Everyone’s eyes were fixed on the red sandalwood tray.
At its exact center sat a strange, perfectly square object.
It was about the size of an adult’s fist.
Its entire body was assembled from an unknown kind of jade and finely crafted wooden mortise-and-tenon joints.
It had six sides—top, bottom, left, right, front, and back.
Each side was neatly divided into nine smaller squares.
Paint in six colors—red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, and blue—covered its surface.
At present, however, all the colors had been scrambled into a mottled mess, crisscrossing one another without the slightest pattern.
The civil and military officials of Dayuan craned their necks, utterly baffled.
What in the world was this thing?
A hidden weapon? It didn’t look like one.
A magical treasure? There wasn’t even the slightest fluctuation of true qi.
Seeing the bewildered expressions on everyone’s faces, the Head of the delegation looked even more disdainful.
He picked up the cube and twisted it twice in front of everyone.
Click, click.
“This is the national treasure of Zhongzhou, known as the Nine-Palace Heavenly Lock!”
The Head of the delegation spoke with undisguised arrogance.
“The Heavenly Lock contains the mysteries of heaven and earth and can transform in countless ways. They say it has tens of millions of possible configurations.”
“If you can restore all six sides to their original colors, the lock will be considered solved.”
A collective gasp echoed through the great hall.
Tens of millions of configurations?
If one made even a single wrong turn, wouldn’t it be impossible to solve for the rest of one’s life?
But the Head of the delegation’s showboating wasn’t over yet.
He clapped his hands again.
One of his attendants pulled a huge parchment scroll from his sleeve and unfurled it before everyone.
With a bang, the scroll was hung from a nearby coiled-dragon pillar.
It was densely covered in writing.
“Solving the Heavenly Lock alone is not enough. Zhongzhou is a nation of propriety, and we place the greatest importance on scholarship and reason.”
The Head of the delegation pointed at the parchment with his folding fan.
“This is an arithmetic puzzle that no one in Zhongzhou has solved in a hundred years.”
“It is called ‘The Pheasants and Rabbits in the Same Cage,’ from the Heavenly Derivation Calculations!”
“Suppose pheasants and rabbits are kept in the same cage. There are three thousand five hundred and sixty-eight heads and nine thousand four hundred and seventy-two legs in total.”
“Among them are also three-legged golden toads. The number of golden toads is half the number of rabbits.”
“How many pheasants, rabbits, and golden toads are there?”
The civil and military officials of Dayuan listened to the string of astronomical figures, and their minds exploded with a buzz.
Several thousand heads? Several thousand legs?
And there were three-legged toads mixed in as well?!
Who could possibly calculate all that?
Su Zhen sat upon the imperial throne, his expression darkening.
This was nothing but deliberate provocation!
A problem that had stumped the entire Zhongzhou Empire for a century—and they expected the people of Dayuan to solve it?
“What’s the matter? Does Dayuan not even have a single person brave enough to give it a try?”
The Head of the delegation deliberately raised his voice, his tone dripping with mockery.
“If you don’t even dare to try, you may as well admit defeat now and hand over your surrender document!”
“Arrogant!”
“Old man, I’ll take a crack at your lousy lock!”
The old scholars of the Hanlin Academy finally could not take it anymore.
Though they were too weak to even truss a chicken, they still possessed a scholar’s pride deep in their bones.
Who could tolerate being pointed at and insulted by an envoy from an enemy nation, being called illiterate?
Led by the Director of the Hanlin Academy, five or six old men charged out angrily.
They split into two groups.
One group surrounded the Nine-Palace Heavenly Lock, studying it with furrowed brows.
The other had a writing desk brought over and took out abacuses, paper, and brushes, frantically working through the arithmetic problem.
Click, click, click…
With trembling hands, one old scholar cautiously twisted the Heavenly Lock.
Not only did he fail to line up the colors, he also broke apart two red squares that had originally been connected.
“Oh no! That’s wrong, it should have been turned to the left!”
“No, no! I say it should be turned downward!”
The old men argued until their faces flushed red, sweat pouring from their foreheads.
But no matter how they twisted it, the colors on all six sides remained a chaotic mess.
The more they turned it, the more disordered and confused it became.
Some even tried to pry a piece out and switch its position, only to discover that the wood and jade were locked together so tightly that they could not budge them at all.
The Head of the delegation immediately let out a series of cold laughs from the side.
“Careful!”
“If you damage the national treasure of Zhongzhou, all of Dayuan combined couldn’t afford to pay for it!”
Meanwhile, the arithmetic battlefield was even more brutal.
The clatter of abacuses rang out without end, moving so quickly that sparks seemed ready to fly.
“Three thousand five hundred and sixty-eight heads… half of them are toads…”
“No, no, no! Rabbits have four legs, chickens have two, and toads have three…”
The old scholars muttered to themselves, their brushes trembling in their hands.
Draft papers were scattered all over the floor, and the beads on their abacuses were nearly worn smooth.
One old man calculated until his eyes went vacant. He even yanked out several strands of his own white beard.
Yet every answer he came up with either had half a chicken’s head too many or left a rabbit short one leg.
The military commanders of Dayuan flushed with suppressed fury.
They would rather go into battle and take a dozen slashes from the enemy than suffer this humiliating ordeal.
But this was a contest of scholarship. No matter how much brute strength they possessed, it was useless here. All they could do was stand by and glare helplessly.
Half an hour passed.
The great hall fell utterly silent, save for the old men’s heavy breathing and the clacking of abacuses.
The hearts of Dayuan’s officials and ruler sank deeper and deeper.
Pfft!
Suddenly, one of the old scholars responsible for the arithmetic could no longer withstand the immense strain of mental calculation.
His eyes rolled back, and he spat out a mouthful of blood onto the draft paper before collapsing stiffly to the floor.
“Lord Li! Lord Li!”
Chaos immediately broke out around him as the imperial physicians rushed forward to treat him.
The Director of the Hanlin Academy, who had been trying to solve the Heavenly Lock, also let the cube fall limply from his hands.
His white hair had been pulled into a nest of disarray.
His originally ruddy face was now as pale as paper, and he looked as though he had aged ten years in an instant.
“I am ashamed… This old subject is ashamed!”
The Director of the Hanlin Academy’s knees gave way, and he dropped to the floor, tears streaming down his face.
“Your Majesty, this lock is exquisitely ingenious, with endless variations. This old subject… cannot solve it!”
With the Director’s admission of defeat, the last shred of hope in Dayuan was extinguished.
An atmosphere of humiliation enveloped the entire Hall of Supreme Harmony.
The officials lowered their heads and clenched their fists, but there was nothing they could do.
Seeing this, the Head of the delegation threw back his head and let out a loud, arrogant laugh.
“Hahahaha! Dayuan truly is nothing but a land of barbarians!”
“Your entire court is filled with officials, yet not one of them can solve Zhongzhou’s most basic arithmetic and mechanical puzzle!”
“And you, a bunch of brutes who know nothing but brute force, think you are worthy of standing on equal terms with the Zhongzhou Empire?”
The Head of the delegation waved his folding fan, his eyes filled with utter contempt.
“Emperor of Dayuan, a wager is a wager.”
“You are simply not fated to possess the Frost-Ice Stone.”
“Now, issue the decree acknowledging your vassal status and paying tribute to Zhongzhou! This foreign envoy is in a hurry to return home and report.”
Arrogant!
Audacious!
He was practically jumping up and down on Dayuan’s face!
Su Zhen sat upon the imperial throne, his fingers gripping the pure-steel armrest so tightly that his knuckles turned white.
His face was dark enough to drip water, and killing intent gradually rose in his eyes.
The dignity of Dayuan absolutely could not be lost under his watch!
Even if it meant fighting Zhongzhou to the bitter end today, he would never acknowledge its suzerainty!
Su Zhen rose to his feet and reached for the Longquan Sword at his waist.
Just as the situation reached the point of drawn blades, with Dayuan on the verge of losing all face—
Su Yaoyao was sitting on the little gold seat studded with jewels beside the imperial throne, resting her chin in her hand with a bored expression.
She had actually finished eating her osmanthus cakes long ago.
She had spent the entire time daydreaming about the Gatling gun.
All the while, she had kept her big eyes wide open, watching the Zhongzhou delegation put on its arrogant little performance with great interest.
She had thought that this arrogant Head of the delegation must have some world-shattering divine artifact up his sleeve.
But when she saw what was under the red cloth, she froze.
She blinked hard, unable to believe her eyes.
Then, deep inside, she let out a thunderous, merciless laugh.
【Pfft—hahahahaha! I’m dying!】
【So after all that, I thought it was some kind of high-tech gadget!】
【It’s just a scrambled three-by-three Rubik’s Cube, isn’t it?!】
Her crisp inner voice exploded in Su Zhen’s mind.
Su Zhen, who had been about to draw his sword and start hacking people apart, gave a violent start.
A… a Rubik’s Cube?
Su Yaoyao’s inner monologue continued without pause, dripping with speechless contempt.
【And they claim it has tens of thousands upon tens of thousands of possible configurations? Who are they trying to scare?】
【This thing deserves to be called the Nine-Palace Heavenly Mechanism Lock?】
【Make the cross, solve the corners, finish the first two layers, then use one formula for the top layer. Isn’t that all there is to it?】
【Forget a three-by-three cube—even a seventeen-by-seventeen cube wouldn’t take this Crown Princess more than the time it takes to burn a single incense stick. I could solve it beautifully.】
【When I was three, back in the interstellar orphanage, I could solve one blindfolded.】
【Kids in interstellar kindergartens don’t even play this mentally deficient game anymore!】
Su Yaoyao rolled her eyes dramatically before turning her attention to the arithmetic problem.
【And what’s this “unsolved mathematical problem of a hundred years”?】
【Isn’t it just the most basic system of two linear equations with two unknowns?】
【Oh, wait. They added a three-legged toad, so I suppose it’s a system of three linear equations with three unknowns.】
【Set the unknowns as X, Y, and Z, substitute the given conditions, and do the arithmetic in your head. It’ll be solved in two minutes, all right!】
【That’s it? This is what they’re calling an age-old impossible problem?】
【Did the Zhongzhou delegation come here just to entertain us?】
【They brought out a toy that even three-year-olds have outgrown to act like big shots, and they still expect my father to acknowledge their supremacy and pay tribute?】
【Has this old bastard’s brain been slammed in a door?】
After hearing her rapid-fire stream of thoughts, Su Zhen’s face, which had been as gloomy as still water, went completely rigid.
Then, it was as if the clouds had parted and the sun had broken through.
The gloom vanished.
An uncontrollable delight surfaced on his face.
The national treasures that had driven the officials of Dayuan to the brink of despair were, in his daughter’s eyes, nothing more than a mentally deficient toy that even a three-year-old wouldn’t play with?!
This thigh was absolutely worth clinging to!
Recognizing this daughter was the best decision he had ever made!
Down below, the Head of the delegation was still going all out, mocking the incompetence of the Emperor and his ministers of Dayuan.
“Emperor of Dayuan, what are you still hesitating over? Could it be that the people of Dayuan don’t even have the courage to admit defeat?”
Hearing the Head of the delegation’s taunts, Su Zhen was not angry in the slightest.
Instead, his heart settled. The old bastard with the goatee now looked to him like nothing more than a clown putting on a ridiculous show.
With his mood transformed from gloomy to bright, he could barely suppress the smug sneer spreading across his face.
“Bang!”
The Tyrant Dad slammed one hand against the armrest of the solid-steel dragon throne, producing a deafening boom.
The blow startled the laughing Head of the delegation into a violent shudder.
Everyone in the great hall looked at the emperor in terror, assuming the tyrant was about to unleash a bloody massacre.
Su Zhen sat up straight, broad and imposing, and looked down arrogantly at the Head of the delegation.
He gave a cold snort and rudely cut off the man’s laughter.
“Stop laughing! This mentally deficient toy is something even my precious daughter can solve with her eyes closed!”
