The fifteenth day of the eighth month—the Mid-Autumn Festival.
Inside Taiji Hall of the Dayuan Empire, the lamps burned brightly, while the sounds of silk strings and reed instruments rang out without end.
Tonight’s banquet had been arranged on an exceptionally grand scale.
The civil and military officials were seated in two orderly rows according to rank. Before each of them stood a dining table piled high with delicacies from land and sea.
Everyone raised their cups to one another, their faces wreathed in smiles.
But how many schemes hidden beneath those smiles could ever see the light of day? Only the people themselves knew.
On the raised platform at the very front of the hall, Su Zhen sat upright upon a brand-new dragon throne.
The throne was somewhat oversized and heavily built. Beneath the dazzling candlelight, its surface gleamed with a cold metallic sheen.
That was right—it was the explosion-proof dragon throne Su Zhen had ordered to be welded from pure steel overnight, all to complement tonight’s grand performance.
And seated beside him, upon a small golden throne encrusted with enormous diamonds, was the Crown Princess recently recovered by the Dayuan Empire: Su Yaoyao.
To outsiders, she looked nothing more than a tiny, delicately carved doll.
She wore the Crown Princess’s magnificent and elaborate formal robes, while a heavy golden crown rested atop her small head.
At that moment, the adorable little girl was hugging a freshly baked osmanthus cake from the imperial kitchens and gnawing away at it without a shred of decorum.
Her cheeks were puffed out as she ate, making her look like a tiny hamster guarding its food.
As Su Yaoyao munched contentedly on her pastry, she made calculations of her own in her mind.
[All the refined iron tubes have been polished, and the black powder has been loaded.]
[Brother Crown Prince’s hand-cranked mechanism has been tested too. The rotation speed is perfect.]
[It’s just that the gun barrel forged using the Cold Palace’s crude steelmaking method has terrible heat resistance.]
[If the firing continues for more than a minute, the Gatling gun’s barrels are bound to explode.]
[I need to find some material that can withstand high temperatures and cool down rapidly. Otherwise, how are we supposed to put on tonight’s show?]
Listening to his precious daughter’s thoughts, Su Zhen’s hand paused slightly around his wine cup.
The Gatling gun had been assembled day and night in the Cold Palace over the past few days, and he had already seen it in secret.
Just looking at its rough, brutally powerful shape was enough to make his blood race.
If the precious iron contraption exploded because of overheating, tonight’s grand performance would lose all its excitement.
But where in the Dayuan Empire could they find a material with such outstanding heat resistance?
Just then, a sharp, high-pitched announcement suddenly rang out from beyond the hall:
“Envoys from the Zhongzhou Empire, enter!”
The clamorous Taiji Hall fell silent in an instant, like a duck suddenly seized by the throat.
The melodious music stopped abruptly.
The civil and military officials of Dayuan all set down their bronze wine cups, their expressions turning solemn and wary.
The Zhongzhou Empire—the undisputed hegemon of the continent.
They claimed to be the rightful rulers of all under heaven, with unfathomable foundations and reserves of power.
In the eyes of these Zhongzhou people, the Dayuan Empire was nothing more than a pack of crude barbarians who knew only how to wield blades and weapons and understood nothing of civilization.
Following the prolonged announcement, a group of people entered the hall.
They wore broad, luxurious robes of elaborate design and swaggered straight into the center of Taiji Hall.
At their head was the leader of the delegation sent by the Zhongzhou Empire.
He appeared to be around forty years old, with two pointed tufts of goatee beneath his chin. In his hand, he held a jade-boned folding fan, affecting an air of refined elegance.
The way he walked was arrogant to the extreme.
His chin was raised high, his nostrils turned toward the heavens.
His contemptuous gaze swept over the officials of Dayuan as though he were looking at mud beneath his feet.
“Your servant greets His Majesty, the Emperor of Dayuan.”
The envoy stopped in the middle of the hall and gave a perfunctory cupping of his hands.
He did not even bother to bend at the waist. His attitude was outrageously arrogant.
How insolent!
The military commanders of Dayuan glared at him furiously, feeling a surge of heat rush straight to their heads.
Seated upon the pure-steel dragon throne, Su Zhen’s face darkened like gathering storm clouds. Murderous intent churned in his eyes.
But he held himself back.
He did not draw his sword and cut the man down.
The situation tonight was simply too complicated. The powerful grand general was still watching from the shadows, ready to make his move at any moment.
If he clashed with these arrogant members of the Zhongzhou Empire now, he could easily find himself attacked from both sides.
The envoy paid no attention whatsoever to the wrath of the Tyrant of Dayuan.
He looked around the hall, then suddenly let out a piercing, mocking laugh.
“Emperor of Dayuan, the arrangements for your Mid-Autumn banquet are truly… unique.”
He pointed with his folding fan at the musicians who had just withdrawn.
“The music is as loud as thunder, with no variation or rhythm to speak of. It is unbearably noisy. How could it possibly compare to the music of the immortals?”
Then he pointed toward the roast whole lamb and strong liquor on the tables of the Dayuan military commanders.
“And the food—raw flesh and blood, reeking of the rankness of meat. It is crude and utterly unrefined.”
“Not that I wish to embarrass the Emperor of Dayuan, but even the watchdogs of my Zhongzhou Empire eat more delicately than this.”
The moment those words were spoken, the entire Taiji Hall fell into a deathly silence.
The civil officials of Dayuan trembled with rage, their beards practically standing on end.
The military commanders ground their teeth until they clicked, their hands resting on the hilts of their swords.
Too arrogant!
This was no ordinary provocation!
This was trampling the dignity of the Dayuan Empire beneath his feet!
And yet, among all the officials present, not a single one dared to stand up and retort.
The formidable strength of the Zhongzhou Empire was there for all to see. They had every reason to be arrogant.
Their immense army of a million armored soldiers was enough to leave every nation under heaven gasping for breath.
Su Yaoyao stopped gnawing on her osmanthus cake.
She rolled her eyes dramatically and looked at the envoy below as though he were an idiot.
[Who’s this old geezer? Did he leave his medicine at home?]
[He comes to someone else’s territory and acts like he owns the place. Does he really think his face is big enough to block the rain?]
[Is the Zhongzhou Empire really that impressive? In an age when firepower is so underdeveloped, what are they acting so smug about?]
[Maybe I should give him a laxative later and let him crap himself right here in front of everyone.]
Hearing his daughter’s vicious inner commentary, Su Zhen nearly failed to suppress a laugh.
The humiliation and murderous fury that had filled his heart were instantly swept away by her few remarks.
Su Zhen lifted his golden cup to conceal the corners of his mouth, which were threatening to curl upward, and spoke coldly:
“If the envoy finds the food here unsuitable after traveling all this way, you are welcome to return to Zhongzhou and eat there right now.”
The envoy’s expression stiffened. He had apparently not expected the legendary Tyrant of Dayuan to speak with such merciless bluntness.
But he quickly recovered his obnoxiously superior expression.
“The Emperor of Dayuan jests. Your servant was merely speaking the truth.”
“I have not come today merely for food and drink. I also bear an imperial edict from His Majesty of Zhongzhou.”
With a snap, the envoy closed his folding fan, his voice rising sharply.
“My Zhongzhou Empire is the rightful ruler of all under heaven. We civilize the multitudes and win people over through reason.”
“I have heard that martial culture has recently flourished in the Dayuan Empire, and that you casually confiscate property and exterminate entire clans.”
“But I wonder whether your wisdom and literary accomplishments have kept pace with your military prowess.”
As he spoke, he turned around and arrogantly clapped his hands at the attendants behind him.
Two attendants immediately carried forward a purple sandalwood tray covered with a red cloth.
Beside the tray sat a palm-sized jade box, pure white from top to bottom.
The envoy pointed at the jade box, his eyes filled with undisguised pride.
“Emperor of Dayuan, behold.”
One of the attendants stepped forward and carefully lifted the lid of the jade box.
In an instant, thick white frost poured visibly from within, surging outward like a wave of freezing mist.
The temperature within several yards of the box dropped by several degrees.
The officials seated in the front rows could not help shivering in unison.
Inside the box lay a strange stone, no larger than a fist, its entire surface glowing an eerie blue.
Mysterious ripples of light shimmered across its surface, and bone-chilling cold radiated from it.
Su Zhen’s pupils contracted. He leaned forward before he could stop himself.
“Black Ice Stone?”
The officials of Dayuan also sucked in sharp breaths one after another. The grand hall erupted in waves of incredulous exclamations.
This was the legendary supreme material for military engineering!
Black Ice Stone came from the bitterly cold lands of the extreme north. It was unbelievably hard and carried with it a bone-piercing chill that would never melt, even after ten thousand years.
If used to forge divine weapons, it could slice through metal as easily as mud. It would also allow weapons to withstand incredibly high temperatures without ever being damaged.
Dayuan had dreamed of obtaining a piece of Black Ice Stone to upgrade the weapons and armor of its top experts.
Yet because the material was so incredibly rare, their efforts had always ended in failure.
Who could have imagined that the Zhongzhou delegation would simply produce one so openly?
Su Yaoyao, sitting on her little golden throne, instantly lit up like a two-hundred-watt lightbulb.
She abruptly sat up straight, not even bothering to brush the pastry crumbs off her clothes.
[Black Ice Stone?! Oh my heavens!]
[This is an incredibly powerful heat-conducting and cooling material that didn’t even disappear during the interstellar era!]
[If I grind this thing up and add it to the coating of my Gatling gun barrel...]
[Forget firing continuously for one minute. Even if I held down the trigger and kept shooting for three days and three nights, the barrel wouldn’t give off so much as a wisp of smoke!]
Su Yaoyao stared fixedly at the Black Ice Stone, so greedy for it that she was practically drooling.
[Talk about getting a pillow delivered just when I’m sleepy. I was worried about where to find material to cool things down, and now this Zhongzhou geezer has delivered it right to my door! Tsk, one after another, they’re all such kind people!]
Hearing Su Yaoyao’s crisp inner voice, Su Zhen’s eyes began to glow green as well.
So this worthless-looking rock could cure his daughter’s Gatling gun of its overheating problem?
Excellent!
Even if he had to snatch it by force, this piece of Black Ice Stone absolutely had to remain in the Taiji Hall today!
The head of the delegation took in the shocked and covetous looks of the Dayuan ruler and his officials, and his sense of triumph grew stronger.
As expected, they were a bunch of bumpkins who had never seen the world.
One stone was enough to make them drool like this.
“The Emperor of Dayuan has an excellent eye. That’s right—it is Black Ice Stone.”
The head of the delegation stroked his goatee, his tone arrogant to the extreme.
“Such a peerless treasure is being presented by His Majesty of Zhongzhou as a wager, out of consideration for the friendly relations between our two nations.”
“Today, Zhongzhou will have a fair contest with Dayuan—a competition in mechanisms and mathematics!”
The grand hall instantly erupted in an uproar, with voices rising all around.
A contest in mechanisms and mathematics?
That was practically a deliberate stab straight into Dayuan’s most vulnerable spot!
Everyone under heaven knew that Dayuan revered martial strength. Brutes who could barely recognize a handful of characters were everywhere.
But when it came to anything requiring ingenuity and a solid foundation in mathematics, Dayuan ranked dead last.
The Zhongzhou Empire was clearly using its own strengths to humiliate Dayuan before the entire world!
Several elderly scholars from the Hanlin Academy were sweating profusely, nearly tearing out their beards in desperation.
If they lost, it would be the entire nation of Dayuan that lost face!
Yet faced with the enormous temptation of the Black Ice Stone, how could Su Zhen possibly retreat?
“Oh? How does the head of the delegation intend to conduct this contest?”
Su Zhen leaned back in his chair and asked with a cold laugh.
The head of the delegation snorted and placed one hand on the tray covered by a red cloth.
His gaze turned extraordinarily sharp.
“The rules are simple. One round decides the winner.”
“If someone from Dayuan can solve what lies beneath this red cloth...”
“I will personally present the Black Ice Stone with both hands. I will have no objections whatsoever!”
At this point, the head of the delegation paused, a venomous glint flashing through his eyes.
“But if no one among Dayuan’s entire court can prevail...”
The head of the delegation raised his chin and stared directly at Su Zhen, seated upon the imperial throne.
He issued his final ultimatum with brazen arrogance:
“Then the Emperor of Dayuan must acknowledge Zhongzhou as his suzerain, pay tribute, and come to court every year!”
The moment those words were spoken, the entire court was thrown into shock!
“How dare you!”
“You insolent bastard! This is going too far!”
The military officials could no longer restrain themselves. They drew their sabers halfway from their scabbards, glaring furiously.
This was nothing less than an outright threat and declaration of war!
Yet the head of the delegation remained utterly unafraid. A mocking smile curled across his lips.
He wanted to see how this bunch of Dayuan brutes—who only knew how to wave blades yet still coveted fine treasures—could possibly solve an ancient puzzle that had baffled the ages.
Then, under the gaze of everyone present, he lifted the red cloth from the tray.
“Emperor of Dayuan, look closely!”
The red cloth drifted to the floor.
Revealed beneath it was the national treasure hailed as the greatest puzzle of all time.
