A Frugal Table and a Bold Proposal
The meal laid before us was modest. Steamed millet rice—the staple of the Three Jin states—accompanied by grilled venison, a few seasonal vegetable side dishes, and a light soup with a scattering of ingredients. In that it included meat, it was incomparably luxurious compared to the fare of ordinary commoners. Yet for the table of Lord Xinling, a great feudal lord who boasted a larger retinue of retainers than either Lord Jianxin or Lord Pingyuan, it felt almost embarrassingly plain.
It would have been easy to assume she was subtly mocking me, implying this was all she could offer. But that interpretation fell apart when I saw that the exact same meal had been set before Lord Xinling herself.
“Then let us eat.”
Lord Xinling seemed accustomed to such humble fare. She picked up her chopsticks with natural grace and began to eat. A beautiful noblewoman in pristine white silk, sitting down to such a simple meal… If I were to compare it to my previous life, it was like being invited to dinner by one of the world’s most celebrated beauties, only to end up at a modest porridge house.
Was I disappointed? Not in the slightest. Quite the opposite. This was exactly the situation I had hoped for.
Lord Xinling’s funds have run dry.
The reason for this frugal menu was neither to mock me nor to flaunt her own austerity. It was purely due to a lack of money. She was said to support three thousand retainers. That was more than the combined number under both Lord Jianxin and Lord Pingyuan. Just how enormous a budget would be required to feed and house such a vast household?
And Lord Xinling receives neither a salary from office nor tax revenue from a fief.
Until now, the state of Zhao had covered all those expenses. After all, she was the benefactor who had saved a nation on the brink of destruction. Who would begrudge her such a sum? But Zhao had overlooked one crucial factor.
No one could have predicted that Lord Xinling would remain planted in Zhao for so many years.
Nor could they have foreseen that thousands of retainers would flock to her in what was essentially a life of exile. For her part, Lord Xinling had too much pride to beg for more funds, and Zhao had far too many other places where money was desperately needed to increase her stipend. That was when Lord Pingyuan came up with a clever solution: grant her four villages as a fief so she could support herself independently. It was both an act of brotherly affection from a brother-in-law toward his sister-in-law and a pragmatic measure to ease the burden on Zhao’s treasury.
Lord Xinling had accepted the idea as only natural. After all, she was the savior who had rescued Zhao from the edge of annihilation. She had even killed a general of her own state who refused to send reinforcements, seized military command, and sacrificed the lives of her most cherished retainers. Having given up the glory she once enjoyed and the people she held dear, she surely deserved some reward. Everyone thought so.
But in the end, the plan never came to fruition. It was undone by a single piece of advice from one of her retainers.
That retainer had said: You are indeed a hero of Zhao, but have you forgotten that you are also a traitor who killed a general of your homeland, Wei, and seized command without authorization? Refusing any reward after saving Zhao is proof of your righteousness. Yet if you accept a fief and become one of Zhao’s feudal lords, the world will not see you as a righteous person. They will brand you a turncoat who abandoned your own country for a mere scrap of Zhao’s power.
In other words: Because you asked for no reward, the world acknowledges your purity and honors you as Wei’s princess and Zhao’s savior. But if you accept payment, even if nothing happens immediately, you will eventually be left with nothing at all.
It was a brutally incisive remark that demonstrated a keen understanding of human nature. The debt of saving an entire nation was so great that Zhao would treat her as an honored guest for several years. But whether she could maintain her independent standing after being granted a fief and elevated to the rank of feudal lord remained uncertain.
Lord Xinling immediately recognized the danger and rejected Lord Pingyuan’s proposal. The matter of the fief quietly faded away. And so, after going in a full circle, nothing had been resolved. In a state of mere maintenance, Lord Xinling continued to struggle with chronic budget shortages.
That was why she deliberately kept her own meals simple. It was a preemptive message to her retainers: If even I, your lord, eat like this, don’t you dare complain about the side dishes.
“Is something wrong? Does the food not suit your taste?”
“Ah, I apologize. I was lost in thought for a moment… I will eat well.”
Only then did I put food in my mouth, and I was genuinely impressed by the flavor. The ingredients were cheap, yet the taste was not far behind what I had eaten in the royal palace of Yan or at Lord Pingyuan’s residence.
“It’s good, isn’t it?”
I must have looked too obviously surprised. That would explain why Lord Xinling asked so directly. I smiled awkwardly and nodded.
“Yes, it’s delicious. The cook’s skill is remarkable.”
“It is one of the talents I treasure most among my many retainers.”
With thousands of retainers gathered, it made sense that a skilled chef would be among them. Still, the idea of a retainer personally cooking the lord’s meals had its own amusing charm. I chuckled softly and moved my chopsticks again.
Every dish was the same. Despite their ordinary appearance and humble ingredients, each one was a surprising delicacy that made my eyes widen.
“Isn’t it fascinating?”
“Pardon? What do you mean?”
“Cooking. That such ordinary ingredients can produce flavors like this.”
Lord Xinling used her chopsticks to gather the solid bits floating in the soup. Instead of eating them immediately, she held them up and observed them quietly.
“Even with the same ingredients, the taste can differ dramatically depending on what you combine and how you prepare it.”
She then turned her gaze toward me.
“The world is the same. Depending on how you use a person, that person too will change.”
Her eyes were like the edge of a blade. She wasn’t glaring or furrowing her brow, yet simply meeting her stare felt as if a sword point was pressed against my throat.
“What kind of person can you become to me, Duke?”
Though the atmosphere was thick with tension, my mind grew strangely calm. I felt a strong sense of déjà vu. This scene was remarkably similar to job interviews in my previous life, when they would demand a one-minute self-introduction. Back then, applicants—including myself—would compare themselves to objects. Just as Lord Xinling had done moments ago.
“You said that cooking resembles the world.”
I decided to ride the same current.
“Yet even the finest individual dishes cannot make a complete meal on their own. One dish is never enough. Only when many such dishes come together to form a full table does one have a proper feast, wouldn’t you agree?”
I tapped the bowls containing the soup and side dishes with my chopsticks.
“No matter what kind of table you set, there is one thing that is never absent.”
“Rice, I suppose.”
“Exactly. If I were to compare you, Lord Xinling, to this meal, you would be the rice. You are the center. Sometimes rice alone can constitute a meal. However, it does become rather plain without proper side dishes to accompany it.”
Lord Xinling listened with a faint smile, clearly absorbed in my words. Though she had started the metaphor, her eyes sparkled with anticipation for what absurd thing I might say next.
“You asked what kind of person I could become to you, correct?”
“I did.”
“Then I shall be this venison dish. I cannot become rice on my own, but among the side dishes, I am the finest. The one that pairs best with rice.”
“Pfft.”
Lord Xinling instinctively covered her mouth at the laughter that burst out, but she couldn’t hold it back. She threw her head back and laughed brightly.
“Ahahaha! How amusing. Truly amusing. I wondered why my brother-in-law cherished such a dull and rigid person so much…”
After laughing until she nearly cried, she suddenly composed her expression and asked seriously.
“Then let me ask this: how exactly do you intend to serve me this venison dish?”
Meat had always been the most precious item on any table. Volunteering to be the meat dish allowed for many interpretations—becoming the most valuable person around her, the closest confidant, and so on. But my true meaning lay in the fundamental idea of being the most expensive.
And her question showed that she had perfectly understood my roundabout declaration that I would become her source of funding.
“Would you care to do business with me?”
“Business… You mean trade, I suppose?”
“Correct. I wish to establish a trading company.”
At my words, Lord Xinling’s expression shifted to something rather cynical, quite different from the demeanor she had shown until now.
“Establish a trading company? That sounds nice. But commerce is no different from war. Only one in ten succeeds and reaps profit, three in ten barely manage to survive, and the remaining six are ruined beyond recovery. Do you truly have such confidence?”
“I do.”
“I admire your spirit. Then tell me—what exactly do you plan to sell that makes you so certain?”
Revealing my hand this early would be foolish. I sensed that the initiative had shifted to me and smoothly changed the subject.
“I can sell anything. If I set my mind to it, I could even sell the water flowing through those mountains or the very air we are breathing right now. What is sold is merely a secondary concern.”
“Selling water and air? Haha, you truly are a swindler without equal. Mo Gong would be delighted.”
In the distant future, those will indeed become commodities, my lady. Bongi Kim Seon-dal may have swindled people by selling water from the Daedong River, but in the twenty-first century, premium bottled water with exorbitant prices sits proudly on store shelves.
“Very well. To a merchant, their goods are as precious as life itself, so I understand your desire to keep them secret. However, if that is all you offer, I see no reason to join hands with you, Duke.”
“Though I may be young, it seems I know one thing about business that you, Lord Xinling, do not. It would be my honor to share that knowledge with you.”
Dealing with people really does sharpen one’s tongue. The words flowed from me almost automatically. I was astonished at myself—such a version of me would have been unimaginable in my previous life.
“Your speech flows like a clear mountain stream. You need not worry about failing as a hawker. Very well, then. What is this business principle that you claim to know?”
“The essence of commerce lies not in what you sell, but in how you sell it.”
“How you sell it?”
In the future, this would be called marketing. It is the answer to why identical products can command vastly different prices and sales volumes. No matter how excellent a product you create, the advantage lasts only briefly. I am not pioneering some cutting-edge industry, nor am I protected by copyright law; imitations would flood the market in no time. Only if I were to become a true merchant tycoon or gain the backing of state power might I be able to guard industrial secrets like in the modern era, but that is still a dream.
Therefore, what I need is a way to differentiate my products from everyone else’s.
And I had seen that point of differentiation in Lord Xinling herself.
“My answer is you, Lord Xinling.”