"Hmm, preliminary setup. Hey, Liu Chaiji, move aside a bit, don't step on the calculation formulas I wrote." Zheng Quchi waved his hand.
Liu Chaiji looked down and saw rows of strange characters crowded together on the sandy ground. He was startled and quickly stepped back, but the next second he froze—the front, back, left, and right were all these strange symbols, and he had no idea what they represented.
"Where can I stand?" He scratched his head.
Zheng Quchi glanced at it and said, "Let's go where there's grass."
"Oh, okay." Liu Chaiji carefully moved his toes, his peripheral vision inadvertently catching sight of a drawing on the ground. At first glance, he couldn't tell what it was, but upon closer inspection, his gaze immediately fell on the piece of wood that Zheng Quchi was working on with mortise and tenon joints.
It still retains half of its original shape, allowing us to guess which part it was originally disassembled from. The other half was marked with a black pen, indicating that it needed to be processed and modified... She added another stroke to the wood, then tucked the black pen into her hair and began stepping on the wood to start sawing and cutting.
"I'm sorry, I... I accidentally stepped on and ruined your drawing. Do you have to redraw it?"
He hadn't noticed as he walked over that his foot was covered in smudges. At first, he thought they were just some random scribbles and were useless.
But just now, after he understood one of the before-and-after drawings of the renovation, he suddenly realized that it was not some kind of "scribbles" at all, but the painstaking work of the craftsmen.
Zheng Quchi didn't even look up: "No need, I remember everything I draw, I'm just too lazy to recall it, it's more convenient to just look at it and compare."
"You've memorized so many?!" Liu Chaiji exclaimed in surprise.
With a "thud," a piece of wood was sawed off and fell to the ground. Zheng Quchi turned his head to look at its clean cut and casually replied, "I do this kind of work. This is something I designed myself, so what's so strange about me remembering it?"
No, it's strange. Liu Chaiji isn't a three-year-old child. She spoke so casually and casually, yet he took it seriously. He's a young master of a noble family, and he's never lacked those with exceptional social skills. But none of them can do things as quietly and effectively as she does.
"This...this drawing is for modification, right? And what are these strange symbols, all these long strings that look so profound?"
He was like a frog that had just climbed out of a well, walking and asking questions filled with curiosity and trepidation. He felt inexplicably hot, and his palms were sweating involuntarily, as if a new world he had never imagined was about to open up before his eyes...
Zheng Quchi, the general's wife, seems to really have something going on.
No, I shouldn't put it so lightly. The feeling she gives him now is one of weight and depth, full of profound meaning. It's like there are two paths in front of him, one is an unknown choice, and the other has become her.
She was no longer a stepping stone for him, but a "distant place," a place where he clearly saw the distance between them and needed to run forward to reach it.
Zheng Quchi was unaware that Liu Chaiji had already constructed a subversive world in his mind, a world entirely based on his own understanding. While he was surging with excitement, preparing to pay homage to the master, she remained calm and composed.
"You don't study engineering machinery or soil mechanics, so you don't need to know any of these things. Anyway, once I've remodeled it, we'll give it a try."
Upon hearing that she included herself as a participant in trying out the new machine, Liu Chaiji immediately put aside her doubts and curiosity, her eyes lighting up as she asked, "How much longer do we have to wait? What is this device you're talking about, and where is it going to be placed?"
Although he didn't understand mechanics, he liked being a soldier, a general, and fighting, so he naturally liked all kinds of lethal weapons, just like modern boys like guns and cannons from a young age. This stems from the hunting genes carried by the survival methods of their ancestors flowing in the blood of men.
As I said before, Zheng Quchi viewed Liu Chaiji as if he were a naughty child. If you don't satisfy his curiosity, he will jump around and disturb her peace.
"Find the answer on the ground yourself, over there."
Following her gesture of raising her chin, Liu Chaiji saw a slingshot drawn on the ground, depicting a slingshot from the Southern Chen Kingdom… Goodness, she drew it so realistically! In such a rough environment, it was truly remarkable that someone like him, who was completely unfamiliar with literature, could recognize it as a slingshot from the Southern Chen Kingdom at a glance.
This also reflects that she paints very realistic images.
"Look to the side."
"Okay, sure."
Liu Chaiji quickly responded, then looked to the side. He frowned seriously, pursed his lips solemnly, and after a long while, his expression grew even more somber: "..."
Zheng Quchi rolled his eyes speechlessly: "If you don't understand, just ask."
Upon hearing this, Liu Chaiji immediately lost his composure. He pouted and said pitifully, "I'm afraid you'll call me stupid..."
Zheng Quchi sometimes did find him annoying, not because he was stupid, but because he was annoying.
Whenever he had free time, he would sneak over to her and ask her all sorts of questions, even volunteering to do the work of a scout. Later, she thought that since he was so free, he might as well stay and make the most of her time.
"What you see now is also a catapult, but it is a catapult from the Southern Chen Kingdom that has been dismantled. Only a carriage remains, and I have dismantled the wooden frame, cannon shaft, wooden rod, and leather bag on it."
He didn't understand what he saw, but he understood what he heard. Liu Chaiji used this analogy to ask, "So, the things you're modifying now are the ones that are mounted on the trolleys of the catapults in the Southern Chen Kingdom?"
"That's right, our catapult only has a platform, which can only be lifted and cannot be pushed at all, and it's primitive... Never mind, I won't talk about that. Anyway, I only made minor modifications to the original wooden frame and cannon shaft, mainly processing and replacing the wooden poles and leather bags. I carved stone projectiles into the wooden poles. Originally, if it was operated manually, loading was slow, one projectile per shot. But now, with my automatic loader, it can fire one projectile after another, five projectiles in a row at once."
My dear reader, there's more to this chapter! Please click the next page to continue reading—even more exciting content awaits!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
