Chapter 123
Chapter 123
Profit swayed the hearts of men. The price the Xu Clan had paid to buy three million catties of cocoons was far too great—three times the original cost. If they used these expensively bought cocoons to weave ordinary silk, they would lose money with every bolt they sold, no matter the quantity.
Golden-yellow silk was exclusively for royal use, so it was useless to them; no matter how high the price, it couldn't be sold on a large scale. However, purple silk was a favorite among the nobility, and rainbow-colored silk was adored by women. The rarer the item, the more valuable it became. The price of purple cloth was typically four times that of other colors. In ancient Egypt on Earth, purple silk had sold for ten times the price of ordinary silk.
Xu Qianqian priced the purple silk at four times the cost of ordinary silk, and the rainbow silk at seven times. If all the expensive cocoons were made into these two types of silk, they would not only avoid a loss but also make a huge profit.
"Chunhua, I know what you're worried about. You're afraid that bastard Shen Lang has pulled some dirty trick, aren't you? But our Xu Clan has run numerous rigorous tests. We've washed it in boiling water, scorched it with fire, and even soaked it in seawater. The color on the silk still didn't fade."
"I hear the King's decree will be issued soon. Then the dispute over the gold mountain will begin, and the death knell for the Count of Xuanwu's Estate will soon toll. His Excellency will need a great deal of money to be appointed as the military governor of Yan Province, so I must make a fortune in a short time."
Zhang Chunhua said no more to Xu Qianqian.
"I am waiting, moment by moment, for that day. The moment the Count of Xuanwu's Estate falls and Shen Lang has nowhere to be buried."
Zhang Chunhua started to speak, then stopped herself.
Two days later, it was time for Xu Qianqian to deliver the goods as promised to the merchants.
* * *
After crossing mountains and rivers, traveling several hundred li, Shen Lang and Mulan arrived at the Ends of the Earth Sea Pavilion. The Ends of the Earth Sea Pavilion was the largest library of martial arts manuals in the southern part of the Great Yan Dynasty, a true temple of martial studies. The library stood like a colossal fortress at the southernmost tip of the continent. The sea waves crashed directly against the corners of its walls. What a vast place it was!
This place was no less impressive than any major library on Earth. Every person who came to practice martial arts made a pilgrimage here. Standing before its massive gates, anyone would feel their own insignificance.
There were no guards at the entrance of the fortress gate, but a powerful aura enveloped the entire Ends of the Earth Sea Pavilion, causing those who stood before it to feel humbled and act with caution. The gate was closed. Shen Lang and Mulan went forward, bowed, and spoke.
"Great Master, we wish to enter the Ends of the Earth Sea Pavilion to peruse the collection of manuals."
After a moment, the great gate opened, and an elderly man walked out from within.
"Have you two received an invitation from this pavilion?"
Mulan shook her head.
"No."
The elderly man said, "I apologize. Without an invitation, the Ends of the Earth Sea Pavilion cannot receive guests."
So the Ends of the Earth Sea Pavilion was a members-only establishment that only admitted invited guests? Wasn't this just like some high-society club on Earth? In his past life, Shen Lang, though his face was ruined, had been an extraordinary doctor who had saved quite a few politicians and dignitaries. He recalled a debauched tycoon who, upon hearing that Shen Lang had not slept with a woman by the age of forty, was so moved that he sent him a platinum membership card.
"Dr. Shen. There are young ladies there, but there are also young men."
Worried that the man, well over fifty and still living a promiscuous life, would have numerous illegitimate children scattered about, Shen Lang had been touched by his thoughtful gesture. But he also remembered performing a vasectomy on the man while he was in for surgery.
In any case, having recalled that memory from his past life, Shen Lang turned to his wife, Jin Mulan, and spoke.
"My lady, with your martial arts being so profound and your status so noble, you must surely be a member of the Ends of the Earth Sea Pavilion."
Mulan might not know other words, but she knew the word "member."
"My lord, you overestimate me."
The Ends of the Earth Sea Pavilion was an incredibly grand place, yet it was also transcendent and noble. It was similar to the Citadel library from *Game of Thrones* and seemed even more impressive than the Langya Pavilion from *Nirvana in Fire*. To become a member here? One had to be a grandmaster in various academic fields, like Mulan's master, Zhong Chuke. Thus, most people were not qualified to be members in the first place.
Shen Lang turned to the old man before him and said, "Great Master, excuse me, but do you have the authority to invite guests?"
"Of course!" the old man nodded. He was one of the professors at the Ends of the Earth Sea Pavilion, so naturally, he had the authority to invite guests. Shen Lang declared loudly, "Excellent. Then please invite me now."
The master looked at Mulan and asked, "Young lady, is this man your husband?"
Mulan blushed and nodded. This husband of hers sometimes brought honor to the Count's estate, but most of the time, he brought shame. The master said, "It must not have been easy for you to live this long without even the strength to wring a chicken's neck."
'Every guest who visits our Ends of the Earth Sea Pavilion is endlessly polite, barely daring to breathe loudly, as if on a holy pilgrimage. Yet a powerless fellow like you acts as frivolously as if you were entering a brothel.'
Shen Lang asked him, "Great Master, I've heard that to become a member of the Ends of the Earth Sea Pavilion, one must be a grandmaster of a generation?"
"Not a member, a guest."
"I've also heard that the Ends of the Earth Sea Pavilion accepts any academic challenge. If one can solve just one of the ultimate problems posed here, regardless of the field of study, one can become a guest 'admitted to the pavilion,' is that right?"
'A guest admitted to the pavilion? You scoundrel, that term is even worse than member.'
The term "admitted to the pavilion" here was used in the same way as when Li Wenzheng competed in poetry against several others to become a guest in Ha Wanwan's chambers—it was an expression for entering the pavilion of a famed courtesan.
The master, despite his years of cultivation, now felt the urge to strike someone. He looked at Mulan again.
'How is your husband still alive? It must be hard being the wife of such a man. This frail fellow is not worthy of you!'
Shen Lang had certainly done his homework before coming here. In the eyes of the world, the Ends of the Earth Sea Pavilion was a temple of martial studies, but it housed not only martial arts manuals but also a collection of academic works on various subjects. It encompassed everything from astronomy and geography to mathematics and music, making it a true temple of learning.
"That is correct. Our Ends of the Earth Sea Pavilion periodically announces difficult problems to the world. Anyone who can solve even one may receive an invitation."
This place was akin to an academic organization of the greatest minds on Earth. It was like saying you weren't even qualified to knock on the door if your paper hadn't been published in one of the three major academic journals: *Nature*, *Cell*, or *Science*. However, this world had its share of geniuses. Of the ten problems previously posed by the Ends of the Earth Sea Pavilion, seven had been solved, leaving only three.
Of course, once all ten problems were solved, the Ends of the Earth Sea Pavilion would announce ten new ones. The problems they published covered various fields of study, with only two or three related to martial arts.
The problems announced by such a prestigious academic institution were, naturally, the world's ultimate challenges. Anyone who wasn't a great genius wouldn't even be able to understand the questions, let alone solve them.
The master asked, "Young master, of the ten great problems our Ends of the Earth Sea Pavilion has posed, three remain. For three years, no one has been able to solve a single one. Are you sure you wish to try?"
"Of course!"
"Then I will take five hundred gold coins!"
For such a great hall of learning to charge money for someone to solve a problem? It wasn't that this master was greedy, but maintaining the Ends of the Earth Sea Pavilion cost a great deal of money. The professors working here would never accept money bestowed by the king of any country, nor would they accept donations from officials or nobles. However, they were willing to accept donations from ordinary people in various forms. At Shen Lang's gesture, Mulan presented a box of gold coins, containing exactly five hundred.
"Guests, please follow me!"
The master led Shen Lang and Mulan to a small room at the far end of the fortress. It was empty except for three chairs and two tables.
"Which field's problem would you like to solve, guest? The remaining problems are in the fields of martial studies, astronomy, and philosophy."
He definitely couldn't solve the martial studies problem. Shen Lang had read too few martial arts manuals to have a rich enough dataset. Philosophy—that discipline was profound and then some. That left the astronomy problem. But this wasn't Earth, so this world's universe would be different. The astronomical knowledge in Shen Lang's mental computer might not be directly applicable.
"Please give me the astronomy problem!"
With an incredibly disdainful look, the master handed over a piece of paper. This was one of the three remaining problems announced by the Ends of the Earth Sea Pavilion. The problem consisted of only a few words.
"What is the size of the sun?"
How difficult was this question? How grand? It was a problem so difficult it was hair-raising, surely posed by a deviant. Without providing any figures, it asked for the size of the sun, its diameter. To reiterate, this was not Earth. Therefore, the sun of this world would have a different diameter from the sun of our world.
Upon seeing the problem, Mulan was immediately dumbfounded. She had always considered herself quite intelligent, but now, for the first time, she began to doubt her own intellect. It was likely that almost everyone who saw this problem would have an existential crisis.
The master said calmly, "You won't be able to solve it, so don't waste your time. Go back the way you came."
Finishing his words, he prepared to leave. The problem seemed so difficult as to be utterly unsolvable. But to Shen Lang, it was an extremely simple problem, one that didn't even require his mental computer.
"Great Master, it will take at least three days to calculate this answer."
Shen Lang said this while carefully observing the master's expression. If his guess was correct, just hearing these words would make the master tremble. And indeed, it did! The master trembled. This was the exchange of the highest intellects. For Shen Lang to say that was as good as saying he had solved the problem. Yet Mulan, standing beside them, was still lost in a fog, unable to grasp anything. She began to doubt herself.
'Am I a woman unworthy of my husband? Why can't I understand the conversation and expressions of the two men before me at all?'
However, she looked at her reflection in a mirror and instantly regained her confidence. There were only a few things a vulgar man like her husband would want from a wife: buttocks, breasts, a waist, a face, and a lot of money... He wouldn't care whether his wife's intelligence was high or low. Otherwise, why would he enjoy spending time with Big Dummy, Jin Mucong?
* * *
Shen Lang found a hollow bamboo pole and took Mulan's sharp sword. He used the hollow pole to look at the sun, cutting the bamboo with the sharp sword as he watched. He continued until the sun completely filled the diameter of the bamboo's circular opening. At this point, dividing the length of the bamboo by the diameter of the opening yielded the number 85. This meant the distance from this world to the sun was 85 times the sun's diameter. It was indeed different from Earth, where the number was 80.
Next, Shen Lang planted the cut bamboo pole in the ground and waited for the exact moment of noon. He measured and recorded the length of the bamboo's shadow cast by the sunlight. Then, Shen Lang looked at the old man and said, "Great Master, do you wish for me to continue?"
To continue the measurement, Shen Lang would need to find an accurate map, then travel two thousand li north by boat. Three days later, at noon, he would have to plant the same bamboo pole in the ground and measure the length of its shadow again. The length measured from the five-foot-long bamboo shadow would differ from the previous one by a few centimeters. Based on the difference in the shadow lengths from the two locations, the distance of two thousand li, and the Pythagorean theorem, he could calculate the distance from this world to the sun. And by dividing that distance by 85, he could calculate the diameter of this world's sun.
Shen Lang wrote down the entire solution process on a piece of paper but did not write the exact answer. This was because he didn't have the time to travel two thousand li north by boat—and to be precise, it wasn't exactly two thousand li. Since the planet's surface was round, he also had to calculate the curvature, which required the use of pi.
Shen Lang wrote down the solution in just a quarter of an hour. Although he didn't write the final answer, the master's body trembled as he read it. Shen Lang's solution was even more accurate than the one they had calculated. Because Shen Lang had used pi, he was able to calculate it more precisely.
"The young master cannot travel two thousand li north by boat, of course. But based on a rough estimate, what would the sun's diameter be?" the master asked Shen Lang.
Shen Lang calculated for a moment, then answered, "It would be approximately 2,890,000 li."