"Two days off? That’s fantastic!" Mo Yan’s eyes lit up with excitent, completely oblivious to the inappropriateness of her focus, "How long is the holiday? My dad is planning to take us out for a trip after the wedding. If your break is long enough, we could go together."
Go together?
Xiao Ruiyuan’s thoughts stirred, and he found himself looking forward to the trip, "Then let’s go together." If the holiday wasn’t sufficient, he would find a way to extend it; this feeling of shirking work seed quite pleasant.
"Oh, right, you ntioned that you had results regarding that matter, what exactly is going on? What is that patch?" Mo Yan, unaware of the man’s thoughts, finally brought her focus back on track.
On Mid-Autumn Festival, Little Flower had found a strange patch on the back hill of the Imperial Palace and handed it over to Mo Yan. Mo Yan had felt that sothing was amiss right away and passed the patch to Xiao Ruiyuan. Xiao Ruiyuan’s unusual reaction let Mo Yan know that the implications of this patch were beyond what even her wildest imagination could conjure.
A flash of ruthlessness passed through Xiao Ruiyuan’s eyes, his deep voice betraying a trace of loathing, "Previously, The Emperor secretly found a group of skilled craftsn and arranged for them to covertly research gunpowder in the back hills of the Imperial Palace. Aside from a few of The Emperor’s confidants, my cousin and I, no one else knew about this."
Mo Yan nodded; she was aware of this affair, and it seed that the iron patch was related to gunpowder.
Xiao Ruiyuan’s following words confird her guess. Apparently, among these skilled craftsn, there was one who had secretly researched gunpowder before and had actually co up with sothing. However, due to the prohibitions of Emperor Taizong and fears of attracting disaster, he dared not divulge this to anyone.
It wasn’t until Emperor Huian’s n found this craftsman and brought him together with others to study gunpowder that he realized what he had discovered wouldn’t bring misfortune but could even catapult him to great heights. He resolutely showcased his years of research and was imdiately put to use, quickly becoming the leader of this group of craftsn.
The item this leading craftsman discovered was none other than a firearm, a weapon with a killing power far exceeding that of cold weapons. Its range exceeded even that of the largest crossbows, and the damage it could inflict on the human body was more severe. This was sothing that the foreign tribe who had invaded Qiuzi Country had never managed to develop; the impact it had on Emperor Huian and his allies was imnse.
No one could deny that firearms were a remarkable invention, but their manufacture was exceedingly troubleso. Not only did the components have strict tolerances with no room for error, but their production was also highly dangerous—a single mistake could cause an explosion, inflicting serious injuries on the maker.
The craftsman who developed this firearm had not only spent his entire wealth and been left by his wife and children, but three of his ten fingers had also been blown off in the process, a heavy price that underscored the difficulty in manufacturing firearms.
Xiao Ruiyuan explained the cause and effect to Mo Yan, then led onto the matter of the iron patch, "The Emperor, concerned about leaking information and attracting unnecessary trouble, ordered these craftsn to personally make the firearms and stationed heavy troops to guard the area, forbidding anyone from coming within half a step of the back hill. However, the large amount of fine iron continuously transported to the back hill caught the attention of the foreign spies. After plotting for a long ti, one of the spies successfully infiltrated the back hill."
To gain the secrets of gunpowder, this foreign spy went so far as to maim himself, rendering himself mute and deaf, and concocted an identity to infiltrate the palace’s back hill kitchen. As a kitchen hand, he delivered food to the craftsn every day.
The craftsn, having scrutinized the deaf-mute person thoroughly, had no reason to be wary of him. On a few occasions, when they saw the deaf-mute person enter the chamber where gunpowder was produced, they thought he had rely wandered in by mistake and did not take it seriously.
Because of this oversight, the spy successfully smuggled various firearm components out piece by piece, hiding them in a concealed location, ready to transport them to the foreign tribe he served when the opportunity arose.
The back hill of the Imperial Palace covered a vast area; even with heavy guards, there were bound to be oversights. Having spent a long ti on the back hill, the spy discovered a vulnerability leading to the outside. On the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival, when the hill’s defenses were lax, he quietly dug up the components buried under a tree root, ready to transport them in one fell swoop, but, by sheer coincidence, bumped into Little Flower, who was there to enjoy the holiday.
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