NOVEL NEXT Chapter 40: Too many proverbial hats
Ren Xiyang didn’t block out days for magical research after that, but he now made effort to dedicate time in-between meetings, administration, and farming to conduct personal work. To give himself more time, he tried to delegate more responsibilities.
With the number of Rosewood employees growing, Ren Xiyang asked the scholarly teaching team to deal mechanics of creating ID cards. The team came up with designs—small wooden rectangles with attached ribbon with certain formatting, sourced the wood and carpenters etc. for those ID cards. All Ren Xiyang had to do was to ‘sign’ each wooden ID card with a burned-in emblem of the Rosewood estate, the fire rose. The roses he created were as 3D as they could be in such a thin piece of wood, and as intricate as he could make it, with dips and curves that wouldn’t be easily faked. Individual staff names and identification numbers were written onto the wood by a woodworker and recorded on paper. The scholarly team was also tasked with communicating and implementing the ID card system for the Rosewood staff at the Capital and at the other Rosewood properties.
The staff seemed quite happy with their unique and beautiful identification cards. No other estate had these!
Seeing how well that delegation went, Ren Xiyang started promoting various employees up into a supervisory role. This way, he only needed to communicate his strategic plans to a small number of people, and then they can go about telling their fellow task-employees and go about implementing it.
Since Ren Xiyang didn’t know who was best to promote, he created a system where two or more employees had promoted power and responsibility at the same time, and the employees ‘in power’ would rotate every month. He hoped that any abuse of power could be reduced: all temporarily-promoted employees knew that they would have to work alongside their colleagues again in just a month.
It was surprising how fast time passed when there was a lot of work to do.
The days were filled with work and chatter and magic and food (and late-night meetings between Ren Xiyang and Rian). There was some ‘excitement’ when one of the ex-tax-collectors attempted to vandalise the Rosewood estate, but the guards caught the man quickly—it wasn’t even worth Ren Xiyang’s involvement.
And so, the height of summer came and went, and the weather started to become cooler on average they headed into late summer.
Some of Ren Xiyang’s projects came into fruition.
Very important were the fast-growing vegetables maturing. Radishes, lettuce, baby spinach, leafy greens, and other greens were all ready to eat, which meant a great many colourful dishes for the Rosewood summer manor and for the charity lunch.
Secondly, the new carpenters and blacksmiths completed the new ploughs and manual blenders. The farmers on the Rosewood estate immediately got to use them on new land to plant new crops.
And thirdly, the tofu mill was complete leading to the opening of a wholesale factory on the Rosewood estate which also used the new manual blenders. It was a big windmill situated on a hill partway between the Rosewood manor house and the estate entrance. The tofu mill/factory didn’t just make tofu: there were also other products like soy milk, textured soy protein, and some soy oil. In the future, there would be fermented bean curd and soy sauce too. Aside from being eaten at the Rosewood summer manor and given to employees and to those organising their local charity lunches, the food was also sold to merchants, tradespeople, and any personal customers that happened to visit the Rosewood estate.
The food wasn’t priced very high because it was meant to help improve the diets of the Rosewood citizens. But it was still high enough for them to recover enough profit that all costs should be recouped within half a year. The person in charge of the tofu operation also opened some market stalls in nearby towns. Their advertising was simple: now you can try out the dishes that appear on Earl Rosewood’s table for a very reasonable price!
(Ren Xiyang had to appease Rian and send him another package of tofu and other foods after Rian heard about that.)
Some intrepid chefs went and bought various soy products from the Rosewood tofu factory and started creating…experimental…food. Due to the plain nature of plain tofu, it was very easy to create something palatable, so food didn’t go to waste, at least!
And some of the employees were very proactive. Some of them picked fallen rose petals in the Rosewood gardens and used them to make rose soap. Maria talked to them about setting up a small side-business of making Rosewood Rose Soap and Rosewood Rose Hand cream, which was very timely given that the news about germs was spreading virally among the populace by word of mouth.
These changes were not much in Ren Xiyang’s modern fast-paced-life eyes, but to people in the fief, they felt like many things had changed so quickly under Earl Ayden Rosewood’s rule. The Earl was a paradoxical mix of close and familiar while being very distant. He could be regularly seen around the fief talking to commoners like themselves, and farming like the farmers. Yet, he could occasionally cast awe-inspiring magical spells making it rain over an entire swathe of fields, making magic even more special.
Because the commoners thought the changes were big, the aristocracy gave it all a dismissive wave: commoners who haven’t seen the Capital think such little things were amazing, they would be shocked to death by the wealth at the Capital!
The aristocracy felt they had slapped their own faces when they heard that Prince Rian received a special delivery from Earl Rosewood carrying various delicious goods—and Prince Rian ate some of that ‘tofu’! And who did Prince Rian share this with? Count Aegean, for some reason! Was there something more special about this food than they realised? But how can that be, even commoners could eat it!
“—When I implied that I wanted some too, I was expecting you to be part of the delivery,” Rian said over the crystal ball the next time they had a meeting.
“Does the prince miss me so much?” Ren Xiyang responded drily. “Or do you need someone to frighten Count Aegean?”
“I can deal with Count Aegean perfectly fine,” Rian said. “He likes the tofu very much, though he’d never admit it.”
“Then I’ll send him a personal shipment,” Ren Xiyang said. “As compensation for the mental damages caused by you.”
Rian spluttered in faux indignation. “Earl Rosewood, I never knew you were such a person!”
“You simply need to convince me better about coming to the Capital, your Highness,” Ren Xiyang said.
Rian hummed in thought. “There will be a late summer social event soon.”
“Oh, that makes me less inclined to come,” Ren Xiyang said bluntly.
Rian pretended to curse. “Money—I mean, bribery—is what I need, isn’t it? Earl Rosewood, I don’t want corruption in this court of mine!”
In the end, Rian was able to once again get Ren Xiyang to repeat his promise to visit the Capital.
“—But when
, exactly?” he grilled.Ren Xiyang fell silent.
“Earl Rosewood,” Rian said.
“Before the end of the year,” Ren Xiyang finally replied.
Rian: “…”
That was months away! Tch tch tch, Earl Rosewood was lucky that he was so powerful!
Food production in the fief was going well, as was improving hygiene. However, if Ren Xiyang could deliver fresh water, it would make such a huge difference.
While the earth mage and water mage surveyed the Rosewood fief, Ren Xiyang wasn’t idle. Using the information they gave him every week, Ren Xiyang started brainstorming certain water sources that could be used and potential pipework. Estimating the distance of pipework and underground digging required, Ren Xiyang realised that he was not technically skilled enough for this. He was an agricultural scientist, not a civil engineer.
Plumbing and underground freshwater pipes and sewage systems were not new in this world. The rich, the nobility, had their private systems, like in the Rosewood summer manor and all the rich noble houses in the Capital’s inner city.
So that meant that there were people who had the knowledge and skills.
However, Ren Xiyang wanted the best system he could get. He also wanted to prioritise worker safety.
Sitting in his room, his gaze unfocused on the maps and calculations in front of him.
A clean water delivery system and a sanitary sewage system were necessary. Ren Xiyang didn’t want to waste money creating subpar systems that would later need to be taken down again and replaced. He wanted something that would last hundreds of years.
This meant that Ren Xiyang needed to find and hire these skilled people, and this meant the costs were going to be higher than expected.
However, waste still needed to be dealt with in the towns. And clean water still needed to be created and delivered all the settlements…
Well, when did plans ever go exactly to schedule? Even if he could start work on the water and sewage systems right away, it would still take time. Improving current methods was the fastest way to make a measurable impact right now.
Ren Xiyang put the partial ground surveys aside and called in Kel to help him plan the near-term changes instead.
Those new near-term plans were disseminated to the town mayors. Ren Xiyang reported his actions to Rian on their regular meeting.
“…Face masks?” Rian wondered, after hearing what Ayden had said about improving current waste collection methods. During the plague-curse epidemic, they had used cloth masks to cover the mouth and nose. The stench of dead bodies and cremation was difficult to stand.
Ren Xiyang explained calmly, “Some pathogens aren’t transmitted by blood or curse, but through the air instead, which you then breath. By using sufficiently fine face masks—perhaps equipped with a spell—you could avoid breathing in germs straight into your lungs.”
Rian stiffened. “I understand. I will convey this to the healers.”
“Hm.”
“On a lighter note, we have received a letter from the Angio Court strongly suggesting that they’ll send a delegation to Sedaveria, so you should prepare to travel to the Capital to try out some of that Angio food.”
Ren Xiyang snorted lightly. “Your Highness, don’t tease. Tell me when you have something concrete.”
“I’m giving you insider-knowledge, Earl Rosewood, and I expect you to be more grateful about it!” Rian joked.
“I’m interested in Angio cuisine, but I’m also interested in my own cuisine…”
Rian was hit once again. “Now you’re tempting me,” he said archly. “Is that your goal, Earl Rosewood?”
“Hm, no. If you came, wouldn’t my daily work become even more busy babysitting you? Aren’t you just twelve?”
“I should say the same about you. My birthday is before yours, so that makes me older, doesn’t it?”
“If you care so much about a few months, then I’ll let you have that small victory, your Highness.”
“Oh, what are you implying, Earl Rosewood?”
Ren Xiyang smiled as he continued to bicker with Rian. He wouldn’t mind seeing Rian face-to-face again soon, but he wouldn’t admit that out loud.
Ren Xiyang returned from next charity lunch at Redmond town with a reminder of yet another thing he had forgotten.
During lunch, someone had asked him if he could heal someone who had a fever. Someone else had told them to drink some willow bark tea. Ren Xiyang did know how to magically lower a fever, so he had done that.
But the willow bark tea comment remained.
Willow bark contained salicin, a substance similar to aspirin, which gave it its pain-relieving and anti-inflammatory properties. It was true that some traditional medicine had real effect. Ren Xiyang wanted to hire people to extract the active ingredients in various folk and herbal remedies and conduct clinical trials to rigorously determine medicine efficacy. There might even be new medicines if this world had some unique native plants.
And with the increase of available non-magical medicine, non-magical healers could play a bigger role improving public health…
But this required money. He also wasn’t sure there was a clinical trial framework in this world. He wasn’t a medical scientist either.
As for mental health? He had the feeling that this would require a lot of study and training, of supervising others to provide them with direction…which required even more money. He also wasn’t a psychologist.
In terms of improving overall health, handwashing was becoming a thing in the Rosewood fief as the residents of the Rosewood fief learnt that handwashing was one method to reduce disease.
However, not everyone had easy access to hand-washing water. Something quicker like local ground-water pumps was still expensive.
It came back to the problem of making money.
And he couldn’t just rely on Prince Rian.
Maybe Ren Xiyang needed to switch his administration hat for a money-making hat. But he wasn’t an entrepreneur either.
He wanted to shake the people at the Transmigration Bureau. Why did they want him to do all these things that he wasn’t an expert in!
The next day, Ren Xiyang wrote down a lot of ideas to make money. Unfortunately, they required more upfront investment than was feasible and took a lot of time to develop.
His brain hurt, like when he was forced to study English in school.
He was able to temporarily put away this difficult problem when he noticed unfamiliar heat sources fast approaching the Rosewood summer manor. Visitors.
Unlike the employees around the manor, one of these human-heat-sources had traces of fire magic.
Ren Xiyang alerted Kel of their soon-to-be-arrival.
Not long after, Ren Xiyang headed down to one of the drawing rooms on the ground floor. Kel was standing outside the door.
“My Lord, Baron Carmine in the drawing room who wants to meet you.”
Ren Xiyang inclined his head. He headed into the drawing room.
He couldn’t guess at the purpose of this Baron Carmine, but he doubted that the Baron was here to donate money.
The drawing room was orange-rose themed. A big man twice Ren Xiyang’s height was standing by the window. He turned upon Ren Xiyang’s entry.
Baron Carmine had burnt-brown hair and and deep red eyes. He inwardly sneered at the earl’s short childish stature. He faced the young earl directly, imposing and intimidating.
The Carmine family were also predominately fire mages. They had been eyeing the declining Rosewood family and weren’t happy with the new Earl Rosewood blocking their plans. While Baron Carmine had heard about Earl Rosewood’s powers, he was confident that he was stronger and more experienced!
“Earl Rosewood, I challenge you a duel! If you lose, you must petition to the king to promote the Carmine family and demote the Rosewood family in the peerage!”
Is that the sound of a cannon fodder I hear? 🤭
(Also, please ignore my vague time keeping!)
Also, some fanart from seleneandartemis on CG! Aww look at Ren Xiyang with his budget papers! 😆
