Hongyu Cove had already changed somewhat in appearance.
The area originally marked by stone monuments had been overgrown with weeds, but now it was cleaned spotlessly. At the entrance, a dark brick wall had been built. Walking inside, there was a flower bed, and behind it a newly constructed row of two-story buildings with fresh red and black lacquer and gleaming pillars. The square, straightforward structure was simple and clear. This was Mo Zi’s design—an area specifically for receiving guests and negotiating orders.
Behind the small buildings was the actual cove area for shipbuilding. With too little capital to spend recklessly, currently only a cart road had been cleared, leading directly to the large open space by the riverbank, as well as the large shed under urgent construction and the dormitories.
What was a large shed? It was a large-scale indoor shipbuilding base.
In ancient times, ships were built on open-air riverbanks, and to a great extent, one had to rely on the weather’s favor to determine shipbuilding progress. Weather conditions like wind, rain, extreme heat, or extreme cold would all affect the project. The agreement with Qiu Sanniang only allowed one year—she couldn’t let climate delay the work, so even though it would consume costs, she still decided to build the large shed. This type of large shed-style shipbuilding site was the first of its kind at Hongyu Cove in Great Zhou. However, it was initially ridiculed repeatedly by peers in the industry. Because in their view, it was uneconomical in terms of capital and impractical in terms of operation. When a ship was finished and needed to be launched into the water, open-air was so convenient—just push it in. Building a large structure so far away, small ships were one thing, but how much manpower would it take to get a large ship to the shore?
Of course, this problem had an absolute solution for Mo Zi. Not only would she solve it beautifully, but it would also leave the shipbuilding industry leaders amazed. Those who wanted to secretly imitate would not succeed. But this was a story for later—let’s not mention it for now.
For that past period of her life, the only thing Mo Zi had to be grateful for was that in the environment she was in at the time, aside from craftsmanship and shipbuilding, others didn’t want her to worry about anything else—or rather, fearing she’d know too much, they deliberately isolated the people and matters she could come into contact with, so that she didn’t need to display much knowledge from her later life.
Could you imagine? Almost everyone around her had been planted by her side with various ulterior motives—none of them sincere. Then every day they created the illusion that your world is beautiful, your left hand is very dexterous, just deal with wood and live happily. If one or two people were deceivers, she might have discovered it quickly, but what if many people were all deceivers? Looking back on that time, she had truly been brainwashed.
Back then, she had a soldier’s straightforward sense of justice, an engineer’s obsession with challenging high difficulty, but not a shred of cunning or deviousness. Fortunately, for the first three years, her skills led her selfish father and brothers to conceal them from outsiders, only appropriating them for their own use. In the following three years after entering the palace, the false world finally showed cracks, and she began to awaken. After slowly learning the truth, she was no longer willing to display her talents. When relocated to Yuling, she avoided her craft like a burned child dreads fire, no longer touching ships, only dedicating herself to improving existing farming tools. That wasn’t her familiar field, so she stumbled through it with many difficulties, and being particularly cautious, had no overly remarkable creations.
But the person she had believed in from beginning to end secretly collected the ship diagrams she hadn’t had time to destroy, piecing them together, and actually managed to build warships that exceeded the era’s technical capabilities. Using these, he ascended to the throne, and even after she declared their relationship severed, he still launched war against Yuling.
For all these reasons, she was determined to completely abandon the past and start anew as a person.
However, the suffering endured by the people of Yuling was because of the foolish mistakes she had made early on, so her sense of guilt was deep, her heart in pain, urgently wanting to help them. Even when she had lost her memory, she unhesitatingly claimed to be from Yuling, with a subconscious rejection of her former homeland of Great Qiu.
“Mo Ge, what do you think is going on here?” Cen Er’s voice went from distant to clear.
Mo Zi started. “What’s going on with what?”
After recovering her memory, she didn’t reminisce very often, but seeing the cleared Hongyu Cove, she couldn’t quite control herself. Compared to Great Qiu’s largest shipyard, this place was truly both small and desolate. However, this time she had no grand ambitions—she only wanted to build ordinary civilian ships, earn money to buy back her freedom, while chatting with the shipbuilding industry leaders. If she couldn’t make it work, at least she could change jobs.
“Never mind the customers—why hasn’t even a single shipwright come to the door? Don’t they want to earn silver?” Cen Er had helped Mo Zi tremendously, finding people to clear the land and build structures, posting recruitment notices, and promoting Hongyu Shipyard’s reputation.
On the morning of the first day of recruitment, it was because he was there that Mo Zi could catch up on sleep.
Beside them, Qiu Dadong’s face was deeply wrinkled, looking extremely worried, as if the lack of customers and shipwrights were all his fault. In contrast, his granddaughter Niuniu was playing happily by herself not far away.
This grandfather-granddaughter pair were now under Mo Zi’s management. As soon as she arrived, she had renovated the house where the grandfather and granddaughter lived. Qiu Dadong didn’t know how to do anything else, so she designated the arable land and pond as a self-production area, having him continue farming and raising chickens and ducks to directly supply the shipyard’s meals in the future. He could earn some silver as a supplement, and she could put him to good use.
“Uncle Dong, even before we arrived, there wasn’t a single person?” Mo Zi felt Cen Er had a point. Logically, when a shipyard was recruiting, craftsmen should come to take a look.
“No.” Qiu Dadong wore a very uncomfortable expression. “Today I waited at this gate before dawn and only saw Steward Cen and you, Mo Ge—just you two.”
“Could the date be wrong?” Mo Zi looked at Cen Er. “Maybe it wasn’t written as today.”
Cen Er laughed and said, “Mo Ge, didn’t you also read that recruitment notice? Even if we’re confused, we couldn’t both be confused together, right? It definitely said today, no mistake.”
“Perhaps it wasn’t posted in the right places and no one saw it?” Mo Zi searched for reasons.
“I had the workers post them in places where craftsmen concentrate to find work. The workers said when they posted them there, people came up to look.” Something was wrong, very wrong.
“Maybe—everyone’s illiterate?” This was possible.
Cen Er hesitated, still unconvinced. “Not everyone would be illiterate.” In any case, not seeing a single person was very abnormal.
Had everyone just finished the festival and not recovered from their hangovers? That was herself.
“Let’s wait a bit more. Today isn’t over yet, is it?” The sun was tilting west, but summer days were long. “This place is quite remote—maybe they just can’t find it right away.” Mo Zi still held hope.
Seeing Mo Zi’s optimism, Cen Er didn’t want to say more and just sat on the edge of the flower bed, staring eagerly at the gate.
Strangely enough, not long after, they heard hoofbeats—clop clop—getting closer and closer.
Cen Er jumped up gleefully. “Finally, someone’s here.”
But Mo Zi wasn’t as happy as he was. Would ordinary shipwrights or craftsmen have the means to ride horses? She was just about to remind Cen Er when she saw two tall horses appear at the gate, one black and one brown, tossing their heads and swishing their tails, looking spirited. On the horses were two men—one older with a short black beard, one young with a crooked topknot, loose strands of hair, and even wood shavings caught in his hair. Both wore short jackets with leg-wrapped trousers. Actually, they did look somewhat like craftsmen.
“Hey, Chief Chang, I’ve never seen a gate like this—it doesn’t open on both sides, it slides to one side. And this Hongyu Shipyard sign, how did they pile up the Hongyu flowers? Going to all that trouble when they’ll just wither in a few days.” The young one urged his horse to turn in place, looking up and down.
The middle-aged man with the short black beard rode his horse toward Mo Zi and the others, turning back to say to the young man, “A Chen, we’re here on business, don’t look all around. Some people have no money but want to open a shipyard, making a sliding door to save on lumber, yet loving to show off by hanging a bunch of Hongyu flowers as decoration. Watching this spectacle is quite entertaining for us too, isn’t it?”
As he spoke, both man and horse had already reached Mo Zi and Cen Er.
Cen Er now had quite the bearing of a head steward. Despite the open mockery and veiled sarcasm, he could pretend not to hear it, cupping his hands together. “May I ask what brings you two here?” He already knew the other party wasn’t here to apply for work.
“Are you the one in charge here?” The man with the short black beard looked down at Cen Er disdainfully.
Just as he finished asking, the young man called A Chen also rode his horse forward, looked around the perimeter, and remarked that it was actually quite orderly.
“I am the steward of Hongyu Shipyard. You two, if you have something to say, please dismount and speak. After all, this isn’t your place.” Mo Zi also cupped her hands, her words neither humble nor arrogant, her gaze sharp as she looked at the man with the short black beard.
Under Mo Zi’s stare, the man with the short black beard somehow obediently dismounted.
A Chen also followed suit, his eyes roaming over Mo Zi, secretly thinking he looked refined.
“Are you the one who had those recruitment notices posted?” After dismounting, the man with the short black beard’s tone remained arrogant.
“That’s correct.” With no one coming to apply, something had clearly gone wrong.
“I’ve come to tell you—you don’t need to wait anymore. Although you posted for three days, no one will come within those three days. You want to know why? I don’t mind telling you. Our people tore down all those notices and also warned anyone who wants to make a living in the shipbuilding business that no one is permitted to come to your Hongyu Shipyard.” The man with the short black beard snorted coldly.
Oh—should she call him arrogant or honest? Mo Zi raised her eyebrows, unhurried, first introducing herself. “I am Mo Ge. May I ask on whose orders you two have come to conduct this business? Could you be official runners? If I don’t understand the rules and have been offensive in any way, please forgive me.”
A Chen jumped in, “Seeing how properly you speak, why did you act so recklessly?”
Chief Chang pulled A Chen back, indicating that he was the one delivering the message, maintaining his bearded face sternly. “Though we’re not official runners, we’re from Sunrise Shipyard. Sunrise—you know it, right? In Shaozhou.”
Mo Zi knew of it. She had inquired—within this capital region and three provinces, there were four or five shipyards, one of them called Sunrise. Not only was it large in scale with a resounding reputation, but it was also among the elite even within the entire Great Zhou nation. Sunrise wasn’t close to Hongyu, going in two different directions from the capital, a day’s fast horse ride away, but its big boss lived in the city and reportedly also ran other businesses.
“So what if I’ve heard of it?” Cen Er had originally wanted to be polite, but the other party’s attitude was so arrogant it made him uncomfortable.
Mo Zi suddenly remembered that in Great Qiu, there was once when the new owner of a private shipyard came to see her father—that was called the ritual of paying respects to the mountain. She had only recently recovered her memory, with so many matters churning in her mind, recalling one thing at a time. The shipbuilding industry’s ritual of paying respects to the mountain was like how a new top scholar had to pay respects to the chief examiner as their mentor. If newcomers entered this profession, they had to greet their peers. Great Qiu had few shipyards, so the rules were rather superficial—treating everyone to a meal was sufficient. Of course, if you had official backing, that would be extraordinary.
Could it be that in Great Zhou there were similar industry rules?