Lord: My Shop Connects to Modern Times

After leaving Evan's lab, Lynn went to the Ministry of Agriculture and found Joel organizing crop data.

The Agricultural Affairs Office was located in a room on the east side of the City Hall. A pine sign hung at the door with the words "Agricultural Affairs Office" written in charcoal—this was Martha's handwriting.

The room was filled with various booklets, several bags of seed samples were placed in the corner, and there was a half-eaten bowl of bean paste on the table.

Joel was slumped over the table, looking at a potato production report with a headache.

He wasn't very literate, and this data was compiled for him by Martha when they were in Ironstone Castle. Now that Martha wasn't around, he had to figure out the numbers one by one by himself.

"My lord." Joel saw Lynn enter and quickly stood up, pushing the bowl of cooled bean paste aside.

Lynn glanced at the report on the table: "Is the production output calculated?"

"I've figured it out." Joel pointed to a few lines of crooked numbers: "In Grayrock Town, the average yield of spring potatoes is 430 jin per mu. The best experimental field, which used compost and crop rotation, yielded 510 jin per mu."

This number was slightly lower than Lynn had expected, but considering this was the first large-scale planting and the soil had not been improved, it was already quite good.

"What about Ironstone Fortress?"

"Lord Roland sent someone with the data; the plants were just planted a short time ago, and there's no harvest yet." Jordon paused, then asked, "My lord, what brings you here?"

Lynn sat down opposite him.

The sunlight streaming in through the window slanted in, making the dust particles in the air clearly visible.

"I need some new crops," Lynn said. "Not for the people to eat, but for the workshops."

Joel blinked. "The workshop... uses these crops?"

"Yes." Lynn picked up a blank sheet of paper from the table and wrote with a quill pen as he spoke: "The first type is oil crops. Rapeseed, soybeans, peanuts—anything that can be pressed for oil will do. The oil we eat now is all animal oil, which has low refining efficiency and limited yield."

Joel leaned closer to look. He recognized a few words, but he had only heard of the first two: "rapeseed," "soybean," and "peanut."

"Some people grow rapeseed in the south, but the harvest is so-so," Joel thought for a moment. "Soybeans are grown in small quantities; they're mostly used as a staple food for porridge, and no one extracts oil from them."

"That's because the oil extraction process hasn't been widely adopted," Lynn said. "Let's plant the seeds first, and I'll figure out the oil extraction method."

He wrote the second line on the paper: "The second type, beans. Soybeans, black beans, mung beans."

Joel asked, puzzled, "Sir, beans don't yield as much as potatoes as grains, and they're not as good as vegetables either..."

"It's not for human consumption," Lynn said, putting down her pen. "It's for tilling the soil."

"Turning the soil?"

"The roots of legumes have something called 'root nodules,' which can fix nitrogen from the air into the soil... um..." Lynn paused, realizing that the term was too technical and the other person wouldn't understand.

He put it another way: "Simply put, if you've grown beans on the same land, you'll get a higher yield the following year if you plant other crops. This is called crop rotation, and it's the same principle as the three-field rotation I told you about before."

Joel's eyes slowly widened.

He had farmed in Heishui Village for half his life, only knowing that the land would dry up and then fallow, never imagining that there were crops that could "nourish the land".

"Is...is this real?"

"When have you ever seen me lie?" Lynn said with certainty, "The few hundred acres of newly reclaimed wasteland in Ironstone Fortress have insufficient soil fertility, so the yield will definitely be low in the first two years. The reason you arranged for a batch of soybeans to be planted is not for the harvest, but to improve the soil."

Joel nodded emphatically and carefully tucked the page into his pocket.

"And one more thing," Lynn stood up, "instant noodles, you know, right?"

Joel nodded. This was one of the specialties of Grayrock Town, and almost everyone in the town knew about it.

"I plan to mass-produce instant noodles. Previously, I relied on my personal channels for supply, but I found that this product is very popular. Now, relying solely on my channels is no longer enough to meet the sales demand."

"So I plan to grow some wheat, along with the potatoes that we've been growing on a large scale before. By mixing these two crops together, we can replicate that pancake with high yield and low cost, although the taste might be a little different."

The main advantages of instant noodles are that they are easy to store and convenient to carry. It doesn't matter if the taste is slightly worse than the kind from my previous life.

And it's healthier too.

As for the seasonings, that's fine. The exchange shop sells them by the barrel. Lynn estimates that one barrel is enough to hold a thousand of those small seasoning packets.

Lynn paused for a moment: "By the way, those vegetable oils I just mentioned are also an essential part of the production process."

"I understand, sir," Joel nodded in agreement.

He did some mental calculations: "There is enough land to grow wheat. But we may not have enough seeds. We can buy wheat from Earl Lehman's territory. The plains there have high yields and the prices are not expensive."

"Then let's buy it," Lynn said. "The money will come from the public treasury. Also, regarding the flour processing—I need to build a watermill."

"Hydropower?"

Joel didn't quite understand this, and he subconsciously asked a question.

Lynn nodded.

A watermill, to put it simply, is a waterwheel.

He should have figured this out a long time ago, but when he first transmigrated, he relied too much on the convenience of the exchange shop, which caused him, who was already a bit of a slacker, to forget about it.

Then came monsters and wars, and by the time I remembered this matter, it had already dragged on until now.

"Use the power of the water flow to power the millstone, without animals or manpower," Lynn gestured. "Choose a spot with a large drop in elevation along the river, build an aqueduct, and use the waterwheel to drive the millstone. The flour ground in a day will be enough to feed an entire village."

Joel had never seen anything like it before, but he was used to believing Lynn's words without question.

However, there is a very obvious problem: there is only a small stream to the west of Grayrock Town, and according to the lord's description, it is unknown whether this stream can pull the millstone.

Thinking of this, Joel asked, "Sir, is the water level in this stream not high enough?"

"Ironstone Fortress," Lynn said. "There's a river south of Ironstone Fortress with a stable flow all year round. We can build a mill on the riverbank, using aqueducts or waterwheels. The flour can be ground and transported back to Grayrock Town by caravan."

Joel had no more questions and nodded in agreement: "I understand."

"Okay, I'll have someone deliver the peanut seeds and the design drawings for the water mill to you."

Lynn left the farm office and walked along the main street of Greyrock Town.

Greyrock Town is becoming increasingly prosperous, but Lynn always feels like he's forgotten something.

The afternoon sun slanted down, making the cement road surface quite hot.

Several children ran past him, each carrying a freshly baked rye bread, breaking off pieces to eat as they ran. When they saw Lynn coming over, the older children led the way in greeting him.

Lynn responded to the children with a smile, the aroma of bread wafting over, carrying the smoky scent of roasted wheat.

We continued walking and arrived at the public treasury.

The public treasury is located in a large building diagonally opposite the city hall.

The exterior walls were painted white, and a wooden sign hung at the entrance that read "Grey Rock Town Public Treasury"—it was said that little girl Martha had it specially made, much more formal than the charcoal pencil sign at the Agricultural Affairs Office.

Lynn pushed open the door and went in.

It was cooler inside than outside, and the windows were open, letting in a cross breeze from the south.

The shelves were arranged in two rows against the wall, neatly stacked with various supplies: cloth, salt, tools, medicine, and some rare goods that had been traded from the Sig Trading Company.

In the corner were piles of bags of potatoes, which were reserve food to be distributed to the new residents.

Martha was standing behind the counter, looking down at the ledgers.

She wore a simple gray dress, her hair was tied up with a cloth, revealing her smooth forehead.

Several thick books were spread out on the table, and a glass of chilled mint tea sat next to them.

"Martha." Lynn walked in.

Martha looked up and saw Lynn. She laughed happily, "Oh! It's Lord Lynn!"

She put down her quill and casually gathered the scattered pages together: "What brings you here?"

"Just came from Joel's place." Lynn circled the customer area: "How's the stock preparation going?"

"Silver Oak Trading Company needs the next batch of goods urgently. We've got cement and instant noodles ready, but we're still a bit short on medicine." Martha flipped through one of the booklets.

"Dr. Herbert said that there are only seven bottles of amoxicillin left in stock, and four bottles must be kept for emergencies, so only three can be given to Mr. Sieg. I have already written to ask him if he can accept a reduced dosage or use other drugs instead."

"Did he reply?"

"Not yet." Martha paused. "My lady, there's something else."

"explain."

"The instant noodle stock... is actually running low," Martha whispered.

"If Silver Oak continues to order according to the original orders, we won't be able to supply it next month."

Lynn nodded. He had come here to find out about the specific reserves.

"It's alright, Martha. Joel and I just discussed and resolved this issue. There won't be any problems with next month's supply."

"Really? That's good...that's good..."

Martha gently touched her chest with her small hand and slowly exhaled, as if she had solved a major problem.

Just then, a muffled thud came from under the counter.

Lynn looked down and saw Lia emerge from behind the counter, carrying a roll of burlap in her hands, with a few bits of grass stuck to her hair.

She was clearly tidying up the bottom shelf; her dusty cloth skirt had been smeared with wall dust, and there was a black mark on her cheek.

"Lynn!" Leah slammed the burlap sack on the table, patted her skirt, and feigned composure. "When did you get here?"

Ever since Lynn called her by her full name and Lynn didn't get angry last time, this girl has never called her "lord" again...

"Just arrived." Lynn didn't seem to mind. He looked at the dark marks on her face. "Were you helping Martha move goods?"

"What do you mean by 'help'?" Lia asked matter-of-factly. "I was originally an unofficial member of the public treasury, a title bestowed upon me by Martha herself."

Martha smiled and said, "Yes, yes, I appointed them. The non-permanent staff don't even want wages; they just want to freeload lunch every day."

Lia glared at her, but didn't argue.

Lynn smiled. The two girls were getting along better and better.

He walked to the shelves and examined the already packaged goods: cement buckets were tied tightly with straw ropes, instant noodle bags were neatly folded, and medicines were locked separately in a glass-door cabinet.

Each item is labeled with its name, quantity, and date of receipt.

Lynn looked at them one by one.

Martha's handwriting became increasingly neat and beautiful. She remembered every stroke clearly, and even noted the reasons in the remarks column—a batch of cement was used for road construction, a batch of potatoes was distributed to new residents as food for settling down, and a batch of medicine was given away for free to elderly people living alone.

That's good, very humane. It's worth it that Lynn's subtle influence on these managers regarding the concept of "human touch" wasn't wasted.

Lia leaned over the counter, resting her chin on her arm, tilting her head to look at the numbers in the ledger.

She clearly didn't understand it very well; the dense addition and subtraction problems confused her, but she still tried her best to decipher them.

"Martha, were you literate and good at accounting from a young age?" Lia suddenly asked.

Martha paused for a moment, then shook her head: "No. My father taught me some things, but I learned most of it on my own after coming to Grayrock Town."

"Self-taught?"

"Hmm." Martha closed the ledger.

"At first, I often made mistakes in calculations and was even lectured by Lord Leon. Later, I memorized the prices of common items and learned addition and subtraction from Dr. Herbert, and gradually I got the hang of it."

Lia was silent for a moment, then whispered, "I want to learn too."

Martha glanced at her and smiled: "Then starting tomorrow, I'll teach you when I'm free in the afternoon."

"real?"

"real."

Leah's eyes lit up for a moment, but she quickly turned her face away, pretending not to care: "Just teach me casually, I'm not particularly interested in learning..."

Lynn, who had been listening to their conversation with a smile, suddenly had a flash of inspiration. He realized what he had forgotten...