Lin Ru asked curiously, "What did your clan elders say about him?"
Wu Juan replied helplessly, "What else could it be? It just means he's like a weapon without any feelings!"
"He suffered a qi deviation during his practice and was imprisoned in the back mountain for a long time. If it weren't for you, he wouldn't be out now."
She quickly covered her mouth after saying that, only then realizing what she had just blurted out!
Lin Ru was a little surprised, but seeing Wu Juan's expression, she figured she wouldn't get any more information, so she didn't press further. "What kind of food is on the table outside? It smells so good!"
Seeing that Lin Ru didn't press the matter further, Wu Juan breathed a sigh of relief. If she continued to ask, as her subordinate, she couldn't disobey her orders, but if Wu Ling found out, she was afraid she would be beaten up!
She then changed the subject, saying, "This is the meal that Quan Jinyu arranged for you. It smells so good, my mouth is watering!"
"He heard you were sick and was worried you wouldn't be able to eat, so he used a super expensive ingredient in this! It's really good with rice! You should try it!"
Lin Ru walked curiously from the bed to the table, picked up the chopsticks on the table, chose a piece of fish, put it in her mouth. The fish was very firm and seemed to have a spicy and numbing taste!
She picked up another piece, put the chicken next to it into her mouth, and finally confirmed that the taste was indeed Sichuan peppercorns!
She picked up another dish and surprisingly, she could faintly taste the pepper!
She suddenly remembered an old saying: "An ounce of pepper is worth an ounce of gold!"
In the era she now lives in, let alone pepper, even Sichuan peppercorns, chili peppers, and other similar spices are extremely precious. Not only are they precious, but some are so rare that it seems like no one has ever even heard of them!
But these things are very common in Taobao's trading square. These seasonings are relatively cheap. After all, in this era of universal cultivation, everyone is thinking about how to increase their lifespan and cultivate to become an immortal!
Therefore, only a very small number of regions, where people consider spicy food essential, use some!
If she could buy these things from Taobao and resell them, she would definitely make a lot of money!
Moreover, if these things are planted in Mianzhou, Luzhou, and Changzhou, not only will it increase the income of the people, but she will also become a little rich woman!
Most importantly, if these things were planted in ancient times, perhaps hot pot, spicy hot pot, and skewers would not be a dream!
She couldn't stop being happy just thinking about it!
Just as she was feeling happy, someone suddenly rushed in from outside!
This person was none other than Hongniang! She curtsied and said very cautiously, "Your Majesty! Are you eating? I haven't disturbed you, have I?"
Lin Ru smiled and shook her head, "Matchmaker, you're being too polite. Just say what you want to say."
Hongniang hadn't noticed any changes before, but ever since Lin Ru ordered the killing of Ji Wenxuan and the others, she realized that the person in front of her was no longer that little girl who had fled, but an empress who controlled the troops of three states!
So now I'm much more reserved when I speak!
"Your Majesty is too kind. I have indeed come here to report something! We have run out of the iron and bronze we purchased earlier. If we want to continue mass-producing armor and weapons, we will need to purchase more iron and bronze!"
"But the prefect's government has already run out of money!"
"That's why I wanted to come and discuss a solution with you!"
Lin Ru then remembered that when her maternal grandfather and the others were sent to mine for gold, they hadn't even inquired about the progress after they returned!
She first took out the silver notes she had obtained from killing Yue from her spatial storage and handed them to Hong Niang!
"Take this money and use it first!"
"If you don't have enough, come back and get more."
The matchmaker looked at the large sum of silver notes in her hand and was momentarily at a loss. "Your Majesty! You're giving me so much money? Aren't you afraid I'll just take the money and not do anything?"
"Besides, I feel a little uneasy taking so much money from you."
Lin Ru laughed heartily, "Matchmaker! I can trust you even if I can't trust anyone else! Otherwise, I wouldn't have entrusted you with the task of manufacturing weapons! This is our secret weapon for winning on the battlefield! This stuff is worth much more than these silver notes!"
"Just take it without worry!"
The matchmaker immediately looked extremely grateful and repeatedly assured that she would do her job well and make sure to manufacture more weapons so that every soldier below could wear specially made armor!
Lin Ru nodded with satisfaction, then sent the person away and called her uncle over!
Bai Jian naturally knew why Lin Ru wanted to see him, and once he arrived, he quickly explained the whole story.
"That's how it happened. Although there were many twists and turns, gold nuggets were indeed dug out from that mountain, but there was only one gold nugget on the top of the entire mountain! Later, several more stones containing gold were dug out!"
"It's quite large! But there are a lot of impurities inside!"
"We dug there for a long time, mobilized many people from the surrounding area, and even hired many professionals, but we still couldn't dig any further!"
"Later, I heard from the villagers nearby that this place was indeed a gold mine before, but it had been hollowed out by the previous dynasty. Otherwise, when the earth dragon turned over, the mountain wouldn't have collapsed like that!"
"We're extremely lucky to have unearthed even these few large pieces!"
Lin Ru felt a headache coming on when she heard this. No wonder her cousins hadn't come to her to show off or take credit since she came back. It turned out they felt they had messed things up!
Helpless, she could only comfort her, "It's okay, we still managed to dig one up, didn't we?"
"So this trip wasn't a complete waste!"
"Let me see how big that gold nugget is."
Bai Jian smiled somewhat embarrassedly, then took out a box from behind him!
The box was about the size of an adult's forearm. Once the box was opened, a piece of gold lay quietly inside!
Lin Ru's heart sank!
"What? You said it was pretty big? How come there's only this much!"
Bai Jian felt even more embarrassed after hearing this!
"It was indeed quite large, weighing over 100 kilograms! However, it had a lot of impurities inside! We hired a specialized smelting master to help remove the impurities!"
“We watched the whole thing from the sidelines.”
"They broke these gold-containing stones into small pieces, then ground them into fine powder, and finally rinsed them with water. They went through many steps before smelting them with fire!"
"Although I don't understand it, I can guarantee it! They definitely didn't do anything shady!"
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