Chapter Fifteen: Old Acquaintances

That night, Lin Ming spent a pleasant evening with the dancer, complete with a shared bath and kvass, the details of which need not be mentioned. Li Yongxun, though young, knew what her brother-in-law was up to with the foreign woman behind closed doors and naturally did not disturb them.

The lights in her brother-in-law’s room had all been extinguished, and the passionate sounds that had made her restless had fallen silent. The sound of the night watchman’s clapper echoed outside. She knew it was late, but she still didn’t want to sleep. The day’s events had fully piqued her curiosity, making it difficult for her to fall asleep. She could only sit alone in the courtyard, watching ants climb a tree, and scheming how to persuade her brother-in-law to take her to Lin’gao.

Li Yongxun was a fearless young calf who feared nothing. She had traveled alone from Nanjing to Guangzhou. But she dared not be so reckless about going to Lin’gao. Lin Ming had previously intimidated her, saying that the Guangzhou and Foshan areas were not like the interior, full of merchants who sailed the seas. They could tie her up with a rope and sell her to the East or the West, far across the ocean, in a land of barbarians, where even the emperor could not save her. This had frightened Li Yongxun into behaving herself. Although Lin’gao was Ming territory, it was now in the hands of the overseas barbarian Australians. There were also many rumors about the Australians “lacking women,” so she dared not rashly offer herself up.

“Sigh—” after her tenth sigh, she remembered that she still hadn’t seen the “great carrack” she had originally planned to see today. She stood up and took a few steps, feeling that it didn’t hurt as much.

“I must go see the great carrack tomorrow!” Li Yongxun said to herself.

Suddenly, the light of a lantern appeared outside the moon gate of the courtyard wall. It seemed that someone was walking in the long corridor, and she could hear people muttering something. Then she heard a man’s voice that triggered a memory.

That strange accent had left a deep impression on her before. Hearing it again was like breaking a bottle of memories in her mind. The incident in Guangzhou, where she had pretended to be a courtesan, cheated a man, and was caught stealing, all came flooding back. The face of the lecherous merchant, Manager Huang, whom she had drugged and whose luggage contained many strange and wonderful things, immediately came to mind. This despicable man had looked at her with lecherous eyes—and even wanted to strip her naked… If she hadn’t found the Jinyiwei waist token she had stolen, which had made him wary, she might have been taken advantage of by him. The “humiliation at the inn” was something Li Yongxun had always held a grudge about.

Could this despicable Manager Huang be here too? Li Yongxun’s curiosity was greatly aroused. What was he doing here? Huang Shunlong didn’t sell medicinal materials here. Her curiosity piqued, she ignored her injured foot, shrank into the shadow of the courtyard wall, and limped quietly towards the moon gate.

The person walking with the lantern was none other than the “despicable man” Huang Tianyu, whom Li Yongxun held a grudge against. Huang Tianyu’s presence in Macau had nothing to do with the Foreign Intelligence Bureau’s activities there. He was on a business trip for the Ministry of Light Industry, tasked with providing installation services for three sets of bathroom equipment and supporting facilities ordered by the Macau Jesuits. He was also providing technical maintenance and training services for users who had already installed this system.

Several sets of the Ministry of Light Industry’s bathroom equipment had already been exported to Macau. This set of facilities was both complex and expensive, a representative of inefficiency by old-world standards. Each set of bathroom equipment had to have its own small elevated water tower, water heater, and water-lifting device. As steam engines were not yet widely available, the water-lifting devices were tragically powered by animal-driven treadmills or even more primitive human-powered water lifts. As for heating the cold water, they dared not use boilers, but instead used a water heater design. In a furnace, cold water flowed through a serpentine pipe and was heated by the heat in the furnace.

These devices were designed and manufactured with the three principles of sturdiness, simplicity, and durability in mind, because it was impossible to find mechanical maintenance personnel in this era—a Senator had to do it himself—not to mention that all the necessary parts had to be shipped from Lin’gao. The simpler and more durable the device, the less after-sales service was required from Lin’gao. The mechanical system did not have so many people to handle after-sales service.

Huang Tianyu, along with a few apprentices and the decoration team from the Lin’gao General Construction Corporation, came to Macau and finished the work in a week. After the work was done, he also did some inspection and maintenance work for his old customers in Macau. In particular, the transmission parts of the animal-powered and human-powered machines, such as the gears and chains, were replaced altogether—the quality of the old products was really worrying. Since a few people from the General Manufacturing Directorate had spontaneously set up a “Product Reliability Office,” the new products performed much better in terms of durability.

The Ministry of Light Industry was counting on making a lot of money from the bathroom equipment, so they paid great attention to after-sales service. In an era where they could only provide unreliable, inefficient, and expensive goods, not providing good after-sales service was commercial suicide.

Because the Jinyiwei personnel had come to his house, Huang Shunlong was afraid that if the Australians came again, the two sides would clash and cause trouble. He requested that Huang Tianyu come at night. After the first watch, Huang Tianyu, with his apprentices carrying wicker boxes full of tools and spare parts, quietly came to the Huang family’s house.

However, the entire set of supporting equipment was located right next to the courtyard where Lin Ming was staying. Huang Tianyu never dreamed that there was someone in the courtyard who was still awake, and that this person actually knew him.

Li Yongxun quietly opened the moon gate of the courtyard and slowly felt her way along the wall. Not far along the corridor was a small door. The door was open, the light was bright, and the sound of knocking and hammering could be heard. Li Yongxun’s curiosity grew. She dared not peek at the door—the light would expose her shadow on the ground. So she carefully went around to the side of the courtyard wall—there was a hollowed-out window here. She quietly peeked through it.

In the courtyard stood a strange pavilion. This pavilion could also be seen from the courtyard where they were staying. It was very tall, with upturned eaves and windows on all four sides, but she had never seen anyone open the windows. At first, Li Yongxun even felt it was very mysterious—Lin Ming, however, said that it was probably a place where Huang Shunlong monitored the actions of his guests. He also told her a lot about Huang Shunlong’s “glorious history.”

“This person is mentally ill; it’s natural for him to be careful about everything,” Lin Ming had also told her, “Don’t be nosy.”

Now she found that this pavilion was very strange. The lower part of the pavilion was completely empty, supported by brick and stone pillars. There were no stairs to go up. Instead, a black iron pipe-like thing stood up from the ground and extended into the bottom of the pavilion.

The iron pipe was supported by brick and stone piers on the ground and extended to a one-story house at the other end of the courtyard. The house was unremarkable, with all its doors and windows open. It was brightly lit inside, and several figures could be seen busy in the middle of the room, knocking and hammering. But she couldn’t see clearly what they were doing.

Li Yongxun had learned some skills in stealth, wall-climbing, and tracking, but now she had difficulty moving. She could only widen her eyes and try to see the situation in the courtyard. Fortunately, the doors and windows of the house were large and the light was bright, so she could barely see that there were strange machines inside. She remembered that when Governor Wang was preparing to attack the Australian bandits, the Zhiming Tower in Guangzhou was sealed off, and several Australian machines were seized from it. The idle people all went to watch. She and her cousin had also pestered her brother-in-law to take them to see it. The appearance was similar to this one.

“Hmph, Manager Huang’s dealings with the Australian bandits are quite close,” Li Yongxun thought. At this moment, she saw a big man, over seven feet tall, come out of the house. His long robe was tucked into his waistband, and his body was stained with oil. A young boy next to him quickly brought him a large cup.

“Master, have some tea.”

“Mm,” the big man took the cup and drank it down in one gulp. He put down the cup and wiped his mouth. The light shone on his face—Li Yongxun almost cried out. Who was this but Manager Huang! He hadn’t changed much, except for a topknot on his head, probably to disguise himself.

So this despicable merchant who had been looking at her with lecherous eyes and had even threatened to take off her pants and spank her was really an Australian bandit! And a low-ranking bandit who was a craftsman! Hmph, now you’ve walked right into my trap! Li Yongxun smiled triumphantly. Let’s see who takes off whose pants and spanks whom.

As she was fantasizing about how this despicable man would cry and beg for mercy under her family’s traditional caning torture, she suddenly heard someone in the courtyard ask, “The pipes in the heating furnace are in good condition. Should we just not replace them?”

Huang Tianyu had no idea that a girl on the other side of the wall wanted to take off his pants and was eyeing his buttocks. He handed the cup back to his apprentice and strode inside. Two apprentices were dismantling and inspecting the heating furnace. He checked the serpentine water pipe in the heating furnace—bronze was indeed much more durable than cast iron pipes, but unfortunately, the source was too scarce. He picked up a wrench, dismantled the pipe, and looked at it, then shook his head.

“We still have to replace it.” He pointed to the thick layer of scale in the pipe and said to his apprentices, “This is scale. If it accumulates too much in the pipe, it will gradually block the water pipe. At the very least, it will cause an insufficient supply of hot water. If the blockage is serious, the pipe could even burst. This is just a general heating furnace. If it were a boiler, the scale would cause a boiler explosion. So every time we do maintenance, we must check the scale accumulation in the water pipes.”

The apprentices listened respectfully. One of them asked, “Master, I’ve seen the water here. It’s obviously very clear. Where does this scale come from?”

“This is the problem of so-called ‘hard water’ and ‘soft water.’ We’ve talked about it before: natural water in nature contains various soluble minerals…”

“You’re fooling a ghost. How can water be hard?” Li Yongxun thought to herself. “And soft water!”

“Let’s replace the heating pipe. We’ll take this one back and see if we can still use it after some treatment,” Huang Tianyu said after explaining the minerals in the water, and then instructed his apprentices to get to work. The dismantled parts were to be recycled as a rule, not only to save resources but also to provide them to the reliability office for related analysis to improve quality.