Chapter 0047: You’re the Most Handsome Old Man, and Also the Most Perverted One

Xie Chengze remained completely unaware that Emperor Jian in distant Jingcheng had relapsed into his madness again. He was currently leading the scholars on a tour of Yu Ji Mountain, observing the spectacular scene of Yi Province’s residents excavating the mountain.

The Tianfu Plan was progressing steadily. The residents from the eastern counties of Yi Province had taken the lead, with Liang Wan Da following Xie Chengze’s instructions to begin quarrying using the “burn and quench” method.

The so-called burn and quench method involved first chiseling a deep groove into the rock, then filling it with large amounts of firewood to set the stone ablaze. When the stone turned red and expanded from the high temperatures, cold river water would be poured over the scorching rock. The rapid contraction from thermal expansion would cause the stone to crack.

At this point, the quarry workers could ascend the rocks, making it much easier to break them apart with hammers and chisels.

As for the villagers from the southern counties, the women and elderly from households with able-bodied men were assigned to stay with families from the eastern counties. They were responsible for preparing three daily meals for the quarry workers, transporting river water for quenching the mountains, and tending to livestock. The men collectively resided in temporary thatched huts, with some participating in the mountain excavation while others transported the quarried stones to the middle and upper reaches of the Min River.

“Why not just throw these stones directly into the river?” Zhu Xiaobiao asked, puzzled.

“These stones will serve another purpose in the future,” Xie Chengze explained. “Remember, the Tianfu Plan consists of two strategies – one for mountain opening, and another for river splitting.”

Zhu Xiaobiao’s mind worked quickly. “These stones are related to river splitting?”

“So clever.” Xie Chengze couldn’t resist raising his golden-fan and gently tapping Zhu Xiaobiao’s head. “How does this little brain get smarter with each tap?”

Zhu Xiaobiao blushed uncontrollably from the praise.

Why did the Second Prince enjoy complimenting him so much?

“It’s just that this mountain is being excavated too slowly. If only we had gunpowder,” Xie Chengze sighed, watching the villagers toil shirtless in the hot weather to quarry the mountain. He couldn’t help but feel some distress.

Don’t misunderstand – he wasn’t distressed for these common people, but for himself.

Every extra day the villagers worked meant another day of wages he had to pay. The crucial point was that he had other uses for this money. If little remained in the end, he’d have to devise another method to acquire funds.

Was coming up with money-making schemes that easy? It wasn’t as simple as randomly confiscating property or killing people to become wealthy overnight. It required deep contemplation, and deep contemplation meant hair loss, which meant going bald.

Xie Chengze didn’t want to go bald.

He still wanted to become the world’s most handsome old man in his later years.

The ever-curious Zhu Xiaobiao asked again, “What’s gunpowder?”

Xie Chengze: “It’s a type of… explosive substance.”

Zhu Xiaobiao: “Explosive?”

Xie Chengze: “You don’t know what an explosion is? Do you know that flour shouldn’t encounter open flames? When combined in a confined space at certain ratios, the two can explode and injure people.”

Zhu Xiaobiao shook his head. He didn’t know how to cook, having never worked as a chef, so he couldn’t understand what Xie Chengze was saying. “Then, young master, do you know how to make gunpowder?”

With scholars all around, Zhu Xiaobiao used the address “young master.”

Xie Chengze silently wiped his face.

He did know how, and was even clear about how to refine the raw materials. It’s just that… refining this substance didn’t quite suit his status…

…

Xie Chengze felt deeply melancholy and utterly frustrated.

He sat on a small stool, his legs trembling like a sieve, his hands clasped helplessly in front of his peerlessly handsome face.

Directly ahead of him was the communal outhouse used by the villagers.

Dear heavens, who could have known that extracting saltpeter—one of the three key ingredients for gunpowder in ancient times—would require processing human and animal waste!

He, the Second Prince of the Jian’an Dynasty, universally acknowledged as the most handsome man in the realm, had actually been reduced to refining excrement?

Was there no kind soul who could save him…

Xie Chengze’s legs trembled increasingly violently, nearing the point of urgent bodily release, when suddenly, someone poked his spine from behind.

Startled, he stumbled and nearly fell off the stool. Turning around, he saw a tall, burly man who looked both familiar and unfamiliar.

Had he seen him somewhere before?

Xie Chengze thought carefully before remembering—oh, this seemed to be that rather unnoticeable scholar who traveled with Bian Yangchun and the others.

What was his name again? He’d forgotten.

“Can I help you?” Xie Chengze asked, looking up.

The burly scholar appeared extremely introverted. Throughout their journey together, he hadn’t uttered a single word, and now he merely nodded slightly without speaking.

Xie Chengze: …

“Hey, brother, if you have something to say, just say it?”

Sensing Xie Chengze’s impatience, the burly scholar crouched down, picked up a small stone nearby, and wrote on the ground: “This humble scholar is mute.”

Xie Chengze: Ah—!

I’m utterly despicable—!

Already feeling socially awkward, Xie Chengze now felt even more mortified.

“This humble scholar wishes to ask,” the burly scholar wrote swiftly on the ground with remarkably fluid and elegant regular script, “Can major earthquakes truly split mountains and crack the earth?”

Xie Chengze admired his calligraphy for a moment before replying, “Of course they can. Major earthquakes are capable of that.”

“Can they move mountains?” the scholar wrote again.

“Moving mountains is beyond their power,” Xie Chengze shook his head.

“What about The Foolish Old Man Removes the Mountains?” After writing this, the scholar looked up with an appropriately puzzled expression.

Xie Chengze immediately understood his meaning and patiently explained, “Mountain movement is due to tectonic activity. Tectonic activity means… um…”

He spread his hands, trying to explain in terms an ancient person could understand, “There are many stone plates beneath the earth. For example, my hands are two stone plates—this plate holds Yuzhou’s Taihang Mountain, and this one holds Yuzhou’s Wangwu Mountain. Normally these plates remain quiet, but occasionally because it’s too hot underground, they get so heated they suddenly separate. Or they might love each other so deeply they refuse to part, even squeezing together to prove their eternal devotion, eventually colliding and merging into a single mountain.”

Xie Chengze looked up and asked, “Does that explanation make sense to you?”

The burly scholar remained silent for a moment, then quietly gave a thumbs-up before pulling a thin booklet from his chest and rapidly recording something with a small charcoal pencil.

Xie Chengze: ?

You have paper and pen, yet you wrote on the ground earlier? Am I not worthy?

Xie Chengze leaned over to look and saw the scholar was writing down exactly what he had just said, though omitting the parts about eternal love. Essentially, he recorded that there were stone plates underground that could move in various ways due to something like thermal energy.

He couldn’t help stroking his chin, “Aren’t you worried I might be deceiving you?”

The burly scholar glanced at him, then wrote on the ground: “You understand mountain fires and cold quenching, and you also seem to understand earthquakes.”

Xie Chengze picked up a stone as well, erasing the words “seem to” from the burly scholar’s sentence and replacing them with “somewhat.”

Burly scholar: …

Looking at the words on the ground, the burly scholar thought to himself: So ugly.

He asked a few more questions about earthquakes. Seeing how eager he was to learn, Xie Chengze patiently broke down everything he knew and explained it to him, concluding, “That’s all I know.”

The burly scholar wrote again: “How much do you know about predicting earthquakes?”

“I don’t know. I only know about the seismometer,” Xie Chengze replied, then grew puzzled. “Why are you so interested in earthquakes?”

The burly scholar’s attention was entirely on the first part of his sentence: “What is a seismometer?”

“…It’s a device that can predict earthquakes, made of refined bronze and shaped like a wine vessel. Inside, there’s a bronze pillar that can sense seismic vibrations. The seismometer has eight directions, each marked with a dragon head holding a pearl, and below each dragon head sits a corresponding toad. When seismic waves cause the internal pillar to vibrate, the bronze pearl in the corresponding dragon’s mouth is ejected. I’ve heard that a genuine seismometer can detect tremors from thousands of miles away.”

The burly scholar quickly took notes again, even sketching a rough diagram on paper before holding it up for Xie Chengze to see.

“Make the wine vessel a bit rounder, and indent this part a little more. The exterior should look roughly like that. As for the internal structure of the seismometer, I don’t know,” Xie Chengze patiently corrected him.

The burly scholar nodded. After finishing his notes, he contentedly put away his notebook. He was about to stand up and leave when he remembered something and crouched back down.

His father had told him that when making friends, one shouldn’t only talk about oneself.

So, he wrote on the ground again, “Brother Cheng, why were you staring at the outhouse earlier?”

Xie Chengze: ???

Xie Chengze nearly choked, feeling the panic of having his peculiar habit suddenly exposed by someone familiar. “…How long have you been watching me?”

The burly scholar answered honestly, “Half an hour.”

Xie Chengze: ???

Wait, buddy, you watched me staring at the outhouse for an entire hour???

Are you a creep?!