I’m the Farmgirl You Can’t Mess With
Chapter 873 - Chapter 873 Wronged

Chapter 873: Wronged Chapter 873: Wronged Editor: Atlas Studios Mu Yangling had never thought of monopolizing the movable type printing technique alone.

Not to mention that this was the achievement of the ancestors, this was also created by Lin Ke.

If even he didn’t feel heartache, how could she be petty about it?

Back then, she had offered this technique to Qi Xiuyuan.

It was only because Qi Xiuyuan didn’t think it was worth pursuing that she opened her own publishing house.

If he decided he wanted it now, he could just talk to her about it.

She did not believe that an official would dare to send someone to her publishing house to bribe her worker.

That person was just making use of the Imperial Court’s reputation to do such a sneay thing.

Anyone who bothered to investigate carefully would know that she wasn’t trying to keep this technique under wraps.

However, this did not mean that she was totally cool about it.

How could she not get mad when being dealt with in such a despicable manner?

“We must find out who’s behind that manager.

If that person comes to buy the technique, hold him back for me.” This was not a big deal.

It was just a publishing house manager attempting to bribe a worker from another publishing house to steal their technique.

But since this involved the Prince’s estate and the Imperial Court’s publishing house, it was not a small matter.

The people from the Capital Patrol Division did not dare to be negligent and immediately reported to the higher-ups.

Coincidentally, the commander of the Capital Patrol Division had to enter the palace to report something to the Emperor, so he mentioned this before leaving the Imperial Study.

The Emperor’s expression immediately turned cold as he asked, “Someone is pretending to be an official of the Imperial Court to bribe a servant in Prince Rong’s estate?” Shocked, the commander hurriedly said, “It’s not to bribe a servant in Prince Rong’s estate.

It’s to bribe a worker from the publishing house operated by the Princess Consort to steal their printing technique.” Qi Xiuyuan sneered and asked, “Is there a difference?” Both were people working for the Prince’s estate, so there was no difference.

However, the workers of the publishing house only involved business secrets, while the servants of the Prince’s estate involved the safety of the masters.

The former wasn’t a death punishable by death, whereas in the latter case, even the entire family of the culprit would be implicated.

However, when the commander saw that the Emperor was angry, he tactfully did not mention it.

“Movable type printing?” The Emperor thought for a long time before remembering this term.

“The Princess Consort once mentioned it to me during the previous dynasty.

We were in the north, and a child in her nursery had invented something.

The officials in the Imperial Court’s publishing house received a salary, yet they can’t even compare to a child.

If they desire to adopt the technique, they could just speak to me about it or beg the Princess Consort.

Why did they have to send the manager to bribe a worker?” The Emperor said coldly, “Send someone to investigate.

If it’s really done by an official of the Imperial Court’s publishing house, then remove him from his official duties.

It’s not acceptable for an official of the Imperial Court to be using such despicable methods.

If not, then we have to investigate further.

I also want to know who has the ability to command the publishing house manager of the Imperial Court to do such a thing.” The commander hurriedly agreed.

Either way, he had to investigate this matter clearly.

After the commander left, Qi Xiuyuan stared at the memorial on the table with a frown.

It was just a printing method.

Wasn’t it just slightly faster than the carving method?

Was it really that important?

What did Ah Ling say when she excitedly came to look for him with the technique?

Qi Xiuyuan shook his head with a headache.

Seeing as these two consecutive matters involved books, he felt that he couldn’t understand stuff related to scholars.

It wasn’t something like high-yielding grain seeds.

Was there really a need to steal them?

Didn’t Ah Ling offer to sell the technique back then?

Those publishing houses couldn’t even afford a few hundred taels of silver?

Moreover, these people were bold enough to dare to have designs on Prince Rong’s estate.

The people from the Capital Patrol Division also scolded those people in their hearts for being so bold and increasing their workload for no reason.

They figured that they would more or less offend some bigshots this time.

After all, anyone who would dare to have designs on Prince Rong’s estate couldn’t possibly be a small fry?

But this time, it was really a small fry.

Even the commander of the Capital Patrol Division couldn’t help but sigh.

“How bold.” Mu Yangling’s publishing house printed a lot of Hanlin officials’ poems, essays, travel memoirs, and even some insights on officialdom.

Those books sold like hotcakes, bringing brisk business to Mu Yangling’s publishing house, and many bookstores came to order the books.

Originally, they only wanted to purchase those few new titles.

But when they saw that the wholesale prices of their other books were rather fair and that there was a quantity discount, they could not resist the temptation and ended up buying a lot of books.

Since these bookstores now ordered more books from Mu Yangling’s publishing house, they naturally purchased less from the other large publishing houses.

It was inevitable that the large publishing houses would be anxious.

If this was an ordinary publishing house, it wasn’t so bad because they could come together to lower the price or pressurize the competitor, thus defeating them.

However, this was a publishing house operated by Princess Consort Rong.

Considering the Prince’s estate’s wealth, they might not care about the profits from this publishing house.

Meanwhile, if they offended Prince Rong, he could get the Imperial Court to raise their taxes or something, raising their cost of doing business.

Therefore, although everyone was anxious, they could only come up with the idea to bribe the publishing house manager, asking to loosen his grip and give them a way out.

This way, although everyone would have to pay a sum of money, they could continue to be in business and at least wouldn’t offend Prince Rong.

However, a nephew of one publishing house owner felt the pinch when he saw the gift list written by his uncle.

Their family had been working in the publishing house for nearly a hundred years, and they were extremely familiar with the old printing technique.

What right had a greenhorn like the Princess Consort to crush the competition like this?

It wasn’t that he thought that the Princess Consort was using her influence to suppress others, but he felt that their publishing house could also adopt the new technique.

Hence, he looked for the Imperial Court’s publishing house manager.

The publishing house of the Imperial Court and the several large publishing houses had always cooperated and been in regular contact.

Everyone secretly held on to the technique passed down in their families, but everyone would also communicate with each other to improve their skills.

The publishing house of the Imperial Court had always taken on the role of regulating the relations.

When the publishing house of the Imperial Court found a way to improve their technique, they would also share it with the large publishing houses.

The best craftsmen of this trade worked in the government, followed by the old workers in the various publishing houses.

The nephew of the publishing house owner went to the Imperial Court’s publishing house manager to ask him if he had heard of the carving method used by the Princess Consort’s publishing house and if he could figure out how it worked.

If he could, they could save a lot of money.

After all, bribing the Princess Consort’s publishing house manager only treated the symptoms but not the root cause.

The publishing house manager had a few of the most capable craftsmen working under him.

Coincidentally, he was short of money recently, so he patted his chest and confidently declared, “All of us are experienced in the industry.

Even if we don’t have a specific recipe, as long as we have a direction, we’ll definitely be able to develop the technique.

I’ll discuss it with the old craftsmen later and see if we can develop it.” Naturally, the nephew was overjoyed.

After giving him 50 taels of silver, he left.

The publishing house manager asked the old craftsmen to study the technique, but no one had a direction and was at a loss as to where to start.

Hence, the manager thought of bribing a worker in the Princess Consort’s publishing house.

He didn’t want to buy the specific recipe, and only wanted the other party to tell him how they managed to print so many books in a short period of time.

Also, what the ‘movable’ in movable printing technique meant.

Everyone had heard of the term ‘movable type printing’, but nobody really understood what that meant.

If they knew that it was an article formed by single type matrices, those old craftsmen would definitely be able to produce it after studying it for some time even without Mu Yangling’s explanation.

The worker had, on the surface, promised to tell him in a safe place.

He totally didn’t expect that the worker would betray him right away.

The manager burst into tears and said, “I really didn’t want to buy the Princess Consort’s technique.

I just wanted to find out some hints about their method.

Even with just a few keywords, at least we’ll have a direction to work towards.

I admit that I’m despicable and shameless and went with the intention of stealing the technique, but I really didn’t want to buy the entire method.

For those four or five taels of silver, I merely wanted to hear what the word ‘movable’ meant!”