Chapter 138: The Swimsuit Magazine

Even Zhang Dai, who was used to grand scenes, felt a shock, especially when standing before the bay window. The feeling of being outdoors without being exposed to the wind and rain was something they had never experienced before.

Outside the clear, almost invisible large glass panes were flowers so vivid they seemed to be right before his eyes. Butterflies danced among them, and sunlight dappled down through the wisteria trellis. He couldn’t help but reach out to touch the flowers outside the window, but his fingertips were stopped by the glass. Zhang Dai was stunned for a long moment before letting out a sigh.

Zhao Yingong had expected this. Such a large, all-glass bay window, almost like a sunroom, had never been built before, not in Lin’gao or Guangzhou. Even in the 21st century, it wasn’t a common sight. Even a Yuanen would find it novel, let alone a native who had rarely seen large panes of glass.

The men sat down in Victorian-style armchair sofas, with host and guests arranged accordingly. A young maid with her hair in a chignon came over with a carved red lacquer tray to serve tea. Zhang Dai had always been fond of “beautiful maids” and thought that with Master Zhao’s grand style, his household must be filled with rare beauties. He was greatly disappointed at the sight of this girl. She was plain, ordinary to the extreme. From her gait, it was clear she had unbound feet. He found it very strange.

Fenghua served the tea. Everyone had expected something similar to the “Australian water” they had just had, but this time it was proper tea. A rich, fragrant aroma filled the air—completely different from the Longjing or Shuizhu they usually drank, and much stronger.

The tea leaves were packed into a very small glass teapot, almost filling it. Beside it were four small ox-eye teacups, also made of glass, already filled with tea. The tea was not the usual light green but a deeper amber color.

“Come, please have some. This tea should be drunk hot,” Zhao Yingong said.

Wu Zhixiang prided himself on having experienced all sorts of “Australian enjoyments” at the Ziming Lounge, but this was the first time he had seen tea that was almost black. He took a sniff and found the aroma strong and refreshing. He took a small sip and found the tea to be mellow, smooth, and sweet, with a faint orchid fragrance.

The men all tasted it and clicked their tongues in amazement. Zhang Dai laughed. “I thought myself the world’s greatest gourmand, having tasted all the specialties under heaven, but I never knew there was such a tea!”

Zhang Dai’s love of food and his discerning palate were well-known among the Confucian scholars of Jiangnan. He was particularly keen on “tasting all the flavors of the world” and spared no effort in collecting local specialties and famous dishes.

Zhao Yingong had read his “Dream Memories of Tao’an” and seen the long list of foods he had compiled, so he served things that were impossible to find locally.

This tea was a new tea that Wu Nanhai had commissioned the trade department to purchase from Fujian. He had also recruited a dozen tea workers to produce oolong tea using modern tea processing techniques. Black tea was also produced at the same time.

Oolong tea is a semi-fermented tea, with a lighter taste than the fully fermented black tea, and more suited to the tastes of the Chinese people. Wu Nanhai had specially sent several catties for Zhao Yingong to promote locally. Once the promotion was successful, they planned to sell “Hainan Oolong Tea” on a large scale through Wanyou.

Zhao Yingong smiled. “This tea is called Oolong tea, and it is produced on the highest peak of Mount Limu in Qiongzhou.”

Hainan’s climate was not suitable for growing tea, and the tea leaves were clearly from Fujian; Lin’gao only processed them. But Wu Nanhai, Si Kaide, and Li Mei all knew that tea needed a certain geographical gimmick. Fujian tea, of course, could not compare to a place like “Mount Limu on Hainan Island” in terms of evoking a sense of wonder.

“Oh?” As expected, when Zhang Dai heard that this tea came from a barren land, his interest was piqued. “Qiongzhou is a barren prefecture in the south. I heard it’s full of Li barbarians. How can there be tea? Do the Li barbarians also grow tea?”

Zhao Yingong had a whole soft ad prepared in his mind—not written by him, but by the writers of the Grand Library. First, they made Mount Limu sound like a fairyland in the middle of a barren land, shrouded in clouds and mist. Then, they embellished it with a story about a solitary rock with sheer cliffs on all sides, deep in the mountains of Mount Limu, on which grew five hundred wild tea plants. The mountain was shrouded in clouds and mist all year round, and there was often miasma that could harm people. Only for a few days in spring and autumn would the clouds and mist disperse, allowing the tea to be picked. The most agile of the Li people would then try to climb the rock to pick the tender leaves.

“…But the time is very short. As soon as the Li barbarians see the mist rising in the mountains, no matter how much or how little they have picked, they must immediately descend by rope and leave the valley. If they are even a little late and get caught in the miasma, it is certain death.”

This load of nonsense was delivered so convincingly that the listeners were captivated and would occasionally let out sighs of admiration. Zhao Yingong thought to himself that this kind of writing truly transcended time and place. He then spun another tale about how the tea leaves could not be transported out of the mountains at first, and that it was only through some unknown method of the Australians that the tea was finally brought out.

Wu Zhixiang listened with a mixture of belief and doubt. He had never heard Pei Lixiu mention any “wild tea from Mount Limu,” nor had he ever tasted it at the Ziming Lounge. If he wasn’t eighty or ninety percent sure that this Master Zhao was an “Australian,” he would have almost concluded that he was making it all up under the guise of the Australians.

However, the others listened with great interest. Fenghua came over to refill their tea from time to time. Zhang Dai noticed that although the maid was plain-looking, she moved with grace and elegance, her every gesture refined. Her eyes were lively but not flirtatious. It was clear that she had been trained with great effort.

Looking around, he saw that this glass room was filled with many rare curios he had never seen before. The most conspicuous, of course, was a mechanical clock on a console table against the wall. The case, inlaid with gold, silver, ivory, pearls, and precious stones, was made by jewelers from Guangzhou, while the movement was a complete set brought from the 21st century. This joint product of two eras was ticking away. Western-style pendulum clocks had already entered China in small numbers at that time. Wu Zhixiang had certainly seen them, and Zhang Dai was not surprised. But besides that, there were many other things they had never seen: a model of the “Victory,” handmade by Wen Desi and Wang Luobin, under a glass cover, with all its gunports open, revealing the dark muzzles. It flew not the British flag, of course, but the Morning Star flag of the Yuanen Senate and the blue and white naval ensign of the Fubo Army. A lotus-shaped phonograph…

The men were like Granny Liu in the Grand View Garden, their shining eyes darting around constantly. Despite their efforts to maintain a composed demeanor, their faces still showed expressions of surprise and delight from time to time.

When their host put down his teacup and, with a smile, invited them, they immediately stood up and each walked towards the object that interested them the most, asking a series of questions interspersed with exclamations of amazement. Zhao Yingong stood there, smiling, patiently answering all their questions. He was in the middle of this when a panicked “Aiya!” was heard, followed by the sound of a heavy object falling to the ground.

Everyone turned to look. It was Wen Huai who had cried out. His hands were flailing, and his face was full of panic. Zhao Yingong looked and saw that what had fallen to the ground was a picture book—a Japanese “swimsuit” magazine. Lando’s shipwreck had added several thousand such physical books to the Grand Library.

Zhang Dai picked it up and gasped, almost dropping the book himself. It wasn’t the revealing nature of the three-point “swimsuit” girl on the cover that scared him, but the terrifying realism. This wasn’t a painting; it was as if a living person had been fixed onto the paper!

The woman’s body on the paper was so vivid, her long, slender legs seemed about to step out of the picture. Yet, when his fingers touched it, it was truly flat.

Zhang Dai had seen many portraits, not only the various meticulous and ink-wash portraits by Chinese artists but also the oil paintings by Western missionaries. In his opinion, the realism of Western oil paintings was already incredible, but compared to this Australian painting, it was still a world away.

“This… this is too shocking!” He turned pale, for a moment thinking it was some kind of Australian sorcery.

“Gentlemen, there is no need to be alarmed. This is just a kind of picture,” Zhao Yingong reassured them. “The Australians have a method of fixing a person’s image onto paper using a glass mirror. I myself cannot understand it either.”

“Unheard of, unheard of,” Wen Huai said, clutching his chest. He quickly sat down in a chair, seemingly quite frightened. “It’s simply sorcery!”

Sun Chun, however, said, “This method must be a secret art of the Australians. It’s not necessarily sorcery…”

“To be able to fix a person’s image onto paper, if it’s not sorcery, how can it be done?” Wen Huai looked at the picture book as if it were a venomous snake or a fierce beast. “Please, burn it with fire.”

“There are many wonderful things in the world. How can we dare to claim to know everything?” Sun Chun was also very surprised, but he had never believed in ghosts and gods. He shook his head and said, “Let’s not even talk about the Australians. The Western firearms, astronomy, geography, and mathematics that are discussed at court, if it weren’t for Matteo Ricci and Johann Adam Schall von Bell coming from afar across the ocean, how would we know of them?”

Zhang Dai also didn’t really believe in sorcery. He picked up the magazine and flipped through a few pages. He found the women in the picture book to be tall and curvaceous, with prominent chests and buttocks. Although their private parts were covered with extremely thin and small pieces of cloth, it was no different from being completely naked. They all struck very seductive poses, some of which were shameless to the extreme.

The women in the pictures all had large breasts, small waists, and large hips, and unbound feet. Women with such figures were not considered attractive by the aesthetic standards of the time. None of these men lacked beautiful concubines and maids at home. But a fire of desire was kindled in their chests, and they felt their cheeks grow slightly warm.

Fearing he would lose his composure, Zhang Dai forced himself to calm down. He shook his head and smiled. “What sorcery is there in this picture book? I think it’s more like a secret art of the bedroom.” The men all smiled, and the tense atmosphere was somewhat relieved.