I meet all the requirements for becoming a god in this world!

Chapter 248

Chapter 246

"Haha, Second Master Uncle, rest assured, Laiyun will never break his promise."

Cheng Laiyun solemnly placed his second uncle's fishing rod on the edge of the stone, then turned around to face his second uncle and Yun Ce. The smile on his face faded slightly, replaced by a more serious expression.

"However, I have a small request and would like to ask my second senior uncle and senior brother Yun for help."

Upon hearing this, my second uncle straightened up and waved his hand:

"Forget about requests, just say what you want! I owe you a huge favor today. As long as you don't fill up my pond, everything is negotiable!"

The two senior disciples, Master Yi and Yun Ce, had just received the benefit of Cheng Laiyun handing over the position of chief disciple.

At this point, they were willing to agree to any request Cheng Laiyun made.

Cheng Laiyun smiled, took out a neatly folded drawing from his sleeve, and unfolded it on the stone.

The drawing shows a pattern of an iron ruler.

It is three feet long and completely black. The ruler is marked with the position and direction of the inscription, and the forging specifications and precision requirements are densely written next to it.

The disciples craned their necks to see, and Cheng Laiyun didn't hide it, holding the blueprint up higher so everyone present could get a general idea. "This is it."

"This disciple needs ten thousand such iron rulers. The precision error cannot exceed one-third the thickness of a human hair. The ruler body must be forged from the black iron specially made by the Mo Sect. Most importantly—"

He pointed to the inscription on the drawing:

"Every ruler must be engraved with this inscription. The characteristic of this inscription is that it will break if tampered with by external force, and once broken, it cannot be restored. This is the characteristic I want—no one can tamper with the ruler."

Yun Ce took the blueprints and examined them carefully for a moment.

He looked at it very carefully, his gaze sweeping from the dimensions marked on the iron ruler to the pattern of the inscription, and then from the forging specifications to the precision requirements.

Then he raised his head, a hint of confusion appearing on his usually silent face.

This was not difficult for him; with the capabilities of the Mo Sect's forging workshop, forging black iron and engraving inscriptions were routine tasks.

But he didn't understand why Cheng Laiyun needed ten thousand rulers.

My second senior uncle also came over to take a look, his face showing doubt:

"What do you need so many rulers for, kid? Ten thousand of them..."

Cheng Laiyun refolded the blueprints, handed them to Yun Ce with both hands, and replied with a smile, "Second Uncle, just tell me if it's possible to do it?"

"able!"

Second Uncle waved his hand.

At this point, even if Cheng Laiyun wanted the moon in the sky, he would have to find a way to give Cheng Laiyun enough!

"Half a month!" Second Uncle held up five fingers, flipped them over, and then, feeling it wasn't enough, simply spread out both hands:

"I personally oversaw the workshop, and Yun Ce personally engraved the inscription on the first ruler—ensuring the precision does not exceed one-third the thickness of a human hair."

"Young Cheng, leave this to me. Ten thousand iron rulers will be delivered to you in half a month!"

Yun Ce stood beside his second senior uncle, put the blueprint into his pocket, nodded to Cheng Laiyun, and said only two words: "Don't worry."

Cheng Laiyun took two steps back, bowed to his second senior uncle and Yun Ce, and then turned and walked down the mountain.

"Then this disciple will take his leave."

…………

The Cheng family has moved again. Yes, that's right.

After being promoted to the fourth rank of Inspector, Emperor Jianye also bestowed upon Cheng Laiyun a new mansion.

The new residence is located at the east end of Yongning Street. It is more than twice the size of the original Cheng residence, with three courtyards and three entrances.

The front courtyard is a flower hall for receiving guests and discussing matters, the middle courtyard is the main hall and study, and the back courtyard is a separate courtyard surrounded by an old locust tree, with a row of wing rooms on the east, west and south sides.

Xu Jiayin was the first to move in, and a couple of days ago she directed Hai Wuyai and Zhu Yuanzhi to tidy up the east and west wing rooms.

When Cheng Laiyun returned from the Mo family and pushed open the door, she was standing in the courtyard with her hands on her hips, directing several servants to move a large water vat to the base of the old locust tree.

Xu Jiayin turned around when she heard footsteps, her eyes lit up, but then she deliberately put on a stern face, put the melon seeds in her hand into the dish, and patted the crumbs off her hands.

"You're back??"

"I'm back."

Cheng Laiyun walked to the stone table, picked up the teapot, poured himself a cup of tea, and briefly explained the matter of the Mo Sect's sparring match.

As Xu Jiayin listened, when she heard him give the chief disciple position to Yun Ce, she raised her eyebrows slightly, but she didn't ask any further questions. She simply pushed the plate of caramelized melon seeds on the table toward him.

"Let him have it, you don't have time to be the chief disciple anyway." "You can be an inspector in the court and a hands-off manager in the Mo Sect, you can do both without interfering with either one - it's good to give the chief disciple position to Senior Brother Yun, so that Second Uncle won't have to worry about it every day."

Cheng Laiyun smiled but didn't reply.

He knew that Xu Jiayin wasn't complaining when she said these things, but rather expressing something else in her own way.

Next, he went to Feihetang and brought Gao Heyun over as well.

Gao Heyun initially refused, saying, "I'll just stay in the Regent's Office's duty room."

Cheng Laiyun brought up her previous words about "living and dying together," and pointed to the empty main courtyard in the backyard, saying that the rooms were empty anyway, and if Yang Shien's remaining gang came to retaliate, he would be living alone in such a big house without anyone who could draw their sword immediately.

Gao Heyun remained silent for a long time before finally saying only two words: "Lead the way."

So all three women moved in.

After moving in, the days went by one by one.

The backyard of the new mansion has three small courtyards side by side. Xu Miaozhen lives in the east wing, where she meditates every day. Occasionally, she drinks tea at the stone table and gives Cheng Laiyun some pointers on the bottlenecks in the Mo Sect's cultivation.

Xu Jiayin moved into the west wing. Every day after returning from the Ministry of Works, she would huddle in the courtyard to study her new mechanism, with a plate of caramelized melon seeds always on the table.

Gao Heyun lived in the south wing—the room closest to the old locust tree and also closest to Cheng Laiyun's main house. How did others live there?

Cheng Laiyun didn't know.

Anyway... his back has really been taking a bit of a hit lately.

Three women.

He only gets a maximum of two hours of sleep a day.

He spent almost all his remaining time farming.

Time flies by.

Half a month passed in the blink of an eye.

Cheng Laiyun, supporting his aching back, left the Cheng residence.

I have just arrived at the Regent's Office.

Hai Wuyai burst through the door of Laiyuntang carrying a stack of documents.

Zhu Yuanzhi followed behind, his thin, bamboo-like body carrying a rosewood box with the Ministry of Works' inscription and serial number engraved on it. Cheng Laiyun recognized this type of box—a special box used by the Ministry of Works to store precision measuring tools, each one with an independent inscription and seal, for protection against moisture, shock, and tampering.

"Boss, it was sent from the Mo Sect. It just arrived and it's still warm."

Hai Wuyai placed the box on the table, rubbed his hands together, his chubby face full of curiosity:

"What is this? It was personally escorted here by Senior Brother Yun Ce of the Mo Sect. During the handover, we even had to sign three documents. It was even stricter than when escorting military equipment."

Cheng Laiyun broke the inscribed seal and lifted the box lid. Inside the box were two rows of iron rulers, each about three feet long, completely black, with fine inscriptions engraved on the body, and the Ministry of Works' number and the forging mark of the Ink Gate stamped on the handle.

He picked up one ruler and weighed it in his hand, then took out another and placed it on the table. He joined the two rulers end to end—they fit together perfectly, with no discrepancy visible to the naked eye.

Hai Wuyai leaned over for a glance, then looked at Cheng Laiyun:

"Boss, isn't this just a ruler? Why did the Mo Sect go through all this trouble just to make ten thousand rulers?"

Cheng Laiyun did not answer directly, but instead put the ruler back in the box and closed the lid.

"Let's go, His Majesty should be waiting."

"ah??"

Hai Wuyai looked completely bewildered. …………

In the imperial study, Emperor Jianye was indeed waiting.

But it wasn't just Cheng Laiyun they were waiting for.

Zhang Lin was standing to the left of the imperial desk, holding a memorial recently submitted by the Ministry of Revenue, his brows furrowed slightly, a rare sight for him.

Yu Qingzheng stood beside him, also holding a document in his hand—an estimate submitted by the Ministry of Works regarding the measuring tools needed for the nationwide land survey.

Xie Yuheng sat on the chair to the right of the imperial desk, holding a teacup in his hand, drinking slowly and leisurely, but his cloudy eyes would occasionally sweep over the mountain of folded paper on the desk.

Several officials promoting the new policies stood directly in front of the imperial desk.

Zhou Wenqing, a senior official in the Ministry of Revenue, was reading aloud the difficulties reported by various prefectures and counties regarding the implementation of the policy, holding a list in his hand.

His voice was loud and clear, but with each line he read, the faces of the officials in the hall grew darker.

"First of all, there is a shortage of manpower for land surveying. There are no more than a hundred registered officials in the whole county. To complete the entire land survey within a month, the county government office would have to be emptied out."

"Secondly, some local gentry colluded with village heads to register hidden fields under the names of extinct families. When the land survey team came to verify, the families produced family genealogies claiming the fields were ancestral property, but there was no evidence to prove it."

"Furthermore, many local measuring tools do not conform to the Ministry of Works' standard measuring tools. The acreage measured using the local ruler is 20% larger than that measured using the Ministry of Works' ruler. If a unified standard is forcibly imposed, it may trigger a local backlash." "Not only that, but the measurement data is also difficult to verify. The figures reported by different counties vary greatly. The measurement results of two neighboring counties in the same mountainous area differ by nearly 30%, which raises suspicions that someone is secretly falsifying data. However, there are not enough people to verify the data, so it is impossible to investigate one by one."

"Most importantly, with the autumn harvest approaching, people are worried that the tax burden will increase rather than decrease after the new policy is implemented. Some local gentry may take the opportunity to incite the people to gather and cause trouble, refusing to cooperate with the land survey..."

Five questions.

Each one was like a stone thrown into deep water, silencing the entire hall.

After Zhou Wenqing finished reading the list, he put it down, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and stepped aside.

Emperor Jianye leaned back on his dragon throne, his fingers tapping lightly on the armrests. His gaze swept over the folded documents in front of him, finally settling on a point in the void.

"There are not enough people, the wealthy and powerful are hoarding land, the measuring tools are inconsistent, verification is difficult, and the people's hearts are not at peace."

He read out the five questions one by one, then raised his head and looked at his most trusted ministers in the hall:

"My lords, the new policy was personally approved by me, and you have all seen the pilot data—the autumn tax in Changle County has increased tenfold, and the burden on the people has been reduced by more than half."

"The land tax system must be implemented, but if these problems are not resolved, forcibly implementing it will only intensify popular uprisings."

"Does anyone have a solution?"

Silence fell. Zhang Linzheng frowned, Yu Qingzheng stroked his beard without saying a word, and Xie Yuheng continued to drink tea, but the water in his cup had gone cold, and he didn't refill it.

Zhou Wenqing lowered his head, not daring to look Emperor Jianye in the eye.

He had served as a secretary in the Ministry of Revenue for so many years, handling mountains of tax records, but he knew that the root of these problems was not technology, but people's hearts.

Local officials didn't want to push it on, local gentry didn't want to pay, and the common people didn't trust it. This wasn't something that could be solved by simply settling accounts.

Just as the air in the hall became so stuffy it felt like it was about to freeze, a series of unhurried footsteps came from outside.

When Cheng Laiyun stepped into the Imperial Study, he saw a room full of gloomy and dejected faces.

Emperor Jianye leaned back on his dragon throne, his brows furrowed into a deep frown.

Zhang Linzheng and Yu Qingzheng stood on either side, each in silence.

Even Xie Yuheng, an old scholar who would use the sky as a blanket even if it fell, held his teacup for a long time without changing it.

Cheng Laiyun bowed to Emperor Jianye:

"Your Majesty, I have come to pay my respects."

Emperor Jianye looked at Cheng Laiyun, his brows twitching slightly: "What brings you here, Minister Cheng?"

Cheng Laiyun smiled and took out an iron ruler from his sleeve, presenting it with both hands. The iron ruler was jet black and shiny, and the inscriptions on its surface gleamed faintly in the candlelight.

"Your Majesty, I went to the Mo Sect and asked my fellow disciples to help me make a batch of standard iron rulers."

"It is three feet long, uniformly numbered by the Ministry of Works, and blessed with the Ink Gate Inscription. It will be destroyed if tampered with."

"With this ruler, the measurement problem can be solved."

Everyone was stunned.

Emperor Jianye took the iron ruler with some skepticism, weighed it in his hand, and then handed it to Zhang Linzheng.

Zhang Linzheng held the ruler in his hand and examined it over and over. He noticed the fine inscription on the ruler—it was a unique technique of the Mo Sect, which would shatter if tampered with by external force, making it the ultimate in anti-counterfeiting measures.

After a long silence, Emperor Jianye spoke:

"How to use it specifically?"

"My idea is simple: distribute these iron rulers to all prefectures and counties as the only legally recognized measuring instruments in the country."

"This iron ruler must be used to measure the fields in each county. After the measurement is completed, the ruler goes with the register. When the field register is handed over to the prefecture, the iron ruler is also handed over for verification." "During the verification, only the inscription is checked. If the inscription is intact, the data is valid. If the inscription is broken, the data is invalid and the measurement must be repeated."

"Local officials want to tamper with the rulers? The inscriptions on the rulers will break. Want to privately manufacture a batch of rulers? Without the inscription technology of the Ink Sect, even if you make them, they will be scrap metal."

"Using one ruler to measure the world—this is called 'measuring the world with an iron ruler'."

Cheng Laiyun's smile remained unchanged.

"One ruler determines the measure of the world." Emperor Jianye pondered these words twice, a slow smile appearing on his lips before his brows furrowed again.

"But that only solves one problem; there are still some problems..."

He only got halfway through his sentence.

Cheng Laiyun's smile remained unchanged as he looked up at Emperor Jianye and cupped his hands in greeting.

"Please tell me everything, Your Majesty. I am willing to serve you with utmost loyalty."

Emperor Jianye looked at the smile on Cheng Laiyun's face.

For some reason, I felt much calmer.

He took a deep breath and said, "Now that the measuring tool issue is resolved, what remains..."

slowly.

Jianye then recounted in detail all the problems that had just occurred in the Imperial Study.

Cheng Laiyun's smile remained unchanged.

Until Emperor Jianye finished speaking.

He slowly bowed and performed a salute: