Chapter : 581

He had presented the preliminary proposal to his father, who had reviewed it with a silent, intense, and deeply, profoundly, impressed concentration. The Arch Duke, the master of logistics and strategy, had immediately grasped the immense potential of the plan. He had approved it without a single amendment, his only comment a gruff, “See that it is done, Lloyd. And see that it is profitable.” The thousand-gold-coin investment he had pledged for the initial soap venture now seemed like a quaint, almost trivial, down payment on the vast new enterprise they were about to build together.

Now, it was time to assemble the board. It was time to bring his team, his trusted lieutenants in the AURA revolution, into this new, grander vision.

He had summoned them to the study at midday. Mei Jing and Tisha. The two women who had become the twin pillars of his commercial success. The strategist and the diplomat. The mind and the heart of his empire.

They arrived together, their presence instantly filling the small, functional office with a new, dynamic energy. Mei Jing was a vision of cool, professional elegance, her dark silk tunic immaculate, her sharp, obsidian eyes missing nothing, her mind already calculating, assessing, as she took in the massive map spread across the table. Tisha was a beacon of warm, charismatic light, her bright, genuine smile a welcome antidote to the grim seriousness of Lloyd’s own recent endeavors, her hazel eyes sparkling with a friendly, insatiable curiosity.

“My lords,” Tisha greeted, offering Lloyd a cheerful, almost familiar, bow that was a world away from the terrified curtsies of their first meeting. “Another secret council? Are we plotting to corner the market on bath oils now? Or perhaps a revolutionary new line of scented candles?”

“Something a little… bigger, Tisha,” Lloyd replied, a slow, excited smile spreading across his face. He gestured for them to join him at the table. “And significantly more… foundational.”

Mei Jing’s sharp gaze was already fixed on the map, on the unfamiliar coastline, her mind instantly recognizing that this was not a discussion about a simple product line extension. This was something else. Something larger. “The southern salt marshes, my lord?” she asked, her voice a low, intrigued murmur. “A region of little economic value. Why does it command your attention?”

Lloyd’s smile widened. He looked at the two brilliant, capable women before him. The women who had taken his strange, otherworldly idea for soap and had, through their own unique talents, helped him forge it into a cultural and commercial phenomenon. He trusted them. Implicitly. Not just with his business, but with his vision.

“Ladies,” he began, his voice ringing with the quiet, confident authority of a leader about to unveil a plan that would change their world. “What I am about to show you does not leave this room. It is the next great venture of House Ferrum. The next pillar of our empire.” He paused, letting the weight of his words settle. “We have taught the nobility how to wash. Now,” he declared, his eyes gleaming with a fierce, revolutionary fire, “we are going to teach the entire kingdom how to eat. How to preserve. How to thrive.”

He tapped the map, on the pale, greenish wash of the desolate salt marshes. “I give you… Project Brine.”

And he began to explain.

He laid it all out for them, his voice a low, compelling hum of passion and pure, undeniable logic. He spoke not just of salt, but of an entire ecosystem of industry. He described the evaporation ponds, the windmill-driven pumps, the beautiful, simple alchemy of turning sunlight and seawater into pure, white gold. He used the same arguments he had used with his father, but he tailored them to his audience.

To Mei Jing, the master strategist, he spoke the language of economics, of market disruption. “Think of it, Mei Jing,” he said, his finger tracing a line from the salt marshes to the capital. “The Western Salt Mines Guild. They have held a monopoly for centuries. A lazy, inefficient monopoly. They sell an impure product at an inflated price, because they have no competition. We are not just going to compete with them. We are going to… erase them. Our production costs will be a fraction of theirs. Our quality will be an order of magnitude higher. We will be able to sell a vastly superior product at a lower price point, and still maintain a profit margin that will make our AURA venture look like a child’s lemonade stand.”

Chapter : 582

Mei Jing’s dark eyes gleamed with a cold, predatory light. She understood. This was not just business; it was warfare. Economic warfare. A chance to shatter a monopoly, to build a new one from the ground up, to control a resource that was as fundamental to life as water or grain. The sheer, ruthless elegance of the strategy appealed to the core of her ambitious, merchant’s soul.

“And the political leverage…” she breathed, her mind already leaping ahead, seeing the web of power that would spring from this single, simple commodity. “To control the salt trade… every house, every guild, every kingdom… they would all have to come to us. We would not just be merchants; we would be kingmakers.”

To Tisha, the charismatic diplomat, the woman with her finger on the pulse of the people, he spoke a different language. The language of prosperity, of community.

“Think of the coastal villages, Tisha,” he said, his voice softening, becoming more earnest. “The fishermen, the farmers, the ones who struggle through the harsh winters. This project will not be built in the capital. It will be built there. In their lands. It will provide work. Stable, year-round work. Digging the ponds, maintaining the pumps, harvesting the crystals. We will be bringing a new industry, a new source of wealth, to the poorest, most neglected corners of this duchy. We will not just be building an empire for ourselves; we will be building a better, more prosperous life for them.”

Tisha’s hazel eyes, which had initially been wide with confusion, now shone with a new, different kind of light. A warm, empathetic glow. She saw not just profit margins and market disruption. She saw… hope. She saw families fed, communities revitalized. She saw a great noble house using its immense power not just to enrich itself, but to lift up its people. It was a vision that resonated with the very core of her compassionate, people-focused nature.

“They would be loyal to us, my lord,” she whispered, her voice filled with a quiet, profound conviction. “Not just as workers, but as… as family. They would protect the project with their very lives, because it would be their life. Their future.”

The two women, his two most trusted lieutenants, were hooked. Captured. Converted. They saw the vision, each through the unique lens of her own talent, her own perspective. The strategist saw the empire. The diplomat saw the community. And they both saw the genius of the man who had conceived it all.

The rest of the afternoon was a whirlwind of creative, productive energy. The office was transformed into a war room for Project Brine. They poured over the map, debating the optimal location for the first set of ponds. They analyzed Lloyd’s schematics for the pumps, with Mei Jing already calculating material costs and Tisha considering the labor requirements. They began to draft a new, even more ambitious, business plan.

Lloyd stood at the head of the table, a general commanding his war council, a quiet, profound satisfaction settling in his heart. He had lost the duel with his father, yes. He had been humbled, his own limitations laid bare. But in the ashes of that defeat, something new, something powerful, had been born. A new vision. A new purpose. And a team, a board, a family, that was now more united, more motivated, and more formidable, than ever before.

The war against the ghosts of his past was still a dark, looming shadow on the horizon. But today, in this small, sunlit room, surrounded by his brilliant, loyal team, he was not just preparing for war. He was building a new world. A world of clean hands, of bright linens, of pure salt, and of an ever-growing, unstoppable tide of gold and System Coins. He had lost the battle, but he was, he knew with a certainty that was as clear and as real as the map before him, well on his way to winning the war.