Di Renjie glanced at the old soldier. The old soldier then released the blue-robed man, picked up his bamboo basket and disappeared behind the trees. It wasn’t good for him to hear some of what the blue-robed man was saying.
“God?” The old soldier muttered behind the large tree, then sat on an open space and took a small sip from his liquor flask. He was very satisfied with his current life. Getting old, he could no longer run around everywhere earning silver for the family. Staying behind to watch the house was also good. His old wife had looked forward to these days for many years. Watching his son establish a family, have children, become the family’s manager, never home all day—now it was his turn to run around.
Guanzhong people were like this—generation after generation, facing the yellow earth with their backs to the sky, scratching out food from the land, always unable to achieve warmth and fullness. Now the Marquis had come. Very good! A person with honor. Which of the old soldiers who came out with him wasn’t now a wealthy household? Whether the Marquis was human or god, even if he were a ghost, what of it? He was ultimately one’s own master. As a household retainer, just follow along with your head down and move forward.
Living in a blue-brick, large-tile house—even thinking about it made one proud. Liu Shuan had died, leaving only an old mother and a young wife at home. The young wife with a child couldn’t farm the land. Originally they thought life couldn’t go on. Who knew? The estate’s steward came early one morning, gave the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law a string of keys, telling them that from today on, a tofu-selling shop on the market street belonged to their family. He specially brought the old grandmother to the county to handle the transfer. The land deed and house deed were handed over clearly. Manager Qian watched until the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law’s tofu business was on track before taking back their land. Spring had arrived—it couldn’t always lie fallow, right?
The old soldier’s thoughts were simple. The current good days were given by the Marquis. He enjoyed them without the slightest concern. What he could repay was just this old life. The lives of Yun family members were valuable—the Marquis had said so. It was famous throughout the capital. It was just that there were too few people in the family. Just three male children—how would they inherit such a large family estate in the future?
Di Renjie emerged from the bushes with a mixture of laughter and tears. He’d asked nothing and learned nothing. The blue-robed man only knew that a god gave him orders to monitor him. As for who it was, which immortal, he didn’t know. He woke up from sleep and the god’s command appeared in his brain, telling him to monitor another god.
I am a god servant, generation after generation we all are. Gods generally don’t come looking for us. When they do, even if it costs our lives, we must complete the task. If a person lives but the task isn’t completed, the outcome is miserable—unbearable to speak of.
Having said this, he only begged Di Renjie to kill him. Speaking these words meant there was no way to live. Because Di Renjie was also a god, that’s why he would speak. If it were an ordinary person, he wouldn’t reveal a single word even if killed.
Under this fellow’s repeated pleading, Di Renjie still acted. Although killing a person seemed like accumulating virtue, his heart was still uncomfortable. What kind of logic was this? God? When did he become a god? Why didn’t he know? It seemed Master didn’t know either. There were god servants to use? Who were the god servants? How to identify them? A complete mess.
“Young Master Jie should quickly go to the academy. This old man will clean up here, definitely clean it up spotlessly without leaving any loose ends.” After the old soldier finished speaking, he picked up his hoe and entered the bushes. Di Renjie thought for a while, then took the bear doll from the branch, passed through the forest, and went to the academy.
Arriving at the dog hole, he blew the bamboo whistle once. Xiao Wu appeared with a beaming smile. First she took the bear, hugged it intimately for a while, then took over her Little Swallow. She attached the leverage device, skillfully strung it, installed an arrow magazine, casually shook it around a couple times to feel her grip, and only then was she satisfied to set it aside. Two glutinous rice cakes were missing—she was very dissatisfied. Seeing rice powder that hadn’t been wiped clean at the corner of Di Renjie’s mouth, she was about to get angry.
“Someone was tracking me. Two people. I’ve already taken care of them.” Seeing Xiao Wu had a tendency to erupt, he quickly got to business.
“Since even an idiot like you had two people tracking you, wouldn’t someone like me have four people lurking around?” Xiao Wu immediately understood what Di Renjie meant.
“Be careful. I captured them for questioning and learned something very strange. They think I’m a god. Don’t raise your eyebrows—since I am, you’re my senior sister, so of course you are too. According to what he said, there are many god servants in this world available for us to use. Unfortunately, we don’t know who they are or how to contact them.”
Xiao Wu’s eyes brightened like the noon sun. Too interesting! So she was a god? Why didn’t she know before? A little beauty like herself should be an immortal like the Luo River Goddess. When Master returned, she’d ask properly what kind of immortal she was.
A thousand li away, Yun Ye was also getting a headache over this matter. The information from Liu Fang proved that in this world there was a group of idiots plus megalomaniacs who considered themselves gods and demons. Very unfortunately, he was also one of them. Whether he was an immortal, Yun Ye was very clear. Whether that group of people were immortals, Yun Ye was also very clear. Which immortal would have their fingers cut off by ropes? Which would be drugged by hallucinogens and chew their own fingers thinking they were chicken feet?
China’s gods and monsters had new additions every dynasty and generation, becoming increasingly complete, finally becoming an enormous immortal system. Previously, Yun Ye thought these things were all the most simple beliefs produced by common people from daily life. Now it seemed that wasn’t entirely the case. Who could be so arrogant as to worship themselves as immortals?
Shaking off these messy thoughts, he continued accompanying Li Chengqian inspecting the new city construction site. This city could be called the crystallization of all of Great Tang’s new achievements these years.
Students from Yushan Academy’s civil engineering major—that is, students taught by the Gongshu family—swarmed like locusts everywhere on the construction site. They had erected enormous gantry cranes. Although the base required dozens of draft horses to pull each time it moved, its work efficiency was unprecedented. Hoisting giant stones, transporting building materials—almost instantaneous. Single-arm hoisting frames appeared densely all over the construction site. Use as little timber as possible, use more brick and stone—this was the construction principle of the new city.
Why could the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda remain intact and undamaged a thousand years later? It was because it was built of brick. Wooden buildings from the same period, no matter how magnificent, could hardly escape the fate of collapsing with a rumble.
The Epang Palace covering three hundred li was burned to ashes by the Chu people. The Jianzhang Palace of the Former Han was also destroyed by war. Even if a small number of buildings were preserved, they could hardly escape termites’ mouths.
Many Western historical buildings were preserved—various stone-built temples, various castles, some directly traceable to the medieval period. There was no special reason—it was simply because they were all built of stone. When Yun Ye built this nameless new city, he didn’t plan for it to be destroyed after just a hundred or so years by catapults, great fires, earthquakes and the like. Fighting desperately to leave his footprint in the history books—this was what Yun Ye most wanted to do. He couldn’t go back, so at least let his name be known by later generations, lest he wander around in the future as a lonely ghost whom no one recognized.
Steel-reinforced concrete must be used. Although this stuff wasn’t as solid as stone, it excelled at greatly reducing labor. Quarrying stone really wasn’t good work. First use a chisel to make holes in the stone one by one, then pour in fire oil, finally light it. When the fire had burned enough, splash water on it. The stone would split along the chiseled holes into small blocks of stone, then stonemasons would bit by bit chisel the rough stone blocks into patterned rectangular stones.
The entire construction site was using human wave tactics. At this time, if you wanted to construct large projects, there was no other method besides this. Wood was still an indispensable building material. Yun Ye systematically felled the nearby mountain forests. The timber here that could be used was very little—most was waste material with not many usable parts.
“Ye Zi, your teacher wrote it well in that ‘Rhapsody on the Epang Palace’—’The Shu mountains became bare, Epang emerged.’ Does your new city also plan to leave Yuezhou with a barren mountain?” Li Chengqian pointed at a mountain near the construction site and asked Yun Ye.
“How is that possible? I absolutely won’t be like ancient Qi State which, to build Linzi City, turned a mountain into a bald head. I’m going to completely erase this mountain from the earth. This mountain is really too good. When I initially chose to build the city here, half the reason was because this mountain was here. The mountaintop is all limestone—perfect for burning cement. The middle section is hard granite—perfect for building houses and city walls. The bottom part will be left for the army in the future. They’ll camp at the highest point—how good is that? The whole city will be under their surveillance.”
“As for how they camp, that’s not your concern, is it? The stone below is so hard even you have no way with it. How can you make the army do this? When the time comes, the military officer assigned to garrison here will be angered to death by you.”
“When people’s hearts are united, they can move Mount Tai. If the army can’t even eat this bit of hardship, how can they qualify to go to war? How can you expect an army that has made no contribution to this city to shed blood and sacrifice their lives for it? Only things obtained through one’s own efforts will be cherished. As for other matters, I won’t interfere.”
Li Chengqian and Yun Ye walked down from the mountain, very satisfied with the work progress of the craftsmen and laborers. The entire city’s foundation was being rammed. Four strong men formed a group, using ropes to pull the ramming hammer while shouting work chants. One could see countless ramming hammers flying up and down. Such a scene, no matter who saw it, would feel a force growing from within their body.
“When the country spends money on the common people, they can always bring more wealth back to the country. Once the new city is completed, it will project Chang’an’s way of life into this city. Before long, Chang’an’s way of life will replace many bad habits that have long existed here, finally reaching a new height.”
“You don’t plan to hand this city over to Yuezhou?” Li Chengqian couldn’t help but stop, tilted his head and asked strangely.
“Do you think Yuezhou natives can afford houses costing several hundred guan?”
“Why are you selling them so expensively? I’ve calculated that including all costs, an ordinary house won’t exceed fifty guan in any case—that is, fifty silver coins.”
“What did you calculate? Don’t I need to calculate interest on the large amount of money I borrowed? Don’t I need to calculate wages for a dignified marquis like me being sent to this remote, impoverished place to stay for three years? The academy invested massive manpower and intelligence into this city—doesn’t that need to be calculated? If this were in Chang’an, I’d double the price twice more!”