Normal Operations - 4
Being hungry makes a man melancholy.
That's a truth I learned down to my bones after spending a year living like a beggar in this world, where I was treated as a barbarian.
Skipping one meal for two, then one for three, then one for four. When had I last eaten? I was hungry. So hungry. I wanted to stuff anything at all into my mouth.
Hunger devours the whole mind.
If I hadn't learned the Tona Method after falling into this world — the technique that strengthened the body and tempered the spirit — I might well have gone down a very dark path.
"Has everyone had lunch today?"
It was cleanup time after closing. I gathered the staff together and stood before them.
"......"
No answers, I see. The employees who were starving because money was tight wouldn't even meet my eyes.
"I'm aware some of you have been skipping lunch. I set aside a dedicated meal break specifically so you could eat, after all."
Start with the problem, like any proper preamble. I lowered my gaze as if deeply disappointed.
"Did you call us here to take our lunch breaks away if we skipped meals?"
"What? No — I'd like to eat lunch myself, you know."
An undercurrent of anxiety rippled through the staff. Fair enough — in this world, there was no such institution as a paid lunch break to begin with.
EvenIndentured workers who were fed three meals a day in exchange for their labor often spent their noon break chewing on a single raw onion while working.
I understood the anxiety. But I hadn't gathered them here to confiscate lunch breaks.
"I know why you've been skipping lunch."
Anxiety is still a form of attention. It means they know I've identified the problem. With one remark to put that anxiety to rest, I could draw every eye in the room to me at once.
Payday was still far off. And even when the wages came, they wouldn't stretch to buying lunch.
I understand your circumstances. And now the staff would be wondering what the manager was about to say.
What words would come out of my mouth?
"I've contracted with a nearby inn to provide lunch. Tell them you're from Daseogak and give your name, and they'll serve you a meal."
Good news, obviously.
"You're... providing meals for us?"
"Really?!"
"Even the well-off escort agency workers buy their own food, you know?"
"Is this some kind of work-study scholarship benefit?"
The staff stared at me, eyes wide with disbelief.
"It comes entirely out of my own pocket. How are you supposed to work hard if you're starving? Eat at the inn nearby."
I'd already been covering Lim Hayeon's meals, so this much was nothing.
— For tonight, you mean. Take it.
— I told you, I don't need help.
— Providing for your staff is a manager's duty.
— Hmph!
She refuses help she receives as the daughter of the Righteous Union, but help she receives as an employee is perfectly fine. Typical of a woman who'll accept the thing anyway while inventing every excuse under the sun.
Would it kill her to be innocently happy like the rest of the staff?
"A work-study wage, AND meals provided."
Yes. The wages come from the Literati Guild. And I negotiated a group meal discount, too.
"Did the manager not know something, coming from a foreign country?"
"Free lunch on a lunch break? Am I working at Daseogak, or has Daseogak become a government office?"
"Hey, even government officials skip lunch or grab something on the run because of work."
"Good heavens."
The staff beamed with delight.
Too early to be surprised yet.
"And there's one more thing I'm providing."
To announce the next staff benefit, I raised my voice, cutting straight through the celebratory mood.
"More?!"
"What on earth is it?!"
Now for the main event.
I looked around at the wide-eyed staff, then reached into the bundle I'd set behind me and held something up.
"Starting today, I will be issuing work uniforms."
If you're an employee of Daseogak, you wear a uniform. Obviously.
"Clothes, too?"
"I told you all to dress neatly at the start, but a slightly different problem has come up."
I myself dressed decently enough, but I gazed ruefully at the spots on the staff's clothing that had grown filthy from days of labor.
Everyone had arrived at Daseogak in decent enough clothes that I'd assumed they could at least afford lunch. The reality was that, just like in my street-storyteller days, they had shown up in the single best outfit they owned.
"Hahaha......"
"The men will be fitted with simple, tidy work uniforms. You'll wear them during working hours."
"And the women will wear something different?"
Excellent question.
Actually, that was the whole reason I'd gathered them here. I have something momentous to introduce.
"From now on, the women of the second floor will wear this."
I drew out a garment made of luxurious black fabric and held it up before the staff.
"What is that?"
The true nature of the black garment I raised aloft.
A treasure of the Central Plains.
The greatest invention of Chinese civilization.
A dress that contains everything this world has to offer.
Its name is—
"The qipao."
The qipao.
Also known in another world as the China dress.
In any genre, if a Chinese character appears, this is the outfit she's guaranteed to show up in alongside the double-bun hairstyle.
Sleeveless cuts that emphasize beauty through bold omission, daring side slits that reveal tantalizing glimpses of thigh, and a silhouette that hugs the body to accentuate every curve of a beautiful figure.
One American First Lady supposedly looked at the qipao and said she finally understood why China's birth rate was so high — that's the kind of garment it is, male desire incarnate.
Daseogak stands in the Central Plains.
So what should Daseogak's uniform be?
Naturally, say "uniform" and the answer is "qipao."
My logic had board the three-stage booster and rocketed gloriously skyward, only to—
'Turn out to be absurdly expensive.'
Making them from genuine silk had cost an eye-watering fortune. Actually, I nearly lost my mind over the price.
Worse, the qipao I ordered was the modern-improved design, and placing it as a special custom order meant they jacked the price up even further. Naturally.
My logic's booster nearly exploded mid-flight.
If the second-floor staff hadn't all been beauties, I'd have given up.
It was an investment worth making. The impact would be enormous. After much deliberation, I signed the contract and managed to get sample garments delivered.
"Qipao?"
"Never seen clothes like that."
"Surely that isn't hufu — barbarian dress?"
The qipao is Manchu clothing. And I'd modified it, so of course it looked foreign.
"It is worn in other lands, yes, but people wear it in the northern provinces as well."
I corrected the misunderstanding to head off any prejudice before it could form. It might feel unfamiliar since it had to be made of silk, but in a martial-arts visual-novel world, even wealthy households wore such things.
"That's barbarian clothing, isn't it?"
"Barbarian clothing?!"
I could see distaste spreading among the staff.
Typical. The moment the word "barbarian" comes up, everyone scrunches their faces. This world's hatred of foreigners was simply beyond help.
Back in my hungriest days, I might have apologized and backed down. Not anymore.
"So you refuse, simply because it's foreign dress?"
I let my disappointment show, plainly, as I looked over the staff.
Now. I've cast out a perfectly delectable piece of bait. Which fish will bite?
"Of course it matters. How could a woman of the Central Plains wear barbarian—"
"Hey, you!"
Now's the time. I'm yanking the fishing rod.
"You dislike it because it's barbarian dress, I see. Then you must despise, even more, taking orders from a barbarian."
Where does the manager of the very Daseogak you work at appear to be from, exactly?
Despising barbarians means despising me. Fair to assume, no?
"That's not what I—"
Now, launch! Whatever the employee might have answered, I took off, channeling a sliver of my own buried grievance as a despised foreigner.
"I hired every one of you regardless of the color of your hair, to give hope to those in hardship! I'm providing lunch! And now clothing! And you recoil at a garment that mere barbarians also wear?! I have no use for such people. Leave. Now. I'll see you're paid every wage you've earned to date."
I pointed firmly at Daseogak's front gate.
"I'm sorry!!! I never meant it that way, not at all!!!"
The employee who had sneered at barbarians went white, bowing so low her face nearly touched the floor as she apologized.
The others, sensing the danger, clamped their mouths shut and simply watched the scene unfold.
One warning, executed before the hundred. Excellent.
"Once. Just once. If I hear talk of despising barbarians in my presence again, I will not let it pass."
Anywhere else, maybe — but refusing to wear a garment because it was "foreign dress" would never fly in this place. Understood?
"It will never happen again!"
"Anyone else have something to say?"
I asked the other staff, leveling a warning glance at each of them.
"Me."
One of the second-floor women raised her hand.
"Speak."
Don't tell me, after all that warning, she's about to say she hates wearing barbarian clothes. That would genuinely hurt.
Fortunately, the woman raised an entirely different objection.
"Sleeveless, slits up the thigh, fabric that shows off the whole figure — isn't this far too revealing? Garments like these are for lowborn courtesans trying to seduce men."
The woman frowned and pointed at the qipao.
True. It IS a seductive outfit designed to draw in customers. How do I counter that? While I was thinking, I caught a murmur, pitched low enough for only me to hear.
"She's wrong, though...... What does she take courtesans for?"
Lim Hayeon, evidently displeased by the "lowborn courtesan" remark, was muttering just loud enough to slip beneath the woman's notice, glaring at her.
The woman, apparently not having heard, kept going.
"I'm no lowborn courtesan — I'm an educated woman of the Literati Guild. And if we wear such things, the plainer-figured staff will draw attention they never asked for."
The woman cast a sidelong glance at Lim Hayeon. Plainer figures, she says. You mean voluptuous ones.
Ah, so she's a proper guild-trained woman and finds it immodest. Fine — then I have an answer for that too.
"'Lowborn courtesan,' is it? In the northern provinces, this is a garment only ladies of the highest standing are permitted to wear. Do the rest of you share her view?"
Do you have any idea how much this thing cost to make?
"I wanna wear silk!"
Ha Soso's eyes sparkled at the silk qipao as she shouted, full of energy. Yes! That's exactly the reaction I wanted. One vote secured.
"And what say you, Lady Hayeon? Is the qipao lowborn barbarian garb fit only for courtesans?"
I'd subtly swapped "lowborn courtesan" for "lowborn barbarian." Courtesan and barbarian — her and me, cut from similar cloth. Trap her into casting the deciding vote.
I turned to Lim Hayeon, who had been glaring at the woman with a sour face.
Lim Hayeon. Say the right thing. Think of everything I've given you.
Lim Hayeon looked back and forth between me and the woman with a sullen expression, then seemed to make up her mind and spoke.
"If you've never actually seen a courtesan, don't go running your mouth about their clothing. When a courtesan means to seduce a man, she wears something far bolder than this. This is simply a beautiful garment. Hmph! Though of course, a woman without confidence in her figure couldn't wear it."
Apparently the courtesan slur had offended her. Lim Hayeon said it loudly, in an irritated tone, clearly making sure the woman heard every word.
"Hah. Since everyone insists, I'll wear it. And, Manager? I never once called them barbarians."
In the end, the woman bowed her head and declared her surrender.
Yes! From this day forward, the uniform of Daseogak is the qipao!
"Why are you going so far as to empty your own pockets to treat us like this?"
Just as I was cheering inwardly, one of the staff raised her hand high and asked.
Why, you ask?
"Because you are my employees."
Daseogak's reputation is my reputation.
You'll wear your uniforms to eat at the inn. Word will spread that the manager of Daseogak even provides lunch for his work-study students.
My name will shine not just through the Literati Guild but across all of Yichang.
Daseogak, and every one of its staff, would all become monuments to my renown. And since it's a good deed anyway, so much the better.
Smiling at the staff whose jaws were hanging open, I opened my mouth to close the meeting.
"Generous benefits come with firm rewards and penalties. And starting tomorrow, Daseogak's second-floor entrance fee will be halved, and our books — including back stock — will go on sale. Let's all work hard."
"Yes, sir! We'll work hard!"
Barbarian garb, the qipao. But then, beauty knows no borders.
"Hoooaagh. What... what brave new world is this?"
The uniform was my decision, but the qipao's power proved utterly devastating.
"I don't know where to put my eyes!"
"On the books, perhaps?"
"How can you say something so cruel?!"
The women in their black qipao were as mesmerizing as lodestones, each one drawing customers in like magic.
"Manager Kang. I have a grave dilemma."
"Scholar Son. If you ask me to play matchmaker again, I'll throw you out."
"No, no, it's not that. The qipao itself is lovely in its natural form, but there's something oddly captivating about how they look wearing those white aprons over it."
The qipao is expensive silk. Laundering it costs a fortune. In the end, after much agonizing, I'd ordered the staff to wear frilled white aprons for any task that might soil the fabric.
A black qipao with a white apron tied over it. It rather evokes a certain... particular taste, doesn't it?
I smiled and answered Scholar Son.
"The meiyi look is undeniably charming, isn't it?"
"Meiyi?"
"It's said to be the dress worn by foreign women when doing housework, hence 'the meiyi look.' A woman's beauty isn't only in her face — surely it shows best when she's attending to the household. I understand completely."
Black qipao and white apron — two looks in one. Whoever the genius of commerce was who thought this up, I really ought to thank him.
"Ahem. The foreign lands do have fine culture, don't they."
Discounted admission and books, staff morale soaring thanks to the new benefits, and now the qipao.
Customers began flooding back into Daseogak in full force.
"Lady Hayeon? What business on the first floor? I told the staff to leave the dinner provisions inside the display case."
I was giving instructions to the first-floor staff when Lim Hayeon, in her black qipao, came up to me.
"I didn't come because of that. Here. I was told to drop this off."
Lim Hayeon held out a box to me. So that's where it went.
"Ah, I meant to take that to the print room and forgot."
"You seem busy — I'll take it."
"No. I'll carry it myself."
I waved her off and picked up the box.
"It's really not a big deal, walking to the print room."
"It is. A very, very big deal. So turn around and go back."
"What on earth is the reason I can't go to the print room?"
The reason?
Oh, there's a very big reason.
Now that Daseogak was the talk of the town, the next stage of my plan was ready to take flight.
"Volume three of Wind and Cloud of the Tang Clan is being printed right now."