Don't farm, cultivate immortality!

Little Jasmine and Zhuang Xing's younger sister faced each other. The shuttlecock with a copper coin tied to it was tossed into the air. Little Jasmine clapped her hands and smiled as she sang a nursery rhyme to her younger sister.

The little sister followed suit, her tender voice like a lark's as she hummed a lullaby while kicking the shuttlecock.

Seeing that the two were having a good time, Zhuang Xing was pleased and smiled.

He just watched from the sidelines; he smelled of alcohol, and most little girls probably wouldn't like him.

He and the Wu brothers drank quite a bit. The alcohol content of wines in this era was very low, mostly yellow wine and rice wine, and there was no distilled spirits. Today they were drinking osmanthus rice wine, which was only made once a year. This wine was sweet and sour and had the fragrance of osmanthus.

Zhuang Xing quite liked these wines. Taoists don't have as many precepts as monks. Basically, they don't care much about your own life. They only emphasize self-cultivation and practice. One of the five precepts is not to drink alcohol, not to not drink at all.

This wine is hard to get drunk on. Zhuang Xing drank quite a bit, but it felt like he had drunk a sweet beverage.

This wine is not as good as the Monkey Brew from Hundred Flowers Valley, but it is still considered a good wine.

Two adorable little girls playing together is a sight that melts your heart.

Unfortunately, the little sister had only just started learning and her skills weren't very good yet. After kicking it twice, the shuttlecock flew to the side and headed straight for Xiao Moli's forehead. Zhuang Xing reacted quickly and caught the shuttlecock in his hand.

"Little sister, be careful, don't kick your older sister!" Zhuang Xing said.

"Hmm..." The younger sister lowered her head and walked over to Zhuang Xing's side.

Xiao Moli took a deep breath, looked up at Zhuang Xing, and smiled.

"It's alright, Taoist brother. This shuttlecock is light and won't hurt if it hits you."

"I'm sorry, sister..." The younger sister grabbed Zhuang Xing's hand and apologized softly, "I didn't mean to..."

Little Jasmine patted her little sister's head, showing no sign of blaming her.

Both of them were still at an age where their minds were clear and their thoughts were simple.

Zhuang Xing returned the shuttlecock to Xiao Moli. Now that they had struck up a conversation, he wanted to ask about the rollers.

"Little Jasmine, I see the drawing on your desk. Can you tell me what it is?"

Little Jasmine was startled and mumbled, "Actually, it's nothing serious, it's just... just a toboggan that you see everywhere..."

A pulley is a type of wheel. People in this era call the structure of a pulley a pulley. They have different names, but they are the same thing.

As expected, Zhuang Xing's guess was correct; it really was a pulley.

"How did you come up with the idea of ​​combining two pulleys together?" Zhuang Xing asked again.

A regular fixed pulley can only change the direction of the force, but adding a movable pulley can save effort. This principle is the same as the lever principle. The relevant knowledge of work was taught in junior high school physics, and Zhuang Xing hasn't forgotten it.

Just think, when he was eleven or twelve years old in his previous life, he actually learned such incredible things. Although it seems like just a few simple sentences, they are the truths of the world that can be applied to various fields.

Archimedes said, "Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world." The power contained in those words is truly remarkable.

He had never thought of spreading this knowledge before, but his thinking has changed recently. Along the way, he has seen too many changes, and he realized that by doing a little bit, he could change the fate of many people, and for the better.

For example, the couple he shared a small boat with today are children who, like Yunling when she was a child, have lost their families...

From childhood to adulthood, he has received help from many people: the life-saving grace of a female knight-errant, the village chief's shelter, his parents' upbringing, and the teachings from his masters at the Taoist temple... He could list too many things to list, and he wanted to give back in some way.

He could see that the pulley system that Xiao Moli drew had some imperfections, and he felt that he might be able to help Xiao Moli improve it.

Little Jasmine seemed a little hesitant when faced with his question.

But perhaps out of trust in him—after all, Zhuang Xing was the one who saved her from the jaws of the white-tailed jackal—she revealed her thoughts and the origin of the design.

“That sled wasn’t just my idea,” Little Jasmine said, pursing her lips. “Taoist brother, actually, it was something that Sister Baiyu and I came up with together.”

"Bai Yu?" Zhuang Xing was surprised to hear this name.

"Hmm, brother doesn't know yet, but Sister Baiyu is living in Yidu now," Xiao Moli said. "She works under the Prefect. I only saw Sister Baiyu once when I went out to play with my second brother."

“Back when we were in the mountains, before Sister Baiyu left, she took good care of me. Even though I was very young and couldn’t do much work, Sister Baiyu still played with me and taught me to recognize characters and do arithmetic. She often kept me company.”

"So when I saw her that day, I recognized her immediately, and afterwards I often kept in touch with Sister Baiyu."

"Recently, Sister Baiyu went to the ferry terminal to take charge of coal transportation. She said she was trying to find a way to make the coal carriers work easier and carry more coal, and she thought of using pulleys."

Chapter 275 Luckily, it wasn't returned to the teacher.

After Xiao Moli's explanation, Zhuang Xing understood what was going on.

If Bai Yu and Xiao Moli worked together to come up with the blueprints, then he wouldn't be so surprised.

When Bai Yu was on the mountain, she displayed a style that was very different from her peers.

While other children simply listened to adults, did chores, and ate, she knew how to unite the children around her, pooling their individual strengths to form a team.

Although there were many coincidences and Zhuang Xing's behind-the-scenes manipulation, Bai Yu did indeed go from a homeless orphan to an assistant under the prefect.

Matters related to coal are directly related to people's livelihood, national stability, and the iron smelting industry, and are one of the current national policies of Da Yu.

Even the matter of transporting coal at the ferry crossing was entrusted to Bai Yu by the prefect. Even though it was just a small part of the process, it showed that she had the prefect's trust in her.

In today's world, to achieve this level of success as a woman cannot be simply attributed to good luck or being in the right place at the right time.

Bai Yu is indeed a genius. If it were her who discovered that movable pulleys could save effort and wanted to design them into some kind of more advanced and perfect machine for practical application, Zhuang Xing would think it would be very reasonable.

"Have you already built the pulley system?" Zhuang Xing asked Xiao Moli.

He thought that Bai Yu might have already manufactured the pulley system. After all, Xiao Moli was still young, and that design drawing might just be a draft for her to study.

Little Jasmine shook her head, a little embarrassed, and said, "It's not finished yet... Sister Baiyu was busy with the temple fair last month and hasn't come to see me for quite a while. Taoist brother, I just... I just drew something casually, please don't laugh at me..."

Zhuang Xing smiled and said, "I just thought the things in the painting were very exquisite, so I wanted to ask about them."

"The Taoist brother is good at coaxing children." Little Jasmine was amused.

"Do you have any other paintings?" Zhuang Xing asked.

“Yes, would you like to see it, Taoist brother?” Little Jasmine asked.

"Actually, I've done some research on scooters, so I recognized what it was as soon as I saw the picture," Zhuang Xing said without batting an eye. "Little Jasmine, why don't you show me your other paintings too? Maybe I can give you some advice."

"Really? That's great! I'll go get it right now!"

Little Jasmine seemed very happy. She turned around and ran into the house, her little braids swinging behind her head.

Soon, she took out a stack of old papers.

The light from the lantern illuminated the pen marks on the paper.

The little sister also opened her eyes wide and came over. Zhuang Xing lowered the paper so that the little one could also join in the fun.

The patterns on these papers were much neater than the drafts Zhuang Xing saw on the table.

And it's not just a single pulley anymore; it also has a structure similar to a wooden cart. It seems that Bai Yu is trying to create something like a crane.

But it's really unnecessary to make a wooden cart just for a fixed pulley. Her research on pulley systems is not comprehensive. She probably just discovered by chance that hanging a rope in a fixed place and then placing a non-fixed pulley on the rope to pull upwards seems to require less force.

She didn't fully understand the underlying principles, so she produced some strange and impractical drawings.

These drawings roughly reveal her ideas; she even used two fixed pulleys. However, these should be early drawings, and she must have discovered long ago that such a design was a complete waste of effort.

"Little Jasmine, did you and Bai Yu draw all of these together?" Zhuang Xing asked.

Little Jasmine shook her head, picked out a few, and said, "These older ones were drawn by Sister Baiyu when she came to visit me. The ones after that were drawn by me."

Zhuang Xing examined the old blueprints and was somewhat surprised. He didn't expect that most of the blueprints drawn by Xiao Moli herself used the labor-saving pulley system structure.

"Taoist brother, have you noticed anything?" Little Jasmine asked, peeking out.

"Brother, did you see something?" the younger sister asked, pretending to be interested.

The little guy is not only clingy, but also a quick learner.

Zhuang Xing ruffled his younger sister's hair, and she nudged his palm against it.

Little Jasmine, standing to the side, had a hint of anticipation on her face. Although she had grown up and was not as close to Zhuang Xing as before, in her heart, Zhuang Xing's image was still very high-class.

Fortunately, Zhuang Xing hadn't forgotten everything his teacher had taught him, so he didn't falter at this crucial moment.

He took out a blueprint, pointed to the most crucial movable pulley in the pulley system, and said, "Little Jasmine, look at this pulley."

Little Jasmine's gaze followed his finger, and she listened intently with a serious expression.

On this drawing, there is a rope connected to the arm of the wooden cart, and at the top of the arm is a fixed pulley that shifts the direction of force.

"If I were to add a non-fixed pulley here..." Zhuang Xing began to explain the principle of pulley systems to Xiao Moli.

The basic principle is not complicated. Adding a movable pulley is equivalent to distributing the weight of the suspended object onto two ropes. It's like a bag: if you carry it alone, you bear all the weight, but if two people carry it together, each person bears half.

Saving effort means saving manpower; the overall strength remains unchanged.

By replacing the bag with a rope and using a rotating wheel as a fulcrum, you can transport the items in the bag to higher places.

A movable pulley can make a rope into two, just like two people carrying the same bag. Adding more movable pulleys is like having more people carry the same bag. The less force is distributed to each "person", the more force is saved for the person who pulls the rope in the end.

Theoretically speaking, if you keep adding pulleys, it is possible for a small baby to pull a heavy object weighing hundreds of tons.

However, we still need to consider the issues of friction and wear, which is practically impossible. But based on this, it is not difficult to build a crane on the ship to save manpower and increase efficiency.

This thing can be used for more than just transportation; it can also play a vital role in the construction and manufacturing industries.

Zhuang Xing explained the principles he knew to Xiao Moli in a simple and easy-to-understand way.

The more Jasmine listened, the more her brows furrowed, and her younger sister imitated her sister's expression, squeezing her eyebrows together as hard as she could.

Then at some point, Jasmine suddenly relaxed her brow.

"So that's how it is!" she exclaimed in surprise.

"So that's how it is." The younger sister immediately straightened her posture and started spouting nonsense with a straight face.

Chapter 276 I'll be happy the day after tomorrow too

"Little sister, what did you understand?" Zhuang Xing was amused by his little sister's expression.

"Brother, I understand so much!" the little sister said, looking up at her brother.

Zhuang Xing smiled. He didn't know if his sister understood or not, but Xiao Moli seemed to have.

A look of sudden realization appeared on the face of the girl in the pale yellow cotton dress.

"So that's what happened!"

"Brother Taoist priest, may I write down what you told me today?"