Li Daoxuan thought it over carefully.
"Alright," he said. "No transformation. But the power system and steering—you have to make those properly."
Hearing that the word "transformation" was officially off the table, Cai Xinzi let out a long breath.
Good. The mushrooms this time weren't lethal. There was still hope.
Li Daoxuan kept thinking.
The solar car, the small train—those had all been limited by size and use. The toys were tiny. Weapons never made sense.
But ships were different.
Ships could be big.
And once something was big, putting weapons on it stopped being weird and started being inevitable.
"Old Cai," Li Daoxuan said, casually, "I also want to install some weapons on the ship models."
"Oh, that's obvious," Cai Xinzi replied. "A few hundred-millimeter naval guns, torpedoes, missile racks—whatever you want, I'll load it up."
"I don't mean display weapons," Li Daoxuan clarified.
"I mean weapons that can actually fire."
There was a beat.
Then Cai Xinzi exploded.
"I was wrong. Completely wrong. You didn't just eat mushrooms—you moved in with them. Go lie down. Don't move. I'm calling an ambulance. Stay with me."
Li Daoxuan laughed. Fair. That one was on him.
"I mean toy weapons," he said quickly. "Like a cannon on the bow that shoots plastic pellets. That's doable, right?"
"Oh. That's easy," Cai Xinzi relaxed. "I can buy a plastic pellet launcher online and mount it. Won't take long. But… aren't you worried this ship is becoming a bit… unhinged?"
"I like unhinged toys."
"…Of course you do," Cai Xinzi sighed. "Then I might as well add a lighter system. One switch, flamethrower ship."
"Nice. Add that."
Cai Xinzi stared into the void.
"I make high-end toys," he muttered. "Why does everything I build for you keep getting younger and more feral?"
The call ended. Cai Xinzi went off to build inland ships.
Li Daoxuan, meanwhile, was thinking further.
Toy weapons alone wouldn't cut it. The little people would need to make their own weapons for the ships. And in the late Ming, naval weapons meant one thing—
Red barbarian cannons.
He switched his view back to Gao Fortress, planning to have Gao Yiye relay instructions.
But she wasn't in the watchtower.
Where did that girl run off to now?
He searched.
Only then did he realize the problem: his vision now covered a thousand by six hundred meters—right over the busiest part of Gao Village. Men, women, kids, all moving with alarming enthusiasm.
Finding one specific person in that mess wasn't easy.
So there was a technique to this.
If Gao Yiye wasn't in the tower, where would she be?
…The cloth shop.
He locked his focus there.
Found her.
Gao Yiye was chatting with a group of women inside the shop. Most were ordinary village wives—women who had spent their lives inside courtyards, with narrow horizons and narrower expectations.
As Li Daoxuan tuned in, one woman was laughing.
"Saintess, Miss Chunhong—thanks to this cloth shop, I've made real money tailoring clothes. My stubborn husband earns less than I do now. He used to say I lived off him. Now? He doesn't dare say that anymore."
Another woman chimed in.
"Same here! Mine said women should stay home and serve their husbands. Then I showed him a handful of broken silver and told him it came from sewing. His face—hahaha!"
The shop erupted in laughter.
"Same!"
"Me too!"
"Haha!"
They laughed with pride.
Nearby, three former courtesans stayed quiet. Though capable, they lacked the village women's confidence. Old habits sat heavy in their bones. In this accidental "women's rights assembly," they were unexpectedly shy.
Gao Yiye smiled.
"It's good you think this way. A few days ago, when I spoke with Dao Xuan Tianzun, He even told me—women can hold up half the sky. We shouldn't all hide at home. We should step outside and use our strength. What was that phrase again…?"
Li Daoxuan supplied it calmly.
"Liberating women's productive capacity."
"Oh! Right, that." Gao Yiye repeated it, then realized He was listening. Her cheeks flushed.
"Ah—Tianzun… how long have You been listening?"
"Just the first few lines," Li Daoxuan said pleasantly.
Gao Yiye grew a little embarrassed.
"We were… talking about men behind their backs."
"I didn't hear that," Li Daoxuan replied. "I heard normal things. Status between men and women is decided by one question only—who earns the money. If you earn more, feed the family, you could ride on their heads and use them as toilets. Same way they did when they were the breadwinners."
The women froze.
They'd never heard a rule put so plainly.
But once heard, it was impossible to unhear.
Li Daoxuan continued, unhurried.
"Years of war, banditry, and militia fighting have reduced the number of men everywhere. Women now make up a larger share of the population. In times like this, productivity is insufficient. Women should step forward and take on skilled work that doesn't rely on brute strength."
The women gasped.
"Besides weaving and tailoring," one asked, "what skilled work could we do?"
Li Daoxuan guided them gently.
"Papermaking. Lamp crafting. Pre-packaging powder charges with paper. Carving. Printing books. There's plenty. You can do these as well as men—sometimes better. Have confidence. Go to the Workshop and register as apprentices. One day, every one of you might earn more than your husbands."
He paused.
"And then the rules of the household will quietly rewrite themselves."
Chapter :
Women's Labor in Late Ming: Widows and wives increasingly filled skilled roles due to war-driven male population loss.
Paper Cartridges: Ming firearms used paper-wrapped powder charges—tedious, precise work ideal for careful hands.
Workshops as Power Centers: Training spaces doubled as social elevators, not just factories.
Real Equality: Historically, status shifted fastest not through ideology—but income.