrong—are you saying I don’t seem like a woman?” On reflection, that was off-key.
Stinky Fish grinned sheepishly, eyes darting around, playing innocent.
The five of them lingered in front of Sunrise Shipyard, fooling around while scouting the place, in no hurry to deliver themselves to be slaughtered. Before long, Water Snake said someone was coming.
Fat Shrimp raised his palm-leaf-sized hand to shield against the sun, shouting about the heat, then said, “These two are white wood cores.”
White wood cores—shipyard slang for ordinary people who couldn’t fight.
“Big brother, isn’t that stating the obvious? The whole place is full of white wood cores, but with superior numbers, can the few of us beat down three or four hundred people?” Stinky Fish loved contradicting his older brother.
Mo Zi turned back, greeting them with a smile, lips moving so that the four experts beside her could hear clearly.
She said, “This time we won’t fight—we’ll win people over with virtue.”
Zan Jin had truly become enlightened. Grinning, he asked in a low voice, “Does martial virtue count?”
Mo Zi couldn’t stop his evolution, so she simply accelerated it. “Count? Of course it counts!”
Stinky Fish, taking the lead, chuckled.
The two gatekeepers from Sunrise Shipyard came before them and suddenly felt waves of eerie wind whipping past their ears, making their scalps tingle. However, they had to display the imposing manner of the industry’s top dog, so they puffed out their chests.
“Who are you people? Making such a racket at the gate.”
Mo Zi pulled out Min Yu’s name card and handed it to the two men, saying politely, “I am Mo Ge of Hongyu Shipyard, bringing four brothers to undergo the three trials.”
Hearing the words “three trials,” the two men’s expressions turned serious, with no hint of disdain—just great solemnity.
The older one of the two cupped his hands together. “Mo Ge, please name your guide.”