"Missing you tonight～～～"
"How I wish you were here beside me～～～"
Too excited to sleep over the oil discovery, Zhao Bairen couldn't help but burst into song.
The oil had arrived. Separating out gasoline and diesel would be easy enough, and from now on he wouldn't have to secretly keep that enormous fuel tank at the Zhao estate topped up anymore. The master's little private treasury could start filling up again gradually — just thinking about it made him giddy with joy.
"I wonder if you could ever～～～"
"Could ever change for me～～～"
"Oh～～～"
"Master, were you calling for me? What did you want me to change?"
Jinxiu walked in, her face a ghostly white, startling Zhao Baihui so badly he shuddered.
"Jinxiu — are you sleeping downstairs tonight? That face mask is a bit terrifying, you know. Mind taking it off?"
Jinxiu peeled off the mask to reveal a face as fresh and lovely as a flower in bloom. She smiled prettily and said, "Mm. I didn't feel like going back tonight. I wanted to keep Master company."
"Ahem, ahem — well, the thing is, Master doesn't need company. Master isn't that old yet."
"Then let Master keep me company instead."
"Ahem. Well, all right then."
Jinxiu moved to Zhao Baihui's side and gently wrapped her arms around his, resting her small head against his shoulder.
Zhao Baihui felt uneasy, yet didn't dare say too much for fear of Jinxiu overthinking things.
"So, Jinxiu — is something on your mind?"
"Mm."
"Go on then, tell me. Give Master a good laugh." Zhao Baihui sensed something was off and tried to shift the atmosphere with some awkward small talk.
"Master, there's something I've wanted to do, but I keep hesitating. I think I should be bold while I'm still young — if I wait until I'm older and have even more to worry about, I'll probably never work up the nerve. What do you think, Master?"
"Jinxiu, Jinxiu, calm down…"
"Master, I'm about to lose my mind. There's no being calm."
"Please — I refuse to be a beast!"
"Master, you can do whatever you want. But if you truly care for me, then indulge my recklessness just this once."
…
The next day, Jinxiu arrived for work positively radiant.
Cui Yingying, acting as secretary, came in to report on the day's affairs and stared in puzzlement. "Director, what on earth has gotten into you? What's made you so happy? You can't stop smiling."
"Good news isn't something you just share with anyone. Now then — what did you have for me?"
A little later, word somehow got out that Jinxiu was in unusually high spirits today.
A little later still, as closing time approached, the ever-nosy Jinyuan showed up.
Hands clasped behind her back, she circled around Jinxiu like a detective working a crime scene.
"Tsk, tsk. Sis, why are you so happy? What could possibly make you this happy? Oh my — Master didn't actually go and act like a beast, did he?!"
Jinxiu swatted Jinyuan. "That mouth of yours — you'll say absolutely anything, won't you? How is Master being a beast? Master is a man, after all."
"Good lord, so it's true?! I was only joking…"
That evening, around dinnertime, Jinyuan went noticeably quiet. Every now and then she would fix her gaze on their master for a long moment, a knowing smile playing at her lips.
It was enough to make Zhao Baihui's skin crawl.
He felt rather as though a law enforcement officer were interrogating a criminal.
…
The Longcheng Automobile Factory had officially begun production!
The factory itself had been completed for quite some time. The vehicles were described as independently developed — which was, in truth, copying. Or rather, let's call it reverse-engineering.
Creating something from nothing is difficult; reverse-engineering something that already exists is far easier.
Now that oil had arrived, the reverse-engineered vehicle — refined through continuous improvements — had finally reached its definitive form and gone into mass production.
Projected annual output: between eight hundred and a thousand units.
Testing had confirmed that these cars naturally couldn't match the durability of vehicles produced by the system. But the breakdown rate was acceptable, and if they were somewhat slower, that was purely down to materials. Even so, they were vastly superior to horses.
And under Zhao Bairen's guidance, the exterior styling had come out looking quite handsome.
Three colors were available: black, white, and red.
System-produced vehicles retained the designation Longcheng Series One. The domestically manufactured models were christened Longcheng Series Two.
The first batch of Series Two cars went on sale — one hundred units only!
Each unit was priced at one hundred thousand yuan!
They sold out the moment the doors opened, as they always did! More than a few people were left fuming, cursing their own lack of strength for not pushing their way to the front in time.
A decent quick meal in Longcheng cost just one yuan. One hundred thousand yuan was enough to feed a single person for an entire lifetime.
By civil servant wages — a little over a thousand a year, not eating, not drinking, counting in allowances — it would take fifty or sixty years of salary to afford one.
But to the wealthy, wasn't this just a little over a thousand taels of silver?
Buy! Give me several!
What top-tier tycoon didn't have a hundred or two hundred thousand taels of silver lying around?
In truth, at this stage, automobiles were an absolute novelty, and the price could have been set even higher. But with future sales in mind, and with Longcheng eager to see vehicles spread as widely and quickly as possible, this was the figure they had settled on.
With further maturation of the industry, it might not be long before prices came down further still.
Besides, the money from selling cars was small change. You buy a car, don't you have to drive it?
Fuel costs — a steady trickle, flowing in day after day.
Word of the car sale had been building for months in advance, giving the wealthy across the land ample time to arrive with their funds in hand.
Li Xuanzong's southeastern court alone snapped up twenty vehicles, along with a huge quantity of gasoline — a total expenditure of fully thirty thousand taels of silver.
Many people sighed with emotion. Two good harvests and everyone was flush. Just two years ago, if the court had somehow scraped together thirty thousand taels, it would have gone straight into the army. No one would have dreamed of spending it on something like this.
The cars left by boat that very same day.
Vehicles this precious naturally couldn't be entrusted to ordinary people to drive, and they consumed fuel besides. These were being taken back for the Emperor himself, for the very highest of the elite to ride in.
Even the six Ministers of the Six Boards might not be of sufficient rank to ride in one.