Longzang

Chapter 823 The Sense of Ritual
Early morning is a magical time. When the first rays of sunlight shine through the window, Xiaoyu feels as if she is waking up in her own courtyard in her ancestral homeland. Yesterday's events seem like a long dream, and they seem very distant.

He roused himself, stepped out of the bedroom, and suddenly saw that an eight-immortal table had been set up in the main hall, with four kinds of breakfast on it, as well as a pot of fine tea.

Inside the study, a large stack of official documents had been moved in. Xiao Yu casually flipped through them and found that they were all about the current development of Yong'an City and some urgent official matters.

Xiaoyu immediately perked up, quickly finished her breakfast, and started working.

At this moment, Wei Yuan was dealing with the backlog of Qingming affairs amidst the everyday hustle and bustle of life. He specifically added one more task: to renovate the Yong'an City Lord's Mansion. After thinking for a moment, he ordered someone to notify Xiao Yu to attend the celebration of the truck's production line launch.

The celebration was held at the Forging Workshop. The Forging Workshop is now a whole area, covering more than a hundred miles in circumference, and is divided into seven or eight functional areas.

This is only the main headquarters; various factories and mines are also located in different places. There are more than 7,000 cultivators honing their Dao foundation here, 50,000 body-casting craftsmen, and 500,000 mortals.

The new engines were the size of small houses, so the truck was naturally no smaller. This truck had ten tires on each side, two in the front and eight in the rear, with two tires on each wheel. Each tire was as tall as Wei Yuan himself. The overall height of the truck was close to three stories, and it was fifteen zhang long.

Xiao Yu was shocked by the enormous size of the creature, but Wei Yuan and the others were used to it.

Yu Zhizhu then invited the cultivators to board the vehicle and personally demonstrated its performance. This vehicle is equipped with both weight reduction and wind control features. It is normally driven by the engine on the ground, but can fly briefly in rugged terrain, reaching a height of 100 zhang (approximately 50 meters) at a time.

This vehicle can carry up to 500,000 catties of cargo and can travel at high speed on basic roads where two horse-drawn carriages can travel side by side. Just twenty of these vehicles are enough to supply the daily needs of an army of 100,000.

The key advantage is that this vehicle can travel on ordinary roads, and its cost of transporting goods per thousand miles for the same weight is less than one-tenth that of a flying boat. Flying boats consume high-grade spirit jade, while this vehicle mostly consumes only Qi-replenishing pills for Dao Foundation Establishment cultivators, plus three meals a day.

After inspecting the entire train, Wei Yuan immediately decided to produce one hundred trains first.

This vehicle can be further modified and has many other uses. At this moment, Wei Yuan had already thought that if several vehicles were deployed on the routes from Qingming to Bishui and from Qingming to Hanyang Pass, and operated regularly, the investment could be recouped in less than six months.

Next came the final part of the ceremony, where Wei Yuan presented Yu Zhizhuo with the four large characters "闭门造车" (meaning "building a cart behind closed doors"). Yu Zhizhuo displayed them in public, then ordered them to be framed and placed in the office of the new workshop. At the same time, the four characters were also inlaid on the gate of the freight car workshop.

The ceremony was brief yet enthusiastic, with thunderous applause throughout.

Standing on the stage, Xiao Yu watched Wei Yuan and Yu Zhizhuo go through the motions of exchanging inscriptions. Suddenly, she had a feeling that although the people below the stage found this ceremony boring, the people on the stage felt particularly good about it. No wonder they were all so enthusiastic about it.

Xiaoyu, who was watching from the stage, felt that it wasn't so bad and thought that it wouldn't be a bad thing to do it a few more times. Maybe she would be the main character next time.

Wei Yuan smiled brightly at the audience, deliberately pausing for ten seconds to allow everyone to clearly see his demeanor. This affected manner garnered him over a hundred streams of azure energy, and he concluded the ceremony with satisfaction.

Wei Yuan now accepts all kinds of fortune, big or small, without hesitation; this is the foundation of his livelihood.

Xiao Yu secretly transmitted her voice to Wei Yuan: "Has it already developed to this point?"

Wei Yuan replied, "Do you remember Xu Wenwu? I recently fished out a fragment of a world that looks a lot like the Outer World. I absorbed a lot of memories and knowledge about the Outer World from the fragment, and I've already organized them and put them in the library. If you want to see them, you can go to sleep tonight."

"The administration of Yong'an City..."

"Most of the work is currently handled by the State Affairs Bureau. You can familiarize yourself with it first. Do what you can, and hand over the difficult parts to the State Affairs Bureau. I have already asked them to gradually transfer official documents to you. Once you are familiar with it, you can transfer the approvals to them."

This arrangement was the best, and Xiaoyu finally felt relieved.

Xiao Yu had originally come to Qingming with the intention of demanding an explanation. However, Wei Yuan subdued Xiao Yu's army without a fight, and Xiao Yu accepted the old position of Lord of Yong'an City. Firstly, it was to give Wei Yuan face; secondly, Yong'an City was now large in scale, and there was also the factor of nostalgia; taking over as lord would be a good thing, and it could further enhance Xiao Yu's reputation.

But after yesterday's dark day, Xiaoyu's mindset had undergone a subtle change; she was no longer aloof. Could Zhang Sheng not control this core city of Qingming? Could Ji Liuli and Bao Yun not control it? Feng Tingyu… well, she certainly couldn't. Xiaoyu thought so.

After the ceremony, Wei Yuan hurriedly returned to his seclusion to continue his battle with numbers and curves. The second phase of trajectory calculation was 70% complete, and victory was in sight.

Wei Yuan has already prepared the core of the new orbital cave, which is the cauldron that held the Yin spirits that he snatched back from the Northern Territory.

The material of this cauldron is of extremely high quality. After being immersed in soul power for ten thousand years, it has already undergone a mutation, becoming extremely yin and cold, and also possessing the true meaning of despair and tranquility. Once it is cultivated into a grotto-heaven, its attributes will inevitably be quite extreme, and it might even become a natural golden grotto-heaven.

With each new grotto-heaven formed, the human world becomes more complete, and Wei Yuan's cultivation level also advances significantly.

The handful of apricot-yellow soil, having absorbed the chaotic energy of many days, had now grown to a radius of about ten feet. On it sat a water vat, and around the vat stood three mirage demons, staring at each other with wide eyes.

This tiny patch of land, barely the size of a palm, is so small that it's difficult to even turn around. Moreover, the nature of this place makes it quite uncomfortable for aquatic creatures, who rely entirely on the innate water vapor in the central water tank to survive.

Although it was uncomfortable here, as members of the Imperial Realm, they didn't want to stay in the mundane world. There, the three mirage demons' inner worlds would be firmly suppressed, as if frozen, unable to move at all, causing them indescribable discomfort.

In comparison, they felt more at ease on this small piece of land. Therefore, the three demons had no objection to Wei Yuan's decision to move them here. Besides, this was the core of a new grotto-heaven, which would continue to grow, and they could still turn around in the future.

After inspecting the interior of the Human World and finding nothing wrong, Wei Yuan went to his own courtyard at the Creation of Heaven and Earth Research Institute and started 512 tasks, preparing to continue calculating the orbit of the second cave heaven.

Before starting work, Wei Yuan made a special trip to see Xiao Yu and saw that he had indeed entered the world of human affairs and had come to the research institute under the guidance of the staff.

The staff member was an ordinary-looking girl. After explaining how to use the system, she immediately gave Xiaoyu sixteen tasks.

When Xiaoyu first encountered the task system, she was inevitably a bit flustered. Even with the help of Shaoyang Xingjun, she was still overwhelmed and disorganized when handling sixteen tasks by herself.

Upon seeing this, Wei Yuan was naturally pleased and opened sixty-four more tasks, processing them at lightning speed.

On the other side, Lord Shaoyang kept exclaiming, "The wonder of this system is somewhat reminiscent of the celestial beings who oversee the heavens and earth. It is truly unbelievable that mortals could create such a system."

Xiao Yu nodded: "Indeed. This is probably not something an ordinary cultivator can use. We are struggling so much, imagine what it would be like if it were Feng Tingyu..."

Suddenly, Shaoyang Xingjun said, "This world is full of demons, but perhaps the entire fortune of the Taichu Palace has already gathered here. In a few days, you might as well visit your elders more often, and I'd like to see what level their Dharma forms are at."

"what do you mean……"

"Thanks to you, I haven't won a single battle since I was born. How can I quell the pent-up frustration in my heart? Why don't you just commit suicide and be reborn to start over?"

Xiao Yu was displeased: "Do you think it's because I'm not good enough? How can you blame me for losing?"

Shaoyang Xingjun glared back at Xiaoyu, not giving an inch: "Otherwise what? Could it be that this Xingjun is incompetent?"

Xiao Yu stared coldly at Shao Yang Xing Jun without saying a word; everything was conveyed through her eyes.

(End of this chapter)