Chapter 47

Chapter 47

Xie Chengze had no idea that Emperor Jian was having another episode far away in the capital. He was leading the scholars around Mount Yuji, admiring the grand spectacle of Yizhou’s people excavating the mountain.

The Land of Abundance Plan was proceeding methodically. The people from Yizhou’s eastern counties had gotten an early start, and Liang Wanda followed Xie Chengze’s instructions by having them cut into the mountain through a method of “fire-setting and cold dousing.”

The method was simple: first, workers cut a deep groove into the rock, filled it with a great quantity of firewood, and set the wood alight. The heat turned the stone red and made it expand. When cold river water was poured over the scorching rock, thermal shock caused it to split apart.

The stonecutters could then climb onto the rock, and breaking it with axes, hammers, and chisels became much easier.

As for villagers from the southern counties, women and elderly people whose households had able-bodied men were assigned lodging with families in the eastern villages. They prepared the stonecutters’ three daily meals, carried river water for dousing the mountain, and tended the livestock. The able-bodied men lived together in temporary huts stuffed with chicken feathers. Some excavated the mountain, while others transported the stone to the middle and upper reaches of the Min River.

“Why not throw these rocks straight into the river?” Zhu Xiaobiao asked in confusion.

“They have another purpose in the future,” Xie Chengze explained. “Remember? The Land of Abundance Plan has two parts: opening the mountain and splitting the river.”

Zhu Xiaobiao caught on quickly. “These rocks have something to do with splitting the river?”

“Very clever.” Xie Chengze could not resist lifting his gold-threaded fan and lightly tapping Zhu Xiaobiao’s head. “How does this little head get smarter every time I tap it?”

The praise made Zhu Xiaobiao blush again.

Why did the Second Prince love praising him so much?

“The mountain is coming along too slowly, though. If only we had gunpowder.” Watching the bare-chested villagers labor to dig through the mountain in the scorching weather, Xie Chengze could not help feeling sorry.

Do not misunderstand. He did not feel sorry for the people. He felt sorry for himself.

Every extra day the villagers worked was another day’s wages he had to pay. More importantly, he had other uses for that money. If hardly any remained in the end, he would have to find some new way to raise funds.

Was coming up with ways to make money so easy? It was not as though he could get rich simply by confiscating a few estates and killing a few people. He would still have to rack his brains. Racking his brains meant losing hair, and losing hair meant going bald.

Xie Chengze did not want to go bald.

He still wanted to become the most beautiful little old man under Heaven.

The ever-curious Zhu Xiaobiao asked from beside him, “What’s gunpowder?”

Xie Chengze said, “It’s a kind of… explosive.”

Zhu Xiaobiao said, “Explosive?”

Xie Chengze said, “You don’t know what an explosion is? You do know flour can’t come into contact with an open flame, don’t you? Mix the two in the right proportions inside a confined space, and they’ll explode and injure people.”

Zhu Xiaobiao shook his head. He could not cook, had never worked as a chef, and did not understand what Xie Chengze meant. “Can Young Master make gunpowder?”

They were surrounded by scholars, so Zhu Xiaobiao addressed him as Young Master.

Xie Chengze silently wiped his face.

He did know how. He even knew perfectly well how to extract the raw materials. It was just that… refining this particular substance did not suit his status in the slightest…

…

Xie Chengze was deeply miserable, and his balls ached with despair.

He sat on a little stool, legs trembling like sieves, his hands clasped helplessly in front of his peerlessly beautiful face.

Directly before him stood the communal cesspit used by the county residents.

Friends, who could possibly understand? To make gunpowder in ancient times, extracting saltpeter – one of its three ingredients – actually required human and animal waste, for fuck’s sake!

He was the dignified Second Prince of the Jian’an Dynasty, universally acknowledged as the most beautiful man under Heaven. Had he truly fallen so far that he now had to refine excrement?

Would some kind soul please save him…?

His legs trembled harder and harder. Just as terror was about to make him answer all three calls of nature at once, something poked him in the spine.

The fright made him stumble, nearly pitching him off the stool. He turned and found a tall, powerfully built man who looked both familiar and unfamiliar.

He seemed to have seen him somewhere before.

After thinking hard, Xie Chengze finally remembered. Oh, this seemed to be one of the scholars traveling with Bian Yangchun and the others – the one with almost no presence at all.

What was his name again? He had forgotten.

“Do you need something?” Xie Chengze asked, looking up.

The burly scholar seemed extremely introverted. He had not uttered a word throughout their previous journey together, and now he merely nodded without speaking.

Xie Chengze: “…”

“No, brother, if you need something, just say it.”
Apparently sensing Xie Chengze’s impatience, the burly scholar crouched down, picked up a small stone, and wrote on the ground: “This humble student is mute.”

Xie Chengze: Ah – !

I’m a terrible person – !

Already socially withdrawn, Xie Chengze retreated even further into himself.

“This student wishes to ask,” the burly scholar wrote swiftly on the ground, his regular script fluid and beautiful, “can a great earthquake truly split mountains and tear open the earth?”

Xie Chengze admired his calligraphy for a moment, then said, “Of course. A sufficiently large earthquake can.”

“Can it move mountains too?” the burly scholar wrote.

“It can’t exactly move a mountain,” Xie Chengze said with a shake of his head.

“Then what of Yu Gong moving the mountains?” After writing the question, the burly scholar looked up with an appropriately puzzled expression.

Xie Chengze immediately understood what he meant and patiently explained, “Mountains move because of movements in the earth’s crust. The earth’s crust is… uh…”

He spread his hands and did his best to explain in terms an ancient person could understand. “There are many slabs of rock beneath the earth. Say my hands are two such slabs. Mount Taihang in Yuzhou sits on this slab, while Mount Wangwu in Yuzhou sits on the other. Usually, the two slabs behave themselves. But sometimes it gets too hot underground, so hot they can’t stand it, and – smack! – they split apart. Or perhaps they fall in love and refuse to part even if it kills them. To prove their love will last forever, they deliberately squeeze together and collide, merging into a mountain.”

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

The burly scholar fell silent for a moment, then silently gave him a thumbs-up. Afterward, he drew a thin booklet from inside his robe and began writing rapidly with a small charcoal pencil.

Xie Chengze: “?”

You had paper and a pencil, but you still wrote on the ground? What, am I not worthy of your paper?

Xie Chengze leaned over for a look. The burly scholar was recording precisely what he had just said, although he omitted all the talk of loving each other forever. He had essentially written that slabs of rock existed beneath the earth and that heat-like forces could cause them to move in various ways.

Xie Chengze stroked his chin. “Aren’t you afraid I’m making all this up?”

The burly scholar glanced at him and wrote on the ground: “You understand fire-setting and cold dousing, and you seem to understand earthquakes.”

Xie Chengze picked up a stone as well, rubbed out the words “seem to,” and replaced them with “somewhat.”

The burly scholar: “…”

Looking at the words on the ground, the burly scholar silently thought, What ugly handwriting.

He asked several more questions about earthquakes. Seeing how eager he was to learn, Xie Chengze broke down everything he knew and explained it piece by piece. At last, he said, “That’s all I know.”

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

“Nothing. I only know about the seismoscope,” Xie Chengze answered, then grew curious. “Why are you so interested in earthquakes?”

The burly scholar’s attention fixed entirely on the first half of his reply: “What is a seismoscope?”

“…It’s an instrument capable of detecting earthquakes. It’s made of refined bronze and shaped like a wine vessel. Inside is a bronze pillar that can sense the vibrations of seismic waves. The seismoscope has eight directions, each with a dragon head holding a bronze pearl in its mouth. Beneath each dragon head is a corresponding toad. When seismic waves make the inner pillar vibrate, the pearl falls from the dragon’s mouth in the corresponding direction. Supposedly, a real seismoscope can detect tremors from a thousand miles away.”

The burly scholar began recording at once. He even sketched an approximate design on the paper and finally held it up for Xie Chengze to inspect.

“Make the wine vessel fatter, and put a deeper hollow here. That’s more or less what the outside looked like. As for the exact structure inside, I don’t know.” Xie Chengze patiently corrected the drawing.

The burly scholar nodded. Once he finished his notes, he tucked away the little booklet with satisfaction and started to rise. Then, remembering something, he squatted back down.

His father had told him that making friends meant not speaking only of one’s own affairs.

And so he wrote on the ground, “Brother Cheng, why were you staring at the latrine just now?”

Xie Chengze: “???”

His voice nearly cracked. It felt as though an acquaintance had suddenly discovered his bizarre fetish. “…How long have you been watching me?”

The burly scholar answered honestly: “One hour.”

Xie Chengze: “???”

No, seriously, brother. You spent an entire hour watching me stare at a latrine???

Are you a pervert?!