Qin Dynasty: They've all turned into zombies, what's there to fear about a rebellion?

"Zzzzz—Boom!"

A piercing metallic roar echoed through the alchemy room, accompanied by sparks flying as a bronze pillar, as thick as a thigh, was instantly severed by the rapidly spinning serrated disc.

The cut was as smooth as a mirror, and even had a dark red sheen due to the high temperature.

"Good! Good! Good!"

Ying Zheng stood a few steps away. Although he was dressed in black casual clothes, the domineering aura of death emanating from him was impossible to conceal. He looked at the walking corpse equipped with the "Ripper No. 1" prosthetic arm, the green flames in his eyes flickering like a feast of will-o'-the-wisps.

"This thing is awesome!"

Ying Zheng stepped forward, extended his hairy red fingers, and gently touched the edge of the still-spinning serrated edge. Even in his current "Corpse Ancestor Body," he could feel the sharp cutting sensation.

"Compared to tearing it by hand, this thing may lack some of the tactile feel, but it has more of an... artistic quality."

Ying Zheng gave it extremely high praise: "The sight of the enemy being split in two, armor and all, is pleasing to the eye just to think about."

"Your Majesty is wise!"

Gongshu Chou could no longer contain his excitement and knelt down at Ying Zheng's feet with a thud, but his eyes were still fixed on Su Ming, his gaze so fervent that it was as if he had seen a living ancestor.

"Your Majesty! This is simply a miracle of mechanical engineering!"

Gongshu Chou danced with abandon, his beard trembling. "I've spent my whole life studying domineering mechanical arts, creating the Seven Broken Earth and the Mechanical Snake, thinking I'd reached the pinnacle. But seeing the Imperial Advisor's design today, I realize that everything I created before... was just a child's toy!"

He suddenly turned around and prostrated himself before Su Ming, his forehead hitting the bluestone slab with a loud thud.

"Imperial Advisor! Your imagination... is ninety thousand feet higher than my old flying mechanical bird!"

"Using corpse energy as a power source and meridians as a transmission shaft—what a brilliant idea! If those useless Mo family members, who only know how to defend all day, saw this, they'd probably be so ashamed they'd jump off a cliff!"

Su Ming sat on the armchair next to him, holding a cup of tea in his hand, and waved his hand with great satisfaction.

"Alright, Old Loser, stop with the mutual flattery. Technology is for serving, not for bragging."

Su Ming put down his teacup, his expression turning serious. "Since His Majesty is satisfied, the task ahead is quite demanding. I need to re-equip all three hundred Black Iron Warriors within a month!"

"Is it possible?"

"Yes! Absolutely! As long as we don't die from training, we'll train like crazy!"

Gongshu Chou patted his chest, making a loud thud as he patted his mechanic's robe, "I'll bring over all the disciples and apprentices of the Gongshu family right now! And all the craftsmen from the Imperial Household Department too! Three shifts, non-stop! Anyone who dares to complain of being tired, I'll just forge them into a mechanical beast as its power core!"

This is the awareness of a tech fanatic.

To achieve their ultimate art, human life is just a number to them; they would even fill in their own lives.

Ying Zheng nodded in satisfaction. This kind of crazy enthusiasm was very much in line with the current state of Qin.

"However, simply modifying soldiers is not enough."

Su Ming stood up and walked to the huge map of Xianyang's defenses hanging on the wall. He picked up a vermilion brush and drew several heavy circles around the city walls, arrow towers, and moat.

"Your Majesty, if we're going to do something, let's do something big."

Su Ming's voice was filled with a kind of excitement that seemed to thrive on chaos. "It's not enough to just have strong people; we also need to protect our home. Xianyang is our base of operations, the future 'City of the Dead.' Our current defense system is too outdated; we're relying entirely on human lives to cover it up."

"Backward?" Ying Zheng raised an eyebrow. "The walls of Xianyang are three zhang high, as solid as a rock..."

"What good is being three zhang tall? People can just fly over walls and scale rooftops to get in."

Su Ming pointed to the city wall, "My idea is to build a fully automated 'Netherworld Defense System'."

"Inside the city walls, corpse energy pipes were buried, connecting to the underground Yin-gathering array. Every ten steps, an 'automatic sentry tower' was set up. These sentry towers did not require living people to stand guard; instead, a modified walking corpse was placed inside, holding a crossbow or a flamethrower."

"As soon as the aura of a living person not wearing an 'identity tag' approaches, unleash a barrage of arrows—the kind infused with corpse poison!"

Su Ming got more and more excited as he talked, frantically sketching on the map with his vermilion pen.

"The water in the moat has also been changed to highly corrosive corpse water, and a few mutated crocodiles or water pythons have been raised there."

"And the city gates, stop using wood, replace them with stone blocks, and add hydraulic systems. If anything happens, the massive gates will slam down, crushing even gods into mincemeat!"

Gongshu Chou, listening from the side, rolled his eyes and breathed rapidly, feeling that his brain could hardly keep up with Su Ming's pace.

This is hardly a city defense project.

This is clearly turning Xianyang into a gigantic, man-eating, bone-spitting steel monster!

"Fully automatic...corpse aura sensor...hydraulic dragon-slaying stone..."

Gongshu Chou muttered to himself, his charcoal pencil flying across his notebook, afraid of missing a single word. "Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant! Once this defensive system is built, the Mohist's prized mechanical city will be nothing more than a drafty thatched hut in our eyes!"

Ying Zheng stood in front of the map, looking at the red dots circled by Su Ming, and a scene appeared in his mind.

The black city walls soared into the clouds, flickering with eerie green will-o'-the-wisps.

Countless tireless mechanical corpses patrolled the city walls, their cold gun barrels and crossbow bolts pointed at every enemy who dared to spy on the Qin Dynasty.

Black, poisonous water churned in the moat, and a huge shadow lurked beneath.

This is not a city on earth.

This is a fortress, a war fortress belonging to the dead, one that will never fall!

"call……"

Ying Zheng exhaled a long breath of stale air, feeling as if all the pores on his body had opened up. His heart, which had stopped beating, now experienced a hallucinatory throbbing.

"Imperial Advisor, you always manage to surprise me."

Ying Zheng turned around and looked out the window of the alchemy room at the ancient capital city that was sleeping in the night and about to undergo earth-shattering changes.

The moonlight shone on the glazed tiles, giving them a pale, almost deathly white appearance.

But in Ying Zheng's eyes, that light was turning into a deep, dark green, a color that represented power and eternity.

"This city has laid the foundation for the Qin Dynasty for hundreds of years. But from this day forward, it will bear the weight of my eternal dominance."

Ying Zheng slowly stretched out his hand, as if to hold the entire city of Xianyang in his palm.

"only……"

He frowned slightly, a hint of disdain in his voice, "'Xianyang' sounds too masculine, too... vulgar. It doesn't match the aura of our current 'underworld empire'."

Upon hearing this, Su Ming immediately understood.

It's a name change!

That's normal. New companies need to change their logo when they go public. The Qin Dynasty has all mutated, so what's wrong with changing the name?

"Then what is Your Majesty's opinion?" Su Ming asked tentatively.

Ying Zheng remained silent for a moment.

He looked out the window at the lights swaying in the night wind, at the palace complex hidden in the darkness like the spine of a giant beast, his green vertical pupils suddenly contracted, and he uttered two words filled with endless chill and domineering power.

"This name is too common, let's change it."

Ying Zheng waved his hand, pointing to this land that was about to turn into a hellish inferno:

"From this day forward, this place will no longer be called Xianyang."

"Call--"