The group walked in silence toward the factory grounds. Yusura flipped through the ledger page by page, while Li Fei turned things over quietly in her own mind, tallying up the projected returns from these two properties.
When the Belikeli family's orphanage racket had been in full swing, they'd qualified as genuine big fish. But after getting crushed by the iron fist of justice, the Yarman household was now merely comfortable — riding on inherited contacts and time-worn methods for managing a timber yard, pulling in a net profit of roughly a thousand gold coins a year.
The mine was a larger operation, true — but after handing over eighty percent of its profits, what remained each year amounted to a few hundred at most.
Which meant what, exactly? The courtesan queen, selling wine all on her own, was already generating more revenue than both of these properties combined.
With margins like that, even if she swallowed every coin herself, it would take her several decades just to buy a single First-Tier Spell Bundle — to say nothing of the Third Heaven of Furnace Battle-Qi, a Sequence 8 class customization package, a Second-Tier Spell Bundle... those would take centuries.
And that wasn't even touching the dazzling array of Transcendent equipment, the vast catalogue of witch heritage arcane arts, or Aptitude-boosting potions.
— Damn it all, I'm so broke!
— Good thing Zhihua's been saving me the expense on the potion side of things.
Li Fei puffed out her cheeks — then immediately smoothed her composure back into place. She quickened her pace toward a stack of timber and bent down to examine it.
The storage area sat close to the river — presumably to reduce fire risk — but the consequence was a heavy ambient dampness. The edges of several planks had already absorbed moisture; some had even begun to mold.
Damn it!
Li Fei cursed inwardly, genuinely pained, and maintained her smile through sheer force of will.
"Old Yusura," she said, "going forward, when you're selling timber, watch the rotation — clear out the oldest stock first, sell the fresh wood last."
She paused, then added with even greater anguish:
"Any wood that's already gone bad gets thrown out entirely. Strict quality control from here on."
From a business standpoint, quality control was the difference between a meal today and meals every day. From a personal standpoint, opening up sales channels was fine — as long as the price and quality didn't slip too far.
If someone placed an order as a favor to the courtesan queen, and the product turned out to be rubbish... that reflected on the courtesan queen's face.
"Understood," said Yusura, nodding.
"And you should also be asking around — how do other timber yards manage their inventory? Even if you have to spend money poaching a few people to find out, do it. We can't keep wasting material like this."
Li Fei continued laying out her instructions.
She knew her own limitations — she could only fire off scattered suggestions here and there. Actually running a timber yard well would require professional talent.
Yusura accepted each point graciously; the yard's performance was tied to his own cut, so his employer's sensible advice was the kind he'd keep locked firmly in mind.
"Alright. I'll see to it."
Li Fei clasped her hands behind her back and walked on like a supervisor conducting an inspection, heading toward the logging area.
It was a stretch of managed woodland, not far from the storage yard. Workers were felling trees with vigorous energy — muscles slicked with sweat and blackened with grime — and now and then a fat trunk would crash down with a thunderous boom before being hauled back toward the factory.
The ones standing to the side giving orders, patrolling with whips in hand — every one of them tall, broad-shouldered, and powerfully built.
The ones doing the actual work, however, were a very different story: a large share of them were ragged, covered in wounds, and filthy from head to toe. Some workers had been dirtied to the point where you couldn't even tell their race — clearly, these were slaves.
The one thing all the slaves had in common was age. Deep wrinkles were carved into skin drier and more withered than tree bark. Their eyes held nothing — only exhaustion and numbness. When an overseer flicked a cigarette butt at their heads without a second thought, the slaves didn't even flinch.
Li Fei watched from a distance and made no move to intervene.
Firewood was Loxibrook's core fuel. Beyond the major builders and furniture workshops, ordinary households depended on wood for daily cooking and winter warmth, and even wealthy families always had a fireplace burning through their share of timber.
Fortunately, Loxibrook was hardly short on nature-aligned mages who could coax trees into rapid growth with a thought — which was the only reason the city hadn't tumbled into ecological crisis.
Li Fei deliberated for a moment, then set the strategic direction for this site:
"Once you take over here, start cultivating more of the premium, high-value timber varieties. Gradually pull out of the mid-to-low-end market... I'll handle the sales channels. I'll say it again — control quality."
"If you spot any good tools or techniques, don't be stingy. Acquire them."
"Grow the operation. Corner the market."
"And then..."
Li Fei narrowed her eyes, a trace of hesitation crossing her face.
She'd been brimming with confidence just now, casually setting strategic direction like someone who had it all figured out — and that confidence was entirely grounded in her network. Acquiring technology, buying equipment, poaching talent: those were universal laws of commerce, tried and true across every era and civilization, never wrong.
But the ideas that followed next — even Li Fei herself couldn't be certain whether they would actually work.
After all, practice was the test of truth. Even an economist with brilliant theoretical credentials might fumble catastrophically when put in charge of an actual company — making failed decisions despite all that expertise — to say nothing of someone like herself, a mere "armchair strategist" with only a passing familiarity with the subject.
Beyond that, the external environment mattered enormously. Certain theories and experiences only held in specific contexts; transplanted into another world, they might not function at all.
She was weighing whether to stop here, or to press further and use Grace's family properties as a test bed for more ambitious ideas.
Her mind was made up quickly.
The timber yard and the mine were both running at pitifully low margins right now. Even after cutting out the tribute to the Mettis family, they still couldn't be considered core properties — the Secret Garden was — and they certainly couldn't close the gap in her Wealth. Given that, there was nothing to agonize over.
Gamble.
Win the bet, and she'd be able to secure more resources for her Transcendent path, and through continual trial and reflection, forge a distinctive management model that would lay the groundwork for running larger operations down the line. Lose the bet, and she could absorb the cost of failure without breaking a sweat.
There was no better test bed than this.
So Li Fei spoke:
"The steward told me earlier that the workers here fall into two main groups: skilled workers, who are local Loxibrook residents; and slaves."
"The skilled workers handle tasks that require some technical knowledge — preliminary timber processing and the like — and their treatment and pay are far superior to the slaves."
"The slaves... they do purely physical labor. Not enough to eat, not enough to wear, and getting beaten is just part of the daily routine."
"I'm soft-hearted by nature — I can't bear to see slaves suffer... Old Yusura, find yourself a batch of able-bodied workers as soon as you can. Once you have enough hands, phase the slaves out."
Are you taking the piss?
Even with Yusura's composure and depth of experience, he couldn't stop his eyelid from twitching.
Truth be told, the old half-orc had ample reason to suspect that the viper-hearted human woman standing beside him had mastered some forbidden ritual — one that traded the slaughter and sacrifice of living beings for beauty.
How else could one explain that poisoning suggestion she'd made back then, and the ever-deepening allure that would make even a succubus hang her head in shame?
His reasoning was wrong, but his conclusion was entirely correct:
The more beautiful this woman became, the blacker her heart.
Yusura cast a sideways glance at Li Fei's ruinously captivating face, found not a single word of "I can't bear to see slaves suffer" even remotely believable, and replied in a tone that conveyed perfectly: "Yes, yes, absolutely, you're completely right —"
"These past weeks... I've gotten to know a few of my own kind. We hit it off immediately — they have a fair amount of trust in me. Why not invite them to come work here?"
— You old scoundrel. You already bled the kinsmen back in the Folded Space dry, and now you're out here going after the half-orcs of Loxibrook? That was fast. You'd make a natural MLM ringleader.
— Though, excellent. Exactly the kind of subordinate I need.
Li Fei produced a perfectly timed expression of delighted surprise:
"That would be absolutely perfect."
"Although... their wages would presumably be quite a bit higher than what the slaves were costing," Yusura pointed out tactfully, mindful of his own cut.
"That's no problem at all."
Li Fei smiled lightly. "Compared to making a lot of money, I care far more about the happiness index of the workers under my care."
— Ha. Time to run an empirical test: is it more profitable to exploit slaves outright, or to stoke internal competition and extract surplus value more efficiently?
Li Fei narrowed her eyes. Her smile was radiant and warm, luminous as an angel's:
"Of course, if the timber yard is poorly managed and goes under, the workers won't have food on their tables either... In order to motivate them more effectively and achieve mutual success, certain necessary management tools will be indispensable."
At dusk, Yusura stood with eyes half-lidded, watching the silhouettes of the two young women disappear into the horizon.
Li Fei's words still echoed in his ears:
"To sustain a healthy competitive atmosphere, performance management is essential. We should track each worker's output — those with outstanding performance can receive certain rewards. Of course, keeping costs in mind, we shouldn't limit our thinking to monetary incentives. We should also make flexible use of psychological incentives — such as 'Model Worker of the Month' and 'Outstanding Employee' selections... let everyone look to the top performers as role models. This creates a benchmark effect, and frankly, printing a few medals and certificates is far more cost-effective than handing out raises indiscriminately, wouldn't you say?"
"Of course, in business, you can't be purely motivated by profit — you need a vision, and you need to build a culture around that vision... It sounds complicated, but the execution is simple. For instance, have workers chant motivational slogans during the workday — things like 'Labour is the greatest glory!' and 'Wealth is won with your own two hands!'... But chanting isn't enough — you write them down and post them where absolutely everyone can see them. Old Yusura, don't underestimate this. It quietly instills a sense of collective consciousness into workers over time, and they'll put in that much more effort for it!"
"Training is also crucial. You must keep a firm grip on ideological education — have workers internalize the belief that hard work creates a brighter future, and cultivate a spirit of dedication where collective honour takes precedence over personal interest. And beyond the training program, whether it's matters of life or work, repeatedly reinforce the maxim that the factory is a second home — help workers develop a sense of ownership as quickly as possible." (Note on 'sense of ownership': this means convincing everyone to compete like spiritual shareholders who've conveniently forgotten they're just wage earners — working themselves to death so the boss can trade in his five-story villa for a palace.)
"Oh, and gratitude is critical as well. You must make workers understand just who it is that pays their wages and puts food on the table for their entire family. Gratitude must be ever-present in their hearts while they work. I refuse to be feeding a pack of ungrateful, endlessly demanding wolves who bite the hand that feeds them!"
"..."
Yusura turned Li Fei's words over carefully in his mind — her "Performance Management Method" and her "Psychological Incentive Philosophy" — and felt, inexplicably, a chill settle in his chest.
He finally understood why Li Fei had implied: "I can't bear to see the slaves suffer — sell them off to someone else."
Because those slaves were nearly broken in body — and had accumulated deep resentment toward the timber yard.
There was simply no chance of cultivating any "sense of ownership" in them, let alone teaching them "gratitude." Keeping them around would only be an obstacle to building the desired "culture."
"A born aristocrat..."
After a long silence, Yusura murmured this assessment, then reached over and patted Kenan on the shoulder.
Kenan's body went rigid. He hesitated for a moment, then shook his father's hand away.
Yusura was entirely unperturbed, and said in his customary mild and benevolent tone:
"Son... remember this for the rest of your life: never trust that woman. And never, ever cross her."
"The prettier a woman is, the more she can twist people around her fingers."
"Don't you think I'm terrible."
The wind stirred Li Fei's hair. She leaned against Grace's shoulder with a languid, listless air and said with a wry smile, "Working with someone that depraved and unhinged..."
"It's not your fault. No — that's not it, you didn't do anything wrong. You simply chose the most suitable partner available given limited options... Besides, in Loxibrook, he wouldn't dare do anything truly monstrous again... And furthermore, the fact that you can still feel kindness and compassion toward those slaves even under the influence of the witch's potion — that alone is remarkable..."
Grace didn't turn her head, but this girl who normally rationed every word suddenly tumbled out a long, stumbling string of sentences.
— Going to all this trouble to whitewash me. You've really worked hard.
The corner of Li Fei's mouth curved upward. She could almost hear the notification chime: Taming Progress: 100%.
Seeing that Li Fei had fallen silent, Grace reached one small hand behind her back and found Li Fei's hand, holding it sincerely:
"Whatever you're like — I'm willing to accept all of it."
"Ugh, so mushy."
Li Fei tightened her arm around Grace's waist. "But keep going. I like it."
If she hadn't survived two near-death crashes on a flying broomstick, she absolutely would have breathed those last words directly into Grace's ear.
Before long, the broomstick came to rest before a house with a charmingly natural, cozy design. The two dismounted and knocked on the door.
The moment the door swung open — revealing a golden-haired married woman with delicate features and a sweetly gentle charm — Li Fei threw her arms around her and planted a loud, wet kiss on her cheek.
The poker-faced young lady trailing behind, broomstick in arms, gave a full-body shudder, then slowly bowed her head, her eyes hidden behind her fringe — the textbook composition of someone swallowing a quiet grievance.
Li Fei caught it in her peripheral vision and smiled all the brighter.
— It was you who pushed me into betraying Lady Zhihua in the first place. Now that I've gone and fallen, you're the one with nowhere to complain, aren't you, Miss Throat-Poke?
"Teacher Annie, this is my classmate — she's also my and Senior Lilith's teammate."
Li Fei hooked her right arm through Mrs. Annie's and took Grace's wrist with her left hand, introducing them with a bright smile:
"Grace, this is my Common Tongue tutor — and Senior Lilith's mother."
"Hello."
The poker-faced young lady forced out a smile and greeted Mrs. Annie.
Li Fei finally spotted her absolute favourite expression on that exquisitely beautiful face.
Heheh.
Looks like I'll have to stop calling you 'Miss' from now on, and address you properly as 'Madam.'
After Mrs. Annie extended her hand warmly in greeting, Li Fei bent down, seized one slim little boot, and pulled — like yanking a radish from the ground — until a right foot wrapped in black sheer stockings, faintly misted with warmth, came free from the shoe. The moisture had made the black silky material even more translucent, clinging perfectly to the elegant curve of that slender, delicate foot, every contour of the sole visible through the fabric. The ankle rotated playfully a couple of times, and the pointed little toes curled and stretched in turn before finally settling softly onto the floor.
Thump. Thump.
She tossed the two boots aside without ceremony. Li Fei made herself completely at home — dragging Grace enthusiastically through the doorway while wheedling in a sweetly spoiled tone:
"I'm absolutely exhausted after this afternoon. What's for dinner tonight?"
— All that talking, and I only walked away with one mine and one timber yard!
— And I still have to pay dividends!
Under the terms agreed upon that afternoon, CEO Yusura and CEO Assistant Kenan were to receive three percent and two percent cuts respectively. Even by the operation's previous modest performance, that was no small sum. After all, a Sequence 9 Transcendent — even one from the Knowledge Sequence — taking a commission in the Mercenary Guild for a job rated "moderately difficult, spanning ten days to half a month, but not life-threatening" would net roughly ten or so gold coins; subtract the cost of potions, equipment wear, and various other consumables, and the average Sequence 9 Transcendent's monthly income came out to about ten gold coins.
But factor in the elimination of taxes, the end of tribute payments to the Mettis family, and the sales channels that the courtesan queen's network would open up — even without changing a single thing about how the operations were run, efficiency would at minimum increase tenfold. Yusura and his son pulling in several hundred gold coins a year would make them among the wealthiest of Sequence 9 earners.
And with the sweeping series of reforms planned on top of that — yes, there was a chance things could go sideways, but there was equally a chance of far greater returns... All told, the dividend Li Fei was offering was anything but low.
As for the remaining ninety-five percent — Li Fei wiped away a tear and split it with Miss Grace, fifty-fifty: you bring the assets, I bring absolutely nothing — ah, no, I bring connections and wisdom, and we call it a win-win. A win-win for both of us.
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