Chapter 115 Cold Process Soap (The End of "Back to the Ming Dynasty")

After filling her stomach with braised noodles, Yao Xiaoyu finally began her formal tour of Tao Jingu's factory. She had never worked on an assembly line or visited a factory before, but everything in front of her... exuded a simple and rustic beauty.

There were no standard factory buildings or tall structures; the factory consisted of just a few bungalows. The machines followed the principle of being cheap and durable, and other standards were predictably lacking. It wasn't that they were unusable, but in the eyes of Yao Xiaoyu, who was accustomed to modern standardized industrial processes, they seemed rather unrestrained.

But just as Tao Jingu boasted to her, such a factory was indeed not bad in Shanghai, after all, many purely manual factories do not even have machines or electric lights.

In the 21st century, the saying goes that "green mountains and clear waters are invaluable assets." But in this era, Yao Xiaoyu deeply understands why some people praise the black smoke from factories as "black peonies"—we are really lacking everything now.

"If you're making cold process soap, is the money tied up in soap production enough to last you two months?"

After Yao Xiaoyu and Tao Jingu stopped rambling on about the bright future of soap, she asked with some concern, "Cold process soap does have a beautiful color, but that can't hide the fact that it needs to be aged for at least eight weeks before it can be sold."

There is a warehouse in the factory, but judging from the mold that Tao Jingu brought out, it doesn't look like it can hold two months' worth of production.

Why press the soap down?

Tao Jingu looked at Yao Xiaoyu with a puzzled expression, then belatedly realized something, and his face suddenly changed.

"Can't soap be made and sold directly?"

Upon hearing this, Yao Xiaoyu's mind went blank—Tao Jingu had just said he had visited other factories, was this all he had seen?!

"Soap comes in two types: hot-processed and cold-processed. Hot-processed soap can be used immediately after production, while cold-processed soap needs to be left to stand for a while, otherwise it won't clean properly and will be bad for your skin..."

Yao Xiaoyu tried to explain the difference between the two in the simplest terms possible to Tao Jingu. Tao Jingu listened silently, but his teeth kept clenching.

That damned Inukai Jotaro! He talks a good game, but if Yao Xiaoyu hadn't noticed something was wrong, the factory she had worked so hard to build would probably have changed hands in a few months.

No wonder it has that name, it really is the dog that its father raised!

If special effects existed in the real world, Tao Jingu's eyes would definitely be blazing with anger—she originally had no feelings for the Japanese, but just because they treated her like a fool and fooled her, from now on, those bastards would be her sworn enemies!

She did not doubt the truthfulness of Yao Xiaoyu's words: Inukai Jotaro was the manager of the most famous and well-known soap factory in Shanghai, but a large market share did not mean a monopoly. Although other soap factories were small and far fewer, they all had their own share. However, as long as they were willing to spend money and had some social connections, they would not mind chatting with Tao Jingu.

If Yao Xiaoyu were lying, she could easily find out by asking the other factory managers, but she felt that Yao Xiaoyu wasn't that bored—why would she trade their friendship and trust for a period of time to make her feel annoyed? There was no need.

Previously, because Inukai Jotaro was so nice and helpful, and didn't hide anything from Tao Jingu about soap making and the use of machinery, she tried making soap herself after the machine arrived and confirmed that it could be made. That's why she didn't spend that considerable amount of money to find other soap factory managers. But now, look, some things really can't be skimped on!

Tao Jingu told Yao Xiaoyu about Inukai Jotaro through gritted teeth. Yao Xiaoyu, who usually showed a shocked face, looked like she knew it all along, which made Tao Jingu, who was originally furious, pause and find Yao Xiaoyu's reaction strange.

"After all, they're Japanese."

Yao Xiaoyu remained calm. This was the kind of person who even bowed and apologized for nuclear wastewater, so it wouldn't be surprising if they did something shameless. She was even a little surprised that Tao Jingu had only been misled about the type of soap and hadn't encountered any other underhanded tricks.

"...Actually, we did run into each other."

Tao Jingu was somewhat embarrassed. She hadn't missed a single thing: workers causing trouble, material shortages, thugs causing disturbances, recruitment rumors, and so on. But because there were so many underhanded dealings going on behind the scenes, Tao Jingu couldn't be sure whether it was a single person's elaborate scheme or different teams coming up with their own tricks. After all, she had climbed from the bottom to her current position in just two years. Although she believed she had a clear conscience, she had offended quite a few people.

Yao Xiaoyu: ...

This person is so small, how did he manage to attract so much hatred?

Yao Xiaoyu's doubts didn't last long, because the decisive Tao Jingu quickly accepted reality, overturning all his previous plans for cold-process soap and looking at Yao Xiaoyu with puppy-dog eyes:

Do you know how hot process soap is made?

...Yao Xiaoyu actually knew.

Just like food bloggers have everything, the breadth of knowledge of online novelists is always a mystery, especially for someone like Yao Xiaoyu who writes a book in a different era. The three essential elements of farming are indispensable for ancient time-travel novels. Because I'm not a professional, I can only give a general overview, but it's enough for Tao Jingu.

She didn't expect Yao Xiaoyu to be an expert in this area; she just wanted to hear a general overview of the process to prevent herself from being misled again.

Hot process soap making, also known as traditional soap, can be described in one sentence: oil + alkali + water, heated and stirred.

Listening to this simple procedure, Tao Jingu asked a very philosophical question:

"Besides not needing to let the oil cool down, is there any difference between this and cold process soap making?"

Yao Xiaoyu shook her head, looked at Tao Jingu's expression of wanting to laugh but not being able to, and sighed.

"Many things are just separated by a thin layer of paper."

She had encountered similar situations before, and she got used to it.

What could Tao Jingu do? She could only calmly thank Yao Xiaoyu, calmly accept Yao Xiaoyu's suggestion to change Zhao Di Pan'er's name, calmly eat heartily at the banquet that evening, and then calmly pick up a hammer, go to the concession, and break Inukai Jotaro's leg.

A few days later, when Yao Xiaoyu was chatting with Tao Jingu, she curiously brought up the news in the newspaper.

"Isn't the concession a safe place? How come there are bears here?"

Yao Xiaoyu was referring to the report about Inukai Jotaro's broken leg—after examining him, the doctor firmly believed that Inukai Jotaro's perception of being hit was a hallucination caused by darkness and pain. Such an injury could not have been inflicted by a human; it was more likely caused by a bear or other wild beast.

But after being embellished by tabloids, the rumors about wild beasts became accepted as fact. People in the concession began to feel that their place was not safe, and bodyguards suddenly became in high demand. It wasn't that no reporters went to the doctor to clarify the original statement, but no one cared and no one believed it.

What was that saying again?

While the truth is still putting on its shoes, the rumor has already spread all over the streets.

"But why didn't that bear kill that bastard?"

Yao Xiaoyu didn't notice Tao Jingu's guilty conscience and sighed with regret. According to news reports, this wasn't the first time Inukai Jotaro had done such inhuman things. Some people who didn't fall into this trap were even threatened with violence.

Take, for example, that peddler who left his hometown—after working as a peddler for over thirty years, he painstakingly saved up some money and cautiously wanted to set up a soap workshop to live a better life. However, because he didn't know that cold-process soap needed to be stored properly, he became a dishonest merchant. A woman who developed eczema after washing her face with the soap blocked his door and yelled at him. In the end, he lost all his money and his spirit, and ended up selling small things with a basket to make a living.

[Later I realized it was that bastard who said it on purpose, but I have no evidence and can't afford to offend them. If I weren't about to board the train to leave Shanghai today, I wouldn't have dared to tell you about this.]

Yao Xiaoyu sighed inwardly as she recalled the vendor's heartbreaking words.

It's no wonder people in this era don't believe in the law of karma and retribution; all they ever see are murderers and arsonists living in luxury while those who repair bridges and roads are left without a trace. It would be strange if they had any faith in the future.

Inukai Jotaro cheated more than just one street vendor; he is merely a microcosm of the countless scoundrels of this era.

...

On January 1, 1917, the Laba Festival of the sixth year of the Republic of China, Yao Xiaoyu finished writing "Returning to the Ming Dynasty".

Zhang Xiu's path to power was unremarkable; it was nothing more than the standard main plot of a modern drama: a judge, land allocation, soldier training, steady progress step by step, and finally kicking the emperor off the throne.

Besides that, there was the search for superior seeds, the improvement of agricultural tools, the recruitment of talent, the construction of academies, the development of gunpowder, the lifting of the maritime ban, and the defense against foreign enemies... Yao Xiaoyu did not deliberately write about ideological conflicts, but the concepts of gender equality were still vividly displayed between the lines.

The plot was written smoothly until the time when Zhang Xiu ascended the throne, Yao Xiaoyu got stuck—she had even written about the Industrial Revolution and the story of the Crown Princess after she ascended the throne, but she just couldn't get the plot about Zhang Xiu becoming empress to her satisfaction.

After revising and rewriting it again and again, Yao Xiaoyu's wastebasket was filled to the brim, and small mountains of crumpled paper piled up around it. Only then, late at night, did Yao Xiaoyu rewrite this section to her satisfaction, as if in a dream.

Yao Xiaoyu's efforts were not in vain. When the finale was published after the New Year, this section directly ignited the emotions of readers, and even the dialogue between the minister and Zhang Xiu became a popular saying.

This scene takes place after Zhang Xiu beheads the Oirat emperor in front of everyone and declares that she will ascend the throne.

The ministers, believing their heads were no match for a knife, wanted to back down, but Zhang Xiu acted unpredictably. The expected back-and-forth between the ruler and his ministers didn't materialize at all, leaving the ministers unable to back down. Then, a savior appeared: a blond, blue-eyed prince, who inherited his looks from his Hu-Ji mother, jumped out and declared that he too was qualified to contend for the throne.

The ministers looked at him, then at Zhang Xiu, and without hesitation knelt down to welcome the Empress to the throne. Then came the famous dialogue:

"Isn't it said that men are the foundation, and daughters have no offspring?"

"Better to be spineless than a bastard!"

"Isn't it said that a hen crowing at dawn signifies a female emperor bringing chaos to the country?"

"Even an empress is better than a puppet emperor!"

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A note from the author: A small detail: Inukai is a legitimate Japanese surname.

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