Chương 105: Chapter 103

I have the three objects in front of me, and for an instant, while I contemplate them from my chair in my study, I can't help remaining a bit more silent than my own impatience should tolerate. Because what I have before me is months, literally months, of turning over in my head how to manufacture something that in my previous life one could buy with a five-minute visit to any supermarket.

But here I have had to reinvent it from scratch with what the Empire has on hand, since the materials of which mops, even the most primitive ones, were made in my previous world is not something I can replicate while at the same time expecting it to be something ordinary people can afford. And that's what I've been doing, in scattered moments, for too long.

Jotting down ideas on a sheet of paper, discarding them the next morning, drawing clumsy sketches that I'd end up crumpling, and in recent weeks talking it over with Lianhua so she could tell me which materials could be obtained without their being too expensive and calculating whether this or that substitution would maintain the functionality or turn the mop into a glorified broom. Because the trap, the true trap of trying to copy the original, was metal.

The original version of the bucket and the wringer, the one created by Manuel Jalón, was made of zinc-coated steel, something that isn't possible here. And even if it were of plain metal, its cost would make it little more than a curiosity, even though its weight here would not really be such a great impediment as it was in my original world. Because if there's one thing I'm clear about, it's that an invention that only four bored nobles can afford is no use to me at all.

What I want, what I need, is something that any handmaiden of any modest house in the Empire can buy without her family having to go hungry for three months. And I suspect that after too many crossed-out lines, too many sketches abandoned half-drawn, and a couple of friendly arguments with Lianhua about the real flexibility of bamboo, what I have in front of me at this moment is the version that finally seems to work. Or, at least, the version that deserves to be tested.

I inhale slowly and focus on the first pole, the one I call the regular version. The handle is of bamboo and the head, attached with a simple wedge-and-crossbar system that the carpenter understood on the first try, holds a cluster of hemp fibers cut to the length I remember, long enough to cover a generous surface with each pass and dense enough to retain a reasonable amount of water without dripping with every movement. I shift my gaze and fix it on the second pole.

It is, in terms of structure, identical to the first. The same bamboo, the same fastening system, and the same general dimensions. The difference lies in the head, where instead of hemp fibers what the pole holds is a set of strips of silk. This one, in my head and only in my head, I call the VIP version, since the substitution of hemp for silk makes it more expensive, much more expensive. But the logic behind the change is solid.

Silk is naturally soft and slippery, so if the hemp version is intended for ordinary floors, the silk version is intended for those specific places in the palace where the wood is polished to the point of becoming a mirror and a single scratch is cause for drama. I shift my gaze from the two poles and turn it toward the bucket. And here, frankly, is where I feel most satisfied. Because the bucket, in itself, has nothing original about it.

It's one of those wooden buckets of all time, made with fitted staves and metal hoops at the base and the rim, identical to the thousands that are used daily in any courtyard of the Empire to transport water. Carpenters have been making them for generations, and therefore neither the price nor the technical knowledge to manufacture them poses any obstacle. Because the novelty is something else.

Fitted into the upper rim of the bucket, adjusted with the precision necessary to stay in place without having to be fastened and yet able to come out with a simple pull when it needs to be replaced, there is a small basket woven from thin strips of bamboo.

It has the rounded shape characteristic of the baskets of the area, but with the weave full of holes and a conical profile toward the bottom, just enough so that when a mop is inserted into it from above, the basket gives just enough, presses against the fibers and squeezes them from all sides at once. It is, in essence, my solution to the problem of the wringer. It isn't perfect, far from it.

The basket doesn't generate the same uniform pressure that a perforated metal cylinder one could press against firmly would generate, and the action requires a bit of wrist work from whoever uses it. But above all, and that is its great deficiency, it is going to break before its metal counterpart from sheer wear. But that's precisely where the genius lies, or what my momentary pride lets me consider as such.

That the basket is cheap and that when it breaks, instead of having to buy an expensive and specialized piece, it's enough to buy another for a ridiculous amount of money. And that during the months it lasts it does exactly what it has to do. I nod slowly to myself as I let my gaze pass one last time over the three objects. They've come out reasonably well. Much worse than any mop-and-bucket set I remember from my previous life, without a doubt.

But compared to reality, which is seeing the poor handmaidens of the palace mopping on their knees with a rag and a pail, they are an infinite improvement.

I lift my gaze toward Lianhua, who is standing in front of me holding the mops while I examine them, holding them with that exasperating naturalness she applies to any object placed in her hands, whether it be a dagger, a tray, or, as now, a pair of strange brooms with hairy heads that probably seem to her as absurd as any of the things I have invented over the years.

"Lianhua", I tell her, and I notice how my voice comes out more pleased than it probably should.

"It seems both versions have the look of being able to do what they're supposed to do." I make a brief pause and continue.

"But now comes the important part", I add.

"They have to be tested. And for that, the best thing will be to go to some empty room or corridor, so we can do it without half the Pavilion descending on us asking what on earth we're doing." Lianhua nods with a short movement and, for an instant, seems to think it over.

"We'll need help to carry everything, Zhāohuán Wen", she tells me with her measured tone.

"I'm going to find some and I'll be right back." She carefully props the two mops against the nearest wall and leaves the study without wasting any more time. While I wait for Lianhua to return, I think about the tests we're going to have to perform, and as I'm thinking about them the door opens again and Lianhua appears once more, this time followed by Xia, who enters with that barely concealed curiosity that, after all this time, she has learned to moderate just enough when she knows the situation calls for it.

Her eyes go first to me, in a quick instinctive verification, and then they shift toward the mops propped against the wall and the bucket on the floor. I see how her expression contracts slightly as she tries to identify what she's looking at, and I also see the exact moment when she gives up trying, since her brow relaxes and she looks at me again with the question drawn on her face, although without yet daring to formulate it. Lianhua points at the mops with her chin.

"Grab those two strange poles and follow us", she tells her in her professional tone.

"Don't drag them and try not to bump them against the walls." Xia nods without protest and approaches the mops, grabs them both together by the handle with both hands and rests them slightly on one of her shoulders so she can carry them more easily. Lianhua, meanwhile, positions herself behind my chair and begins pushing it with her usual smoothness.

And as we head out into the corridor, I notice, out of the corner of my eye, how the bucket, which had remained on the floor of the study, rises up and begins to float behind us, following our steps at a prudent distance as though it were a fourth silent member of the procession. I don't turn my head so as not to obstruct Lianhua, but from the slight sound Xia makes upon seeing the scene, a sort of cut-off breath that doesn't quite become an exclamation, I know exactly the face she is making.

And, frankly, I don't blame her. I myself am still in the process of getting used to seeing everyday objects traveling through the air as though it were the most normal thing in the world. The route through the corridors, however, doesn't turn out as private as I would like. Every handmaiden we pass, and there are several, stops for an instant upon seeing us go by, makes the regulation bow, and then, almost without being able to help it, her eyes drift toward the objects accompanying us.

Some look at the mops with a bewilderment that slightly furrows their brow. Others, the sharper ones, fix their gaze on the floating bucket and remain motionless for a second longer than appropriate before recovering their composure and continuing on their way pretending, without too much conviction, that they have seen nothing. Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

Lianhua, with her knowledge of the Pavilion, which I am sure she knows even better than its builders, doesn't take us through the main corridors but instead goes choosing the narrower and less-trafficked ones, in such a way that the number of accidental spectators is reduced with every turn until, finally, we arrive at an area of the Pavilion that I vaguely recognize but to which I have practically never been.

It is one of the older wings, where the corridors are slightly narrower and the wood of the floor has that dull patina of woods that never receive too much wax. Lianhua stops in front of a specific door at the back of a corner, opens the latch with a simple movement, and pushes the door aside. What appears on the other side is a rectangular, empty room. There is no furniture, no curtains, no object whatsoever indicating that the space has been used for anything in a long time.

Only the wooden floor, the bare walls, and a single high small window that lets in pale and sufficient light. Lianhua pushes my chair inside, followed by Xia, and once the three of us are inside, the bucket comes in on its own, turns with an almost smug elegance and stays floating a couple of paces behind us.

"This room has never been used, Zhāohuán Wen", Lianhua explains to me once she closes the door behind us.

"It's cleaned from time to time, by custom, but no one comes here. It's probably the best candidate for doing the test without bothering anyone." I lower my gaze to the floor and confirm what she says.

The wood isn't particularly stained, there are no puddles or stuck-on remains, but there is that fine and uniform dirt that accumulates over time anywhere no one walks regularly, a subtle layer of settled dust and a dulled tone indicating that the superficial cleaning passes haven't been enough to return its original shine to it. I nod with satisfaction upon seeing it.

"You're right, Lianhua", I tell her.

"It's perfect. Just dirty enough for the test to be useful and without being so disgusting that we'd have to dedicate half the afternoon to it." Xia, who throughout the entire journey has maintained discipline with a restraint that Lianhua probably registers as a personal achievement, finally can't hold out any longer and I see her step forward.

"Wen", she finally tells me, and her voice carries a note of curiosity.

"What are we supposed to be doing? And what are these strange brooms I'm carrying?" I smile at her question, because I had seen it coming from the moment she entered the study.

"Something which, if it works, is going to make every handmaiden of the palace eternally grateful to me for the rest of their lives", I reply with a deliberate touch of mystery and pride. I see Xia blink, clearly trying to decipher whether I'm joking or not, and I decide not to give her any more clues for now. I then turn toward Lianhua, who is still waiting for my orders.

"Lianhua, set the bucket down beside me", I tell her.

"First of all, I want to test the wringer myself. If the basket gives way too much, I'd rather discover it myself than wait for you to tell me it broke on the first test." Lianhua nods, and the bucket, which is still floating, descends gently to settle on the floor beside my chair. And upon seeing it, a question slips into my head with that uncomfortable clarity of basic doubts.

"Wait", I tell her.

"Before continuing with the test, a question. That bucket, full of water as it is, has to weigh quite a bit more than ten Catty. And if I recall correctly, you said that each hand of Myriad of Hands could support that weight at most. How are you lifting it?" Lianhua looks at me with her usual serenity and, without varying her expression, replies.

"It's because I'm using two hands at the same time, Zhāohuán Wen", she tells me with the calm of someone explaining something obvious.

"When an object is large enough and has points by which to hold it, several hands can be applied to it at the same time." I take in the information in silence for a couple of seconds. And as I do, I realize that this small detail, presented with that careless naturalness, opens an enormous door. Because if the Qi hands can be combined, then the effective load limit isn't what a single hand can bear, but the sum of all those that can be applied to the object simultaneously.

That's something I plan to file away carefully in some corner of my head for when, at some future moment, I can use the technique myself, since knowing it in advance will make my life much easier, despite having another technique that probably does the same thing and much more effectively. But for now, I return to the matter at hand.

"Understood", I tell her.

"Thank you, Lianhua." I turn toward Xia.

"Give me the hemp mop, Xia", I ask her with a gesture of my hand.

"The one with the rougher fibers." Xia looks at her two charges for an instant, quickly identifies the correct one, and hands it to me carefully so I can grip the handle comfortably. I grasp the pole with both hands, which I do in a slightly clumsier way than I should, and with a certain difficulty, I lean over to put the fibers into the water of the bucket. The hemp quickly absorbs some water, after which I take it out and bring it, slowly, close to the bamboo basket.

And here is where I tell myself I have to be careful, because after Muscle Tempering my pure strength is, simply, disproportionate to my size. If I press the hemp against the basket with all my strength, I have practically the certainty that I would destroy it. So, instead of that, I press slowly and the basket gives way as I expected. The bamboo, naturally flexible, deforms inward enveloping the head of the mop from all sides at the same time, and in doing so, it presses.

The pressure isn't enormous, but it is uniform, which is what matters, and I see how the water begins to drip out in small streams toward the bucket. I keep pressing until the amount of water coming out is reduced to a drip, and then, satisfied with that first attempt, I put the hemp back into the water.

This time, instead of limiting myself to pressing vertically, I also try to make a small twist with my wrist, that almost instinctive turn of someone who has used a mop for years and knows that wringing well always includes a certain twist. The mop holds up, the basket holds up, and the water comes out with considerably more efficiency than in the first attempt.

I smile, and it's a small but genuine smile, because from my point of view and compared to any mop-and-bucket set from my previous life this is a practically prehistoric artifact, but considering the reality of the palace handmaidens, this is, without any exaggeration, a leap forward in their quality of life. I hand the mop to Lianhua, who has been observing the entire process with that calm attention she reserves for when she senses that something isn't as trivial as it seems.

"Here", I tell her.

"You've already seen how it's wrung out. What you have to do now is keep passing the wet fibers over the floor and, every several passes, put them back into the bucket, swirl them around as if you were washing a rag, take them out, wring them out exactly as I just did, with enough force for them to release most of the water but without overdoing it so as not to break the basket, and resume cleaning, repeating the process until the area is clean." I make a pause before adding a second part.

"And with this mop, clean only half of the room. Clean the other half with the silk one, so we can compare which of the two works better." Lianhua nods without saying anything and grasps the pole with the confidence of someone who has wielded enough strange things in her life not to be fazed by one more, after which she takes a few steps toward the end of the room, evaluates the space with a quick glance, and begins to use the mop. The first passes are clumsy, and I see it clearly.

The movement she executes is too short, too rigid, as though she were sweeping a broom rather than using a tool designed to glide. But Lianhua is Lianhua, and she doesn't need more than three or four passes to identify the problem, adjust the angle of the handle, and begin sliding the head with those wide arcs that are the natural way to use a mop and that any person from my previous world would do almost without thinking. And once she gets the hang of it, her transformation is total.

Her movements become fluid and I see her even repeat the areas she had mopped clumsily at the beginning to correct the uneven result of those first attempts. The speed with which she adapts her body to a tool she has never used makes me say to myself, with a bit of envy, that Lianhua is perhaps a little too talented.

When she finishes with the half of the room assigned to her, she stops, evaluates the result with her gaze, and immediately hands the hemp mop to Xia, who takes it with both hands as though she were being entrusted with a relic. Lianhua, without losing a second, picks up the silk mop that Xia had propped against the wall and moves to the other end of the room to repeat the process with the VIP version.

The second half goes even faster than the first, because now she has the movement internalized and is only incorporating the small differences in handling that a different material imposes. When she finishes, she approaches my chair again with the silk mop resting on her shoulder as if it were a spear, and the three of us spend a few seconds contemplating the floor. The difference with respect to the initial state is notable.

The layer of settled dust has completely disappeared and the wood has recovered a dull but clearly more vivid shine than before, which makes it seem like a different room from the one we entered.

"What did you think, Lianhua?" I ask her without shifting my gaze from the floor. Lianhua takes a moment to answer, which means she's giving a serious response and not a courteous one.

"The hemp one works very well, Zhāohuán Wen", she tells me finally.

"It's effective, picks up the dirt without too much effort, and offers little resistance when passing it over the floor. But for delicate floors, it's probable that with continued use it would end up scratching them, since the fibers have a rough quality that can be felt." She pauses for an instant to mentally reorganize what comes next, and continues.

"On the contrary, the silk one is much softer and slides with less effort, so it is clearly more suitable for areas where the wood's finish matters", she continues.

"But I have the impression that it will wear out much faster, and being made of silk, its price will be considerably higher than that of the other." She makes a longer pause before adding her conclusion.

"For daily cleaning, both are infinitely better than going around on one's knees with a rag", she states.

"But for more difficult stains, I'd rather not pronounce judgment until I've tested it." I nod slowly as I listen to her analysis, because it's exactly what I expected to hear.

"It's just what I was thinking", I tell her.

"But we still have one last test left. Lianhua, pour a bit of the water from the bucket onto an area of the floor and try to pick it up using only the mop." Lianhua looks at me for a second with that very specific expression she puts on when an order of mine doesn't quite fit, but the pause lasts only an instant, since immediately she leans down, grabs the bucket by the rim, and pours a moderate quantity of water, which is considerably dirtier than at the beginning, onto a clear area.

The water spreads, forming an irregular puddle that slowly expands along the grain of the wood. Lianhua first takes the hemp mop and passes it over the puddle with a couple of short movements. I see how the fibers absorb most of the water almost instantly. She wrings it out in the basket, passes it again over the little that remains, and after three or four more repetitions, almost all the water is collected. Next she takes the silk mop and repeats the process in another area where there are remnants of water.

It's slightly slower because the silk absorbs less per pass, but the final result is equally satisfactory.

"How did the test seem to you?" I ask her as soon as she finishes.

"Both have worked perfectly", Lianhua replies.

"The hemp one absorbs more per pass, but the silk one compensates for that difference with its greater ease of movement. In practice, both do the job." I smile, and this time the smile is broader than the previous ones, because that was exactly what I needed to hear.

"Then, given that the only improvement I can think of to make this invention more efficient would be to manufacture the bucket and the wringer of metal, something that would turn it into a prohibitively expensive object for the vast majority of people, we can consider the tests finished", I announce as I settle myself better in the chair.

"Only one thing remains to be done." Lianhua and Xia look at me at the same time when I finish pronouncing those words.

"And that is to go see my mother", I continue returning their gaze.

"To be able to turn this invention into hard cash, the best thing I can do is ask for her opinion."