I started on a deserted island and encountered Ying Zheng, who insisted I was an immortal.

Chapter 78 Immortal, this paper... isn't it for eating?

The sea breeze rustled the paper, which was as thin as a cicada's wing.

Li Si practically tumbled and crawled over.

He gently cradled the piece of toilet paper with the words "Great Qin" written on it, as if he were cradling a newborn baby. He was afraid that even a slightly heavy breath would break this precious item.

"Beautiful calligraphy... truly beautiful calligraphy!"

Tears streamed down Li Si's face as he frantically rubbed his cheek against the rough paper. "The brushstrokes are powerful, penetrating the paper! And this celestial paper is as white as snow, as soft and smooth as… as…"

He was at a loss for words.

I racked my brains over all the classical texts I've read in my life, but I couldn't find a single word to describe the feel of this roll of toilet paper in my hand.

"Alright, stop rubbing it." Zhang Ying couldn't stand it anymore and flicked the cigarette butt into the sandpit. "That stuff is very absorbent. If you rub it a couple more times, your snot and tears will be all over it."

Li Si froze.

Highly absorbent?

He looked down and, sure enough, the tears of excitement from earlier had soaked a small patch, causing the powerful "Qin" character to blur into a blotchy blue ink mark.

"ah!!!"

A blood-curdling scream pierced the night sky.

Holding the smeared ink, Li Si was heartbroken and breathless. He immediately tried to smash his head against the nearby coconut tree. "I am guilty! I have defiled this sacred object! I will atone with my death!"

"Come back!" Ying Zheng shouted, his face dark.

Although he felt the pain, he couldn't bear the shame even more. How could the dignified Prime Minister of Qin risk his life for a piece of paper?

"Sir, you are right." Ying Zheng snatched the remaining roll of toilet paper from Li Si's hand, carefully tucked it into his robes, and placed it close to his chest. "This is delicate and must not get damp."

He glanced at the scrap of paper in Li Si's hand again and pondered for a moment.

"Meng Yi".

"Your subject is here!"

"Find a dry brocade box and frame this...this calligraphy. Issue the order that this is 'heavenly scripture,' and seeing this calligraphy is as if seeing the Emperor himself."

Zhang Ying: "..."

He looked at this group of drama queens and felt a headache coming on.

That's just a cheap toilet paper roll for wiping your butt!

Two yuan a roll, the kind that crumbles and leaves powder!

Do you treat it like an imperial edict?

"Do as you please." Zhang Ying waved her hand, turned and walked towards the small building. "I'm going to sleep. If you're hungry, roast some potatoes yourselves, just don't set my house on fire."

After taking two steps, he stopped and pointed to the pile of bronze artifacts.

"Oh, and remember to cover that pile of junk with something. If I don't see it by tomorrow morning, you can expect to swim all the way back to the Qin Dynasty."

"Ragged..." Li Si's lips twitched.

Those were ritual vessels from the ancestral temple of the Qin Dynasty! They were symbols of power!

"Yes, sir!" Meng Tian agreed quickly.

In his eyes, the immortal's words were like military orders. Let alone covering bronze vessels, even if he were asked to carry this pile of cauldrons all night, he would not hesitate.

Zhang Ying yawned as she went upstairs.

The four Qin rulers and their ministers were left standing around the campfire, guarding a pile of priceless bronze artifacts and a roll of toilet paper in their arms, staring at each other in bewilderment.

This night is destined to be sleepless.

……

The next day.

Zhang Ying was awakened by a series of uniform shouts.

"Hey! Ha!"

The sound was so loud that the glass windows were buzzing.

Frustrated, Zhang Ying scratched her hair and grabbed a pillow to cover her ears. It didn't work. The sound seemed to have a penetrating power, drilling straight into her brain.

"What's going on so early in the morning?"

With messy hair and wearing baggy shorts, he angrily pushed open the balcony door.

next second.

Zhang Ying was stunned.

In the morning sunlight.

The once barren and messy beach is now as smooth as a giant mirror.

The three thousand Qin soldiers, stripped of their armor, lined up in several long rows.

Some people were moving stones, some were leveling the land, and some were using the entrenching tools issued yesterday to clear the bushes.

There was no supervisor.

There was no whipping.

There wasn't even any extra conversation.

Only heavy breathing and those deep, powerful shouts could be heard.

It was a suffocating level of discipline.

Zhang Ying looked down.

Yesterday's mountain of potatoes has now been completely cleaned, sorted by size, and neatly stacked in a makeshift shed made of branches.

Even the potatoes were arranged in the same direction.

Even people with obsessive-compulsive disorder would be moved to tears after watching this.

"This..." Zhang Ying leaned on the railing, almost dropping her toothbrush.

Is this the legendary ancestor of the "infrastructure maniac"?

This level of execution is many times better than those modern construction teams that just dawdle and procrastinate!

"Is the gentleman awake?"

A strong, resonant voice came from downstairs.

Ying Zheng changed into a set of coarse linen clothes—the old work clothes Zhang Ying had thrown at him yesterday, which actually fit him quite well. He was holding a roasted potato in his hand and was standing next to Meng Tian, pointing and gesturing.

Upon seeing Zhang Ying emerge, Ying Zheng raised his head, a hint of smugness on his face.

"Sir, how do you see this land? Is it flat enough?"

Zhang Ying spat out the foam in her mouth and gave a thumbs-up to the people downstairs.

"Awesome."

Ying Zheng did not understand those two words.

But judging from the gesture, it should be a compliment.

Ying Zheng smiled.

I'm even happier than after eating that incredibly sweet roasted sweet potato.

Zhang Ying finished washing up and went downstairs.

As soon as I reached the door, I saw Li Si squatting in the corner, holding a small notebook (the same notebook from yesterday), lecturing several soldiers.

"Remember? This is called a 'potato,' not a 'local egg'! That's 'corn,' not 'golden stick'!"

"Anyone who dares to misremember a name will have their name crossed off the family register when we get back!"

The soldiers nodded and nodded frantically.

Zhang Ying walked over and kicked a burlap sack next to her.

"What is this?"

Meng Tian immediately ran over and wiped the sweat from his brow—this guy was shirtless, and his muscles gleamed in the sunlight.

"Reporting to you, sir! This is limestone that the brothers went to the back mountain to collect last night...?" Meng Tian wasn't quite sure about the word. "We found it according to the pattern shown in your drawings."

Last night, before going to bed, Zhang Ying casually tossed a "Simple Cement Making Guide" to Meng Tian.

I didn't expect them to understand it.

result……

Zhang Ying opened the sack and took a look.

The stone is grayish-white and hard. It is indeed limestone.

And the number is staggering.

That night, these guys emptied out the back mountain.

"Alright." Zhang Ying patted Meng Tian's shoulder, which was as hard as iron. "Now that we have all the materials, I'll teach you a new trick today."

"What trick?" Ying Zheng leaned closer, his eyes shining.

"Turning stone into gold." Zhang Ying smiled mysteriously.

Ying Zheng's breath hitched.

gold?

Could this be the legendary alchemy?

Zhang Ying ignored their speculations. He had several large cauldrons set up—bronze tripods that had been brought down from the ship and were now being requisitioned to burn stones.

"Smash the stones and throw them in to burn."

"Add clay."

"Add iron ore slag."

Zhang Ying directed things like a charlatan.

Although the Qin soldiers couldn't understand it, their execution was impeccable. Thousands of them took turns swinging sledgehammers, smashing the hard limestone into powder.

The fire was raging.

The bronze tripod was heated until it was red-hot.

It took until noon to finish.

The first batch of grayish-brown powder has finally come out of the oven.

"That's it?" Meng Tian looked at the unremarkable pile of dust with a disappointed expression. "This isn't gold either."

Ying Zheng also had some doubts.

This thing looks no different from the dust on the roadside, or even dirtier.

"Don't rush."

Zhang Ying found two red bricks—the ones he had burned for fun before.

He applied a layer of freshly mixed cement slurry to the bricks and then glued the two bricks together.

"Wait."

Zhang Ying moved a small stool over and sat down next to him to smoke.

Ying Zheng and the others just waited there.

One hour.

Two hours.

The sun was scorching.

Meng Tian couldn't resist any longer and reached out to poke the two bricks.

"Don't move!" Zhang Ying hadn't even had a chance to shout.

Meng Tian's finger had already poked at it.

hard.

Hard as a rock.

Meng Tian was taken aback. He tried to pry the two bricks apart.

Not moving.

Meng Tian increased his strength. He was a formidable man who could lift a cauldron with one hand.

The veins on the back of his hand were bulging.

The bricks remained firmly stuck together, as if they had always been a single stone.

"This..." Meng Tian's expression changed in shock.

He drew his sword from his waist (which he hadn't been willing to hand over the night before) and slammed the hilt hard against the joint between the two bricks.

"when!"

A crisp sound.

Sparks flew everywhere.

The brick broke.

However, the cement layer at the joint remained intact, even holding the broken brick fragments firmly in place.

The entire room fell silent.

Ying Zheng stared intently at the gray-white connecting line.

The pupils contracted violently.

As an emperor, he understood better than anyone what this meant.

The city walls of the Qin Dynasty were made of rammed earth.

It will collapse when it rains heavily, and it will shatter when it hits a battering ram.

How much manpower and resources did the Qin Dynasty expend to build the Great Wall and defend against the Xiongnu? How many laborers died from exhaustion?

in case……

If this thing exists...

"This mud..." Ying Zheng's voice trembled uncontrollably, his finger pointing at the pile of gray powder shaking, "What is this mud called?"

"Cement." Zhang Ying exhaled a smoke ring. "Immovable by water and fire, it will not decay for ten thousand years."

"With this thing, building a house is out of the question."

Zhang Ying pointed north.

"It's not a difficult thing to build a wall on the grassland that can block out the sky."

"Thump."

Ying Zheng knelt down.

This time it wasn't on one knee.

It's both knees.

He faced the pile of dusty cement powder and prostrated himself in the ground.

"May God bless the Great Qin!"

"God bless China!"

The cries were mournful and piercing.

With boundless catharsis and ecstasy.

The three thousand soldiers around him, though unaware of what had happened, also knelt down in unison when they saw the emperor kneeling.

Only Zhang Ying sat on the stool, smoking a cigarette, looking completely bewildered.

"no……"

"I just want to make cement to build a pigsty."

"Is it really necessary?"

Chapter 89

Chapter 79 My 300,000-strong army is only fit to dig potatoes for you?

The sea breeze blows.

Ying Zheng knelt on the ground, crying like a two-hundred-pound child.

Meng Tian and Li Si also wiped away their tears.

They understand it all too well.

The Qin Dynasty suffered terribly.

They fought the Xiongnu in the north and conquered the Baiyue in the south. Every single one of these campaigns involved the loss of lives.

Especially the construction of the Great Wall.

That was the blood and flesh millstone of the Qin Dynasty.

Every time a section of the city wall collapsed due to torrential rain, Ying Zheng's heart bled. What collapsed was not just earth, but the money and grain in the national treasury, and the resentment of the people!

But now...

Looking at those two red bricks stuck together tightly.

Ying Zheng seemed to see a gray dragon coiled among the towering mountains, standing firm against wind and rain.

The Xiongnu cavalry?

In the face of this concrete Great Wall, they are nothing more than flies banging their heads against the wall!

"teacher!"

Ying Zheng suddenly raised his head, his face streaked with tears, but his eyes were frighteningly bright.

He crawled two steps on his knees and approached Zhang Ying.

"What is the recipe for this divine mud?"

"I would give up half the country in exchange!"

Zhang Ying was startled by this unexpected gift. The ash from his cigarette fell onto his thigh, burning him and making him wince.

"Holy crap!"

Zhang Ying jumped up, patted her pants, and glared at Ying Zheng with annoyance.

"What do you mean by 'half the country'? Can you please stop making these feudal and superstitious vows all the time?"

"formula?"

Zhang Ying pointed to the bronze cauldron next to her that was still smoking.

"Didn't you just see that? Limestone, clay, iron slag, ground into powder and then burned."

"That's it?" Li Si's eyes widened in disbelief.

This is a treasure comparable to the stone used to mend the heavens!

Is it unnecessary to add the blood of young boys and girls?

Is it unnecessary to choose an auspicious day to start the furnace?

Just... a casual fire?

"Otherwise what?" Zhang Ying rolled her eyes. "The difficulty lies in temperature control and proportions. But I don't think you guys have any chemistry background. I'll write a simple tutorial for you later."

"Oh, right."

Zhang Ying suddenly remembered something.

"Since you're all so free, and have nowhere to use your energy..."

He pointed to the desolate salt flats in the distance.

"Level that piece of land for me."

"I want to build a pig farm and a chicken coop."

"The materials we'll use are this cement and those red bricks over there."

Ying Zheng was stunned.

Pig farming?

Using such a national treasure... to build a house for that filthy thing?

"Sir..." Meng Yi couldn't help but speak, "This divine mud is so precious, how can it be used for..."

"Precious my ass." Zhang Ying interrupted him, "There are plenty of stones on this island, burn as many as you want."

"We'll see."

Zhang Ying glanced at the group of people, her tone cool.

"If you don't work, what will you eat for dinner?"

Tonight I'm planning to make braised pork belly, beef stew with potatoes, and rice.

Braised pork belly?

Beef stew with potatoes?

Rice?

These three words, when combined, instantly shattered the psychological defenses of the Qin emperor and his ministers.

The taste of that roasted sweet potato from yesterday is still lingering in my mouth.

If it's meat...

The flesh of immortals...

"Dry!"

Ying Zheng suddenly stood up, waved his hand, and exuded an air of commanding the world.

"Meng Tian!"

"exist!"

"Issue my decree!"

"The entire army... is moving bricks!"

"Make sure the master's pigsty is covered before sunset!"

"It must be built even more sturdily than my own bedchamber!"

"promise!"

Meng Tian accepted the order and turned to roar at the three thousand elite troops, "Did you all hear that! For braised pork! Give it your all!"

"roar--!!!"

Three thousand strong men roared in unison.

The sound was deafening.

With that kind of imposing presence, anyone who didn't know better would think they were about to conquer six kingdoms.

In reality, they were just there to move bricks.

Zhang Ying nodded in satisfaction as she watched this scene.

This is the sweet scent of free labor.

He turned and went back into the house, intending to exchange some seasonings in the system store.

Tonight, we need to give these country bumpkins a little culinary surprise.

……

Sunset West Mountain.

Smoke curls from chimneys on the deserted island.

An overpowering aroma of meat, mixed with the smoky scent of charred fat, seemed to have hooks, piercing into everyone's nostrils.

That's the unique aroma of Sichuan peppercorns, star anise, and cinnamon released in hot oil.

That's the caramelization reaction that occurs when soy sauce and rock sugar color the pork belly.

The cuisine of the Qin Dynasty was mainly based on steaming, boiling, and roasting.

Condiments were scarce, consisting only of salt, plum vinegar, and Sichuan peppercorn sauce.

Where have I smelled this before?

"Gulp."

Meng Tian swallowed hard, his voice booming like thunder.

He looked at the huge iron pot (the large pot that Zhang Ying had specially replaced), the meat inside was bright red, with alternating layers of fat and lean meat, and it was bubbling away.

Each bursting bubble releases a fragrance that transports you to another dimension.

Ying Zheng sat at the table, upright and solemn.

But his hands, resting on his knees, crumpled the fabric of his work pants.

"alright."

Zhang Ying took a large spoon and tapped it on the side of the pot.

"Dinner is served."

No nonsense.

There were no formalities involved.

Three thousand bowls (made of coconut shells) suddenly appeared.

Zhang Ying served Ying Zheng a large bowl of rice, topped it with a spoonful of braised pork and a spoonful of thick gravy.

The rice is crystal clear.

Bright red and tempting pork belly.

Ying Zheng picked up the chopsticks with trembling hands.

Pick up a piece of meat and put it in your mouth.

The fatty meat melts in your mouth, while the lean meat is tender and juicy.

It has a perfect balance of salty and sweet, and the flavor of the spices explodes in your mouth, instantly filling all your taste buds.

Take another bite of rice soaked in meat juices.

The satisfaction from the combination of carbohydrates and fats went straight to the top of my head.

Ying Zheng closed his eyes.

Two lines of clear tears slid down her cheeks.

"I……"

Ying Zheng choked up, his mouth full of meat, and his speech was slurred.

"These past forty years of my life..."

"They're eating nothing but pig swill!!!"

"Your Majesty, please be careful what you say!" Li Si's mouth was stuffed full, his cheeks bulging like a hamster's, yet he still didn't forget to uphold the emperor's dignity. "This is truly divine food! What we ate before was mere mortal fare!"

"Waaaah...it's so delicious..."

Wang Ben was a military general, so he didn't have many rules.

He buried his face directly in the bowl, and the dust settled in a flash.

The three thousand soldiers wolfed down the food, swallowing it whole without even chewing. Some even gnawed on the coconut shells.

Zhang Ying held her bowl, watching this group of people who looked like they were starving ghosts reincarnated.

He shook his head helplessly.

"Eat slowly, there's more in the pot."

"And that beef stew with potatoes, that goes even better with rice."

Before he could finish speaking...

The crowd that was originally gathered around the braised pork instantly shifted their focus.

"beef?!"

In the Qin Dynasty, killing cattle was illegal!

It can only be eaten during sacrificial rites or when a cow dies of old age or illness.

Moreover, the beef was tough and dry, getting stuck in your teeth.

But the beef in this pot...

Tender and flavorful, soaked in the broth.

The potatoes are soft, fluffy, and melt in your mouth.

Ying Zheng picked up a piece of beef.

No need to chew hard, it melts in your mouth with just a touch of your tongue.

"A divine object..."

Ying Zheng looked at the potatoes and beef in the bowl.

This moment.

What immortality?

What do you mean by unifying the world?

None of them are as substantial as the meat in this bowl.

"gentlemen."

Ying Zheng put down his bowl and let out a burp.

His eyes became incredibly determined.

"I have made my decision."

"I'm not leaving this island."

"I want to stay here."

"For the gentleman..."

Ying Zheng glanced at the newly built cement pigsty, which was even more sturdy than his own palace.

He said through gritted teeth:

"Raising pigs!"

Zhang Ying dropped the spoon from her hand.

"What?"

I want Qin Shi Huang to raise pigs for me?

Isn't this script a bit too wild?

"Your Majesty, you mustn't!" Li Si and Meng Tian were terrified and knelt on the ground with a thud. "A country cannot be without a ruler for a single day! Great Qin cannot do without Your Majesty!"

"Stop talking nonsense!"

Ying Zheng kicked Li Si away.

"My mind is made up!"

"Such divine arts, such delicious food, such divine ingredients!"

"If I don't master this skill, how can I face my ancestors?"

Ying Zheng turned his head and stared intently at Zhang Ying.

His eyes were like a hungry wolf eyeing a piece of fat meat.

"gentlemen."

"I will not only raise pigs."

"I also want to learn farming! Learn cement making! Learn cooking!"

"As long as the teacher is willing to teach."

"My 300,000-strong army..."