My brother entrusted his child to me, and I livestreamed raising the baby, making the Empress cry wi

Fengde Hall.

The finest ambergris burned in the gilded incense burner, its wisps of smoke mingling with the lingering aroma of wine in the hall, weaving a lavish net that enveloped the entire hall.

Shu Jingwei put down her wine glass and shifted her position, leaning back in the dragon throne.

The large sum of silver she had just received made her feel extremely comfortable. The way those aristocratic families gritted their teeth and looked on in pain when paying was several times more interesting than the song and dance performance tonight.

She tapped the carved dragon on the armrest with her fingertips, then looked up at the sky again.

Lin Ye was walking among the rows of bookshelves.

The light poured down from the ceiling, casting his shadow long and short.

Finally, he stopped in front of a bookshelf.

The camera slowly zooms in on the sky.

Shu Jingwei's fingers, which were tapping on the armrest, suddenly stopped.

On that bookshelf, every book had words printed on its spine.

Although it wasn't the Great Flame script she was familiar with, she could instantly understand its meaning through the light from the sky—

"Principles and Technology of Blast Furnace Ironmaking", "A Collection of Ancient and Modern Ironmaking Methods", "Iron Smelting and Casting", "Heat Treatment of Metallic Materials"...

Every single word is normal.

But each word that was put together made her feel incredulous.

Ironmaking principles and iron smelting methods!

In her mind, such confidential information, which could shake the very foundation of an empire, should be locked behind heavy doors!

Guarded day and night by the most trusted soldiers, not even a single piece of paper could be allowed to slip out!

However now—

They were just displayed so boldly on the bookshelf.

Like radishes and cabbages on a vegetable stall, they are left for people to pick and choose.

Do not!

impossible!

Absolutely impossible!

She instinctively gripped the handrail tightly, her knuckles turning white.

The dragon horn carved into her palm stung painfully, but she was completely unaware.

Maybe they deliberately chose this name to attract attention?

She'd seen plenty of cases of deceiving others for personal gain.

The content is estimated to be nothing more than empty talk and fabricated information, not methods of iron smelting.

She stared intently at the sky, her lips pressed into a thin line.

Lin Ye pulled a book from the bookshelf and opened it.

The next moment, a screen full of text and diagrams appeared.

Shu Jingwei's pupils suddenly contracted.

she was--

Um, I don't understand.

Those winding lines, those densely packed numbers, and those symbols she had never seen before...

She couldn't understand any of them.

but!

That thing painted right in the middle, the one that looks like a stove!

It looks familiar.

There seems to have been something similar in the drawings Ye Fan made back then...

Her heart clenched suddenly.

"go!"

A dry, hurried voice squeezed out from his throat, then abruptly rose in pitch: "Go and call Gao Fang here! Immediately! Right now!"

The eunuch was so startled by her shout that he trembled and ran off to announce her arrival.

Gao Fang arrived very quickly.

To be precise, he was dug out of bed by two soldiers and then carried over.

He hadn't even had time to fasten his outer robe properly; the front was wide open, revealing his inner garment.

His hair was half-tied and half-loose, and there were two dark circles under his eyes. He looked like a wilted eggplant, listless and lacking energy.

As soon as he entered the hall, he was squinted by the dazzling lights and stumbled, almost stepping on the hem of his own robe.

"Your Majesty, Your Majesty..."

He bent down to kneel, but before his knees even touched the ground, Shu Jingwei called him back up.

"No need." Shu Jingwei raised her hand and pointed to the sky, her fingertips taut.

"Gao Fang, take a good look at the iron-smelting method on that document—is it real?! Read it carefully, word by word!"

Gao Fang was puzzled.

He has been staying at home lately and hasn't gone out at all, because the new iron smelting is gradually getting on track, and he has begun to continue studying the draft notes left by Ye Fan.

He always felt that the path of iron smelting was not limited to this, and that there were deeper secrets hidden in those hasty annotations.

Shu Jingwei also hoped that he could continue to create even more powerful iron, and granted him permission to do as he pleased.

He has been staying up late several nights in the past few days because there is a problem he can't figure out, and he has tried many times but failed each time.

I finally thought I could go to bed early today, but as soon as my head hit the pillow, I was dragged away.

He tried to open his eyes wide, blinked his dry eyelids, and raised his head in the direction Shu Jingwei was pointing.

The first thing he saw was a cross-sectional view.

He recognized it at a glance—it was a schematic diagram of an iron smelting furnace.

Then his gaze swept over the text labels next to him.

The dimensions of this furnace... the angle of the air supply... the location of the slag outlet...

He paused, taken aback.

Then, with a smirk, he let out a laugh.

"laugh--"

The sneer was short and contemptuous; he waved his hand as he laughed.

"That's utter nonsense!"

The sound wasn't loud, but it was clear and carried far in the quiet hall.

"Your Majesty, what kind of nonsense is this?" He pointed at the sky and shook his head repeatedly.

"They can't even draw the most basic furnace correctly, how can they talk about smelting iron? With this thing, they'll probably only produce a batch of waste slag!"

As Shu Jingwei listened, her tense shoulders gradually relaxed.

It was indeed fake.

She had just been slightly worried that this was some powerful thing beyond her comprehension...

But it turns out—

It's just a bluffing trick!

"ha--"

A surge of heat coursed through her body, and she leaned back on the dragon throne, letting out a laugh.

The laughter grew louder and louder, eventually turning into a hearty, unrestrained laugh.

"Ha ha ha ha!"

She laughed until tears almost streamed down her face, one hand gripping the armrest, the other pointing at the sky, her fingertips trembling slightly from the force.

"Lin Ye, Lin Ye, I thought you had some earth-shattering trump card!" She laughed so hard she could hardly breathe, her voice full of glee.

She wiped away non-existent tears from the corner of her eye, picked up her wine cup, and raised it to the people in the hall.

The wine swirls in the glass, reflecting the dappled light of the lamp.

"After all that," she said, her voice still tinged with laughter, deliberately drawing out the last syllable, her tone full of sarcasm.

"Have you run out of tricks? Can't think of any new ways to deceive people? Are you trying to fool them with these nonsensical, fake tricks?"

The people in the hall seemed to awaken from a dream.

Chai Fei was the first to jump up from his seat and shout:

"Your Majesty is wise! Lin Ye is clearly afraid of Your Majesty! He used to pull off all those fancy so-called miracles, but now that he's run out of tricks, he can only fabricate fake books and paintings to fill the void. It's utterly laughable!"

"That's right!" Another civil official quickly stood up, afraid that being a step too slow would make him seem disloyal.

"He must be terrified by His Majesty's power now!" he said, waving his arms and spitting as he spoke, his saliva splashing onto the table in front of him like a light rain.

"They could only fabricate fakes to fool everyone! And His Majesty saw through their deception on the spot, truly—"

He paused, as if racking his brains for words, "Disgraceful! Yes! Disgraceful!"

"His Majesty's imperial might shakes the heavens; naturally, even the most despicable villains tremble in fear!"

"I think so too—"

The hall was filled with echoes of agreement, rising and falling like a pot of boiling water, bubbling and gurgling.

Everyone rushed to add firewood to the pot of boiling water, afraid that their fire wouldn't be hot enough.

Shu Jingwei held her wine glass, her eyes half-closed, a smug smile on her lips.

She felt as if she were soaking in a pool of warm water, feeling incredibly comfortable from her toes to the tips of her hair.

The flattery was like a pair of hands, lifting her higher and higher, until she reached the clouds.

Gao Fang, however, remained standing in the center of the hall.

"No—that's not right!!!"

Suddenly, his eyes widened, his lips trembled, and he let out a scream.

The scream was sharp and piercing, like a knife, instantly cleaving through the laughter and chatter in the hall.

Everyone was stunned.