Chapter 31
The eunuch who delivered the imperial decree left.
That cloying, rotten smell, belonging to the palace, clung to every inch of the air in the Cui residence like a persistent carbuncle, refusing to dissipate.
The people kneeling in the courtyard are still kneeling.
Like a clay sculpture whose soul has been taken away, it remained motionless.
It wasn't until an uncontrollable sob, almost tearing at the throat, rang out that it exploded like a drop of water falling into boiling oil.
It was her mother, Song.
She was helped up, but her body was as limp as a puddle of mud. If it weren't for the two maids holding her up tightly, she probably would have collapsed to the ground. There were no tears on her face, only a deathly stillness, a bleakness that had burned away all hope.
The father, Cui Wen, was helped to his feet by the steward, and he staggered to his feet. He was in even worse shape than the mother, as if he had aged twenty years in an instant. His spine, which had been straight all his life, was now bent into a pitiful bow.
"It's over..."
He muttered to himself, his voice as light as a breeze, yet as heavy as a boulder, striking the hearts of every member of the Cui family.
"It's all over..."
Cui Yunshu did not move.
She remained standing in the shadow of that pillar, like an outsider, coldly observing the apocalyptic scene before her.
She could smell the despair in the air.
It was a bittersweet scent, a mixture of dust, tears, and fear.
She can hear the sound of people's hearts breaking.
It's not a metaphor.
It was real, ear-piercing, a cacophony of sobs and gasps.
She could even taste the blood in her mouth, the residue from when her fingernails pierced her palm. The rusty taste kept her conscious to the very last shred of her senses.
I'm too lazy to look at it.
She had witnessed this kind of collective breakdown far too many times during her time as a therapist. It was utterly useless; it only hastened the decline.
"All of you, step back."
Her voice was soft, even a little hoarse, yet it was like a cold knife, instantly slicing through this thick, sticky sorrow.
All the crying and movement of everyone came to a halt.
They all turned their heads in unison, staring at her with expressions as if they had seen a ghost.
Looking at the fourth young lady who hadn't uttered a single word from beginning to end, and whose face showed no trace of joy or sorrow, I was struck by her demeanor.
"Help Father and Mother back to their study." Cui Yunshu ignored the stares and repeated herself, her tone now carrying an undeniable command. "Everyone else, return to your posts and continue doing what you were doing. The sky isn't going to fall."
No one dared to disobey.
Perhaps it was her composure that was so terrifying, or perhaps it was in this overwhelming despair that people instinctively needed to grasp at a straw, even if that straw seemed so thin and so unreal.
...
The study door was slammed shut.
It blocked out all outside sounds.
As soon as the door closed, Cui Wen could no longer hold on. He slumped into the chair, clutching his head with both hands, and let out a low growl like a trapped beast.
Like a fuse that has been lit, Song could no longer suppress her anger. She slammed her hand on the table, and the tea set on it shattered on the floor.
"This is outrageous! Outrageous!!" Her eyes were bloodshot as she glared at the direction of the palace, as if she wanted to burn that magnificent cage to ashes with her gaze. "Our Cui family helped Qin expand its territory, and he turns around and steals it! Is this a reward? This is outright robbery! He even wants to give us an honorary vice minister position? Build us a garden? Bah! He should just die!"
"Stop talking!" Cui Wen suddenly raised his head, interrupting her in a hoarse voice, "When the emperor commands a subject to die, the subject has no choice but to die... What can we do? Disobey the imperial decree? Do you want your entire family of hundreds to lose their heads along with us?"
"So you're just going to accept it like that? Give him Shu'er's fleet for nothing? Trapped in this capital, treated like a useless gardener? Cui Wen! Are you even a man?!"
"What can I do if I don't admit it! Huh? What can I do!"
The study was instantly filled with desperate arguments and roars.
Cui Yunshu stood quietly to one side, watching her parents, like two drowning people, tearing at each other in despair, only to sink faster together.
She didn't say anything.
Just watch.
Until their voices became hoarse, until Song slumped in her chair and began to sob softly, until Cui Wen stood there frozen like a stone statue, motionless.
The study was finally deathly silent again.
The silence was even heavier and more suffocating than it had been in the courtyard.
"Are you done crying?"
Cui Yunshu finally spoke.
Her voice was as calm as a deep, frozen pool.
Cui Wen and Song Shi both raised their heads at the same time, staring at her in astonishment.
"Are you done making a scene?"
She asked another question.
“Shu’er…” Looking into her daughter’s calm, still eyes, Madam Song felt a pang of pain in her heart, thinking she had become numb from excessive grief. “My child, it’s my fault, it’s my fault… I couldn’t protect your life’s work…”
"What's the use of saying all this now?" Cui Yunshu walked up to them, her gaze sweeping over her father's ashen face and her mother's swollen eyes. "Can crying make the emperor retract his decree? Can scolding turn that 30% profit into 100%?"
Her words were like icicles, cold and hard, piercing the heart with pain.
Cui Wen's lips moved as if he wanted to say something, but he couldn't utter a single word.
"Why did the emperor do this?" Cui Yunshu didn't give them a chance to catch their breath and directly asked the question.
“He…he covets our fleet…” Song answered instinctively.
"wrong."
Cui Yunshu uttered a single word with unwavering certainty.
“The fleet was just a pretext.” She held up one finger. “His real purpose was to ‘reduce the power of the feudal lords.’”
"Reduce the power of the vassal states?" Cui Wen was startled, a hint of confusion flashing in his cloudy eyes.
“Yes, reduce the power of the vassal states.” Cui Yunshu spoke slowly, but every word was like a nail driven into her parents’ hearts. “The Cui family is now the biggest ‘vassal state’ in the emperor’s eyes. We have money, ships, and a network of connections that spans the entire country. We can even mobilize the military supplies of the northern border overnight. Father, Mother, do you think the person sleeping on the dragon throne can sleep soundly?”
The study was deathly silent.
The grief and indignation on Cui Wen and Song Shi's faces gradually faded, replaced by a deeper, bone-chilling coldness.
“So, resisting is a dead end; we can’t bear the crime of disobeying the imperial decree,” Cui Yunshu continued, her logic terrifyingly clear. “But simply handing over the ships is a slow death. Today he can take the fleet, tomorrow he can take all our shops, and the day after tomorrow he can find a pretext to confiscate our property. It’s like boiling a frog in lukewarm water; by the time we feel the heat, we’re already dead.”
Cui Wen's body stopped trembling, and he stared intently at his daughter as if he were seeing her for the first time.
"Then... what should we do?" Song's voice trembled with a hint of hope, as if she had grasped at the last straw.
Cui Yunshu did not answer immediately.
She walked to her desk, picked up a pen, and slowly, stroke by stroke, wrote six large characters on a blank sheet of rice paper.
Royal maritime trade of the Qin Dynasty.
Then, she added four more words after those six words, words that her parents had never seen and could not understand.
Joint-stock limited company.
"What is this?" Cui Wen leaned closer, looking puzzled.
Cui Yunshu raised her head, looked into her parents' bewildered eyes, and finally a cold, slightly crazed smile appeared on her lips.
"The way to break the deadlock."
“Not only will we hand it over,” she said, enunciating each word with a chilling calm, “we will also drag the entire court into it, and make it hand over to us!”
boom!
Cui Wen and Song Shi felt as if their minds had been struck by lightning, buzzing loudly.
"Shu'er, you...you've gone mad?" Madam Song cried out in disbelief.
“I’m not crazy.” Cui Yunshu’s eyes were frighteningly bright. “Father, you should submit a memorial tomorrow, saying that you received the imperial decree and are extremely grateful. In order to better share His Majesty’s burdens and expand the financial resources of Great Qin, you request that the ‘Royal Shipping Bureau’ be reorganized into the ‘Great Qin Royal Maritime Trade Co., Ltd.’”
"A joint-stock...company?" Cui Wen felt like his tongue was tied in knots.
“Yes.” Cui Yunshu pointed to those words. “We’ll tell the Emperor that such a large business can’t be scaled up by the Cui family alone, or even by the royal family alone. We welcome, we very much welcome the royal family to invest, and we welcome all the princes, nobles, and officials to contribute money and join us! Those with money should contribute money, and those with strength should contribute strength, and we’ll all get rich together!”
The study was deathly silent.
Cui Wen and Song Shi looked at their daughter as if she were a monster. They couldn't understand what kind of outrageous nonsense this was.
Cui Yunshu knew they wouldn't understand.
She took a deep breath and began to explain her business strategy, which seemed to come from another world and was like a game-changer, in the simplest and most straightforward way.
"First, this is called 'the law does not punish the masses.'" Her voice carried a hint of cold laughter. "Once the Crown Prince, the Second Prince, the Duke of Ying, Minister Zhang, Vice Minister Li... everyone becomes a shareholder of this company, their lives and fortunes will be tied to our fleet. At that time, if the Emperor wants to touch our ships, he won't just be targeting the Cui family, but the entire ruling class of Great Qin! Would he dare?"
Cui Wen's breath hitched suddenly.
“Secondly, this is called ‘a loss in the open, a gain in the shadows.’” Cui Yunshu’s finger traced across the nautical chart. “On the surface, we’re giving up most of the profits. We could even take only 10%, no, half a percent! We’ll give them the lion’s share of the profits, making them so rich they’re practically rolling in it. But the company’s ‘operational control’ must remain in our hands. Because only we understand navigation, only we have captains and sailors, only we know how to do business with foreign barbarians. If they want to make money, they have to rely on us. They are shareholders, they are the bosses, but we are the stewards who make money for them! As long as we can consistently bring them profits, no one can replace these stewards!”
Song's eyes gradually brightened, and her anger and despair were replaced by shock and ecstasy.
“Third, and most importantly,” Cui Yunshu’s gaze became incredibly profound, as if she could already see the future, “this is called ‘turning crisis into opportunity.’ Father, Mother, the Emperor wants to use an imperial edict to lock us in a cage, then we’ll simply turn this cage into our new world! We’ll use the Emperor’s name and the officials’ money to build our ships, open our own sea routes, and transform the Cui family’s business into a deeply rooted, intricate, and unshakeable commercial alliance! He wants to suppress us? We’ll step on his suppression and stand at an even higher level!”
...I'm too lazy to explain anymore.
After Cui Yunshu finished speaking, she fell silent and simply looked at her father quietly.
In the study, only Cui Wen's heavy breathing could be heard.
He looked at the sheet of Xuan paper on the table that read "Joint-Stock Company," and then at his daughter in front of him, whose eyes were cold, whose mind was clear, and who seemed to have been reborn overnight.
The immense shock, like a tsunami, shattered all the knowledge he had built up over decades.
He thought it was a dead end, the end of the world.
But in her daughter's words, this dead end became a road to heaven.
He thought it was a shackle, a cage.
But in her daughter's plan, these shackles became the lever to move the whole world.
for a long time.
for a long time.
Cui Wen slowly, with trembling hands, reached out and stroked the sheet of Xuan paper.
Then, he raised his head, looking at Cui Yunshu with an expression that was a mixture of awe, shock, and immense complexity, and said, word by word:
"Okay...we'll do it your way."
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