Chapter 1358 - Site Selection

"What have I become?" Li Yao'er sighed, studying her reflection in the mirror.

She had only disembarked yesterday at noon. Barely half a month had passed since completing her agricultural extension work on Jeju Island and returning to Lingao.

"I'm on track to become a model worker," she had said on the ship. Now she was beginning to regret ever volunteering for the Agricultural Committee.

The Agricultural Committee appeared harmonious on the surface, but in reality it was even more brutal than the Finance Division. There, women were worked like men and men like beasts—here, everyone regardless of gender was simply worked like beasts. Every transmigrator at the Agricultural Committee treated trips to various Hainan counties as routine. Jeju Island, Shandong, Taiwan, North Vietnam... wherever the Executive Committee's banner flew, an Agricultural Committee transmigrator was almost certainly present.

During her months on Jeju Island, she hadn't been able to cultivate ginseng as she'd hoped—the latitude was too low. Nor had she found time to enjoy the scenery. From the moment she stepped off the ship, she had thrown herself into potato promotion and seed potato virus-elimination work. The latter was a major hurdle in tuber cultivation; without progress, Jeju Island's potato industry would soon fall into continual yield decline.

Seed potato detoxification technology required certain hardware and expertise beyond ordinary farmers' capabilities, and Jeju Island lacked the necessary infrastructure. So Li Yao'er had employed a method proven effective at the Agricultural Committee's experimental station: using sexual reproduction for seed retention to avoid the virus accumulation inherent in vegetative propagation. Under her direction, a dedicated seed potato breeding base had been established on Jeju Island.

All this had consumed several months. She had barely established the system and returned to Lingao to reunite with her husband when—as the saying goes, she hadn't even warmed the bed—she was dispatched to Hangzhou to provide sericulture guidance.

Li Yao'er felt her hair was pulled too tight, making even her scalp ache. She had never worn her hair braided in loops, yet now she sported twin maiden-buns fastened with jade hairpins and adorned with freshly picked citrus blossoms.

She was dressed in a sky-blue narrow-sleeved pei jacket over a light red bijia vest. Li Yao'er had only seen such attire in television dramas, or once when she spotted hanfu enthusiasts in a park wearing something similar—quite pretty on an attractive wearer.

She did look nice in it; yesterday after coming ashore and getting dressed up, she had preened in front of the mirror. But even with her limited knowledge of period fashion, she knew this was a young maiden's attire. Though modern people generally looked younger than their age, dressing this way at nearly thirty felt somewhat uncomfortable.

Moreover, when she had met last night with the local "foreman" woman responsible for sericulture at the estate, the woman's attitude had clearly treated her as Zhao Yingong's concubine—the cover identity the External Intelligence Bureau had assigned her. Li Yao'er felt rather insulted by this. Yet dressing as a proper lady would have made her work inconvenient.

She would be personally going to the fields to guide sericulture; an identity too exalted would make it hard to get close to the workers, while too ordinary an identity wouldn't command respect. Whether in the seventeenth or twenty-first century, status remained the most important personal attribute. By comparison, the semi-slave, semi-master status of a "personal attendant" was most suitable for her work.

Suffering a little indignity was tolerable. What troubled her was her husband—though it was for revolutionary work, he would certainly feel uncomfortable knowing about it. She had stayed on Jeju Island for months, reunited briefly in Lingao, and now was off to Hangzhou again. Perhaps she should add another female servant to her quota as compensation...

Lost in thought, she was interrupted when Furong entered—one of the "first-batch students" Zhao Yingong had personally educated after arriving in Hangzhou. Her official identity was Zhao's maidservant; in reality, she was an administrative trainee for the Hangzhou Station.

"Miss Li, Wang Siniang has arrived. Shall I bring her in?"

"Yes, let her in."

Last night she had met Wang Siniang in Zhao Yingong's inner residence. Watching this woman, about her own age, kneel before her and kowtow had delivered a major psychological impact. Wang Siniang was slightly older than her, already had three children, and possessed features that would be considered refined even by twenty-first-century standards. Yet there she had knelt at Li Yao'er's feet—kowtowing, no less—rising only when Li Yao'er said "That's enough."

Whether in Lingao or Jeju Island, Li Yao'er had been in "liberated zones" and rarely encountered "pristine" natives. Those places had been transformed by their forceful entry; traditional hierarchies had been shattered and new orders were taking shape. Naturalized citizens and natives alike knew that "chiefs" didn't go for the old protocols. Even if someone still wanted to kneel and kowtow, they'd be stopped. But here, she sat openly receiving obeisance, having to maintain an air of "this is how it should be."

This time-space is truly terrifying, Li Yao'er thought. Whatever lingering fondness she might have had for the Ming dynasty vanished entirely.

Wang Siniang entered and, as before, knelt to pay her respects. Li Yao'er rose and politely told her "no need for such formalities."

According to their arrangement from last night, today they would ascend the mountain to find a suitable location for the silkworm houses.

"I'll be troubling you today, Sister-in-Law Fourth."

"Not at all—this is our duty. Rather, it's a bother for Miss to personally survey the site." Wang Siniang smiled. "It's just that Miss's clothes aren't suitable for climbing the mountain. I've already asked Steward Cai to prepare appropriate clothing."

She produced a set of work clothes. Many of the places they would visit had no roads, and Li Yao'er's current attire would be both inconvenient and likely to snag. So a blue work-apron had been prepared, along with a head-kerchief and a conical sunhat—the same outfit Wang Siniang wore when picking tea on the mountain.

Li Yao'er changed and, guided by Wang Siniang, headed up the mountain. She carried a satchel containing pen, paper, tape measure, level, and thermometer—she could roughly survey the terrain and surroundings at any time.

Silkworm houses had specific environmental requirements, and Li Yao'er's purpose on this trip extended beyond raising silkworms. She also needed to establish a silkworm-seed station for the Agricultural Committee, in preparation for the upcoming sericulture cooperative.

The Agricultural Committee had already established one silkworm-seed station in Hainan, but silkworm eggs had strict preservation and transport requirements. Shipping seeds thousands of li was impractical; they had to develop seed-breeding capacity locally.

Since it would be a breeding facility, the site requirements were even more stringent. Fortunately, Phoenix Mountain was large enough to offer plenty of options.

The two first walked along a flagstone mountain path, then gradually left the main road for narrower trails. Most of these paths had been created only after Zhao Yingong began operating the estate—carved by servants going to and from work. Unpaved and rather narrow, with dense branches and weeds pressing in from either side, walking through them proved quite strenuous.

Ideally, a silkworm-rearing facility would be built on a sun-facing slope, surrounded by trees for shade and wind protection, with a water source nearby for convenience. And for future expansion, the site couldn't be too small. Given these constraints, Phoenix Mountain Estate had relatively few suitable locations.

When Wang Siniang and Shen Da had first been brought in by Cai Shi, they had surveyed the entire estate and its surroundings, looking for places suitable for mulberry, tea, and sericulture. She had a sense of which locations might meet Miss Li's requirements.

She led Li Yao'er through climbing and forest-crossing, visiting four or five locations in succession. Li Yao'er found none of them satisfactory and wanted to keep looking. Wang Siniang was somewhat impressed: Miss Li was clearly someone who could endure hardship. All this climbing and bushwhacking—even younger girls on the estate would have complained they couldn't take it—yet she seemed unfazed, her movements still agile and nimble, her speech crisp and direct. Nothing like the coy manner of typical "personal attendants."

The sun gradually climbed toward its zenith as Wang Siniang led her to a slightly recessed clearing on a hillside. A mountain stream flowed down the slope, and where the terrain flattened slightly, a small pool had formed among the rocks—barely larger than a bathtub, crystal-clear.

"This is another option. What does Miss think?"

"Good. This is really good." Li Yao'er nodded.

This was textbook-perfect land for sericulture: a sun-facing slope with excellent sunlight and ventilation. The windward side was protected by forest, and surrounding large trees provided shade. The plot was about four or five mu, mostly gently sloped—no more than ten degrees—facilitating drainage without hindering construction. And there was a water source.

"I thought Miss would like this place." Wang Siniang looked rather pleased with herself.

"When we're together, you don't need to call yourself 'this slave,'" Li Yao'er said. "It's too formal."

"Miss is the master's personal attendant. How could an outer-yard slave like myself speak casually with 'you' and 'me'?"

Li Yao'er sighed helplessly. She really didn't want to hear "the master's personal attendant"—but she couldn't deny it. She changed the subject.

"Sister-in-Law Fourth, you're an experienced sericulturist. In your opinion, how would this place work for raising silkworms?"

"The location Miss has chosen is excellent." Though Wang Siniang thought Miss Li was being somewhat fussy about site selection—by her standards, half of Hangzhou would be unsuitable for sericulture—the surrounding environment here was indeed superb and would pose no problems.

Li Yao'er nodded, stepped up onto a large rock, and pulled an insulated bottle with a rattan cover from her bag. She poured herself a cup of hot tea into a bamboo cup and nodded toward Wang Siniang. "I have tea here. Would you like some?"

Wang Siniang thought that Master Zhao certainly had unique tastes—this Miss Li was quite bold and direct. Thinking thus, she maintained her pleasant smile. "Thank you, Miss. This slave has a bamboo water bottle right here."