The so-called “Natural Feet Mutual Aid Society” was purely starting with just a pair of feet, with everything else made up as she went along.

If Miss Compton had noticed something other than Lin Yuchan’s feet, she probably would have gone with the flow and invented something else entirely.

During the late Qing period, social reforms rolled like an avalanche. At this time, a few visionaries already realized that foot-binding weakened women, and weak women could not give birth to healthy citizens. Lin Yuchan knew that in a few decades, there would be a wave of foot liberation. By the 20th century, even Empress Dowager Cixi would legislate to ban foot-binding under pressure from all sectors.

But now, seeing the expressions of the clerks around her, she knew this “mutual aid society” couldn’t be established for the time being.

Boya’s employees should all be considered quite progressive in their ways. But having grown up in China from childhood, influenced by their surroundings, hundreds of years of tradition had solidified into cocoons that bound their imagination.

Even if someone vaguely realized that “women’s foot-binding nowadays is a bit too excessive,” all they could do was slightly relax size requirements when matchmaking and slightly increase the weight given to “virtue, appearance, speech, and accomplishments.”

And even such people were extremely rare in the current Qing Dynasty.

In such soil, if someone promoted “natural feet mutual aid,” the public’s first reaction would probably be that it was a positive energy group to “help natural-footed girls bind their feet scientifically, quickly, and gain beauty and love.”

If she dared to openly promote foot liberation, she’d probably be lynched by angry citizens before the authorities even summoned her.

So Lin Yuchan had no intention of making it real. If she encountered other “unfortunate” natural-footed girls like herself, they could help each other out.

As for the money, she’d save it for now.

After thirty or forty years, when there was a foot liberation movement, she could take it out and use it. By then, with compound interest, who knew how much money there would be?

She was thinking quite optimistically when she looked up to find all of Boya’s clerks looking at her with complex expressions.

Like a child who had broken glass and run away for the first time, tasting the flavor of misbehavior, her chest felt warm and every blood vessel under her skin pulsed distinctly.

She smiled brightly at them and said, “Ten to zero, you all need to work harder.”

“Little Miss is impressive.” After a long while, the Buddhist Chang Baoluo finally went against his usual character and lectured his subordinates, “You should learn from her.”

Of course, this was only praise for her sales ability. As for the rest, he didn’t dare agree.

In one day, they sold over fifty pounds of tea, the peak sales performance for Boya Trading House in the past week.

Half of it was sold by Lin Yuchan. Her “Natural Feet Society” fund reached twenty-five copper coins, requisitioning a small hook on the trading house counter and storing them in a small pouch.

Who could blame Boya Trading House’s tea for not being from famous makers or brands? Though the quality was good, it couldn’t be said to tower above all others. In Shanghai, this competitive tea export port, to create core competitiveness, they could only take an unconventional approach and link up with a charity.

The other clerks finally had a competitor, and everyone’s fighting spirit was aroused, all performing quite well. After all, they all had several years of work experience, and once their enthusiasm was mobilized, they could each show their special skills.

The next day, Lin Yuchan lost the competition. Boya’s people finally gradually abandoned their horse stance, feeling like their meridians were being unblocked.

Chang Baoluo spent half the day discussing the Bible with a missionary, and when the man left, he directly called a carriage and hauled away a box of fifty pounds of tea to drink to his heart’s content back at the church.

However, over the following days, she gradually narrowed the gap. Several carriages stopped outside the trading house, and a group of gorgeously dressed Western ladies poured in, all Miss Compton’s girlfriends.

Everyone surrounded Lin Yuchan like watching a little monkey.

“This is the ambitious, natural-footed girl that Emma mentioned!”

Lin Yuchan remained composed, serving tea to the ladies like feeding big monkeys.

The ladies occupied all the sofas and started a tea party.

“Mary, you look downcast,” someone asked. “Has something happened in your family?”

The lady called Mary didn’t drink her tea, supporting her forehead and saying with red-rimmed eyes: “My family sent me Mr. Henry Thoreau’s obituary. God knows how much I loved his works. I won’t hide from you that in my girlhood I even had a friendship with him…”

The women all sighed and comforted her.

Lin Yuchan bent down and took away the cold tea in front of Mary.

Henry Thoreau, American writer, born in Massachusetts, is famous work “Walden.”

She had thought this was a group of British girlfriends, not expecting an American mixed in.

She ran to find Chang Baoluo and said quietly: “Are there still coffee stocks that Mr. Rong left?”

Americans had a love-hate tragic history with tea. Ever since becoming colonies, they had been used by Britain as a tea dumping ground, draining away large amounts of the people’s wealth, leading to the “Boston Tea Party” and indirectly triggering North American independence.

Patriotic Americans began to resist drinking tea, turning instead to favor coffee, originally from South America.

At this time, coffee was an absolutely rare luxury in China – all of Shanghai probably couldn’t gather a ship’s hold worth of it. But it so happened that Rong Hong had lived in America for many years and was addicted to coffee.

Moments later, a cup of hand-ground Colombian coffee was placed in front of Mary.

“President Lincoln has just announced the liberation of slaves in the Washington area,” the Chinese girl said with a gentle smile as she served the coffee. “This is remarkable progress. You should be proud of your country – a country with Lincoln and Thoreau.”

Mary was stunned for a long time before stammering: “You… how do you know…”

“Today’s newspaper.” Lin Yuchan set down milk and sugar cubes and politely withdrew.

Since Mary and Thoreau knew each other, she should be a Northerner who supported abolition. Lin Yuchan realized this before daring to praise Lincoln in front of her, otherwise it might have backfired.

Mary called out: “Hey, miss, come back!”

When she was serving tea and coffee, her girlfriends thought she was just an ordinary Chinese maidservant. After chatting a bit, they discovered she knew so much!

People all have the nature to admire the strong and bully the weak. Usually, thinking Chinese people were stupid and ignorant, they disdained and avoided them; now, discovering this girl was the same species as themselves, the girlfriends sought novelty and invited her to sit with them.

Lin Yuchan smiled and politely declined: “Ladies can often come here to drink tea and chat – I’m here every day. Of course, buying some tea to take home and enjoy is also fine.”

Miss Compton’s girlfriends were also a group of naive sweethearts. But Lin Yuchan had no intention of becoming friends with them. Though these ladies were friendly, their occasional thoughtless remarks could anger someone to death.

Developing them as customers was enough. Of the various indemnity silver their husbands and fathers had extorted from China, she could at least earn back a little.

Today, the girlfriend group returned with full loads.

Over the following weeks, many foreign merchants, consuls, translators, and officers in Shanghai’s foreign concessions drank the same black tea day after day. When they went to work each day, their burps all had the same flavor, and they could only smile bitterly at each other.

Of course, there were still those with discerning taste. Soon, Lin Yuchan received small orders from several other trading houses, trying to sell this uniquely packaged refined tea with a charitable background to Europe.

…

The weather gradually grew hot. Shanghai entered its characteristic plum rain season, with stuffy air wrapping around people. Even without exercise or labor, just standing outside stupidly for a moment would drench one in sweat.

With windows closed, the room quickly became a steamer, turning the people inside into Tang Monks awaiting slaughter; with windows open, by day’s end, walls and furniture were damp, and corners began to mold. The clerks’ work efficiency was also affected.

Chang Baoluo had Old Liu, who did odd jobs, specifically cleaning up damp and moldy spots, to at least maintain a healthy, positive business image.

However, good news soon arrived. Boya Trading House received a letter from Rong Hong saying his business was going smoothly, he had purchased tens of thousands of pounds of tea, and expected to arrive at the port on a certain day at a certain time, hoping someone could come meet him.

Chang Baoluo was overjoyed, said a prayer of thanks to God, and began rubbing his hands together as if seeing silver beckoning to him.

He had written a whole book of love poems, and though he hadn’t yet seen the girl’s face, he was already pondering saving money for marriage, giving him motivation to work.

Through this period of Lin Yuchan’s influence and witnessing firsthand the huge profits from tea trading, Boya’s clerks had tasted the sweetness of working earnestly. Their slacking became increasingly half-hearted – even when occasionally playing cards, upon hearing any disturbance, they’d immediately drop their cards and scatter, not caring if the score cards got mixed up.

Today, everyone went out together to welcome the boss. Chang Baoluo casually said, “Little miss, you watch the shop. If you’re scared alone, just put up the shutters.”

He treated her like an intern. Not even thinking about whether he’d paid her wages.

But Lin Yuchan didn’t mind. When Rong Hong returned, there would be times when he needed her.

She smiled in agreement, arranged the tables, chairs, and tea sets, and waited for customers.

The small Western-style building was no longer just a shop. Through word-of-mouth among Western ladies, it had become a popular afternoon tea gathering place. In the cool breeze under summer shade, with tables and chairs set up in the courtyard, drinking a pot of fragrant black tea, the feeling couldn’t be more pleasant.

Lin Yuchan’s business sense was indeed sharp – this place was more suitable as an internet-famous old Western house check-in destination.

However, today there were few customers and sales were mediocre. After all, many people, seeing a young girl minding the shop, would just pass by without entering, waiting for “the real person in charge” to return.

Lin Yuchan found it quite boring.

Once upon a time, her wealth-building plan had been: first, set up a stall to make money, save enough capital to open her shop, and gradually accumulate.

Now it seemed that even if she had taken that path back then, she would still be stuck at the “opening her shop” stage.

It wasn’t that women didn’t open shops, but they only sold wontons, buns, and small embroidery work. For this kind of high-end trading house, if only a woman was in charge, many people would automatically classify it in the “untrustworthy” blacklist.

If she had insisted on opening her shop, she would probably have had to hire male employees to compete normally with other businesses. The problem was, what capable man would be willing to humble himself and call a grassroots little girl boss?

So, just having money was useless. They say official-merchant, official-merchant – why did those wealthy merchants and tycoons in Guangzhou who built big businesses all spend money to buy official ranks? It wasn’t just for looks, but because power and money complement each other.

No wonder the merchants of the old Thirteen Factories were all obsessed with becoming officials, even including “official” in their business names…

…

She was randomly pondering society and life when suddenly someone called from behind.

“Little sister, all by yourself?”

Lin Yuchan whipped around, her whole body shaking at this familiar accent.

A certain young master from the Thirteen Factories, whose business name included “official,” had appeared out of nowhere, occupying the most comfortable green leather sofa, half-smiling as he waved her over.

She had been bored out of her mind, so she hurried over with a beaming face, casually grabbing a handkerchief to wipe sweat.

“Young master, what tea would you like?”