A Year Passed

After the initial encounter, my time at the North West went pretty smoothly. Security was ramped up, and the military went and conducted a strike on the Rouran base. I passed 2 months more like this, huddled up in the base. Finally, I was allowed to return to the trading outpost, once a thorough search was given, accompanied by... no less than 6 guards and 4 more shadow guards. In addition to Yun, Xin, Ou and Fei, this was now an entourage of 14 guards. I snorted at the absurdity.

Anyway, what was important was that I could show my face around again. I said hi to everybody, paid visits to Adrik and Tolya, who were still recovering from their wounds but very much happy to see me, and received Norse envoys who wanted to see me and discuss plans to deal with the Mongols.

In the meantime, since I had to make a lightbulb after all, I sent out a few letters commissioning a few trusted artisan groups to make my lightbulbs and batteries. They were sworn to secrecy and threatened with my seal.

I also wanted to try to grow cocoa eventually, so I imported a good few bags of seeds from the Norse to be sent to the Luna Marche warehouse. While I was able to make short trips to meet the artisan representatives (who travelled to meet me), I was unable to make the journey back to the capital, so I instructed Hua Ling and Fei Yan to help me clear out another division in the office building for my new "Electronics Division" and find talented engineers or blacksmiths.

No doubt, they were wondering why a primarily women's company needed engineers or blacksmiths, and women engineers or blacksmiths were even harder to find. I told them we could recruit factory workers working with metals or raw materials to join us and give them training, but we really needed engineers and blacksmiths.

Since it was a huge project, I gave them a huge budget and told them to search all of Huaxia. The department space would be a training and idea space for now and the gardens at the 2 sides of the office building started to be cleared and rearranged for construction of 2 new buildings … which would be connected. It would be the East wing and West wing.

Behind the East Wing would be my greenhouse. I was very specific about my instructions to build it and how to grow the cocoa, even illustrating with many diagrams. Along the way, I also managed to obtain some banana, coconut and pineapple seeds.

The greenhouse was planned to be massive with many wings. It was to be integrated into the gardens itself and Fei Yan was to recruit "anyone who was detail oriented, patient and with a green thumb" to man it. Set up in the new office building would be a new agriculture division to manage growth and exports. I planned to sell these all over the country and also grow seasonal fruits year round.

Summer turned to autumn and autumn turned to winter. Before I knew it, I had been in the North West for a year. We had swapped out our thin traveling clothes for thick winter robes and furs. The carriage rumbled and shook with a clatter as it was pulled along as if a sled by the huskies. A gift from Russia, they were now our go-to transport in winter.

Lu Qing Yu closed his eyes and leaned on the wall of the carriage. I peered at him worriedly. Since the "war" was now mostly guerrilla warfare, we were contemplating if we could now head back to the capital early.

We had gone on a trip to the border towns of the North West for some matters. Lu Qing Yu – to speak to some officials and discuss our reserves, and me to meet with the artisans and companies that were putting my lightbulbs and greenhouses in action.

I was running into more difficulties than expected, simply because these people had never made anything this genius before and didn't know how to craft it properly. Nevertheless, I would come out here fortnightly or so, together with Lu Qing Yu, and they also had to meet me.

"Solitaire", what I was calling the subsidiary that would be the electrical division, and "Harvest Moon", my agriculture division (also a subsidiary) were gearing up for a release. According to Fei Yan and the people at the capital, the employees were trained and ready. The greenhouse was still in a trial-and-error phase, but due to the quick thinking of my employees, my crops which I had painstakingly imported, were still intact.

All of a sudden, the carriage shuddered to a violent stop, nearly throwing me off balance. Lu Qing Yu, who I assumed was asleep or somewhat unconscious, immediately threw out an arm to stop me from sprawling onto floor.

My heart pounded furiously as I lay back in my seat again. "Thanks." I said. People of this era really needed seatbelts. A knock came from the carriage window. "What happened?" Lu Qing Yu asked calmly, pulling aside the drapes. Gu Yin's serious face appeared in the window.

"It's not good, Your Highness. We've been ambushed." he said.