Quick Wear Dream Qiqi

In late spring, poplar catkins are floating in the capital, like snow that will never melt.

Meng Qiqi sat in the carriage wearing a veil hat, her fingertips holding the "Qianlong Dynasty Market Economy Report" provided by the system. The data showed that: female workers in the capital's embroidery workshops work an average of 14 hours a day, their salary is only one-third of that of male workers, and more than 70% suffer from eye diseases.

She looked through the carriage curtain at the "Jinxiu Pavilion" at the entrance of Yanzhi Hutong. Several embroiderers aged fourteen or fifteen flashed under the vermilion sign, with shackle-like collars on their thin necks.

"Yongqi, look at how interesting the name of this alley is."

She lifted a corner of the carriage curtain, letting poplar catkins drift into the carriage. "What's sold in Rouge Alley isn't rouge, it's girls' fingers."

Yongqi frowned as he looked at the embroidered handkerchief she handed him. It was embroidered with fluorescent silk thread, showing the structure of silk under a microscope, and it glowed faintly blue in the shadows. "You always say strange things. Why would you embroider such things on a nice handkerchief?"

Meng Qiqi chuckled, her fingertips stroking the jade pendant on his waist: "Because true splendor should not be hidden in the boudoir."

Before he could finish his words, he heard crying and shouting from the front. An embroiderer holding a blood-stained embroidery frame staggered and knocked over a tea stall. Behind her followed several guards holding whips.

"Catch the thief! This bastard stole the customer's gold thread!"

Yongqi instinctively reached out to protect Meng Qiqi, but saw that she had already lifted her veil and rushed out.

The embroiderer fell onto the bluestone slab, her jet-black braids scattered on the blood-stained peony embroidery pattern, and the copper bell on her collar trembled, emitting a faint whine.

Meng Qiqi noticed that there was a bloody strip of cloth wrapped around her fingertips, and the gold thread on the embroidery frame was clearly a defective product fixed with fish glue.

"What happened?" She pressed the wound on the embroiderer's forehead with a handkerchief and smelled the scent of cheap perfume mixed with rust.

The head guard approached, whip in hand, a jade pendant with the Chinese character "Li" engraved on its waist. "This bitch is called Chuntao, and she stole the gold thread from our embroidery workshop. Princess, please stay out of my business. This is the rule."

Yongqi's grip on the hilt tightened slightly, but he heard Meng Qiqi speak in a gentle voice, "I think the quality of this gold thread is wrong. It looks more like leftovers from the 'Juxiantang'. Manager Li, did you know that the owner of the Juxiantang just donated to the Imperial College last month?"

The people around suddenly began to murmur. Yongqi raised an eyebrow. "Juxiantang" was owned by the Minister of Revenue, Nephew. He wondered why Meng Qiqi knew so much about these merchants.

The guard's expression changed instantly, and the whip made a crisp sound on the ground: "If you want to buy embroidery, our embroidery workshop has plenty of good goods..."

"I don't want embroidery," Meng Qiqi helped Chuntao stand up, took out a silver ingot from her sleeve and stuffed it into her hand, "I want to borrow Miss Chuntao for half a day to teach my clumsy maid how to distinguish gold thread."

She turned to Yongqi and smiled, "Would Fifth Prince like to accompany me to the teahouse?"

----

Poplar catkins fell on the bamboo curtains of the "Qingxin Teahouse." Meng Qiqi lifted Chuntao's collar with a silver hairpin and saw a tiny "Qi" engraved on the inside. "Is this the 'Qi' from the indenture?"

Chun Tao clutched the scalding teacup, blood dripping from her fingertips onto the coarse tablecloth. "When I was ten, my father lost a bet and pawned me and my sister off to the embroidery workshop. Last year, my sister went blind from embroidery and was thrown into a mass grave..."

She suddenly pointed at the jade pendant on Yongqi's waist and said, "The mutton-fat jade on your waist is enough to buy ten of our lives."

Yongqi stood up suddenly, and the wooden chair made a harsh sound as it scraped against the bluestone slabs.

Meng Qiqi opened the sandalwood box she carried with her and took out a pocket microscope—an improved 18th-century model she had redeemed with system points. "Miss Chuntao, take a look at this."

When the girl got close to the eyepiece, her pupils suddenly contracted: "Oh my God, why is there a bug in this thread?"

Yongqi took a closer look and saw that the gold wire under the microscope showed a twisted honeycomb structure, which was clearly made of cheap brass wire wrapped in gold powder.

"Jinxiu Pavilion uses fake gold thread to pass off as genuine gold, but sells it to customers at real gold prices," Meng Qiqi said, pulling out an account book containing the purchase orders for the Beijing embroidery workshops for the past three months. "They falsely report a 30% loss each month, withholding the embroiderers' wages, and then use the money to bribe the government..."

"That's enough!" Yong Qi held her hand, his voice trembling with suppressed emotion. "How did you get all this?"

She looked up at the turbulent waves in his eyes and whispered, "Because someone told me that what's redder than the embroidery frame is a woman's blood and tears."

The system interface flashed on the retina, displaying "Yongqi's value impact +15%."

Suddenly, the sound of rattles could be heard outside the teahouse. The voices of Xiaoyanzi and her group, mixed with the cries of candied haws vendors, drifted in: "I'm in a good mood today, so I'm giving away all the buns from this bun shop!"

The people cheered and surrounded Chuntao. Meng Qiqi saw a light of desire in Chuntao's eyes, but it was quickly replaced by inferiority.

"What is she doing?" Yongqi frowned and looked out the window.

"Rob the rich and give to the poor." Meng Qiqi cleaned the microscope lens. "But buns can only temporarily relieve hunger, but a microscope can let people see the truth. Yongqi, look at these embroiderers——"

She pointed at Chuntao's cracked fingertips and said, "What they need is not occasional charity, but the ability to make a decent living with their craft."

Yongqi silently looked at the brass wire under the microscope, recalling the scene he had just seen at the door of the embroidery workshop: girls aged fourteen or fifteen were lying in front of the embroidery frames, their shadows cast on the wall by the candlelight, like a group of butterflies with broken wings.

Xiaoyanzi's laughter came again, and he suddenly found that the voice lacked the previous brightness and became more weak and pale.

"What do you want to do?" He heard his voice more serious than ever before.

Meng Qiqi unfolded a parchment covered with sketches of textile machines. The drawings were labeled with words like "steam power" and "assembly line operation." The message read: "Establish a women's craft school to teach them how to identify materials, design, manage, and even... operate new machines."

She traced the words "shareholding and dividends" with her fingertips, "Let the embroiderers invest in the company with their skills, and no longer be 'advertised girls' who can be bought and sold at will."

Chun Tao suddenly grabbed her wrist with surprising strength: "Can you really be a shopkeeper like a man? Can you name your own child?"

Big tears fell on the parchment, spreading into small clusters, but they looked like the most beautiful cloud pattern she had ever embroidered.

Yongqi's heartbeat suddenly accelerated.

He recalled reciting the Book of Zhou Rites in Yuqing Palace when he was a child. When he read the phrase "using hundreds of craftsmen to refine the eight materials", he seemed to understand it but not quite. But now, in this tea stall filled with the fragrance of tea and the smell of sweat, he suddenly understood the weight of the word "refine".

Outside the window, the little swallow was standing on tiptoe to put a garland on a child, and the red hairband in the child's hair fluttered in the wind into a bright question mark.

----

As dusk fell on Shichahai, Little Swallow jumped onto the pleasure boat carrying a bunch of cakes.

She was about to speak when she saw Yongqi concentrating on looking at a piece of paper covered with strange symbols, while Meng Qiqi was drawing something on the rice in the celadon plate with bamboo chopsticks.

"What is this?" She took a closer look and saw that the rice had formed a gear shape. "Yongqi, why are you playing house with Xinrong?"

When Yongqi looked up, a complex emotion flashed in his eyes: "Xiaoyanzi, did you know that an embroiderer was almost beaten to death in Yanzhi Hutong today?"

Xiaoyanzi's smile froze on her face: "I...I gave them buns and new clothes!"

Meng Qiqi put down her bamboo chopsticks. The "gears" on the celadon plate shone coldly in the twilight. "But what about tomorrow? What about the day after tomorrow? When you deliver the last bun, they'll still have to wear collars embroidered with fake gold thread, and new Chuntao will still have their fingers broken."

"Then what do you think we should do?" Xiaoyanzi's voice was filled with anger. "Are we going to let them show their faces in public like men?"

Yongqi suddenly remembered Chuntao's expression when she saw the microscope. It was a shocking moment when the vitality that had been suppressed for many years suddenly broke out.

He fished out the parchment from his arms. The words "Girls' Craft School" were soaked with sweat at the edges. "Perhaps... we can let them learn skills and become their own masters."

Xiaoyanzi stood up suddenly, causing the pleasure boat to sway slightly. "Yongqi, you used to say that as long as a woman is happy, that's all! Why are you... speaking up for her now?"

She pointed at Meng Qiqi, tears welling up in her eyes, "Is it because she dresses beautifully and speaks those difficult to understand words?"

The wind blowing from the lake was cool. Meng Qiqi looked at the lighted pleasure boat in the distance and remembered the "historical diversion point" prompted by the system.

She is witnessing the awakening of a prince and the confusion of a young girl - this confusion is hidden in the ice of thousands of years of feudal ethics, and the microscope in her hand is trying to become the first pickaxe to break the ice.

"Little Swallow," she said in a soft voice, as if soothing a hurt child, "have you ever seen a spinning wheel that turns by itself? Have you ever seen a machine that can embroider ten colors at the same time?"

She pulled out a wooden loom model from her sleeve. "If Chuntao and the others could operate these, they wouldn't have to bend over and embroider for more than ten hours. They could sit and drink tea, watching the machines work, and use the money they earn to buy medicine for their parents and pay for their younger brother's education."

Xiaoyanzi stared at the rotating gears on the model and suddenly remembered the Western clock she saw at the market last year.

The sight of the gears meshing with each other and turning had once made her feel both curious and frightened.

Listening to Meng Qiqi's words at this moment, she suddenly realized that her "robbing the rich to help the poor" was like a child's play, and the picture described by the woman in front of her, although unfamiliar, was full of power that could not be ignored.

"I... I still feel weird," she muttered as she sat down, but didn't pull Yongqi's sleeve as usual. "But... if it can prevent Chuntao and the others from getting beaten, maybe we can give it a try?"

Yongqi suddenly grasped Meng Qiqi's hand, warmth radiating from his fingertips. "I'll go with you to see the Emperor and tell him... that this is a good way to revitalize Jiangnan weaving."

He looked at the stars reflected in the lake, his voice filled with a firmness that had broken free from its cocoon, "If this succeeds, perhaps one day all women will be like you, with light in their eyes and swords in their hands."

Meng Qiqi felt the thin calluses on his palms, which were the marks left by years of sword practice.

The system interface displays "Historical process change value +8%".