Chapter 665 - Wu Nanhai's Thoughts

The new demonstration farm café strove to recreate the atmosphere of the old timeline. Though the imitation was crude, it still fully satisfied transmigrators' nostalgia. This was the secret to the farm café's success.

Xiao Bailang had delivered the newly ordered glassware and bone china, now piled in the room waiting to be unpacked. The complete glass and bone china sets were all manufactured in classic old-timeline styles. Besides coffee, the new café would serve rum, fruit wine, and kvass, as well as soda water and seltzer. A team from the Mechanical Factory, under Jiang Ye's direction, had replicated a soda machine from blueprints and also manufactured several bottling-and-sealing devices. This semi-mechanized bottling equipment could produce small batches of glass marble-bottle sodas—the standard packaging from before disposable tinplate caps.

Soda flavored only with sugar and citric acid tasted cleaner than kvass, lacking kvass's characteristic breadlike sourness. And the cost was extremely low. Plain soda water could be used to mix cocktails; with salt added, it became the saline soda issued at high-temperature workplaces.

Mo Xiao'an had hoped to add fruit juice for fruit soda, but the transmigrators' chemical industry couldn't yet produce effective food preservatives like sodium benzoate—best to minimize natural additives.

The newly completed building was undergoing interior finishing. Carpenters and painters came and went; the floor was heaped with cut boards and timber. Ceramic tiles, mosaic facing, and sanitary fixtures from the porcelain factory were stacked under a thatch shelter. Like the glassware and bone china, Xiao Bailang had sold these at the official "internal transfer price."

Not just these items from Xiao Bailang—the tables, chairs, and lumber from Hai Lin's Forestry Department woodworking factory; cement and bricks from the Building Materials Factory; soda machines and hardware from the Mechanical Factory; tablecloths and server uniforms from the Textile Factory—nothing could be obtained without paying the transfer price.

The loan Wu Nanhai had secured from Wu Di was draining at alarming speed. He could only console himself that once the café opened, he would earn it all back.

Construction was progressing rapidly. Wu Nanhai estimated that in another week, they would reach the cleaning stage.

Then restocking. Then opening for business.

Wu Nanhai looked somewhat painfully at Wu Di, who was working an abacus under a shed. After lending Wu Nanhai the money, Wu Di came to the site daily, checking the day's construction and finishing material deliveries, calculating costs, making sure no loan money was wasted. He had even volunteered as the site's receiving clerk and supervisor.

Wu Nanhai felt uncomfortable—it reminded him of countless novels where small businessmen fell into wicked bankers' traps, saddled with crushing debt, and ultimately saw their hard-invested enterprises cheaply seized through loan terms. Of course, institutionally speaking, such a scenario was entirely unnecessary in Lingao.

"Opening in another week," Wu Nanhai murmured. Though he normally projected an "approachable," "easygoing," and "agreeable" nice-guy image, and had always kept a low profile in the Yuan Laoyuan where power struggles were emerging, in the dead of night he too secretly pondered his future.

Given his current status, securing a position in the upper-middle tier of the five hundred was no problem. Though the Agricultural Committee's standing had declined during institutional restructuring, food was always the central issue for the Yuan Laoyuan and Executive Committee. Whoever controlled agriculture would command respect from any administration.

Wu Nanhai had considered running for the still-vacant Yuan Laoyuan Speaker position on the Executive Committee. But after much deliberation, he decided to stay out for now. Many transmigrators without important positions but with some influence coveted this speakership. Many were probably preparing to jump in; collisions were inevitable.

By his own assessment: he had good relationships and a decent reputation. His chances of winning were perhaps fifty-fifty. But if he won, he would have to resign as Agricultural People's Commissar—and he wasn't ready to give up this territory he had cultivated with so much effort.

He understood clearly that becoming Speaker would likely put him on the path of a professional politician. That path wasn't bad, but it would mean losing the opportunity to continue developing the agricultural sector. As for becoming the Wu-family Monsanto of the new century—that would become an even more distant dream.

Being a politician required substantial capital. Though no one knew what the transmigrator empire's future political system would look like, money as the lubricant of political operations applied in any timeline. Currently, transmigrators weren't permitted private enterprises, but that prohibition would likely be lifted in the future. When that happened, he would need his own commercial talent.

With this in mind, Wu Nanhai not only personally funded Li Quan's full education but also sent Chu Qing to several training courses: basic literacy plus business and accounting. He had wanted to reclaim Li Quan's mother, Li Mo, from the Health Department, but Dr. Shi had slyly refused on grounds that she had "completed full nursing training."

Once the café opened, he planned to appoint Chu Qing as manager—giving his woman an independent project. Wu Nanhai wanted to see if Chu Qing had the ability to run things on her own.

As for his disciples, the Lu Jia and Lu Yi brothers—he intended to cultivate and promote them, making them future agricultural-sector stalwarts, building a faction within the Agricultural Department.

He was also planning to select several young children from immigrants as adopted sons and daughters once the "Transmigrator Family Relations Law" was enacted, and to take on more disciples...

But the urgent priority was having his own children! Wu Nanhai suddenly realized: adopted children reaching adulthood early could form their own power base in the family. If he died when his biological children were still young, wouldn't they be at a disadvantage? Then he felt guilty about this thought—adopted children were also his children. How could he play favorites? That violated principles of equality and benevolence. But he quickly consoled himself: genes were inherently selfish.

He hadn't thought about inheritance before, but news of Tang Menglong's life secretary's pregnancy had greatly stimulated his thinking. Wu Nanhai's gaze involuntarily settled on Chu Qing—previously he had viewed sex merely as a physiological need. Now it seemed a matter of considerable importance.

Chu Qing was standing before the newly finished wooden outdoor bar, bending over to curiously examine the clunky gas refrigerator. She wore shoulder-length hair held by a hairpin, a silk dress in old-timeline style copied by Administrative Office tailors, knitted cotton stockings, and rattan sandals. This quite ordinary outfit suddenly triggered a massive hormone surge in Wu Nanhai.

Just as he was staring at her waist and round hips, contemplating what to do with her that evening, Chu Qing suddenly turned.

"Master—"

"Mm, yes?" Wu Nanhai's fantasy was abruptly interrupted. He hastily adjusted his stance to avoid detection.

Though their relationship had ceased to be "purely platonic between a man and woman" since a year ago, they still maintained a kind of ambiguous distance.

"Why do we need a refrigerator?"

"To make ice." In Lingao's summer, ice was the greatest blessing; consumption was enormous. "Also for shaved ice and popsicles."

Wu Nanhai had originally wanted to make ice cream, but with few dairy cows, the milk supply was insufficient. That plan was shelved. But shaved ice and popsicles posed no difficulty. Popsicles were just purified water with sugar, fruit juice, herbal flavorings, or mung beans and red beans, frozen solid.

Shaved ice was even simpler. The Mechanical Factory had made several crude hand-cranked shaved-ice machines, each capable of preparing up to ten servings at once.

Shaved-ice toppings—whether red bean, mung bean, or various fruits—were all easy to prepare here. One could imagine this cold treat, beloved by women, effectively emptying transmigrators' wallets.

"From now on, you'll be in charge of running this place," Wu Nanhai said with a smile.

Chu Qing froze for a moment. "Me?" She laughed and shook her head. "I wouldn't dare. I can't do it."

"I believe in your abilities—didn't you attend the business training course?"

"If you want me to work an abacus, keep accounts, help Master with odd jobs, that's all manageable. But asking me to be the proprietress..." Chu Qing suddenly realized "proprietress" was an awkward term, and blushed. "...the manageress—I can't."

"Have confidence." Wu Nanhai's hand seized the opportunity to grasp her slender waist.

"Master—" Chu Qing shyly lowered her head. "In broad daylight."

Wu Nanhai coughed and released her waist. "This café may be small, but it's very important to us. Run it well."

"The chiefs are demanding," Chu Qing still hesitated. "When they drink too much and get rowdy, it's frightening." She recalled the Maid Revolution—in her understanding, that night's disturbance had been caused by drunkenness. She lowered her head to think. "Alright, I'll be the manageress... but if we lose money? This should be a Yuan Laoyuan enterprise."

"Don't worry—we won't lose money. The demand for leisure is enormous." Wu Nanhai smiled. "I'll advise you on the details. You just need to hold down the fort for me. In the future, there may be even bigger enterprises for you to manage."

"As Master commands," Chu Qing said. "Your servant will do her utmost."

Just as Wu Nanhai was lost in dreams of a business empire, gunshots suddenly rang out in the distance.

He shuddered. This was the transmigrators' core territory—why would there suddenly be gunfire?