Chapter 109: Gaining Trust
Even if you are preparing for a rainy day, there must be a limit. The little cousin in front of me has obviously crossed this line and seems very abnormal.
Seeing his elder cousin who almost had a look of “are you sick?” on his face, Ye Shuo also choked.
So what he just said so passionately turned out to be of no use at all, and people even suspected he was mentally ill, right?
But think about it, what I said does seem to be a bit exaggerated, it is normal for others to feel that it sounds like a fairy tale.
Wei Wen’s behaviour made this plan seem even more feasible.
He thought it was impossible, and others would feel the same way.
This mythical story happened in reality, and no one could believe it.
Wei Wen’s gaze towards him did not last long. After all, he had accumulated a wealth of experience in such matters, and he quickly adjusted his mentality.Wei Wen was even in the mood to make fun of himself. He had seen so many fools that it was quite novel to see a madman occasionally.
Wei Wen, who had experienced many ups and downs, had long since learned to find joy in adversity. He knew very well that the more times like this one were, the more one should not provoke the other party, so he began to automatically focus on comforting while speaking.
The best thing to do now is to help my little cousin calm down, otherwise it would be bad if he gets even crazier.
Just like that, Wei Wen not only did not say a word of rebuttal, but he actively agreed: “My little cousin, what you said makes sense. I really admire you.”
Ye Shuo: “…”
Although Ye Shuo had never visited mental patients in a mental hospital in person in modern times, he still clearly remembered that this was how doctors in major film and television works coaxed mental patients to take medicine.
Although my cousin has not experienced that era, he has already learned how to treat mentally ill patients without any guidance, which is really cause for celebration.
After Wei Wen saw that his cousin’s emotions had gradually stabilised, he began to think about getting away: “Oh, Your Highness, I suddenly remembered that the jade pendant on my waist seemed to have been left in the bushes. I may need to go look for it. So I’ll leave you now.”
Ye Shuo looked at him with a gloomy gaze: “When you came here today, you only had a mosquito repellent sachet hanging around your waist. When did you ever wear a jade pendant?”
How did he know…
Wei Wen couldn’t help but be stunned for a moment.
The next moment, Ye Shuo exhaled deeply, and said helplessly: “Don’t worry, cousin, I will prove to you that what I said is indeed not aimless.”
Wei Wen still didn’t believe it.
After all, what he said about water conservancy and flood control, water diversion and irrigation, textile machinery, refined salt purification, iron smelting technology… didn’t sound very reliable. It was extremely difficult to pick out any one of them to achieve. Just taking flood control as an example, if it could be achieved so easily, the people and emperors would not have suffered so much because of this for thousands of years.
How did my little cousin know about this problem that even the current emperor couldn’t solve?
If there really is any good solution, His Majesty should know it before his little cousin who is several years older.
Therefore, based on Wei Wen’s overall knowledge, all the things he said were impossible to achieve.
Indeed, Ye Shuo does not have the ability to completely prevent floods. After all, floods still occur from time to time every summer in modern times. However, he can combine the thousands of years of water control history of the country he lived in in his previous life with the modern experience of flood prevention and control to minimise the damage, which will always be much better than now.
Although Ye Shuo did not do everything himself, he believed that the ancients were only limited by backward technology, but they were not fools. As long as he told the other party the principles and methods, he believed that with the wisdom of the ancients, they would be able to do it quickly.
A dozen years is enough time for a person, or a group of people, to grow.
“Just wait and see, cousin.”
No matter how much you explain, it’s useless. In the end, you have to use facts to speak for yourself. Ye Shuo didn’t make any more excuses, but just asked Wei Wen for a crossbow, intending to try it out and gain his trust.
Understanding the principles of various machines is one of Ye Shuo’s specialties.
Even if we can get the materials, all kinds of robots will be no problem.
After all, the little cousin was a prince, so Wei Wen would naturally give him whatever he asked for. What’s more, the old Duke Zhen was a military general himself, so he naturally had a collection of all the popular bows and crossbows.
Soon Wei Wen handed the things to Ye Shuo.
After Ye Shuo observed carefully for a while, he had an idea in his mind.
“Brother, give me one night, and I will give you the result tomorrow.”
After saying that, Ye Shuo called a servant over, handed the crossbow to him, and asked him to put it in his room in the afternoon.
The servant was a little confused at first, but when he saw the eldest master nod, he subconsciously suppressed his curiosity.
Ye Shuo discovered that his eldest cousin seemed to be very good at controlling his subordinates, and even the maids and servants listened to him very much.
“This is the first time we two cousins meet, so I’ll take the initiative to give the crossbow to Your Highness. I hope Your Highness won’t despise it.” And don’t feel any pressure. It’s up to him whether to play with it or take it apart.
Wei Wen had a tolerant look on his face.
Ye Shuo: “…”
Ye Shuo no longer wanted to talk at all.
Soon Ye Shuo returned to the banquet, but Wei Wen waited for a while before coming back.
Perhaps because he was a little excited to see his nephew for the first time, the banquet gradually came to an end until about 3 p.m.
After drinking a few bottles of wine, everyone felt a little dizzy, and gradually lost control of their mouths and tongues. Ye Shuo’s uncle lost control and slapped his nephew hard on the back.
If Ye Shuo wasn’t in good health, he would have been beaten to death by him, but even if Ye Shuo was in good health, he was almost killed by his slap.
Meanwhile, the uncle, totally unaware of his nephew’s suddenly distorted expression, stuck out his tongue and suddenly looked sad: “Look how thin the child is.”
“That’s right. The wind will almost blow it away.” Upon hearing this, the other five uncles couldn’t help but echo one after another.
They wanted to talk about this when they first met. In the eyes of the six people, a real man should be strong and solid.
Looking at my nephew again, he is as thin as a chick, while his cousins are so fat that their arms are almost as thick as his thighs.
But in fact, Ye Shuo’s stature is more slender, and he is completely different from his cousins.
It doesn’t mean that people with thick muscles are necessarily strong. Some people with thin bodies have higher explosive power. But Ye Shuo’s well-proportioned body shape makes him look weak in the eyes of a group of strong men, right?
The eldest uncle couldn’t help but pat his chest and promised: “Tomorrow, I will personally teach you martial arts.” This would prevent his nephew from being bullied in the palace again.
Caught off guard, the old Duke Zhen above couldn’t help but choke and cough.
He is the master already, but you’re still teaching this kid martial arts?
To be honest, if he went back ten years, he might not be this kid’s opponent. Now he only has the advantage of age, and there is not much he can teach.
However, what the old Duke Zhen didn’t know was that Ye Shuo had only practised internal strength and some hidden weapon firing techniques, and he really didn’t know any specific moves.
Over the years, the greatest purpose of Ye Shuo’s internal strength training was just to keep warm, escape, climb trees, hold his breath underwater, and treat colds.
If the old Duke Zhen knew that he actually used his inner strength to do these things, he would probably be furious.
What’s the difference between this and using gold to buy sesame cakes!
However, because of his adoptive father’s attitude changing too quickly, Ye Shuo immediately rejected it sternly.
Anyway, no matter what, his stepfather would force him to learn it even if he had to force him, and it didn’t matter even if his uncle took it seriously.
Sure enough, under heavy pressure, Ye Shuo was soon “forced” to accept it.
If the old Duke Zhen had not felt the rich energy in his dantian, he would have thought that he was particularly averse to practising martial arts.
After agreeing to gather at the martial arts arena at 11:00 a.m. tomorrow, several uncles and cousins returned to their respective courtyards with the help of their servants.
Ye Shuo also returned to the courtyard that his aunts had carefully prepared for him.
All the items were brand new, and things like quilts had been specially dried in the sun, full of dead mites… ah, the smell of sunshine.
Ye Shuo’s heart also felt a little warmer.
Ye Shuo didn’t pay much attention to the crossbow that was already placed on his desk. He even took a nap and started to modify it after getting up.
Since he didn’t have any suitable tools at hand, and it would take some time for Ye Shuo to get started with the ancient tools, he simply took out a stack of rice paper and planned to start drawing directly.
First he disassembled the crossbow, then assembled it, then disassembled and assembled it again. After repeating this process twice, Ye Shuo began to carefully measure the size of each component with a ruler.
Subconsciously, he was about to take a pen to take notes, but… looking at the ink pool on the rice paper, Ye Shuo was silent for a moment, and suddenly remembered that he forgot to ask his cousin to prepare charcoal pencils in advance.
After getting the charcoal pencil, Ye Shuo calmed down and started writing and drawing, and began to improve the crossbow based on the original one.
Before evening, Ye Shuo had almost finished, and in the end he couldn’t even help but draw out another brand new crossbow design in his mind.
Cold weapons such as bows and crossbows are relatively backward. In war, hot weapons such as gunpowder are more powerful.
But there is a problem. The production of simple gunpowder is not complicated, and it is even very easy to copy. Once it is used on the battlefield, the other two countries will soon be able to come up with something similar, and the casualties will only be greater.
Ye Shuo didn’t believe that only his stepfather had secret guards, while the emperors of the other two countries didn’t.
Besides, the power to use gunpowder was not in Ye Shuo’s hands, and Ye Shuo had no way of avoiding the abuse of gunpowder.
By then, all lives will be lost and the only ones who will suffer will be the common people.
And even if we use explosives to destroy those two countries, then what? If productivity can’t keep up, and there are suddenly so many extra mouths, people will starve to death if they don’t have enough food.
So let’s do it little by little, slowly.
After Ye Shuo finished drawing, he handed the two pictures to the servant beside his eldest cousin.
Soon, Wei Wen had two more things in his hands.