Chapter 2897: New Journey (3)

Office of the Director of the General Office.

"Director Xiao, are they really all gone?" Yang Ning stood before Xiao Zishan, eyes bright with expectation.

Xiao Zishan looked at this young man whose features were pretty enough to border on feminine, torn between laughter and tears, and recalled the "Top Secret, Sole Copy" report his subordinates had submitted: when they went to Ziming Tower to retrieve this blind-drunk Senator, he had been dressed head to toe in women's clothing — and wearing high heels.

Of course, Yang Ning's fondness for women's clothing was no secret within the Senate. Back at the training base, he had never concealed this proclivity, and had even performed a K-pop dance in full drag before a crowd — the heels were said to be three inches tall. Xiao Zishan, naturally, had never witnessed this firsthand.

After D-Day, because Yang Ning had been packed off early to tend horses, he never again had the chance to "showcase his dance skills," and so he never drew the attention that someone like Lady Pei commanded.

Still, the Senators knowing was one thing — letting naturalized citizens see it was another matter entirely. Though, to be fair, there were cross-dressing enthusiasts even among the scholar-officials of seventeenth-century Ming.

For a long time, Xiao Zishan had tacitly assumed that Yang Ning and Cui Yunhong were of the same persuasion. Of course, Yang Ning had never purchased a male servant — but then again, he had never purchased a female servant either... which was rather intriguing...

"Maidservant trainees? Naturally, there are none left," Xiao Zishan said. "After all, it's been several years since the maidservant school was restructured..."

"Not a single one?"

Seeing Yang Ning standing before him looking so pitiful, Xiao Zishan felt somewhat bad for him. After all, the young man had transmigrated and spent all this time cooped up in stables tending livestock, then shipped off to Jeju Island to drill troops. He had, by any measure, thrown himself wholeheartedly into the great transmigration enterprise.

"Though the maidservant school is gone, a portion of the Women's Liberal Arts College graduates did sign agreements at the time, expressing willingness to accept... hmm... 'special assignments' from the General Office." Xiao Zishan chose his words carefully. "However, your range of choices probably won't be very wide."

"That's fine — as long as there are any!"

This eager? Xiao Zishan was highly suspicious. He lifted his teacup and took a sip. "There are definitely some..."

"I want four! I've got the funds all ready."

The Director of the General Office nearly sprayed his mouthful of tea across the desk, thinking: your compensatory impulse is a bit strong, isn't it?

"Very well, Little Yang — since you want them now, go find Dong Weiwei. The specific files are all with her. But let me make one thing clear first: once you take those girls, if you tire of them you cannot return them. Bear that firmly in mind."

"Oh, come on... I thought it was something serious," Yang Ning laughed too. "I draw a salary, don't I? Feeding one more person is just one more mouth to feed. I'll provide for them. If I don't take a fancy to them, at the very least they can do chores for me."

Over at Dong Weiwei's end, the news that Yang Ning wanted to take four at once produced an expression even more colorful than Xiao Zishan's. But rules were rules. She slapped the files down in front of him with a sharp rap, the implication clear: pick for yourself — no regrets.

Yang Ning did not examine them closely — or perhaps his criteria for evaluating people simply differed from the norm. In five minutes he had flipped through the entire roster and ticked off four names without hesitation, the eldest being Guan Yiyi, twenty-two years old. The paperwork was processed at lightning speed, as though he feared the General Office might change its mind the very next second. That evening, four young women were delivered to his temporary quarters in Bairen City.

Looking at the young Chief before them — beautiful to an almost excessive degree — and the room behind him, so bare it contained barely a bed and a desk, with the floor, bed, and table all piled high with assorted objects, the four young women exchanged glances. Their eyes were filled with uncertainty about the future, along with a dawning awareness of their new master's... distinctive aesthetic sensibilities.

"Alright, everyone's here. Pack up — we set out tomorrow... back to Jeju Island." Yang Ning clapped his hands, well pleased with his own efficiency. His notion of "packing up" referred primarily to his roomful of possessions, more precious to him than life itself: uniforms, horse tack, armor and weapon design blueprints, cavalry drill manual manuscripts, and several sets of "private attire" in wildly divergent styles that made the four new maidservants' eyelids twitch. These were all personal goods he had brought from the other spacetime. When he had first departed for Jeju Island, out of an abundance of caution, he had left most of them in the General Office warehouse in Lingao. Now that the Senate had essentially "settled the big picture" and Jeju Island had become his painstakingly cultivated "lair," this modest hoard naturally had to follow him there for his "grand enterprise."

"Your main job is to help me pack," Yang Ning said, gesturing at the boxes strewn across the floor. "The uniforms need to be folded properly, and the other clothes carefully folded and put into bags — I don't need to teach you how to do that, do I?"

"Yes, Chief!" the four maidservants replied in unison, amply demonstrating the military-grade management standards of the Women's Liberal Arts College.

"Excellent!" Yang Ning tapped his riding crop against his cavalry boot. "Begin work!"

The next morning, the party formally set out for Xinying Port. An intercity rail line already connected Bairen Township to Xinying Township, but Yang Ning insisted on "marching." He rode a borrowed Mongolian horse at the head of the column, cutting a dashing figure, followed by two Dongfeng horse-drawn wagons. One was crammed with his luggage trunks and the maidservants' woven rattan suitcases — the girls' personal belongings were so few as to be negligible. The other was packed with four bewildered maidservants. Behind them trailed a squad of his "guards," orderlies he had selected and trained on Jeju Island. Naturally expert horsemen, all mounted on borrowed horses, they wore "Guard Dragoon" uniforms custom-tailored at Shop No. 82, cutting such dashing figures that everyone on the road turned to stare.

At the Xinying passenger wharf, the ship bound for Jeju Island lay at anchor. This was the third ship of the "Baiyun Mountain" class, a passenger-cargo hybrid liner built for scheduled routes and improved from the T1200 template: the "Hallasan," dedicated to the Jeju run. The full route ran from Lingao, calling at Haikou, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Busanpo, and finally arriving at Jeju. Unlike the "Baiyunshan" and "Wuzhishan," which alternated on the shorter Guangzhou–Lingao route, this longer run had lower passenger uptake, so it featured fewer cabins and a larger cargo hold.

The wharf was a cacophony of voices and chaos at this hour. Yang Ning's party, naturally, had no need to join the fray — they entered a dedicated "official waiting room." They had barely sat down when a soldier in army uniform, hauling a bulging pack on his back, came jogging over.

"Reporting! Chief... Chief Yang!" The newcomer was dark-skinned, twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old, with bright, spirited eyes. He snapped a crisp salute. "Jeju Army Military Academy officer cadet Tan Shuangxi, reporting as ordered!"

Yang Ning looked him up and down, paying particular attention to his legs and shoulders, then nodded. "Tan Shuangxi? You're on the roster. Transferring from infantry to cavalry — you're in for some hardship. Can you ride?"

"Reporting, sir! No!" Tan Shuangxi answered loudly, his face reddening slightly.

"Good — that's exactly right. Even the ones who ride well, I still have to correct their posture." Yang Ning actually smiled, which only made Tan Shuangxi feel less certain of himself. "Sit down for now — we'll discuss work once we're aboard ship!"

"Yes, sir!" Tan Shuangxi breathed a sigh of relief. To avoid any mishaps, he had arrived at Xinying Port the night before, stayed at an inn, and reached the waiting room first thing in the morning.

Tan Shuangxi sat ramrod-straight, but from the corner of his eye he found himself sizing up this young Chief with his peculiar reputation. Features delicate to the point of femininity, surrounded by four pretty young women, plus eight gaudily dressed orderlies — this was his future commanding officer? He was supposed to follow this man into battle? His heart, accustomed to infantry drills, drummed with unease. The words "not reliable" rose unbidden in his mind, and he started in alarm, hastily banishing the absurd thought.

Just as he was conducting this internal pep talk, down by the boarding gangway on the wharf, two oddly dressed European men whose faces screamed "Who am I and where am I?" were guarding several iron-reinforced wooden crates, gesturing and talking with a port naturalized citizen clerk. Both sides were drenched in sweat. These were none other than Hans Schwarz and Otto Becker, recently released from the "Purification Camp" and assigned to the Jeju Island Ordnance Repair Shop. The initial shock of their arrival had faded; their faces now bore chiefly confusion about their new assignment, along with anxiety over whether their precious tool crates would make it aboard safely.

"Hans, do they really understand what 'armorer' means? Or are they planning to have us fix wagon wheels?" Otto muttered in German, his hand never leaving the tool chest that held his most beloved round hammer.

"The document says 'military metalwork maintenance and development,'" Hans replied, relatively calmer, his gray-blue eyes scanning the unfamiliar machinery and busy soldiers on the wharf. "If it's ordnance, it must include armor."

"But I haven't seen a single soldier wearing armor."

Their conversation was interrupted by the voice of a naturalized citizen staffer: "Make way! Make way!" Yang Ning's party was approaching — as first-class passengers, they enjoyed priority boarding.

Yang Ning spotted the conspicuous wooden crates and the two European faces at a glance. His interest was immediately piqued. He strolled over. "Germans? Armorers?" he asked, in halting, broken German words.

Hans and Otto started, snapped to attention, and replied in the stiff, newly learned Chinese they had acquired: "Yes, Chief. Hans Schwarz, Otto Becker. From Thuringia. Going to Jeju Island to work."

"Excellent!" Yang Ning clapped his hands, eyes gleaming as though he had spotted two walking treasure troves. "You're on this ship too! You, and these crates — you're boarding with my people!" He turned and barked at the naturalized citizen staffer who was coordinating cabin assignments: "These two Germans are with me! Get these tool crates loaded immediately — store them to precision-instrument standards! If anything gets damaged, you'll answer for it with your head!" The commanding air was nothing like his demeanor the previous day when begging for maidservants at the General Office.

And so the boarding party grew even larger and more motley: a mercurial, cavalry-obsessed, handsome young Senator; four bewildered maidservants; eight splendidly dressed guards; a former infantryman-turned-uncertain cadet officer; two anxious German armorers; and a mountain of crates. Inside were resplendent uniforms and cavalry blueprints, hammers, files, and quenching oil, Tan Shuangxi's personal effects, and the maidservants' meager belongings. It was, in effect, a miniature, chaotic joint military-technical-domestic deployment.

The boarding process was pure pandemonium. Yang Ning insisted on personally ensuring that his blueprint crates and the Germans' tool chests were kept absolutely dry and secure; Tan Shuangxi volunteered to haul crates and was soon drenched in sweat; Guan Yiyi attempted to organize the other three maidservants to keep track of their hand luggage so nothing got separated in the crowd; Hans and Otto watched the sailors manhandle their wooden crates with white-knuckled intensity, every lurch sending a jolt through their hearts.

At long last, everything was stowed. Yang Ning, naturally, occupied a first-class cabin; the four maidservants were in second class. Tan Shuangxi and the rest had to make do with steerage. The moment the ship got under way, Yang Ning convened his "voyage meeting." He summoned everyone except the guards to the relatively spacious stern deck.

"Let's all get acquainted!" Yang Ning stood facing the sea breeze, his hair blown slightly askew but his spirits soaring. "Me, Yang Ning, commander of the Jeju Island Cavalry Training Squadron. This is Tan Shuangxi, future dragoon officer. These two are Hans and Otto, master armorers from the Holy Roman Empire. We all share the same destination — Jeju Island!"

He turned to the two Germans. "Once we're on the island, you'll familiarize yourselves with the environment first. But I've got some blueprints here." He patted the canvas satchel he carried with him. "Regarding cavalry and warhorse protection — I have many ideas. I need your professional eyes to look them over, see what's feasible and how best to realize it. Any questions?"

Hans and Otto exchanged a glance, each seeing in the other's eyes the same surprise and a flicker of excitement at being taken seriously. "No questions, Chief. We... will do our best," Hans answered cautiously.

"Good!" Yang Ning turned to Tan Shuangxi next. "You — starting today, every morning and afternoon, you'll make time to come to the deck with me and practice balance and basic riding posture. No horse yet, so we train the man first. I'm going to drill that rigid infantry bearing out of you!"

"Yes, Chief!" Tan Shuangxi answered loudly, already groaning inwardly.

"And you lot," Yang Ning waved at Guan Yiyi and the others, who were standing well back, too timid to approach. "You'll learn to ride every day too! Also, find time to learn basic numerical record-keeping and item classification from them! You'll need it later!"

The maidservants looked utterly bewildered: Ride horses? Why on earth would they need to ride horses?

The voyage continued in this busy, peculiar atmosphere. Yang Ning spent most of his time in the cabin drawing blueprints and writing furiously. Every day, without fail, he would command Tan Shuangxi and the four maidservants to practice "man-and-horse-as-one" exercises on the rolling deck, or pull the two German craftsmen aside to gesture at the curves and angles of armor components.

Tan Shuangxi struggled but applied himself earnestly, performing posture drills and core-strength exercises per Yang Ning's instructions. Conducting such training on a deck thronged with passing passengers was mortifying — especially with four young women practicing alongside him...

Hans and Otto, by contrast, were in their element, drawn in by Yang Ning's wildly imaginative yet oddly compelling blueprints that fused classical and modern requirements. They began sketching with charcoal on wooden boards, debating the forging possibilities of "Australian steel."

The four maidservants, under Guan Yiyi's lead, struggled to adapt to the sea's pitching. Between daily exercises, they began cataloguing the documents and clothing their master had brought from Lingao — to their alarm, they discovered that the Chief's "uniform" collection was more extensive than most people's entire wardrobes.

When the outline of Jeju Island appeared on the horizon, Yang Ning was the first to rush to the bow, arms flung wide. "My horses! My soldiers! My... new proving ground!" He turned to look back at his ragtag vanguard — maidservants, a former infantry sergeant, German craftsmen — and shouted with exuberant spirits: "Everyone ready! The new journey begins!"

(End of chapter)