These things can haul cargo!

These days, if you want to haul cargo, you need an ox or a horse.

Failing that, you’d have to push a wheelbarrow yourself.

But that’s a huge pain, and you can’t even haul that much in one go.

But a tricycle is a different story. Hauling three or four hundred pounds in a single trip? A piece of cake.

With a tricycle, you can haul goods and make money.

It’s worth borrowing money just to get one.

And the shops in the city? They need these even more.

After all, ox carts can’t maneuver well in the city, so you have to go to the drop-off point and pick up your own merchandise.

All those back-and-forth trips are such a waste of time.

With a tricycle, you could just make one trip and be done with it.

In a world that relies solely on ox and horse carts for transport, it would be no exaggeration to call bicycles and tricycles era-defining inventions.

These two items were being sold as his star products.

Lu Yuan could guarantee they wouldn’t lose money; they would be a massive, runaway hit.

As for just how well they would sell, that was a question for when sales actually began.

The secret-sauce technology for both vehicles was in the tires.

On Earth, tires are made of rubber.

And rubber is made from petroleum.

Of course, you could also use natural rubber instead of creating it from petroleum.

The only issue is that the cost is a bit high.

But the rubber on Lu Yuan’s tires was neither natural rubber nor the synthetic kind made from petroleum.

It was made from Spirit Stones!

To be precise, it was Spirit Stone Residue.

This Spirit Stone Residue isn’t valuable. For example, after a Spirit Stone Lamp has been depleted, it’s useless.

At that point, the stone is completely spent.

Similarly, a Spirit Stone that has been burning all night in a Spirit Stone Furnace is also useless once it no longer gives off heat.

This stuff is basically no different from ordinary rocks or dirt.

But Lu Yuan had alchemy.

He had created it by refining this Spirit Stone Residue, along with a few other special ingredients, at a very specific temperature.

You could say this was Lu Yuan’s proprietary formula, which also saved him the trouble of worrying about theft.

After all, the people of this era might have limited knowledge, but they weren’t idiots.

Otherwise, no sooner would Lu Yuan have released his products than a powerful family from another city, someone like the Zhao Family...

...would have bought one, taken it apart, and copied it. The bicycle itself had no real technical complexity; they would have replicated it in no time.

But thanks to this little bit of secret-sauce technology, only Lu Yuan could rake in the profits, which was a deeply satisfying feeling.

With that, Lu Yuan gave a wave of his hand and announced:

"Post the recruitment notices this afternoon.

"The pay is three maces of silver a month. Lunch is provided—steamed buns made from mixed flour, with some oil in the food.

"Lodging is also provided, six people to a room.

"Preference will be given to applicants with no criminal record."

The old steward immediately nodded in agreement.

With that, there was nothing else to discuss, so Lu Yuan got up, ready to head home for a game of mahjong.

But after taking just two steps, he suddenly slapped his forehead and exclaimed:

"Crap, I forgot the most important thing."

Hm?

The old steward froze for a moment, then looked at Lu Yuan in confusion.

’Wasn’t that everything?’

Lu Yuan waved his hand and said:

"Bring me a brush and paper. I forgot to create the trademark."

The old steward looked at Lu Yuan, his face a mask of confusion:

"What’s a ’trademark’?"

Lu Yuan explained with an amused smile:

"It’s like a ’time-honored brand’.

"You know that shop in the east of the city that sells the crab roe pastries Aunt Zhao loves? That’s a fifty-year-old brand, isn’t it?"

As soon as he put it that way, the old steward understood. That was indeed true.

The old steward immediately went to prepare a brush and paper.

Lu Yuan stood before the table, brush in hand, and thought for a moment.

Finally, he put brush to paper.

’A brand name doesn’t actually need that much thought.’

’The important thing is just to have one. It doesn’t have to be mind-blowingly cool or anything.’

’Back on Earth, you had names that told you exactly what they were for the moment you heard them, like Taobao.’

’Then you had others that were just named after the founding couple, like JD.’

’As long as it rolls off the tongue, it’s fine.’

In the end, after a moment of thought, Lu Yuan wrote two large words on the paper: "Qiao Yan."

But he wasn’t finished. He drew a large circle, enclosing the words "Qiao Yan."

Then, in the upper-right corner of the large circle, he wrote the word "Qin."

’It actually has a certain aesthetic to it,’ he thought.

At any rate, Lu Yuan was pleased with it.

After all, he was a civil engineering guy, not a graphic designer.

There we go~

’The three women in my life, and not one of them left out!’