While learning how to make ink sticks in She County, Liu Moyu, a blogger who promotes intangible cultural heritage, is struck by an ink-stick rack and transmigrates into the daughter of a military household in Ming dynasty Qian territory.
Qian is remote, poor, and rife with disorder. All it has in abundance are tung oil trees covering the mountains.
A flash of inspiration strikes Liu Moyu. She remembers the ink-making method she learned before she transmigrated and decides to make ink from tung oil!
Her new ink causes a sensation in the market. Huang Yanqing, the young master of a Huizhou ink-making family, comes to see her. Courteous on the surface, he hides a threat in his words: "You can't run this business on your own."
Liu Moyu doesn't confront him head-on. Instead, she develops cheap ink and targets the lower-end market. Huang Yanqing then joins forces with every ink merchant to ban her ink.
Liu Moyu flips the table and simply publishes the ink formula for everyone!
The entire trade is thrown into chaos.
The old-school merchants, their livelihoods cut off, turn vicious and make several attempts on her. To her surprise, Huang Yanqing repeatedly steps in to help. He says, "If I win, I'll win fair and square."
As they keep competing, they develop a measure of respect for each other, and something else... Is something going on here?
Until one day, Huang Yanqing places two documents in front of her. "Let's work together! We'll make the finest ink in the world."
Lampblack ink, petroleum-smoke ink, blended-smoke ink, medicinal ink... Liu Moyu makes and researches ink while Huang Yanqing sells it. One handles the technology, the other the market, and together they move forward.
Later, every scholar in the land knows that the finest pine-soot ink comes from She County, and the finest oil-soot ink comes from Qian. And these two? They belong to the same family.
Theme: Build wealth with your own hard work.
Why is it highly recommended not to read this book 😭 I'm looking forward to it