"Linear algebra?" Zhao Ruizhi frowned, not even having time to get angry, but instead wondering what kind of divine skill this was, and why he had never heard of it before.

Not to mention him, even Mi Li, who had read through the Qin royal library back then, was completely baffled. What is linear algebra? Why don't I know it?

Only Bi Linglong seemed thoughtful, recalling the information she had gathered about Zu'an. He seemed to be an arithmetic teacher at Mingyue Academy? Moreover, she had previously visited the National Academy, and even those usually arrogant teachers from the back mountain were full of admiration for his extensive knowledge. It seemed that linear algebra was probably one of the skills he possessed.

Zu'an checked the inscription on the monument with Zhao Ruizhi again, muttering to himself, "Xuanyun facing Tianmen describes our previous arrival on the island..."

However, the following sentences involved ancient astrology, which Zu An was not very familiar with, but fortunately he had a living Baidu (Chinese search engine) by his side.

He hurriedly asked Mi Li, and only then did he roughly understand the secret in the inscription.

Tianmen belongs to the Horn constellation among the Twenty-Eight Mansions. Tianri naturally refers to the sun. Jinque in history generally refers to the palace where heaven and earth reside, while in ancient astronomy, Ziweiyuan corresponds to the dwelling place of heaven and earth.

Ancient astrology divided the sky into three enclosures and twenty-eight constellations. The three enclosures are three vast star regions in the sky above, each containing many constellations and stars, and are called the Purple Palace Enclosure, the Supreme Palace Enclosure, and the Heavenly Market Enclosure.

Then the constellations near the ecliptic were divided into twenty-eight regions, called the Twenty-Eight Mansions. These twenty-eight mansions are divided into groups of seven, and can also be divided into the four symbols of Azure Dragon, Vermilion Bird, White Tiger, and Black Tortoise according to the cardinal directions.

The Southern Star should refer to the Dipper, one of the seven northern constellations; the Jade Balance should refer to the Jade Balance Star of the Big Dipper. It is difficult to see the Southern Star orbiting the Big Dipper according to the usual astronomical phenomena, which is why the emperor was so desperate before. However, now this stone slab corresponds to the starry sky, and we only need to match the respective symbols, without actually guiding the stars.

The Huagai star is associated with the Ziwei Palace, and the Ziwei star is associated with the Emperor.

The phrase "雅音而入郑" refers to the elegant sounds of the Xia dynasty in ancient times. The Xia people were descendants of Xuanyuan, so it should refer to the star Xuanyuan in the constellations. "郑" refers to the star Zheng in the Tian Shi Yuan constellation.

With Mi Li's help, Zu An quickly deciphered the secret in the inscription; all that remained was to align the corresponding constellations.

Moving one pillar will cause several others to rotate as well. If it were simple, random guessing would be easy to solve by brute force. However, with such complex relationships as those on the inscription, random guessing is obviously useless.

However, although this ancient mechanism is mysterious, it should not be difficult for someone with a university education; it is simply an application problem of linear algebra.

He first arranged each pillar in order, rotated the first pillar once, and recorded the number of rotations of the other pillars. Assuming the second pillar did not rotate, it was recorded as 0, the third pillar rotated once, it was recorded as 1, the fourth pillar rotated twice, it was recorded as 2, and so on. Finally, it can be recorded as d1=[1,0,1,2……]T (Note: T is a superscript here, indicating transpose, which cannot be printed by the character encoding software).

Then, if the first pillar is rotated X1 times, the state of the pillar will become X1*d1;

Then, if the second pillar is rotated X2 times, the state of the pillar will become X2*d2;

Following this logic, the final state of the pillar is X1*d1+X2*d2+X3*d3+……=b.

b is a fixed constant because by determining which patterns correspond to each other based on the previous inscription information, we can determine the final state of each pillar and how many times it was rotated at the beginning.

This is equivalent to solving a non-homogeneous linear system of equations, which can yield X1, X2, X3, and so on. This corresponds to rotating the corresponding pillar a certain number of times to achieve the state described in the inscription.

Zhao Ruizhi watched as Zuan drew symbols on the ground that he had never seen before, as if he were reading gibberish.

He couldn't help but steal a glance at the others and found that Bi Linglong, He Li, and the others all had a bewildered expression on their faces, which instantly calmed his explosive temper.

After a while, He Li couldn't help but steal a glance at him and found Zhao Ruizhi nodding slightly as he watched Zu An draw those scribbles, seemingly engrossed in the reading. He couldn't help but admire him, thinking that the Emperor was indeed worthy of being called the Emperor, as he could even understand this.

After a while, Zuan finally stood up: "All done!"

He then went to the array of stone slabs, thinking about the answer he had just calculated, and turned the corresponding pillars a few times.

Sure enough, after turning them in that order, all the patterns were aligned!

Immediately afterwards, a series of booming sounds came from below, clearly indicating that the mechanism had started to operate.

Suddenly, the entire stone slab emitted a light, which then rapidly rose, and all the luminous pearls that had been placed in the pits lit up.

A beam of light traveled among the luminous pearls and finally struck a spot on the stone slab, which was clearly tilted at an angle.

After a while, nothing happened, and Zhao Ruizhi frowned: "What's going on?"

He wasn't in a hurry to confront him, because all the previous signs indicated that Zuan's solution was correct. Was something still missing?

He thought for a long time without any clue, so he looked directly at Zu'an. As the emperor, he certainly didn't need to do everything himself; he left the troublesome matters to his subordinates.

Zuan was also completely confused. Everything was going smoothly, so why hadn't anything happened?

Just then, Mi Li's voice suddenly rang out: "Do you remember the last sentence on the stone tablet we found?"

My dear reader, there's more to this chapter! Please click the next page to continue reading—even more exciting content awaits!