The steam locomotive of the special train let out a long whistle, its wheels screeching against the rails as the brakes were applied.
The black train body slowly slid into the inner platform of New York's Grand Central Station.
Felix sat at a mahogany long table and closed the shipping report in his hand.
The carriage door was pulled open from the outside by the conductor.
The clamor of the platform and the thick smell of coal smoke rushed in instantly.
"We're here. Let's go."
Felix stood up after speaking to Isabella and walked straight toward the door.
Isabella followed him silently, holding her ivory-handled parasol and stepping down the cast-iron steps in her high-heeled leather boots.
A space had already been cleared on the platform by the security team.
Bill, president of the Metropolitan Trading Company, stood inside the cordon wearing a dark gray wool coat.
He held a thick roll of customs documents in his hand.
Seeing Felix disembark, he immediately went to meet him, his expression looking somewhat urgent.
"Boss."
Bill stopped in front of Felix and lowered his voice.
"There's an urgent telegram; there are some situations that require your personal decision."
Felix knew Bill was a steady man; for him to personally rush to the train station to intercept someone meant the matter had definitely exceeded the scope of conventional business competition.
Felix nodded slightly.
He turned around and looked at Isabella, who was standing a few steps away.
"Frost," Felix commanded.
The secretary immediately stepped forward.
"Have four security personnel escort Miss Martin back to her rented hotel."
Felix pointed at Isabella.
"Wait for her to pack her luggage, then send her directly to the villa next to Central Park."
After giving the orders, Felix looked at Isabella again.
"Stay in the villa for now; there are servants and a chef there. Don't go out unnecessarily. I'll head over once I've handled the matters at hand."
Isabella lowered her head slightly.
"Alright, Felix."
She appeared extremely submissive, like a tamed bird.
Felix said no more.
He turned and, with Bill and the remaining security personnel, strode toward another exit of the station.
Isabella stood where she was, watching the man disappear into the crowd without looking back.
Putting away her submissive expression, her gaze became deep.
When she got off the train just now, she had noticed the middle-aged man who came to meet him.
Although they were some distance apart, she recognized that face.
In the restorationist intelligence summaries in Vienna, Bill, the president of the Metropolitan Trading Company, was one of the core figures in the Argyle Family's business empire.
"Bill came to meet him personally, and he looked so hurried," Isabella calculated in her mind.
"Could there be a problem with the business in France? Has the Thiers government made a move? Or are European capitalists intercepting Metropolitan's cargo ships?"
But at this moment, she showed no desire to investigate.
She quietly followed Frost out of the station and got into a black carriage.
The carriage traversed the streets of New York, and before long, they returned to that hotel, which wasn't particularly high-end.
Frost stayed in the hallway with the security personnel, letting Isabella go inside to pack her luggage herself.
Isabella pushed open the door to the guest room.
Gaston was pacing back and forth in the room anxiously.
Seeing Isabella return safely, the old servant let out a long sigh of relief.
"You're finally back. That beast of Wall Street didn't hurt you, did he?" Gaston stepped forward quickly.
"I'm fine, Gaston. Pack the things; we're moving."
Isabella walked to the bedside and picked up a leather suitcase.
"Moving? Moving where?" Gaston was stunned.
"A private villa next to Central Park, Felix Argyle's private property."
Isabella began folding the clothes from the wardrobe and putting them into the suitcase.
Gaston's face changed instantly, a strong sense of humiliation and anger welling up on his wrinkled face.
"A villa? Private property?"
Gaston's hands clenched into fists.
"What does he mean by this? He hasn't made a formal proposal to the theater troupe, nor has he publicly disclosed your identity in social circles. He's just shoving you straight into a villa?"
Gaston lowered his voice, like an enraged Old Lion.
"Your Highness, he's treating you like a mistress... treating a direct bloodline of the Bourbon Dynasty as a bird he keeps in a cage. This is the ultimate insult to the French Royal Family!"
Isabella stopped what she was doing.
She turned her head and looked at the angry old servant.
"Control your emotions, Gaston."
Isabella's voice was very calm.
"Wasn't this something we should have been prepared for? It's also the price I must pay in America."
Gaston still could not accept it.
"Your Highness, have we been exposed? I've heard Argyle's intelligence network is vast. Could he have already discovered your true identity but doesn't want to offend the current French Republic government, so he's deliberately using this crude method to humiliate you, hoping you'll back down?"
Isabella let out a cold laugh upon hearing this.
She walked to the washstand and washed her hands with cold water.
"Gaston, you overestimate this American's political sensitivity."
Drying her hands with a towel, Isabella began to analyze.
"He took me to the steel mills in Pittsburgh and roared at me beside the furnace. What he showed me was pure industrial violence and the supremacy of money."
Isabella looked at herself in the mirror.
"If he had truly found out I was of the Bourbon Family, with his profit-seeking merchant nature, his first reaction would definitely not be to make me a mistress."
"After all, he just obtained contracts for railways and power grids in southern France from the Thiers government. If he knew my identity, in order to avoid trouble from the French government and to protect those contracts, he would have had me tied up and secretly sent back to Paris to be handed over to Thiers long ago. Or he'd use it as leverage to demand more concessions from the French Republic."
Isabella turned around, her gaze firm.
"Since he didn't do that and instead arranged for me to stay in a villa, it can only mean one thing."
"That is, he has no idea who I am. In his eyes, I am still just that French actress singing on the Broadway stage, coveting his wealth, and ultimately conquered by his power and tactics."
Isabella walked back to the bedside and continued packing her luggage.
"This is exactly the outcome I wanted, Gaston. Since he wants a beautiful plaything, then I will be his most obedient plaything."
"Once I'm in that villa and he completely lets down his guard against me, his study, his telegrams, and even the combination to his vault will eventually be exposed to me. When that time comes, the military funds for the French restoration will be secured."
After hearing this analysis, the anger in Gaston's heart gradually subsided, replaced by a deep awe for this young princess.
For the sake of the family's revival, she was actually willing to endure such contempt from a commoner.
"Your Highness, I understand." Gaston lowered his head.
"Go to the contact station in a while, Gaston."
Isabella snapped the latches of the suitcase shut.
"Send a coded telegram to Vienna and contact my father. Tell him that the first step of the plan has been successful. My plan will certainly succeed, so tell them not to worry."
"Also, tell them to stabilize those moles within the Thiers government. Do not move against the Metropolitan Trading Company's cargo ships in mainland France. We need Argyle's business in Europe to continue expanding; the more he earns, the more abundant our future military funds will be."
"As you command." Gaston went to do it immediately.
Half an hour later.
Isabella, carrying her luggage, walked out of the hotel.
Frost pulled open the carriage door, and Isabella stepped inside.
Under the strict escort of over a dozen security personnel, the carriage drove toward Central Park.
Looking at the New York streetscape receding outside the window.
Isabella's heart was filled with the confidence of controlling this Wall Street beast.
But what she didn't know at all was...
On this giant chessboard, her self-righteous infiltration was actually just a live drama used by the man sitting in the Empire State Building to dispel his boredom.
Top floor office of the Empire State Building.
Felix sat behind the desk, while Bill, the president of the Metropolitan Trading Company, sat in the chair opposite him.
Several copies of urgent telegrams from San Francisco were spread out on the desk.
"Our business on the West Coast is expanding too quickly, Boss."
Bill pointed at the numbers on the report.
"As you know, ONeill is doing an excellent job over there. I mean, the Western subsidiary of Metropolitan Trading has now monopolized nearly half of the ocean and coastal trade from Seattle to San Diego."
"I came to the train station to find you because the logistics capacity over there has reached its limit."
Bill reported the specific situation, his face looking somewhat helpless.
"Our existing fifty cargo ships simply cannot transport all the wheat produced by the western farms and the blister copper from the mines. We need to purchase new vessels."
Felix nodded, understanding the situation.
"Take my signature to the Imperial Bank to withdraw funds. Find the Atlantic Steam Power Shipyard and place an order for twenty new-model steam cargo ships." Felix approved the budget.
Bill put away the reports.
"One more thing, Boss. It's about ONeill's personnel management on the West Coast."
Bill paused for a moment.
"Speak."
"It's like this: previously, ONeill employed a large number of Irish and some Chinese laborers at the ports in San Francisco and Los Angeles. This caused dissatisfaction among local white labor organizations. There has always been a wave of anti-Chinese political sentiment in California. They believe that our use of cheap Irish and Chinese workers is stealing their livelihoods. Several local gangs even tried to commit sabotage at our docks."
Felix's gaze instantly turned cold.
"How was it handled?"
"ONeill mobilized men from Vanguard Security, broke the legs of all those gang members who came to cause trouble, and threw them into the sea," Bill answered truthfully.
"He takes very good care of those Irish and the Chinese who are willing to join us. Not only does he pay weekly wages on time, but he also forbids the foremen from embezzling their food expenses."
"ONeill did the right thing." Felix leaned back in his chair.
"In America, only those willing to sweat and work deserve to earn dollars. As for those white mobs who spend all day holding signs in protest on the streets, wanting high pay without working, let them die."
Felix's fingers tapped on the desk.
"Tell ONeill not to worry about the protests from the California state government or those labor organizations. The Metropolitan Trading Company is an independent kingdom. Whoever dares to come and cause trouble, greet them with guns."
"Protect those Irish and... well, the Chinese who take the initiative to align with us. As long as they are willing to put in the effort to move cargo for me, Metropolitan will provide them with absolute sanctuary."
"Understood." Bill nodded.
...
At the other end of the American continent.
San Francisco, California.
At Deepwater Pier No. 7 of the Metropolitan Trading Company's Western subsidiary, sea mist lingered.
Flocks of seagulls circled above the masts.
The manager, ONeill, wearing a heavy windbreaker and biting a corncob pipe, stood atop a high stack of cargo, watching the porters below busy as worker ants.
Crates of silk and tea were unloaded from trans-Pacific cargo ships and then loaded onto railway wagons bound for the East.
In the line of porters.
Dum Gai, shirtless with a piece of thick canvas padded on his shoulder, was carrying a heavy wooden crate steadily across the gangplank.
A year ago, Dum Gai and his brothers in San Francisco's Chinatown had to guard against extortion from local white thugs every day.
Everything changed after they took the job of building port warehouses for the Metropolitan Trading Company.
Dum Gai placed the wooden crate on a flatbed cart and wiped his sweat with the towel around his neck.
ONeill jumped down from the stack and walked over to Dum Gai.
"Gai. After this batch is unloaded, have the boys go to the canteen to collect two pounds of beef. My treat."
ONeill patted Dum Gai's sturdy shoulder and said in English with a thick Irish accent.
"Thank you, Mr. ONeill!"
Dum Gai grinned.
Under Metropolitan's protection, the lives of Dum Gai and his group of Chinese workers had undergone earth-shaking changes.
Because they were backed by the great umbrella of Vanguard Security, San Francisco's gangs no longer dared to set foot in Chinatown.
Dum Gai had not only become a dock foreman himself and received a generous salary, but he also funded his relatives back home to open two large laundries and a Chinese restaurant in the city center.
Business was booming.
Not just them, but the entire Irish and Chinese communities attached to the Metropolitan Trading Company had established solid roots on the West Coast.
At noon.
A dull and long whistle suddenly echoed from the sea.
A steam passenger-cargo ship flying the dragon flag of the Great Qing Empire slowly sailed into San Francisco Bay.
The workers on the dock stopped their work one after another, looking curiously at this vessel from the distant East.
The passenger ship docked, and the gangplank was set against the wooden pilings of the pier.
A group of people walked down the gangplank.
Leading the way were several men wearing formal official robes of the Great Qing Empire.
They wore official hats with peacock feathers, long robes with magua jackets, and thick-soled black boots.
In this American port filled with mechanical noise and rough sailors, their attire appeared extremely out of place.
This group was the Western Affairs Inspection Mission sent by the Zongli Yamen of the Great Qing Empire.
The leader was a Daotai official surnamed Li.
They had crossed the Pacific this time burdened with an important mission from the Imperial Court: to inspect Western industrial machinery and find a way to procure a batch of core equipment for building railways and telegraph lines to support the rising Western Affairs Movement back home.
Daotai Li stepped off the gangplank and looked at the massive, busy deepwater port before him, filled with an aura of steel, an unconcealable shock flashing in his eyes.
He had seen foreign docks in Guangzhou and Shanghai as well.
But their scale and order paled in comparison to this giant handling machine before his eyes.
Huge steam cranes moved on tracks, effortlessly hoisting several tons of cargo out of the ship's hold.
Then the iron rails were laid directly to the edge of the trestle pier.
"Is this San Francisco Port of America?"
Daotai Li stroked the beard under his chin and turned to ask the aide beside him.
"Replying to your Excellency, it is indeed. However, looking at the flags on this dock, it does not seem to be a government-run pier of the American authorities."
The aide pointed to the massive blue flag flying above the warehouse.
The flag was printed with the logo of the Metropolitan Trading Company.
Dum Gai was somewhat surprised to see this group of people in Qing official robes, but he still stepped forward quickly to greet them.
"Are you gentlemen from the Great Qing?"
Dum Gai asked in fluent Cantonese.
Seeing a fellow countryman with yellow skin and a queue, Daotai Li lowered his guard slightly.
"Indeed. This official is here by order of the Imperial Court to inspect Western affairs."
Daotai Li sized up Dum Gai's solid muscles and fearless demeanor.
This was completely different from those coolies back home who would kneel upon seeing an official.
"Are you the leader of the Chinese workers here?"
"I am a dock foreman for the Metropolitan Trading Company, Dum Gai."
Dum Gai cupped his hands in greeting without kneeling.
"You gentlemen have just arrived, and things are quite chaotic on the ground in San Francisco. If you don't mind, I'll take you to Chinatown to settle down first. Whatever official business you have, we can sit down and discuss it slowly."
Daotai Li nodded, not minding the lack of kneeling.
"Then I shall trouble you, Sturdy Dum."
This group of feudal bureaucrats from the ancient East, carrying their yearning for exotic tricks and ingenious skills and their arrogance toward the system of a great power, stepped into this New World that was already thoroughly dominated by capital.