After the visit, Mr. Zhao and the group’s board of directors arranged a grand luncheon to entertain the guests in the grand banquet hall in the west courtyard.

After the two thousand guests were seated, the interns served them fragrant tea and hot cotton towels, and the waitresses began to serve the dishes.

As the guests were sipping tea, chatting casually and waiting for their dishes to be served, they suddenly saw gray-black curtains slowly descending from several oversized floor-to-ceiling windows on three sides of the hall.

The curtains blocked most of the sunlight, but did not affect people's vision, and could still vaguely reveal the scenery outside the window. The bamboo forest outside the window was swaying, with a moderate density and the sound of the wind passing by. Through the gently fluttering curtains, it inadvertently became a flowing and meaningful painting, which was unforgettable.

Melodious piano and flute sounds rang out one after another, and a beautiful song "Remembering Jiangnan" was played in the banquet hall.

Everyone thought there would be some singing and dancing performance, but they found that the snow-white wall on the north side of the banquet hall suddenly lit up.

Then a painting of Suzhou gardens painted in light ink appeared before everyone.

Amidst the low gasps, the guests discovered that a bright beam of light was projected onto the wall, creating that picture.

What was even more incredible was what happened next. Someone suddenly stood up and exclaimed, "It's moving!"

People opened their eyes wide and looked, and sure enough, they saw the geese in the picture flapping their wings and flying westward, just like they were alive!

"Oh my God!" Cries of panic rang out one after another. Some guests were so scared that they wanted to crawl under the table, while others tried to run away.

At this time, Hua Bozhen's voice, amplified by the spring loudspeaker, echoed in the hall, sounding even more magnetic.

"Please don't panic. This is the 'optical movie machine' invented by two of the young master's disciples. We have carefully produced this five-minute animation short film as an entertainment program for all the guests. Please feel free to enjoy this epoch-making magical light and shadow..."

The guests then gradually quieted down and when they bravely looked at the bright picture again, they saw that the flock of geese had already flown to Yuantouzhu in Wuxi.

The melodious music and the magnificent ink-and-wash animation silenced the knowledgeable guests, who were quickly immersed in this unprecedented visual impact.

They seemed to have become part of the flock of geese, spreading their wings and flying high, enjoying the beautiful scenery of the south of the Yangtze River.

They saw Maoshan Mountain in Changzhou, the Three Mountains in Zhenjiang, the Slender West Lake in Yangzhou, the Qinhuai scenery, and the glittering Da Baoen Temple Pagoda.

Then the geese flew south along the Yangtze River, taking them to visit Xie Gong Temple and Taibai Tomb in Dangtu, and Jinghu Xiliu and Golden Pagoda in Wuhu.

Then the geese turned eastward and flew over the Nanshan Bamboo Sea in Liyang, the Willow Bank in Spring Dawn in Yixing, the Hidden Dragon Waterfall in Huzhou, the Three Pools Mirroring the Moon in Hangzhou, and the Nanhu Misty Rain Tower in Jiaxing...

Finally, the wild geese flew to the vast Wusongkou, where they saw a fleet of countless sailboats setting sail!

The wild geese flew over the fleet and soared into the sky, and finally turned into two lines of poetry:

'But the Wu silk is so close, the thousand miles south of the Yangtze River is just like this! '

The scene froze, the music gradually stopped, but none of the guests spoke, or even moved, apparently still immersed in this unprecedented wonder and shock...

~~

At the place where the beam of light came from, Xu Yuanchun stopped shaking the handle of the animation disk, and then heaved a long sigh of relief, and lightly clapped hands with Xu Weizhi, who was in charge of lighting the lamp. Both of them had some light in their eyes, which were tears of joy.

They finally succeeded!

At this time, eighteen months have passed since the two otakus, oh no, the two great two-dimensional creators, decided to make animation.

For a year and a half, they worked day and night, spent a huge amount of money on it, and they didn't know how many failures they had and how many detours they took before they finally made this "optical movie player".

It is really not easy...

If they had known how difficult this thing was, they probably wouldn't even have the courage to become disciples.

In fact, before becoming an apprentice, Xu Yuanchun created the world's first animation book, the first three-dimensional "Zou Ma Pan", and the first "Zou Ma Pan" projector, relying solely on simple "Zou Ma Pan" experiments in a book called "A Brief Knowledge of Physics". He also successfully projected an animation of running horses on the wall.

At that time, he had mastered all the technical principles needed to manufacture optical movie cameras.

So after becoming disciples, the two were full of confidence and thought that they would be able to show cartoons to everyone in ten days or half a month at most.

The two poor kids didn’t know that the research process from discovering theory to practical application is often long and painful.

They fiddled with it for several months but still made no progress. But if they wanted to give up at this point, the sunk costs would be too high, and wouldn't several months have been wasted?

The two had to patiently start from the beginning and, under the guidance of their seniors, they finished "Elementary Mathematics" and "Elementary Physics". Then, they used the knowledge they had learned to overcome the difficulties bit by bit.

This time, the two designed a lamp-like movable mirror based on the "gui pan" and "zouma pan". It has a candle lamp on the top to provide lighting, and two rotatable concentric rollers on the bottom. The outer wall of the inner roller is surrounded by twelve small mirrors, and the inner wall of the outer roller is an animated pattern.

This makes the animation picture no longer dim, and through the reflection of the mirror, it can make the viewing angle clearer.

Later, based on the moving mirror, the two of them developed the "moving mirror movie", which was the device that Zhao Hao used to play cartoons for the little fat boy Zhu Yijun.

But that was just a transitional product. The two of them had already completely gotten into the state, so why would they stop improving?

Finally, they completed a key step towards an animated film last month. Based on the 'kinetoscope play', they added a slide device - the two removed the outer drum, placed a light source on the outside of the drum, let the light pass through the picture tape, illuminate the mirror on the inner cylinder, and then reflect to the projection device, projecting the pattern onto the wall.

This step sounds simple, but how to use optical principles to set up the projection device? And even how to get a bright enough and stable light source? All of these made them rack their brains.

Finally, they found that the light was brightest and the smell was the least when whale oil imported from overseas was injected into the glass lamp. Then, adding a lampshade lined with lenses to reflect light could significantly increase the brightness of the lamp and make the projected image clearer.

Although it still can't show the delicate fine brushwork, there is no problem with projecting freehand painting, and it unexpectedly has a bright and hazy texture...

"Well done." Zhao Hao patted their shoulders and praised them: "I look forward to the release of your next masterpiece."

"Yes, Master." Tears welled up in the eyes of the two men. They finally got the recognition of the master like their fellow brothers.

It was so damn hard. They thought they would be disliked by their master for the rest of their lives...

Little did they know that in Zhao Hao's eyes, they were the source of entertainment for the rest of his life, as well as the top publicity machine. Young Master Zhao was even going to set up an animation company for them, so how could he dislike them?

Everyone should be a useful person.

~~

Until the gray-black curtains slowly rose, letting the midday sun into the banquet hall, the guests couldn't help but squint their eyes, and then reluctantly walked out of the fantasy world.

Many people had tears on their faces, but they themselves couldn't tell whether they were moved by the painting of the Yangtze River Delta or shocked by the animation technology.

Maybe both.

At this time, Mr. Zhao appeared on the stage and gave a toast to everyone:

"Everyone, I'm sorry for showing off just now, but the hundreds of beautiful scenery in the south of the Yangtze River are genuine!"

"I'm not trying to embarrass myself. We've never seen such a wonderful movie in our lives!"

"That's right, it's a hundred times better than shadow puppetry!"

"It's so beautiful! Could you please have another performance?" the guests shouted.

"Haha, I'll invite everyone to watch the new film when there's a chance." Actually, it would be just as shocking if it was played again, but Mr. Zhao always kept people on suspense. Only by leaving them with regrets would they never forget it. If he satisfied them, they wouldn't be so impressed.

Moreover, the first animation screening had caused such a huge shock to the guests that if it happened again, they would be obsessed with it and would not care about what Mr. Zhao was saying.

"Alas..." The guests smiled regretfully, "We are just not satisfied."

"This movie has inspired us to visit all the places we just saw next spring." Sure enough, only after they had temporarily stopped thinking about it, did they turn their attention back to Zhao Hao's words.

"Yes, let's go together! Let's enjoy the beautiful scenery of Jiangnan." Everyone was inspired to travel again. If you have money, you can do whatever you want.

Zhao Hao raised his hand, and the hall gradually became quiet.

"This beautiful Jiangnan is our home. It is the reason why we established the Jiangnan Group. We want to build it, protect it, and make it better!"

"Good!" Everyone cheered loudly. "Young Master, you're right. How can we not love Jiangnan?"

"So how can we make our hometown a better place?" Zhao Hao changed the subject and said, "I think we should eliminate those ugly things."

"Yes." Everyone nodded.

"Then what is not beautiful?" Zhao Hao raised his voice and said, "I think the biggest thing that is not beautiful is 'poverty'. If there are too many poor people in our hometown, then no matter how beautiful the scenery is, it can't be considered good, and it will not become the country of courtesy and righteousness that you gentlemen pursue!"

In fact, the greatest unhappiness is injustice, but the audience of Mr. Zhao’s speech are obviously the ones who suffer injustice. Talking to them about eliminating injustice is like talking to a deaf person.

"..." Everyone was stunned and listened attentively to what he said.

“As the saying goes, ‘When the granaries are full, people will know etiquette; when they have enough food and clothing, they will know honor and disgrace’. Only when poverty is eradicated, the elderly have a place to live, the strong have a place to work, the young have a place to grow, the widows, the orphans, the disabled and the sick are all taken care of, and the people of Jiangnan ‘enjoy their food, wear beautiful clothes, live in a safe place and enjoy their customs’, will our hometown become a beautiful world. This is the ideal of Jiangnan Group!”

He raised his glass and said to everyone, "I believe that with your support, we can definitely do it! Cheers!"

"Cheers!" The guests stood up and raised their glasses.