The blacksmith's forge was a inferno of heat and ringing steel, but Li Wei's focus was on a piece of parchment covered in geometric diagrams.
"Spin it?" The blacksmith, a burly man named Old Liu, squinted at the drawing. "You want a blade to spin like a cart wheel? That's dangerous, Master Li! It will fly off and cut a man's head off."
"Not a cart wheel, Master Liu. A rotary blade," Li Wei explained, pointing to the circle. "Think of a millstone, but sharpened on the edge. We mount it on a pivot. You step on the treadle here, the wheel spins, and you push the meat against it. *Slice.* Perfect thickness every time. Three times faster than a hand knife."
Li Wei was trying to invent the meat slicer—a tool that wouldn't exist in the West for another few centuries. But he needed it now. The army contract demanded volume that hand-carving couldn't meet.
Old Liu scratched his soot-stained beard. "The balance must be true. If it wobbles..."
"I will pay for three failed attempts," Li Wei promised, placing five silver taels on the soot-stained table. "But if you make it work, I will buy two more. And I'll name it the 'Westland Blade'."
Old Liu's eyes gleamed at the silver. "Give me two days. I will use the finest tempered steel from the border mines."
***
Li Wei returned to the ranch to find Zhao Qingyu standing in the middle of the courtyard, shouting.
It was a sound he wasn't used to. Qingyu usually spoke in cold, cutting whispers. But now, her voice was raised, not in anger, but in command.
"You! Don't stack the wet hides there! The smell will drift into the smokehouse! Move them to the back wall! And you, boy, separate the spices! The pepper goes in the small jars, the salt in the large tubs! We don't have time for mistakes!"
Li Wei paused at the gate, watching in amusement.
The ranch yard was a factory floor. The "Fallen Stock" purchasing had been a massive success. Over the last week, Chen Hu had returned with three wagonloads of old oxen and culled cows. The pens were full. The noise was deafening.
And right in the center of the chaos stood his wife, a silk handkerchief tied over her nose and mouth, wielding a bamboo staff like a baton. She was directing the flow of workers—hired hands from the village who had come for the high wages Li Wei offered.
She caught sight of him and lowered the staff, her eyes flashing.
"You are late," she said, muffled by the cloth. "The butcher you hired from the city quit. He said his hands were cramping from cutting so much meat. We have a backlog of ten carcasses waiting to be processed."
"The butcher quit?" Li Wei sighed. "Good timing. I have a replacement for him."
"I hope it's a demon," Qingyu muttered. "Because only a demon can cut this fast."
"Close. It's a machine."
***
Two days later, the "Westland Blade" arrived.
It was a monstrosity of iron and wood. A large, circular steel blade was mounted on a block, connected by a crank to a foot treadle.
Old Liu looked nervous. "It... works in the shop. But with meat?"
Li Wei set up a table. He placed a slab of chilled beef round on the sliding board.
"Watch."
He sat on the stool and began to pump the treadle with his foot. The heavy flywheel spun up, gaining momentum with a low *whoosh*. The blade became a blur of silver.
Li Wei pushed the meat forward.
*Vrrrm!*
A perfect, paper-thin slice of beef fell onto the table.
*Vrrrm! Vrrrm! Vrrrm!*
In ten seconds, Li Wei had sliced enough meat for ten minutes of hand-cutting.
The workers stopped and stared. Even Chen Hu looked impressed.
"Magic," Sheng whispered.
"It's leverage," Li Wei said, standing up. "Sheng, you take over. Keep the rhythm steady. Don't force the meat."
He turned to Qingyu. "There. Now we have our demon."
Qingyu stared at the pile of sliced meat. Her eyes darted from the machine to Li Wei. "This... this changes everything."
"It scales," Li Wei nodded. "We can process twenty oxen a day with this."
He looked around the yard. The sun was beginning to set, casting long shadows.
"We have the meat. We have the slicer. Now we just need to dry it."
Li Wei pointed to the newly expanded smokehouse. "We have to hang the strips closely. But there is a problem."
"The weather?" Qingyu asked. She had been studying the almanac. "The humidity is rising. The south wind is bringing damp air. If we hang meat now, it might mold before it dries."
Li Wei nodded. She was sharp. "Exactly. We can't rely on the sun. We have to use fire. But not just any fire. We need a kiln. A drying room."
***
The solution was the "Charcoal Kiln Drying Room."
Li Wei converted a small storage shed. He lined the walls with mud bricks to insulate it. He built a stove in the center that vented heat through pipes running along the ceiling, creating a convection current, but the smoke was vented outside so the meat wouldn't taste like ash.
"We need constant heat," Li Wei explained, stoking the fire with anthracite coal he had bought from the mountains. "Dry heat. It will pull the moisture out of the meat in twelve hours instead of three days."
The work continued through the night. The rhythmic *vrrrm-vrrrm* of the slicer became the heartbeat of the Westland.
Qingyu didn't leave. When Li Wei came out of the kiln at midnight, sweating and covered in coal dust, he found her sitting inside the main shed, sorting the finished batches by weight.
She had removed her veil. Her face was tired, and a smudge of soot marked her cheek.
"You missed a spot," Li Wei said, pointing to her face.
She wiped at it, missing it entirely and smearing it further. "I have the inventory list. We have three hundred catties finished. Two hundred more in the kiln. We will make the deadline."
She looked up at him. "Why did you hire me to do this? You could have paid a clerk five coppers a day."
Li Wei sat down on a crate opposite her. "Because a clerk wouldn't care if we failed. You care."
"I care about the profit," she corrected, looking away.
"And the legacy," Li Wei added softly. "You want to prove that the Zhao family isn't just Uncle De's silk schemes. You want something real."
She didn't deny it.
"It is... strange," she admitted. "My hands smell of vinegar. I have ink stains on my fingers from the ledger. I am tired. But..." She paused, looking for the word. "It feels solid. Unlike counting paper money, which blows away in the wind."
She handed him a bowl of cold rice porridge. "Eat. You look like a ghost."
Li Wei took the bowl. "Thank you, Wife."
As they sat in the dim lantern light, surrounded by the smell of spices and drying meat, the gap between them—the scholar and the merchant, the husband and the reluctant wife—seemed to shrink.
"Li Wei," she said quietly.
"Yes?"
"That machine. The slicer. Can it cut vegetables?"
Li Wei laughed. "Yes. Why? Are you tired of chopping onions?"
"No," she said, a rare, small smile touching her lips. "I was just thinking... if the beef business fails, we can open a pickle shop."
Li Wei choked on his porridge, laughing.
"Deal. You run the pickles. I'll handle the cows."
***
**The Delivery Day**
Thirty days passed in a blur of sweat and smoke.
The morning of the delivery was crisp and clear. Five wagons stood lined up at the Westland gate. They were loaded with wooden crates, stamped with the Westland Brand—the circle and the rising sun.
Captain Wang stood at the head of the column, his face impassive.
"Open the first crate," he commanded.
Chen Hu pried the lid open.
Inside, packed tight in layers of oil-paper, were the dark, hard strips of Iron Meat.
Wang reached in and pulled out a piece. He inspected it. It was dry, uniform, and smelled of smoke. He snapped it—clean break, but not brittle. He chewed.
The Captain's eyes closed. He swallowed.
"Five hundred catties?" he asked.
"Five hundred and twenty," Qingyu stepped forward, handing him a scroll. "A surplus, in case of breakage during transport."
Wang looked at the scroll, then at the wagons, then at Li Wei. He saw the exhaustion on their faces, but also the pride.
"You delivered," Wang said. He signaled to his quartermaster. "Pay the remainder."
A heavy chest was carried forward. The sound of silver clinking inside was music to Li Wei's ears.
"I will send a letter of commendation to the Magistrate," Wang said. "And we will return in autumn for the next campaign. Double the order."
"Double?" Li Wei raised an eyebrow. "We might need a bigger slicer."
"Build one," Wang said. He mounted his horse. "The Westland has earned the Army's stomach. Do not make it regret eating."
The wagons rumbled away, leaving the ranch quiet.
Li Wei opened the chest. It was filled with silver taels.
He turned to Qingyu and Sheng.
"We did it," he said.
Qingyu looked at the silver, then at the empty pens. "We did. And now... we are broke again."
"What?"
"We have the silver," she explained, "but the pens are empty. We bought every old cow in the province. We need to buy more stock. We need to fix the roof. We need to pay the workers. The silver is already spent, Husband."
Li Wei laughed. It was a tired, happy laugh.
"Good. That means we're growing."
He looked at the hills. The alfalfa was growing tall. The ranch was expanding.
"Let's go home," he said. "I think Little Treasure is getting fatter."
**[System Notification]**
**[Contract Fulfilled: Imperial Army Logistics.]**
**[Reputation: Military Supplier (Trusted).]**
**[Funds: High (Outstanding Debts: High).]**
**[Quest Completed: The Slicer.]**
**[New Quest: The First Calving Season. (Est. 2 Months).]**
The foundation was laid. Now, the herd had to be born.