Chapter 308
Chapter 308
Holding the fallen hair, Nanshu looked both worried and embarrassed.
Ji Yan’an took a deep breath. “Have I been losing this much hair lately?”
He truly had not noticed.
Nanshu smiled awkwardly. “Well… Young Master, you have indeed been losing rather a lot lately.”
Jiang Yunsui walked over and stroked his long hair with a small, pitying hand.
“Don’t lose any more hair. What’ll you do if you go bald?”
Her words struck his heart like an arrow.
Jiang Yunsui said, “Don’t worry. I’ll find Shen Qingzhu right now and ask if he has medicine that can save your hair.”
Then Jiang Yunsui ran off.
Ji Yan’an closed his eyes.
He was still a young man, after all, and cared about his appearance.
Go bald? Absolutely not!
The mere thought of it made Ji Yan’an despair of life.
“No. We have to find a way to recruit capable people!”
As Jiang Yunsui left Ji Yan’an’s place, she ran into Song Jin drifting toward her like a ghost.
Jiang Yunsui cried out.
He had frightened her.
“Halt! What ghost dares wander around in broad daylight?”
She even drew her little dagger and pointed it at him.
The dark circles under Song Jin’s eyes were as heavy as his resentment.
“Hah…”
He sneered. Seeing Jiang Yunsui’s chubby, bright-eyed face, he rolled his eyes dramatically.
“A ghost? I wish I were one!”
Then he stormed off to find Ji Yan’an.
“Young Master! I quit! I’m a human being. You can’t work me like an ox and a horse!”
Jiang Yunsui craned her little neck and pricked up her ears to listen for a while.
All right. Song Jin was steeped from head to toe in the resentment of an overworked employee.
When Song Jin found Ji Yan’an, the latter was holding his fallen hair and radiating gloom.
Their gazes met.
Ji Yan’an asked, “How is Mr. Song’s hairline holding up?”
Song Jin’s resentment intensified until he looked exactly like a vicious ghost that had crawled out of hell.
“What do you think?”
He ground the words through clenched teeth.
“We have to recruit people!”
They spoke at the same time.
Mobei had no shortage of people who knew how to wage war.
But for that very reason, the military officers who flourished sabers and swords with fearsome skill on the battlefield were an appalling sight when made to handle government affairs.
Ask them to write a proposal of several hundred or thousand words, or a postwar report, and they would scratch their heads for days without squeezing out more than a few words.
That was to say nothing of the vast quantities of figures that needed calculating and planning, or the solutions required for problems arising across different regions.
Having those men deal with such work only made things harder for Ji Yan’an and Song Jin.
They desperately lacked capable people who could help administer government affairs.
The two shut themselves in the room and began discussing how to recruit talent.
*
“Ji Yan’an, Song Jin, look!”
In the study, Song Jin was excitedly writing down numerous recruitment plans with his brush.
When Jiang Yunsui barged in, the two men were still talking.
“We can hold an examination on the pretext that the porcelain and cement workshops need managers. The examination should focus more on practical arithmetic…”
Ji Yan’an would have preferred to select people through something like the imperial examinations, but that would have been far too treasonous.
After all, the imperial family of Great Liang still reigned, at least in name.
Everyone might understand that he intended to rebel, but if he acted now, the Imperial Court would have grounds to denounce him before the realm and send an army against him.
They would then hold the moral high ground.
Besides, Ji Yan’an did not want to reveal Mobei’s true situation too soon.
He wanted to keep his head down for a few more years and wait until everything was ready.
“Look!”
Jiang Yunsui placed a small pouch on the desk, and the two men finally looked at her.
“What is that?”
Jiang Yunsui looked eager for praise. “They’re fleeceflower seeds.”
“And sesame seeds.”
“Shen Qingzhu said that once I grow these two things, he can make medicine to help your hair grow.”
Ji Yan’an and Song Jin: …
As much as they hated to admit it, they truly needed that.
Jiang Yunsui took the sesame and fleeceflower seeds to her own courtyard, found a patch of earth, and began laboriously digging holes.
She planted them haphazardly and soon finished.
After dusting off her hands, Jiang Yunsui went to find Ji Yang.
“Yangyang, let’s go to the workshop.”
Ji Yang was embroidering.
On the embroidery frame in her hands, a familiar white ball of fur was already half complete.
But her embroidered snow leopard cub was noticeably plumper than the real one.
“All right.”
Ji Yang set her work aside and took Jiang Yunsui’s hand. The two girls found Old Madam Ji and told her where they wanted to go. After receiving permission, they left.
“What are we doing at the workshop?”
It was Ji Yang’s first visit, and she was curious about everything.
Jiang Yunsui said, “I asked them to make glass for me before. Master Yang says they’ve made it.”
She had wanted to make it during the winter, but at the time they had not gathered all the materials.
After spring arrived and the weather warmed, the workshop searched for the materials needed to make glass according to Jiang Yunsui’s instructions.
After many experiments, they finally produced several finished pieces.
“Master Yang!”
The workshop was blazing with activity.
Literally.
The weather was already hot, and melting glass required high temperatures, so the place was truly sweltering.
Jiang Yunsui and Ji Yang lasted only a moment inside before fleeing outdoors.
Jiang Yunsui still held a palm-sized piece of glass.
The glass was pure enough, but bubbles remained inside it.
Ji Yang’s eyes lit up. “Wow, it’s beautiful.”
In an age when even colored glass was rare, and what existed was neither clear nor transparent, this piece of glass was truly dazzling.
“There are still bubbles. The formula needs adjusting.”
“There must have been water in the mixture, or gases that didn’t escape while it was heated…”
For the sake of making glass, Jiang Yunsui had rummaged through her Inherited Memories again and again as though flipping through a book.
In truth, she did not understand much of it herself, but that did not stop her from showing off by reciting what she remembered.
Master Yang only half understood. In the end, Jiang Yunsui gave him the correct answer.
Master Yang immediately said, “I’ll take everyone back and try again right now.”
Jiang Yunsui and Ji Yang did not leave. Instead, they played with the glass that had already been made.
Some pieces were not very transparent, and their colors were unattractive. They were full of bubbles and impurities.
“These were made when we first started. Later, we kept adjusting the formula and controlling the heat, so the glass gradually became better looking.”
Ji Yang said, “These are already beautiful.”
She pointed to the most recent batch.
Jiang Yunsui nodded with her little hands clasped behind her back, imitating an adult.
“Not bad, not bad. It isn’t perfect yet, but it’s good enough for a glass greenhouse.”
Ji Yang’s little mouth fell open. “Little Aunt, you’re going to build a house out of this?”
“It’ll be really, really beautiful.”
Jiang Yunsui said, “I want to grow vegetables in the glass greenhouse. Then we’ll have fresh vegetables even in winter.”