Take control of Wei Zhongxian at the start and confiscate 100 million from him!

Chapter 168 The Emperor's First Lesson: Shattering the Old World

Just when everyone thought the exciting opening ceremony was about to end, the emperor showed no sign of leaving.

He picked up the white stone slab, smiled slightly at the 286 pairs of eyes burning with fire below the stage.

"Today, I, the Dean, will give you your first lesson."

The entire room fell silent again, and everyone held their breath.

What kind of invaluable wisdom would be imparted in the first lesson given by the emperor himself? Would it be the art of rulership? The way of being a ruler? Or the profound and subtle teachings of a sage?

Zhu Youjian clapped his hands.

Two eunuchs immediately stepped forward, not carrying any ordinary wooden frame, but working together to turn a huge brass winch next to a golden dragon pillar in the main hall.

As the mechanism creaked, two long, black ropes slowly descended from the deep recesses of the towering palace ceiling.

At the end of the long rope, an ingenious mechanism was slowly raised, rising to a height of five or six zhang (approximately 10-15 meters) above the ground, almost touching the painted decorations on the crossbeam before coming to a stop.

At such a height, everyone has to crane their necks to see clearly.

Hanging high in the air, the mechanism held two balls of similar size: one a dark, solid iron ball, and the other a warm-colored pear wood ball.

The emperor withdrew his gaze from the high-hanging mechanism and swept it across the crowd, his voice calm yet carrying an immense weight: 'Heavier objects fall first, lighter objects fall later.'

He paused, then asked, word by word, "A three-year-old can say this, and even peddlers and laborers believe it. This is common sense in the eyes of the world, almost a universal truth. You, who are well-read, do you agree?"

The vast majority of students in the audience nodded subconsciously.

This is not only a conclusion left by the ancients, but also a common phenomenon in the world that they witnessed firsthand.

A fallen leaf, a feather, never fall with a pebble. This is a matter of course, and there is no need to argue about it.

"Very good." The emperor laughed again, a smile tinged with pity, as if mocking the deep-seated stupidity passed down through generations.

He uttered only one word to the eunuch controlling the winch rope:

"put!"

The eunuch suddenly pulled another thin rope beside him, and the mechanism suspended five or six zhang in the air opened with a "click"!

In that instant, all 286 gazes in the audience, including those of Xu Guangqi, Sun Yuanhua, and others, were fixed on the two small balls.

They saw the two balls break free of their restraints at the same time, tracing two almost perfectly overlapping paths in the air before plummeting towards the ground below.

"boom!"

The dull thuds of impact rang out at the same instant, the difference in timing so slight it was almost imperceptible to the human ear!

Both balls... landed at the same time!
silence.

A deathly silence more complete and suffocating than ever before.

The air in the main hall seemed to have solidified into crystal.

The students' expressions underwent a spectacular transformation.

From initial curiosity, to astonishment upon witnessing it firsthand, to bewilderment at the inability of the brain to process this illogical scene, and finally, to the immense shock of a deeply ingrained ironclad rule being ruthlessly overturned!

The facts they witnessed were like a pair of merciless hands, tearing their deep-rooted feelings and common sense to shreds!
It turns out the book was wrong.

It turns out that even your own eyes can deceive you!
This idea was like a seed that quietly took root in their hearts.

Zhu Youjian was very satisfied with this result.

"It seems that the truth is not always in line with our feelings," the emperor concluded calmly.

"Someone, close the windows and draw the curtains!"

At a command, the eunuchs sprang into action.

Thick black cloth completely covered all the doors and windows of the hall, plunging the magnificent hall into a deep gloom, except for a narrow crack high up on the east side of the hall wall.

At that moment, the morning sunlight, at a precise angle, pierced through the darkness of the entire hall like a golden spear through the gap!

Against the dim background, the beam of light was crystal clear. Countless tiny dust particles danced merrily within the beam, traversing most of the palace. At its end, on the west wall opposite, a bright and dazzling spot of light was cast.

The emperor slowly walked to the path of light that ran diagonally through the palace and took something out of his sleeve.

It was a crystal-clear piece of glass with three planes, which the students considered to be the most exquisite tribute in the world.

The emperor held the object he called a "prism" and slowly extended it into the golden path of light.

A miracle occurred.

The moment the sunlight pierced through the prism, the originally pure white and bright spots of light on that cold wall disappeared.

Instead, a dazzling, dreamlike seven-colored ribbon appeared!

From top to bottom, red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue, and purple are clearly defined, so vibrant they seem otherworldly.

The pure colors are so vibrant that no master painter could ever recreate them!
This imprisoned rainbow was imprinted steadily on the wall, quiet yet full of subversive power.

"A rainbow! It's a rainbow!"

"Your Majesty...Your Majesty has brought a rainbow!"

Uncontrollable gasps of surprise rose and fell from the crowd.

A rainbow is a spectacular sight on the horizon after rain, an auspicious omen, and something that mortals can only dream of but never attain.

Now, it has been "captured" by the emperor and placed on the palace wall!

This...this doesn't make any sense whatsoever to them!

A few of the most brilliant students, such as Song Yingxing, suddenly had a terrifying, almost treasonous thought flash through their minds:

"Could it be...could it be that these seven colors weren't 'dyed' on...but...could they have always been hidden within that beam of white light?!"

Once this thought arises, the world will collapse!

White, the color that symbolizes purity, simplicity, and origin in Confucian culture, the aesthetic foundation of "simplicity as splendor," the cornerstone of moral judgment of "black and white distinction"... is actually a complex "hybrid"?!

This is ten thousand times more terrifying than the iron ball from before!
The previous simultaneous fall of the two spheres only shook the principles of all things; but this "man-made rainbow" before us is questioning the words of the sages and shaking the very foundation of morality!
The emperor did not stop; he wanted to use the final blow to completely imprint this fact into their souls.

"Someone, bring the Seven-Colored Wheel!"

A peculiar disc was brought up, divided into seven equal sectors, each painted with one of the seven colors corresponding to the rainbow. A hand-cranked axle was connected to the center of the disc.

The emperor's voice was filled with the confidence of a creator: "I will use these seven colors to create white light for you!"

This declaration sounded a hundred times more absurd than "catching a rainbow"—mixing colors would only make them deeper, darker, and muddier! A eunuch stepped forward, grasped the axle, and began to shake it vigorously.

The seven-colored wheel began to spin.

At first, the colors were just a blurry, murky mass, but as the speed increased, faster and faster, until it exceeded the limits of human visual perception...

An incredible thing has happened!
The colorful disc, under everyone's gaze, seemed to have all its colors wiped away by an invisible hand!

It spun and spun, until finally it became a spinning, pure white circle!

"what!!!"

This time, the uproar could no longer be suppressed!

"Sorcery! Is it sorcery?"

"My eyes! My eyes are blurry!"

Countless people began rubbing their eyes, unable to believe what they were seeing!
……

The shock to my mind had not yet subsided; the man-made rainbow that defied my understanding was still vivid in my mind.

The students followed the emperor, half in a daze and half in confusion.

When the heavy doors of the main hall were pushed open again, and the bright sky and dazzling sunlight rushed in, many people subconsciously squinted, as if they had been suddenly pulled back from a deep and mysterious dream to the all-too-real daytime world.

But beneath this brilliant sunlight, what awaited them was an even more unbelievable sight: a gigantic sphere, made of huge oil paper and linen, resembling a monster, lay limp on the ground.

Below the sphere was a huge iron brazier filled with charcoal.

"This is the last lesson of the day," Zhu Youjian said, pointing at the monster. "I want you to know that humans can also ascend to heaven!"

Upon hearing this, even Song Yingxing showed a worried expression, as he felt it was far too shocking.

At the emperor's command, the eunuchs lit braziers, and hot air was continuously pumped into the huge sphere by blowers.

The limp monster began to writhe and swell, as if a sleeping behemoth was awakening.

It slowly stood up, still struggling restlessly upwards despite being pulled by dozens of people, seemingly eager to break free from the earth's constraints.

"Who is willing to be the first person to fly to the heavens for me and for the Ming Dynasty?" The emperor looked around at the crowd.

Just as everyone was silent, a person rushed out from the crowd, knelt down with a thud, and spoke in a hoarse and excited voice.

"This servant is Li Chaoqin, the chief executioner of the Eastern Depot. I am willing to be tested for His Majesty!"

Zhu Youjian glanced at him and nodded: "Granted!"

Li Chaoqin trembled with excitement. With the help of several imperial guards, he climbed into a large basket hanging below the sphere. His hands gripped the edge of the basket tightly, his face a mixture of fear and a desperate madness.

"Let go!" the emperor gave the final order.

The soldiers holding onto the cable simultaneously let go.

Amidst the gasps of hundreds of people, including countless palace maids and eunuchs who rushed to the scene, the colossal object carrying Li Chaoqin broke free from the earth's final gravitational pull.

It wobbled, yet with extraordinary determination, and rose up!

One zhang, three zhang, ten zhang...

The wind whistled in Li Chaoqin's ears, and the people and palaces on the ground were rapidly shrinking.

He saw the complete Forbidden City and the outline of the capital city in the distance.

The unprecedented feeling of looking down on all living beings like a god made him forget his fear and he couldn't help but burst into wild laughter!

On the ground, everyone was looking up with their mouths agape, as if in a daze.

what is this?
Ascending to immortality? Reaching heaven in broad daylight?
That wasn't Chang'e; it was a living, breathing person just like them, riding in a device made by a mortal, flying towards the sky!

An elderly scholar's legs buckled, and he collapsed to the ground, muttering to himself, "The heavens... have changed... the heavens are truly about to change..."

……

As the hot air balloon was slowly pulled down, and as Li Chaoqin, pale-faced yet incredibly excited, was carried out like a hero, all the students remained immersed in a surreal, dreamlike state.

On this day, they witnessed the overturning of common sense, the imprisonment of rainbows, the creation of white light, and even more so, the ascension of mortals to heaven!

Zhu Youjian looked at the students who seemed to have had their souls taken away, yet also seemed to have been infused with entirely new souls.

He knew that the old world had already made its first crisp cracking sound in their hearts.

"My first lesson is over."

The emperor's voice brought everyone back to their senses.

"The core of this lesson isn't the iron ball, the light, or that flying monster. It's two words—"

He paused, his gaze sharp as lightning.

"Suspect!"

"I hereby command you to learn to doubt from this day forward! Doubt the books, doubt the ancients, doubt everything you have learned in the past! Even doubt your own eyes!"

“Then,” his voice grew powerful, “use your own hands to design, to measure, to verify! And finally find that one true and undeniable principle! The true principle that belongs to this world!”

"I don't expect you to understand much today, but I hope that the knowledge you acquire after leaving here will enable the gunners of the Ming Dynasty to know precisely where every cannonball will land!"

It can enable farmers in the Ming Dynasty to clearly know when to breed seeds and when to fertilize, and can increase the yield of grain by two more bushels per acre!
"To enable the Ming Dynasty's medical officials to definitively determine whether smallpox, which has claimed millions of lives, was caused by evil spirits or something else, and to find a true cure for it!"

The emperor slowly walked up to the students. Looking at their young, excited, yet confused faces, his voice became low, yet carried an expectation and power that could penetrate the soul.

"I want your knowledge—"

He stopped and fixed his gaze on Wang Wei in the first row, yet it seemed as if he was looking at everyone.

"To ensure that the soldiers of my Great Ming Dynasty shed not a single drop of blood on the battlefield!"

"To save one more person from the famine years of my Great Ming Dynasty!"

After he finished speaking, only the sound of the wind and the heavy breathing of the crowd could be heard.

Subsequently, these 286 heretics, abandoned by the scholars of the world, this group of students destined to forge a new path, unanimously straightened their spines, which had been bent for too long by old etiquette.

In their eyes, the magnificent building called Tianli, though not completely collapsed, had its foundation shaken by those words and the miracles inside and outside the hall.

The future will no longer be a hazy dawn or distant mountains shrouded in mist.

It was right before their eyes—the figure of the emperor, the man-made rainbow, the colossal object rising into the sky, and even more so, the spark in their hearts, newly ignited and powerful enough to start a prairie fire, called empirical evidence and investigation of things!
(End of this chapter)