Munitions Empire

By the time she pushed open the door, she was slightly startled. It was her first time seeing such a simplistic bedroom, or, to be exact, the first time seeing such a … slapdash office.

Tang Mo’s office and bedroom were combined, with his desk followed by a chair, and right behind the chair lay a single bed.

As a man, Tang Mo’s quilt was messy on the bed—because for the past two days, Tang Mo had been so busy that even his sleeping time had been cut by 2 hours.

He now only slept six hours a day, which, if calculated based on the standard eight hours of sleep, showed his current lifestyle was extremely unhealthy.

But he couldn’t manage these concerns now. He had to spend 4 hours a day in the lab, another 4 hours drawing blueprints, and the rest of his time was taken up with business dealings, inspecting the workshop, supervising construction progress on the site…

So, for such a career-driven man, folding the quilt seemed trivial.

Tang Mo hadn’t realized this, forgetting to make his bed. As soon as he returned, he busied himself with the accounts, then looked at the list of factory personnel changes Roger had left in his room.

When Tang Mo picked up these documents, he completely forgot that he had asked Alice to come to his room to discuss business with Northern Ridge.

However, the moment Alice rather violently barged into his room, he remembered that he had arranged a meeting.

Within roughly a second, he had his thoughts in order: the cooperation with Northern Ridge should deepen, just as he had said during the dinner, he didn’t have the capital to place bets on both sides, he had already sided with Northern Ridge!

In about the same amount of time, Alice too had managed to recover from her initial indignation. She saw the slovenliness hidden beneath a man’s bright exterior…

And then, she discovered that the room wasn’t quite what she had expected. There were no romantic curtains, no soft, large bed, but there was a pile of empty bottles in the corner and a bunch of old clothes hung haphazardly on the clothes rack.

Clearly, the room she was in was likely Tang Mo’s office, and Tang Mo, who had made so much money from Northern Ridge and the Elves, was regretfully sleeping in his office…

Speaking of sleeping… what on earth are you thinking? Alice cut off her own wild thoughts, finally regaining her composure as Tang Mo realized his room was a bit messy.

"Uh… sorry, Miss Alice… the room’s a bit messy," Tang Mo said awkwardly, putting down the pen in his hand…

Honestly, because of the weather, the room was definitely not warm, so Tang Mo hadn’t taken off his coat upon entering, which meant he still had a left-wheel handgun hanging under his arm.

In this world, besides James Bond, probably nobody would bring a handgun when meeting a beautiful woman… Tang Mo sarcastically thought to himself.

This must be the worst date ever, wasn’t it? Nothing memorable about it, utterly embarrassing! Alice also helplessly criticized in her mind at this time.

Then, the habits that she had developed over the years made her say the most gracious words despite mentally criticizing: "No, no problem…"

"As you can see, I’m quite busy, there’s a lot to do, so… let’s get started right away," Tang Mo changed the subject, setting aside the documents in his hand, turned around, went to the bed, and started to fold his quilt.

Despite the awkwardness, despite the embarrassment, he ultimately had to maintain some semblance of image—especially in front of a beautiful woman.

As Tang Mo finished folding his quilt, he turned around and said to Alice, "Make yourself comfortable, there’s no need to be so stiff."

When she heard Tang Mo say to get started right away, Alice almost cried—she really didn’t want to give away the best of herself so sloppily to a man who… to a man who couldn’t even fold his quilt.

However, when she saw Tang Mo folding the quilt, she finally realized that he apparently didn’t plan to enact a romantic love story with her.

Because who would fold the quilt when a girl had just entered the room? Wouldn’t you just have to unfold it later? Wasn’t that superfluous?

But once she confirmed this fact, the anxiety and unease in her heart immediately turned into the shame of feeling neglected—her looks, her body, her heart, everything ignored.

These were the intricate thoughts of a woman, something Tang Mo naturally wouldn’t know.

He proudly folded his quilt into a tofu block; it might not have been perfect, but it looked the part. When he turned back around, satisfied, Alice had already settled herself in the chair reserved for guests.

"I’ve brought a batch of goods this time, hoping to offset some of the debt Northern Ridge owes you," Alice muttered to herself, calling Tang Mo a pigheaded man, then continued to channel her emotions through business: "The goods are already on their way…"

Tang Mo knew that Alice had been angry ever since he made that joke and didn’t take it to heart, directly asking, "What kind of goods? Leather? Grain? If it’s these, I have no problem with it here."

He planned to accept whatever junk Northern Ridge brought, just to soothe Alice’s anger—he hadn’t realized that the girls in this world were so coquettish that even a joke was forbidden.

"It’s 700 Shireck Flintlock Guns!" Alice said, irritated.

Tang Mo repeated, his eyes widening, "700 guns, flintlock guns... Shireck Flintlock Guns..."

Selling other people’s weapons, he had been doing that for two lifetimes... but buying others’ antiquated weapons, that wasn’t something he often dealt with.

Seeing Tang Mo’s expression, Alice finally felt a sense of satisfaction as if she had avenged a great wrong. She nodded and confirmed to Tang Mo, "Yes, I hope to use these weapons to offset part of the debt."

"What use do you think these Shireck Flintlock Guns could possibly have for me?" Tang Mo sat back behind his desk and asked Alice with a wry smile.

"I don’t know, but the only thing I have lying around that’s of no use to me are these flintlock guns," Alice said bluntly, beginning to play the rascal.

Tang Mo was amused by Alice’s demeanor. He habitually wanted to reach for a cigarette, then realized he didn’t have any and merely rubbed his chin, "Ha! You’re asking an arms dealer to buy someone else’s weapons... Interesting."

"I know it puts you in a difficult position, which is why, why I... I came here personally." After the thrill of revenge passed, Alice still felt somewhat embarrassed.

She knew that Tang Mo would find Shireck’s flintlock guns utterly useless, especially since this batch of guns... they couldn’t even be fired.

The barrels of these flintlock guns produced were seriously flawed, risking explosion upon firing. The Northern Ridge Legion’s troops that hadn’t upgraded their equipment injured a dozen soldiers due to barrel explosions during training.

It was only because the Northern Ridge Legion now had new weapons that the old ammunition was despised, so they increased the training intensity, otherwise, it might not have been discovered that these guns were defective.

Clearly, this was a sly scheme by the Shireck Consortium; they were hoping that the Northern Ridge Legion using these new guns on the battlefield would collapse due to weapon malfunctions.

But no one had expected that Count Fisheo, who had upgraded from old-fashioned muskets to cannons, would use the new guns for training—a move even the wealthy Shireck Consortium themselves rarely afforded to indulge in.

Hearing Alice’s explanation, Tang Mo then realized that not only was Alice trying to use outdated flintlock guns to settle her debt, but they were a batch of faulty guns...

Tang Mo suppressed the urge to curse and instead let his mind wander through a series of unrelated props like candles for lighting and whips for horse-riding. Finally, he sighed in resignation, "This is indeed a headache..."

"You... if you’re willing, willing to accept this condition... I, I..." Alice mumbled with her head lowered, feeling justified in her embarrassment.

It was risky for her to have confidently sent these scrap weapons to Tang Mo without getting his agreement first.

Because if Tang Mo refused her terms, Northern Ridge might have to foot the bill for the transport costs.

She felt a sense of regret: Couldn’t this situation just follow the script? Her dithering and coy approach, and the dashing Tang Mo going for a suave wall pin followed by a lingering, romantic kiss—why was that so hard to achieve?

She could take a little loss, shed a couple of tears, and a panicked Tang Mo would nod in agreement—wouldn’t that have solved everything? Why make it so complicated… Isn’t it tiring?

However, while Alice was daydreaming about a romantic scenario, she heard Tang Mo’s curious voice asking, "Do you have a speech impediment?"

"Wha... what?" Alice stuttered, taken aback.

"I asked, do you naturally stutter when you speak? Or are you just very nervous?" Tang Mo asked without even looking up.

Then, just as Alice was on the verge of indignantly erupting again, Tang Mo laid out his terms: "I can keep these weapons and help you sell them... As to how much they’ll fetch, that’s hard to say, but the money can certainly be used to settle Northern Ridge’s debt, no problem there."

"Moreover, I can provide Northern Ridge with 20 steam engines on credit, and also offer to sell them the bullet production line."

"Really?" Alice felt overwhelmed by the sudden turn of happiness. Could it be... was Tang Mo a boorish brute who would forcefully have his way after generously agreeing to the terms?

"It seems your speech impediment is quite serious," Tang Mo said with a hint of pity, feeling that the gods were indeed fair, bestowing a woman with beauty but depriving her of communication skills. What a pity.

"I don’t have! No speech, speech impediment! I’m not, not stut, stuttering!" Miss Ronin Alice, the only daughter of Lord Earl, finally lost her temper.

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