Top Scholar

Chapter 321 One Step Closer to the Truth

While Su Tai was busy leading people to dig kilns and fire bricks in preparation for upgrading Longchang Post Station, She Yunluo planned to go to Guizhou City, firstly to ask her maternal grandmother's family to take care of Mr. Yangming, and secondly to inform the Yang family about their affairs.

"Teacher, would you like to go to Guizhou together and report to Shangguan?" Su Lu asked.

"Forget it." Wang Shouren shook his head: "I am a disgraced official who has been demoted, and Liu Jin has specifically forged an imperial edict to prohibit officials and common people from contacting me. It is better not to cause them any trouble."

“Sigh, the teacher always thinks of others first.” Su Lu sighed and stopped trying to persuade him. So he stayed at Longchang Post Station to help Wang Shouren clear wasteland and burn the land to prepare for planting vegetables. Wang Shouren was an official, so the problem of food was easy to solve. But this place was deserted for miles around, so if they wanted to eat vegetables, they had to grow them themselves.

She Yunluo, escorted by Luo Luo warriors, headed to Guizhou City, the only major city in Guizhou.

Guizhou City is 200 li away from Longchang Post Station, but there is a post road opened by Lady Shexiang in the past, so the journey is not too difficult.

Three days later, She Yunluo arrived in Guizhou City. Despite being the only major city in Guizhou and the seat of the provincial head's government, it was not even as prosperous as Lincheng.

However, the Guizhou Pacification Commissioner's Office was quite grand, and the current Pacification Commissioner, An Guirong, had been in office for nearly forty years. Hearing that his granddaughter had arrived, An Guirong happily greeted her.

"Haha, Yunluo, it's been three years since I last visited. Your grandfather has missed you terribly!" An Guirong looked at his beautiful and elegant granddaughter with affection and said happily, "Good, good, you've grown into a beautiful young lady, just like your mother was back then!"

"Grandpa, I miss you too." She Yunluo held An Guirong's hand and said in a coquettish voice, "But there are bad people in my family. On the way back, I almost got killed by them."

"I know it was your father's concubine who did it," An Guirong said coldly. "If we weren't so far away, my grandfather would never have let her off the hook!"

Then, she asked with concern, "Her son is almost an adult, your mother must be under a lot of pressure, right?"

"Of course." She Yunlu then told An Guirong about how the Yang family of Bozhou had interfered in the internal strife of the She family, and how Yang Bin had even forced her to marry his youngest son.

"Did your mother agree?" An Guirong pressed.

"No." She Yunlu shook her head and said, "My mother said that agreeing would mean certain death, so she plans to help the court repair the Chishui River. That way, she can unite with my grandfather and see if that Yang guy still dares to interfere."

“…” An Guirong remained silent.

"What's wrong, Grandpa?" She Yunluo's heart tightened.

"You don't know yet, do you?" An Guirong sighed. "Yang Bin has been promoted."

"How is that possible? He's already a Pacification Commissioner, where else could he be promoted?" She Yunlu asked, puzzled.

"We just received news that he has gotten through to Liu Jin and has been appointed as the Provincial Surveillance Commissioner of Sichuan!" An Guirong said solemnly.

"Huh?" She Yunluo was dumbfounded. "How can a Tusi (chieftain) be the provincial governor?"

“Yes, I also find it unbelievable, but he still got the position.” An Guirong sighed, “He’s not on the same level as us anymore, we need to avoid his sharp edge.”

"..." She Yunluo said, her face pale, "Won't my mother be in trouble?"

“Sigh…” An Guirong nodded, then sighed and said, “Let’s lower our stance first and see if we can ease the tension.”

“The Yang family was already aggressive, and now they’ll definitely be even more arrogant. If we lower our stance, won’t we just let them bully us?” She Yunlu said, her eyes red.

"What can we do?" An Guirong said with a worried look. "I've never encountered such a strange thing before, and I don't know how to deal with it."

"..." She Yunluo also knew that her maternal grandfather would prioritize the interests of the Xi'an family of Shuixi and would not want to provoke the powerful Yang family for the sake of her and her daughter.

She composed herself and changed the subject, saying, "Let's not talk about the Yang family anymore. Grandpa, could you do me another favor?"

“Go ahead and speak,” An Guirong nodded.

"Does Grandpa know Wang Shouren?" She Yunlu asked.

“Of course I know.” An Guirong nodded slightly and said, “As the Pacification Commissioner, I also keep a close eye on the political situation at court… That Mr. Yangming is a big figure ranked eighth on the ‘List of Traitors’. Legend has it that he fell into the water in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, was resurrected in Fujian, and escaped the pursuit of the Embroidered Uniform Guard. I wonder when he will come here to take up his post.”

"He has already arrived and rebuilt Longchang Post Station." She Yunlu then told her grandfather about what had happened after arriving in Guizhou.

"Master Yangming has arrived? That's wonderful!" An Guirong exclaimed excitedly, "Quickly, have your eldest uncle go and offer his condolences on my behalf!"

"Check what the post station lacks and bring it all for him! It's an honor for us to have such an important person come to Guizhou, so we must make sure to treat him well!" An Guirong then said to She Yunluo:

"Our reputation in Guizhou depends entirely on these people's words. We must make them say good things about us!"

~~
Meanwhile, in Longchang Post Station, a group of men were playing in the mud...

Su Tai led his men to dig up red clay in the nearby mountains, carried it back in bamboo baskets, first removing the stones from the clods, then fetching stream water to mix with the mud, and then stomping barefoot in the mud. Su Lu and Wang Shouren saw this and enthusiastically joined in, and a group of grown men began to stomp in the mud, their legs and bodies covered in mud.

"Brother Xia, if you don't mind, I'll give you a courtesy name," Wang Shouren said to Su Tai while stomping through the mud.

"That's great! I've always wanted to have a courtesy name like Chun-ge and Qiu-ge!" Su Tai was overjoyed upon hearing this.

"Second Brother, you've been granted a courtesy name by my teacher. That's something to brag about for the rest of your life, and it'll even be written into the family genealogy in the future," Su Lu said with great envy.

“Alright, then I will bestow upon you the name ‘Anzhi’,” Wang Shouren said with a smile.

"Yes, yes!" Su Tai happily knelt down in the mud and kowtowed to Wang Shouren, saying, "Su Tai Su Anzhi thanks you, sir, for bestowing upon me your calligraphy!"

"Get up quickly. Don't listen to your brother's nonsense. I'm just a lowly postmaster now..." Wang Shouren pulled Su Tai up, only to find that his face was covered in mud. Everyone burst into laughter.

Su Tai then raised his hand and smeared mud all over Su Lu and the Luo Luo warrior's faces. This was like flipping a switch; the group of men started smearing mud on each other and playing around. Even Wang Shouren wasn't spared. In the end, everyone was covered in mud, completely indistinguishable from one another…

After they had had their fun, the group stuffed the mud, which they had stomped into dough, into wooden molds and cut out brick blanks, which they then stacked on the slope to dry.

But when they went to bathe in the mountain stream and came back to change into clean clothes, they found that the brick blanks had been exposed to the intense midday sun and developed fine cracks.

Su Tai picked up a brick, trying to salvage it, but it shattered into several pieces with the slightest pressure. He sighed, "I have no experience drying bricks this time; they should be air-dried in the shade..."

"No, brother, you've never fired bricks before?" Su Lu then realized that his "know-it-all brother" didn't know anything about firing bricks.

"I haven't done everything, I've just watched people make bricks," Su Tai said embarrassedly.

“It’s alright, take your time and try it slowly. We have plenty of time.” Wang Shouren smiled and comforted Su Tai. Then he said to Su Lu, “Hongzhi, didn’t you say that the ‘hypothetical-deductive method’ can not only be used for academic research, but also guide practice? Why don’t you demonstrate it?”

"The teacher is testing me?" Su Lu smiled confidently. "Of course, no problem. If I can successfully fire bricks using this method, doesn't that mean this method is one step closer to the truth?"

"That's right." Wang Shouren nodded with a smile.

“Alright, then this disciple will make a fool of himself.” Su Lu said, picking up a brick blank and saying, “First step, ask the question—why do brick blanks crack when dried in the sun?”

"The second step is to guess the cause." Su Lu pondered for a moment and said, "I can think of three reasons right now. Either the sun is too strong and the clay dries unevenly inside and out; or too little water was added when mixing the clay, making the clay too dry, and it will shrink and crack when it is dried."

“There’s another possibility: the clay isn’t suitable.” He paused for a moment, then continued, “But this possibility is the hardest to verify, so we’ve left it for last. If it turns out to be one of the first two possibilities, then we won’t have wasted our time.”

“That’s right.” Wang Shouren nodded and said, “If the first two possibilities are ruled out, then it’s very likely that the clay is not suitable, and we will have to find clay elsewhere.”

"Then let's verify the first two possibilities first," Su Lu proposed the experimental plan.

"Let's remake the brick blanks. One group uses the same amount of water and mud as before, another group has 10% more water, and the third group has 20% more water. Make them all into blanks, and let half of them air dry and the other half sun dry. We'll see the result and then we'll know why."

"Okay." Su Tai was a little confused, but he could do as he was told. So he led the warriors to mix the mud again and made thirty bricks as Su Lu requested. Half of them were placed in the sun and the other half were covered with straw mats to dry in the shade.

The next afternoon, when everyone saw the results, they found that the best performing bricks were those with 10% more water added and air-dried... All five brick blanks were intact, without a single crack.

The other bricks either still had cracks or were already deformed...

"So it's both because of the sun exposure and because too little water was added," Su Lu concluded. "We should add 10% more water and use the shade-drying method to dry the clay!"

So Su Tai led his men to remake the brick blanks as instructed, and this time they were indeed in perfect condition.

After the brick blanks were thoroughly dried, Su Tai built a small round kiln with rammed earth, leaving a narrow chimney. The first kiln was fired for three days, and when the kiln door was opened, the bricks were all dark red.

Wang Shouren could tell there was a problem just by looking at the color. Sure enough, it crumbled easily when he picked it up. He picked up the crumbs and said, "The soil wasn't fully burned, and its nature hasn't been changed."

Su Lu stepped in again, analyzed the problem, and put forward a conjecture... After analysis, he believed that the most likely reason was that the flue was too narrow and the firewood was added too quickly, causing the smoke to be blocked in the kiln and unable to dissipate.

So the second time, they widened the chimney and slowly added firewood, and this time the kiln fire burned steadily.

But when it came to the final step of watering to turn the bricks green, I wasn't sure... As a result, I watered too much in some places, and black spots accumulated on the bricks; I watered too little, and they were still reddish.

On the third attempt, they slowly poured water around the top of the kiln, letting the moisture seep in through the kiln cracks. When they finally opened the kiln door, they saw the bluish-gray bricks.

Wang Shouren picked up the two pieces and tapped them together. They only lost a few crumbs and were mostly intact. He smiled and said to Su Tai, "Anzhi, this time, the soil is truly 'submitted'."

He then said to Su Lu, "Hongzhi, your hypothetical-deductive method has brought you one step closer to the truth!"

P.S. This is a post I'll edit later. Please vote with your monthly tickets!
(End of this chapter)