In truth, the most anxious person was Yun Ye. From the academy to the Yun family estate, the route included hillocks, groves of trees, and waterfalls. The airflow in the mountain valley was extremely unstable. Even though Xiao Miao possessed superior martial arts skills, flying this contraption had little to do with one’s level of martial prowess.
Wang Cai ran very fast. Yun Ye looked up at the sky with his head tilted back. Xiao Miao’s figure had already disappeared behind the treetops. If it weren’t for Xiao Miao’s bell-like laughter echoing through the mountain valley, Yun Ye would have almost believed that Xiao Miao had crashed into a tree.
Behind them was Li Tai’s carriage. Hypatia was nearly laughing herself to tears. Li Tai slapped his own face and personally drove the carriage racing through the mountain valley. Further behind was a group of academy students running frantically on foot, and the crowd seemed to be growing larger and larger.
After exiting the mountain pass, Yun Ye finally breathed a sigh of relief. The aircraft seemed to fly more steadily over the Guanzhong plains. Xiao Miao laughed heartily, flying left and right in the air. The exertion beneath her feet seemingly couldn’t affect her good mood at all.
Wang Cai hardly needed any urging from Yun Ye. He galloped on his own across a field of frozen rapeseed plants, tightly pursuing Xiao Miao flying in the sky, thoroughly enjoying himself.
Li Tai chased them to the mountain pass and watched Xiao Miao gliding slowly through the sky, suddenly becoming excited himself. He stood up in the carriage, waving his arms and shouting loudly.
However, good things don’t last long. The aircraft inevitably began to descend slowly. No matter how hard Xiao Miao pedaled, it was unavoidable. Yun Ye estimated that this period of flight was very likely related to that gust of strong wind from earlier. Now that the wind had stopped, the aircraft lost the momentum to continue flying. Relying on Xiao Miao’s efforts alone was still insufficient to keep the aircraft airborne for so long.
Li Tai’s expression also dimmed somewhat. Hypatia smiled and said, “Qing Que, the thing you created still flew. You have no need to feel sad about this. As long as we solve the power problem, none of this will be troublesome. History will remember what you’ve done today. You are my pride.”
Li Tai turned his head and nodded, then drove the carriage toward Xiao Miao, who was already flying very low.
The aircraft finally landed. Xiao Miao was still pedaling hard, trying to make the aircraft take off again. Unfortunately, the aircraft was only racing desperately across the hard winter field, occasionally taking off briefly to drift for a dozen zhang before landing on the ground again.
Xiao Miao dismounted from the aircraft dejected, not knowing what had gone wrong with it.
Yun Ye was now quite certain that the aircraft’s flight state had actually been gliding, especially after emerging from the mountain valley. There was a significant elevation difference between the valley and the plains below, which was why the aircraft had flown for so long.
It was now winter. When spring came and the earth’s energy rose, flying this aircraft again would surely produce remarkable results.
“Qing Que, suspend the flight experiments. When spring arrives, I guarantee this aircraft will fly higher and farther. Moreover, if we start researching new power sources from now on, it surely won’t take many years to achieve it.”
Li Tai laughed heartily and said, “Indeed, when the earth’s energy rises, that will truly be the best time.”
After bidding farewell to Li Tai, Yun Ye and Xiao Miao rode Wang Cai home. Xiao Miao rested her head against Yun Ye’s chest, her cheeks still flushed with excitement from earlier.
“Husband, let’s make an aircraft for our family too, all right?”
This was the first time Xiao Miao had asked for something. Of course he would satisfy her. Yun Ye wrapped Xiao Miao in his cloak and entered the courtyard through his family’s back gate, saying decisively to Xiao Miao, “Our family will certainly make one—not just one, but several. Best if everyone has one. After spring arrives, we’ll see whose aircraft flies the farthest.”
The two entered the inner residence talking and laughing. Xiao Miao saw Xinyue standing on the flower pavilion looking at her. In a few quick movements, she climbed up the pillars to the pavilion and, hugging Xinyue’s arm, described in words and gestures the magical things that had happened to her today. Xinyue listened in stunned amazement, constantly looking Xiao Miao up and down and repeatedly asking if she had been injured at all.
Ever since Yun Ye had given the jade plaques to Li Er to hang atop the Wanmin Palace, to compensate Wu She, Yun Ye lent him the solar panel, telling him this object had similarities to those jade plaques, only it was more refined and direct. This item was preserved by Xinyue in a glass tank, so it could still generate electricity now. Yun Ye had tested this—as long as it was in a charging state, when the two poles touched, brilliant sparks would burst forth.
After Wu She and Liu Fang carefully studied it, they believed this object was indeed a treasure capable of producing yin and yang energies. The saying goes: solitary yin cannot generate, solitary yang cannot grow. Liu Fang insisted that the positive and negative poles on the battery panel were precisely yin and yang energies.
This wasn’t wrong to say, but it ended up tormenting Wu She. He wanted to harmonize yin and yang, and the medium was his own body. Yun Ye really didn’t want to say anything more about someone who electrocuted himself daily.
The past had passed. Too much attachment would only bring more troubles, so he would rather give away things he once considered precious as his life to two lonely old people to play with than keep them hidden in the dark, watching them slowly become a pile of waste.
The cell phone was the same. Since coming to the Great Tang, aside from letting Sun Simiao use it once, Yun Ye had never touched that thing again—not because he didn’t want to, but because he was afraid to.
Twenty years had already passed. The phone should now be a pile of waste, shouldn’t it?
He didn’t know how Wu She had studied the yin and yang energies, but today he very strangely returned the battery panel to Yun Ye. He believed the yin and yang energy in this treasure was insufficient for him to make any discoveries. He planned to try his luck at the Taiji Palace during thunderstorm weather after the Awakening of Insects, saying perhaps he might gain something.
If not for Li Er’s iron lance serving as a lightning rod on the Taiji Palace, it would have been destroyed by lightning countless times already. Since Li Yuan proclaimed himself emperor at the Taiji Palace, there had been no fewer than twenty repairs, large and small, more than ten of which were due to lightning disasters. Since Yun Ye installed Li Er’s iron lance up there, the Taiji Palace had only had one fire in over ten years, and that was man-made disaster, not natural calamity.
“The yin and yang energies you speak of are not false, but you don’t need to go to the Taiji Palace. That place is a lightning nest. Are you tired of living or what? I dare guarantee you that if a lightning bolt strikes you, being roasted by the lightning will be your only outcome. There will absolutely be no exceptions.”
“You’ve played with the jade plaques for over three years and been illuminated by that thing for over three years. Tell me yourself, what effect has it had? No effect, right? The reason you’ve become even younger than before is because of your extraordinary constitution and mindset. Old sir, please listen—if you like treasures, go look in the treasury. If you like drinking tea, the family has every kind of tea. Even if you like drinking oil soup, whatever you want is fine. Just don’t go to the Taiji Palace to get struck by lightning. I’m still hoping you’ll live many more years. It would be good for our family to also produce a longevity elder.”
Only after exhausting his eloquence did he manage to deceive away Wu She, whose temperament had become somewhat childlike. Yun Ye looked at the charging panel in his hand, gave a bitter smile, and went to ask Xinyue for the cell phone. She had always been the one preserving it.
Hearing her husband wanted the phone, Xinyue immediately became very solemn. With a sharp command, she drove away Na Rimu, Lingdang, and Xiao Miao, who had all gathered in the back hall hoping to watch the excitement. Yun Ye frowned watching this—he just wanted to charge the phone and see if the thing still worked. Why make it so serious?
Xinyue ignored how ugly Yun Ye’s expression had become. She still stubbornly ordered the inner residence locked down. Although it was still afternoon, the Yun family’s inner residence had already become its own world.
Under Xinyue’s eyes full of anticipation, Yun Ye connected the charger to the phone. For quite a while there was no response. It looked like it was finished. Yun Ye walked to the table, poured himself a cup of tea and took a sip. This was something already anticipated. Nothing strange about it, nothing to look forward to. Xinyue, however, stared at the phone without blinking.
“It lit up! Husband, it lit up!” Xinyue suddenly darted to Yun Ye’s side, dragging him to stand before the phone. Yun Ye also found it strange—the charger was actually flashing and truly charging.
He tried turning it on. The entire screen lit up instantly, and the advertisement icon left Xinyue mesmerized.
Unfortunately, all the pictures inside were gone. The stored content was completely gone too. Only the phone’s most primitive interface remained. The phone ringtones were still there. Everything else was completely finished. He tried the camera—very pitiful. Images could only be saved for five minutes, then would completely disappear.
Xinyue looked at herself inside the phone and became so anxious that tears came out. Her soul had already been trapped inside. Yun Ye forcibly pressed Xinyue’s face against his own and took a couple’s photo. As a result, Xinyue grabbed the phone ready to smash it, intending to release both their souls. In an instant, she already felt her limbs becoming weak and her entire body growing cold.
“Who said that? What souls? This is just something that rapidly draws portraits. Now it’s broken and can only save for a little while.”
“Really? Why is it completely accurate?”
“I already told you this is a celestial treasure. Naturally it’s not comparable to ordinary portrait painters. All right, I’ll play you some music—’High Mountains and Flowing Water,’ which has long been lost, and ‘Guangling San,’ which you’ve never even heard.”
Out of trust in her husband, Xinyue gradually calmed down. Her entire body also felt comfortable. Only then did she confirm her husband was completely right. Thinking the family still had such treasures made her so excited she trembled all over.
As a result, Xinyue sat around the charger listening to phone ringtones for almost the entire evening, from the most elegant “High Mountains and Flowing Water” to childish voices saying “Silly, you have a call”—she didn’t skip any, and kept taking photos of herself repeatedly. When Yun Ye woke up in the middle of the night and opened his eyes, he got a fright. In the pitch-black room, Xinyue was still holding the phone looking at her own photos. Her entire face was illuminated by the phone screen’s glow into a ghastly green—extremely terrifying.
“All right, stop playing. Put it away. Later we’ll pass it to Yun Shou and let him tinker with it himself.”
“That won’t do! This is a celestial treasure. When this concubine breathes her last, then you can pass it to Ah Shou.” Xinyue irritably waved at Yun Ye, engrossed in playing with the freshly discovered celestial treasure.