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"Let's get cleaned up first."
Luo Wei had been on the road for four days and hadn't bathed at all during her time on the ice plain. Add it all together and she was closing in on nine days without a wash. At this point, she was starting to disgust herself.
Bella sent the maids off to prepare the bathtub and towels, then stayed behind to handle everything else. "Of course, Master."
"Master — who are these?" Bella glanced past her.
Four youths, two boys and two girls, all of them striking in a way that didn't quite fit the role of servants. Too pretty, too poised. And yet here they were, doing servants' work. Could these be the ones the master had purchased?
Luo Wei lifted her skirt hem and headed inside. "Servants I picked up in the Northlands. Find them somewhere to stay."
So they were the ones she bought. A quiet wariness settled in Bella's chest.
Her master was still young. These little seducers had no business being anywhere near her.
"The side building is full. We'd have to put them in the new annex out back." Bella said it with perfect innocence, having already picked the spot farthest from the master's bedroom. "Is that alright, Master?"
"Fine, handle it." Luo Wei hadn't been home in a month and hadn't kept up with everything that had changed around the estate.
The ceramic kiln she'd built in secret was back there, which was part of why she'd had Troy buy up the open land surrounding Star Luo Residence before she left , room for workshops, perimeter walls, and enough distance to keep curious eyes away.
A month was enough time for the new buildings to be finished.
She'd spent that entire month bleeding money. The operations out in the field cost money. The operations here at home cost money. It poured out in every direction. She had no idea how much was left.
"Bella," she said. "The household ledger for this month — and the Escore Dessert Shop's monthly report, and the ceramic sales records. Have they all been compiled?"
"All ready. Theresa dropped off the shop's report the day before yesterday. I put everything in your study. Would you like them now?"
"No. Tonight."
Luo Wei headed to her private bathroom.
The maids had already filled the oversized tub, mixing the water to just the right temperature and scattering a layer of flower petals across the surface. Steam drifted through the room, carrying a light, sweet fragrance.
Luo Wei undressed, climbed the small wooden step, and lowered herself in.
The heat wrapped around her all at once. It felt like sinking into a hot spring.
She hadn't felt this comfortable in weeks. She leaned back against the warm wood, let her eyes fall shut, and just... stopped thinking for a moment.
The tension she'd been carrying dissolved all at once. Sleep tugged at the edges of her mind.
"Wake me in ten minutes," she murmured to the two maids standing by with towels and clean clothes, and let herself drift.
---
On the other side of the main building, a few male servants carried a bathtub into Troy's room, set it down, and left. Troy preferred it that way.
He shut the door and dropped his cloak. His curly red hair tumbled free in the steam-heavy air, dark and heavy as water-soaked silk.
There was no mirror in the room. He glanced down at the surface of the water instead. Steam rolled across it, and his reflection stared back at him, blurred and indistinct.
CLACK , the iron mask came to rest on the stool beside the tub.
Troy peeled off his clothes, stepped over the rim with unhurried ease, and sank into the water. His broad back and the hard lines of muscle along his torso disappeared beneath the surface.
On the water's face, rippling faintly, something dark was reflected , a black totem, warped and twisted by the shifting waves.
He closed his eyes. Sank lower. Submerged his head entirely.
His red hair spread around him in the water like a bloom of living seaweed.
---
After her bath, Luo Wei pulled on her robe and wrap and went downstairs.
The kitchen maid had laid out dinner. Chris stood at the table in fresh clothes, and the moment she saw Luo Wei come down, she ladled out a bowl of chicken soup.
After this many days on the road, Luo Wei was too tired to be hungry. She finished the soup, picked at a few bites of food, and set down her chopsticks.
"Clear it away. I'm done."
Chris handed her a napkin without a word. Luo Wei wiped her mouth and went up to the study.
She started with the Escore Dessert Shop report.
With Heria Magic Academy on holiday, the shop had lost nearly ninety percent of its noble clientele. Profits had fallen off a cliff , less than a fifth of the usual figure.
"Hmm?"
She'd lost that many customers and still pulled in one-fifth of normal revenue?
She flipped through the parchment, frowning, and found her answer on the last page.
Half of it came from catering events for the city lord's household. The other half was Theresa's doing , she'd started producing cookies and breadsticks and selling them to buyers outside the city.
Good instincts. Theresa was turning out to be an excellent manager.
Luo Wei tapped the desk with one finger, thinking. It might be worth opening branches in the royal capitals of other countries. In six months, the Academy's practical training holiday would hit , another two months of the shop running at reduced capacity. Her infrastructure work in the north was moving fast, and that meant a steady appetite for gold.
But she couldn't rush it. Expanding to foreign cities without the right connections was asking for trouble. A local noble could manufacture any excuse to bleed her dry , an air tax, a sunlight tax, some invented civic fee. Whatever they felt like.
She set the dessert shop report aside and picked up the ceramic workshop statement.
Porcelain had sold well. Princess Lilian and the Heria city lord had apparently been talking up the tableware, and orders had come in from multiple directions. The problem was that Star Luo Residence had run through its supply of porcelain clay and kaolin. Without Troy to handle procurement — he'd been on the road with her , nothing had gone into production. Theresa had collected deposits on the outstanding orders, so there was some cash coming, but the factory's current flow was thin.
Luo Wei ran the numbers in her head.
This trip had cost her close to four thousand gold coins. The properties, the workshops, the supplies, the carriages, the slaves, the horses , each expense had seemed manageable in isolation. Together they were staggering. Even factoring out the pearls and gemstones she'd traded for the slaves, she'd spent three thousand in coin.
Three thousand gold coins. Thirty million yuan, by the way she'd once thought about money. Almost everything she'd saved since arriving in this world, gone. Her chest ached just thinking about it.
Small mercy: she'd had the sense to leave the mercenaries on Demon Island. Paying them out would have cost another eight hundred on top of everything else.
By now, the slave trader Zachary Bunyan should have reached Demon Island. She hoped Patrick had kept him there.
Her gemstones.
Luo Wei put her head down on the desk and mourned.
She needed new income streams, and she needed them now.
The dessert shop and the ceramic factory weren't going to cover her costs. The lumber mill in Sisdar Town was locked into supplying Demon Island , no profit there. The Harkins shop brought in something, but she had over a hundred slaves to feed and house, and that ate through money fast.
She'd almost forgotten about Laura's project. The mulberry trees, the silkworms , she had no idea how that was going. Whether there were enough eggs and leaves to run even a small silk operation.
And even if there were, she'd still need to buy land, put up buildings, hire workers, set up looms, find weavers. All front-loaded cost. No return for months.
Luo Wei pressed her fingers to her temples.
Was there anything in this world that could bring in serious money quickly? Some high-margin venture she could spin up fast enough to actually make a difference?
She lay there staring at the desk for a long time.
Nothing came to her.
Fast money in large amounts , the only way to guarantee that was robbery.
She rejected the idea immediately, on principle.
Though , there was an old saying from back home: steal a coin and they hang you; steal a kingdom and they crown you.
If she was going to take something, it should be worth taking. Petty theft was beneath her. And she didn't have soldiers.
Which meant building a force first. Which cost money.
Full circle. A perfectly vicious one.
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