After giving the order to collect the funds, Elara turned back to look at the map of the merchant house.
As the first capital investment for her business, deciding what kind of product the merchant house should start producing was very important. It would affect whether her trading career could succeed or not.
However, Elara frowned. If she were in the 21st century in her previous life, her secretaries would have prepared market research, supply and demand chains, import and export channels, product categories, monthly consumption by different social classes, budget plans, and potential cooperation resources for her already.
Here, she was just starting out with only one backup secretary, so she felt empty-handed in a different way.
Elara sighed quietly. Luckily, when she had dinner with the two mysterious young masters at Marigold City last time, they showed interest in her cooking skills. When she left, she had left a small opportunity to build a business connection with Marigold City.
Now, that opportunity could be used.
But Elara definitely would not sell cooking skills herself. That would waste her time and energy, lower efficiency, and might cause people to doubt her true abilities. The disadvantages were much bigger than any benefits.
The main goal of the merchant house was to train soldiers, not to cook every day. That would be bad for many reasons and would not help her secretly train private soldiers.
So Elara's current plan was to produce tofu and tofu pudding, which did not exist in this world yet.
When she left Marigold City last time, she told the two young masters that she would bring new dishes to them. If they liked them, it would become a new business.
Those two people were very excited about her mysterious calculation skills and the new cooking methods of her dishes. They told her to bring the dishes to Marigold City as soon as she made them.
Elara now planned to use this channel.
The process of making tofu pudding was very simple, with almost no technology needed. She just needed to make a grinder and use salt water, boiled water, a bit of vinegar, or some brine as a coagulant. She also needed to control the temperature of the soybean milk well.
Then she would demonstrate the making process once and teach the manager how to make it. After that, the merchant house could place many grinders on the surface, so the future backup soldiers could take turns grinding.
This would train their bodies and hide their true identities. The merchant house would look like a real trading company on the surface and produce a large amount of tofu pudding as goods.
Then she would supply tofu pudding to Marigold City and teach them several tofu pudding recipes with different flavors. Using Marigold City's broad channels, she could promote her merchant house's first new product.
Marigold City would gain new dishes to compete with others and supply the tastes needed by people of different social classes across the continent. This would earn them a lot of money and good reputation. Elara would get a share of the profits, recover her funds, and officially start her trading career.
Elara did not doubt that tofu pudding would be popular in this world. The dishes she made last time in Marigold City already showed that people's tastes here were similar to those in her past life.
Besides, tofu pudding was a traditional food passed down for thousands of years in the great Plumera State. It was easy to make, cheap, versatile, and very nutritious. She could make millions of different recipes for different tastes. She did not believe people here would not like it.
Elara also was not worried about the source of soy products for making tofu pudding.
Yesterday, when she took back a pile of memorials from the palace, she gave most to Mathias to handle. But she read several of them carefully.
She noticed some of the memorials that spoke facts said the Plumera State was located on the southwestern border of the continent. It lacked many resources and fertile land. Most of the land was poor and not good for farming.
So, in Plumera State, people planted more beans than rice or grains. Beans were the main food for most people there.
But in this time, people had little knowledge about cooking. They only boiled or lightly cooked beans, using the most basic ways. They did not know how to make delicious bean products.
Using beans as raw materials was very convenient and cheap in Plumera State. Elara did not have to worry about not having enough or not finding ingredients.
Thinking this through, Elara took out a bamboo slip and slowly organized her thoughts.
After looking over her tofu product production plan several times and thinking it was feasible, she put away the map and drafts on the main table.
She stood up and called out:
"Guard Two!"
"At your command."
"Come, go out with me!"
The plan was ready, now it was time to find grinders.
Her merchant house had just started and was still in an infant state. Elara did not want to wait another second. She wanted to prepare everything quickly and start production as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, at Lord Gregory's mansion.
Soft music played gently in the large and luxurious hall. Lord Gregory sat at the highest seat with a gloomy look in his eyes. He stared at the dancing concubines below.
Several beautiful girls lay near his legs and beside him.
The hall was noisy and filled with the sounds of wine and flirting.
The heads of the Yan Family, Zhu Family, and Lin Family each held a beauty and slumped over the tables. Their faces were red and dreamy from indulgence in pleasures. Laughter and lewd talk continued endlessly.
If you look closely, you can see that most people at this wild and messy banquet have an unnatural blush on their faces. Their expressions are excited and intense, with dazed and confused eyes, as if they have fallen into some kind of powerful illusion.
"Come here, baby, this magical pill came straight from the royal palace. It used to be something only the young emperor could eat, but now I'm letting you have some too! Hehe, look at you!"
The head of the Yan Family, sitting at the lower end of the table, had a flushed and lustful face. His fat and round body was surrounded by several beautiful maids, who all shared the same dazed and blushing expressions.
He held one beauty tightly, touching her everywhere while laughing. He picked up a white jade box from the table in front of him, which contained a pinkish-white powder. He poured it into his wine, then fed the wine to himself and the beauty, and after drinking, became even more excited and wild.
His clothes were already falling off in pieces, like he was ready to put on a live performance and press the woman down right there.
Not far from him, the head of the Lin Family also held a cup of wine mixed with white powder. His expression was like he was tasting some kind of magical pill, smacking his lips with satisfaction.
From time to time, he would lift his blurry red eyes and look around the room, then smile at Lord Gregory sitting in the upper seat.
"Lord Gregory, Brother Yan, Brother Zhu, this powder is amazing. No wonder the former Plumera emperor liked to stay hidden in the harem. So he was hiding this treasure! If you hadn't taken it from that young emperor, we would've never tasted such pleasure."
He laughed loudly. "I bet even that so-called divine medicine that grants immortality doesn't taste better than this! Haha!"
The head of the Zhu Family across from him only gave a small smile without replying. He took a sip of wine from the cup on the table, then stopped drinking. His lowered eyes occasionally showed signs of disgust.
Although he, the Yan Family, and the Lin Family were all top ministers under Lord Gregory, with equal power and status in court, the Zhu Family head always looked down on the others.
He thought the Yan Family head was a dumb fool, greedy for women and lacking brains. And he saw the Lin Family head as someone who thought he was smart but was actually just a petty, cruel idiot.
Who was Lord Gregory? They had worked under him for so long. How could they not know him well?
If this powder were truly some miracle drug, would Lord Gregory really be willing to share it with others? He would have secretly used it all for himself without anyone knowing!
And he claimed he wanted everyone to taste the former emperor's magical pill, but since the banquet started, he hadn't drunk even a single sip of that wine himself.
He fed it all to the women beside him!
The Zhu Family head thought about this quietly, then withdrew his gaze without showing emotion. He put on a fake smile, lifted his wine cup, and pretended to drink it.
Then, turning to the side, he poured most of the wine into the mouth of the woman beside him, his face showing enjoyment and confusion.
"This is really something else. Like stepping into a paradise~"
Then he looked up at Lord Gregory and asked, "Lord Gregory, is this the same immortality pill the former emperor secretly asked people to make?"
At the upper end of the hall, surrounded by six or seven young girls, Lord Gregory opened his narrow and gloomy eyes slightly. When he saw that the three men had drunk the powder wine, he finally replied.
"Yes. Too bad the former emperor's body was too weak. He died before the medicine could be fully completed."
The Zhu Family head's eyes shifted. "So now the young emperor in the palace also takes this magic pill?"
Lord Gregory suddenly gave a cold smile. "Of course."
The previous Plumera emperor died ten years ago.
At that time, Regent Martin was still young. His power and reputation were far from what they would become later. The Plumera royal court was full of clashing forces.
Everyone was fighting for power, and the emperor's control was being torn apart bit by bit. By then, Lord Gregory had already climbed to a high position just below the top ministers.
So in the last few months before the former emperor died, Lord Gregory saw everything clearly.
It was because of this so-called immortality pill. Originally, the royal doctor had said the emperor could live another five or six years.
But after taking the drug, his mind quickly became confused. His body weakened, and he often acted insane, thinking he had become immortal.
When he had brief moments of clarity, he would hurt himself just to get another taste of the pill.
And once he took the pill again, it only made things worse. His illness grew more severe, his body decayed, and his mind became even more unclear.
In the end, he didn't even make it to the end of the year. The emperor died, and half of Plumera fell into Lord Gregory's hands.
So from that time, Lord Gregory knew this wasn't some magical medicine. It was more like a death drug!
But even though it caused death, during his last observations of the emperor, Lord Gregory found something else.
This pill had very strong addictive and deadly effects. But as long as someone didn't take too much at once, it wouldn't kill them immediately.