Xu Qinghuan turned to look at Li Sheng, raising her right hand and waving it gently, signaling him to step down.
But Li Sheng seemed rooted to the spot. His thick eyebrows knotted tightly together, and his gaze scraped back and forth over Su Mu several times.
This kid's trick of identifying poisons blindfolded during the day was too bizarre.
If he had some lethal poison hidden in his sleeves, leaving the Lord alone here with him would be like sending a sheep into the tiger's mouth.
Li Sheng took a half-step forward. "My Lord, this fellow's background is unclear, and his mouth is full of nonsense. Your subordinate believes it is better to remain waiting in the hall, lest anything unexpected happen."
Su Mu sighed deeply as he listened.
He was merely here to beg for alms and seek some wealth; how did he suddenly become an assassin?
He simply spread his hands and shook his empty sleeves to show his innocence.
Xu Qinghuan gave her answer.
"No need. Go stand guard outside the door. Without my orders, no one is allowed near the main hall."
Having received a definitive order, Li Sheng knew his Lord always meant what she said, but he still couldn't rest easy and gave Su Mu a few more hard looks.
Resting his hand on the hilt of his sword, he pressed his thumb against the guard and tapped it twice in warning.
Only then did he turn and stride out of the main hall, pulling the door tightly shut behind him.
As the wooden door closed, only the two of them remained in the spacious main hall, completely isolated from the sound of the wind outside.
Xu Qinghuan sat upright in the seat of honor, no longer touching her pastel teacup, and couldn't be bothered to beat around the bush anymore.
She observed Su Mu standing below, ran the details of Sunset Valley through her mind, and cut straight to the chase.
"By the time it has passed down to your generation, you cannot even afford to buy coal, and your iron-smelting furnaces are gathering dust."
"Sunset Valley was established by the Great Qian's founding emperor during his early rebellion, specifically to gather civilian craftsmen."
"When conquering the world, your contributions were immense. The founding emperor gave you face, granting official ranks and issuing salaries, ensuring you could peacefully study the myriad arts of craftsmanship."
Su Mu did not speak up to interrupt. Putting away his earlier playful and grinning demeanor, his whole person turned solemn.
Hearing these dusty past events spoken by an outsider made his breathing tight.
He studied Xu Qinghuan in the seat of honor, trying to find some trace of probing, but all he saw was absolute certainty.
"Once the world settled into peace, your usefulness was greatly diminished."
"Thereafter, it was only during a few battles against the Helian that Sunset Valley showed its brilliance, creating a few pieces of military equipment that turned the tide of war, before fading into obscurity once more."
Xu Qinghuan finished her piece, handing the floor back to Su Mu.
Su Mu paused for a long while before replying, "What you say is true. Even the First Prince might not know the full picture of these secrets today."
His tone carried genuine confusion.
"Where did Lord Xu learn of this? The records of Sunset Valley were destroyed in a great fire decades ago, and even the elders in the valley cannot recount the past in full."
"For you to have grasped the details of my Sunset Valley so thoroughly, this commoner is truly in awe."
Xu Qinghuan did not bother explaining the reasons behind this, but simply steered the conversation back. "As for why Sunset Valley has fallen to such a state today..."
Su Mu picked up the thread, his tone laced with undisguised bitterness. "Poverty."
When he spat out this word, there was no trace of jest.
"From the time they began ruling the world, royal funding was cut off. The imperial court no longer needed craftsmen to fight for the rivers and mountains. Year by year, Sunset Valley retreated from the high courts to the wilderness."
"The older generation of craftsmen passed away one after another, and the younger generation cannot even eat their fill. Who still has the mind to study time-consuming and labor-intensive blueprints and mechanisms?"
"Does My Lord know that there was once an elder in the valley skilled in forging fine steel, who exhausted his family's wealth to forge a weapon capable of snapping a Helian scimitar?"
"But in the end, because he couldn't afford top-quality smokeless coal, he had to make do with inferior charcoal. The furnace temperature wasn't high enough, and a furnace full of good iron was reduced to useless slag."
"That elder suffered an anxiety-induced heart attack. Unable to even scrape together money for medicine, he suffered until he died."
"There was also a brother well-versed in mechanisms who drew up blueprints for a heavy crossbow that could fire ten arrows in succession. But we couldn't even afford refined iron, so we could only whittle the parts out of wood. The moment the bowstring was pulled, it fell apart."
"Tell me, My Lord, what use are these paper theories, other than to make people envious?"
Xu Qinghuan nodded, following his words with a question. "So today, all of Sunset Valley's skills are stuck on paper?"
Su Mu replied with a sound of agreement, "Yes."
He paused for a moment, then added another sentence, unable to hide his frustration.
"Paper theories can neither save lives nor be exchanged for money."
"The brothers in the valley follow me, yet we can't even scrape together enough padded clothes for the winter."
"I am truly a useless Valley Master. I brazenly sought you out this time, My Lord, solely to find a way for Sunset Valley to survive."
Xu Qinghuan listened quietly to his grievances, but threw out a completely different perspective.
"Su Mu, you have confused the Way with the Means."
Xu Qinghuan looked straight at him. "Lacking coal, lacking refined iron, lacking silver—these are all the Means. They are resources that can be acquired through strategy and action."
"But the blueprints in your minds, the deductions of mechanisms, pharmacology, and forging—that is the Way."
"The Means can be bought, but the Way is hard to seek."
Su Mu was slightly stunned, not expecting Xu Qinghuan to deconstruct Sunset Valley's dilemma in such a way. He blurted out:
"But without the Means, the Way is just a castle in the air."
"Which is why you came to Zhenbei City today and stand before me," Xu Qinghuan picked up the thread, firmly controlling the conversation.
"You came seeking money, seeking resources, seeking a way to survive. I can give you all of that."
"But the prerequisite is that you must clearly weigh the value of the chips in your hands."
"If even you view your blueprints as waste paper, on what grounds should I exchange them for real gold and silver?"
Su Mu was left speechless, standing rooted to the spot, repeatedly chewing over the concepts of the Way and the Means in his mind.
He had been taught to study craftsmanship since childhood, yet no one had ever told him that craftsmanship itself possessed immeasurable value, even without physical objects to support it.
Xu Qinghuan allowed him to ponder, not interrupting.
To subdue such a fanatic of technology, simply giving money was far from enough. She had to conquer him cognitively, making him see a far more long-term scheme.
"The foundation of Sunset Valley is a hot potato to you, but to others, it is a highly coveted capital."
"You guard a mountain of treasure without realizing it, caring only for immediate food and warmth, yet failing to see what kind of world the blueprints behind you can leverage."
Xu Qinghuan's expression softened, her words taking on a more guiding tone.
Su Mu observed her in silence, swallowed hard, and opened his mouth to ask, but didn't know where to start.
After a long time, he finally spoke up: "The future My Lord speaks of... how far away is it?"
Xu Qinghuan remained silent for a moment before replying, "Roughly... a few hundred years from now?"
She lowered her eyes and smiled faintly; the smile was as light as a sigh.
There was a strange certainty in that smile, as if she were standing alone at the end of time, looking back at the path she had come from.
