I run a casino in the immortal realm.

Wan Kui was gone for the time it takes to drink a cup of tea.

Zheng Yifei didn't even look up; the quill flew across the paper, and the quarterly data for the eleventh store was compressed.

Footsteps came from the stairwell; there was more than one person.

Wan Kui walked quickly, with a hint of boastful smugness.

The footsteps behind were much more steady, with even spacing, the kind of rhythm only someone accustomed to giving orders would have.

Yang Jie followed Wan Kui in, holding the form drawn by Zheng Yifei in his hand.

"Xiao Zheng."

Yang Jie didn't beat around the bush. He unfolded the form on the table and pointed to the top of the form with his finger: "Explain this to me from the beginning."

Zheng Yifei put down his quill and offered his chair.

"Please have a seat, Director."

Yang Jie didn't sit; he stood and watched.

Zheng Yifei took out a blank piece of spiritual paper, used a ruler to measure the edge, and drew a new table on the spot.

"These are rows, and these are columns. Rows represent dates, and columns represent items—income, expenses, profits, and taxes. Each cell contains a number. Reading horizontally shows the complete transaction history for a given day, and reading vertically shows the monthly total for a specific item."

He pointed to the rightmost column of the table: "This column is the automatic summary area, which adds up the daily profits. At the end of the month, you don't need to flip through thirty pages of transaction records to calculate the total. It's all clear at a glance."

Yang Jie frowned: "The 'numbers' you're talking about, are they these crooked and twisted things?"

"right."

郑一飞在纸上写了一行：0、1、2、3、4、5、6、7、8、9。

"There are ten symbols in total, representing zero to nine. They can be combined to represent any number—ten is written as 10, one hundred as 100, and one thousand and twenty-four as 1024."

He then wrote another line of spiritual text beside it: 10024.

The two lines of text are placed side by side, creating a stark contrast.

Lingwen wrote six characters, which had nearly sixty strokes in total, along with four Arabic numerals, totaling eight strokes.

Yang Jie stared at the two lines of text and remained silent.

Wan Kui rubbed his hands together, saying, "Chief, look at this..."

Yang Jie raised his hand to stop him, picked up a quill pen, and crookedly copied the numbers written by Zheng Yifei.

After finishing writing, he stood up straight and tapped his fingers three times on the table.

"How long does it take a beginner to learn this?"

"Ten symbols can be memorized in half an hour, and three days is enough to familiarize yourself with how to draw a table and the basic rules of addition and subtraction."

Yang Jie's fingers stopped.

Having worked in taxation for over a decade, he was acutely aware of the shortcomings of the existing accounting system—it took four tax officials half a month of overtime each quarter just to reconcile the accounts of Fengming Street, and even then, errors were frequent because Lingwen numbers could easily be misread if one wasn't careful.

If what Zheng Yifei said is true, the new system, which can be mastered in just three days of training, will be several times more efficient.

"Xiao Zheng, you'll come with me to the tax office tomorrow."

Yang Jie folded the form and put it in his pocket.

"Who are you going to see?"

"Director Zhou."

Zheng Yifei was stunned for a moment.

He originally just wanted to save himself the trouble of flipping through the ledgers so that he could have more time to go to the gambling den to make money.

This commotion was not part of the plan.

"Director, this is just a makeshift solution I came up with while being lazy. Is it really necessary to bother the division chief?"

Yang Jie had already reached the top of the stairs without turning his head: "The laziness you've slacked off is probably worth half a year's work for a thousand tax collectors. Take your quill pen and ruler with you, and see you at the tax office hall tomorrow at Chenshi (7-9 AM)."

The footsteps faded into the distance.

Wan Kui leaned closer, his expression complex, and patted Zheng Yifei on the shoulder: "Brother, are you about to take off?"

Zheng Yifei looked at the mountain of account books on the table and rubbed his temples.

Forget about flying; my plans to go to the casino tomorrow are ruined.

The next day at Chenshi (7-9 AM).

The main hall of the tax office, inner hall.

Zhou Demao sat in the main seat, with Yang Jie's report, which he had copied overnight, spread out on the rosewood table in front of him.

When Zheng Yifei entered, he noticed that Zhou Demao wasn't the only one in the inner hall. To his left sat two middle-aged men, one in a dark gray robe and the other in a dark blue robe, both exuding the aura of late-stage Foundation Establishment. They were likely the heads of other tax offices or stewards of the tax bureau.

"You're Zheng Yifei?"

Zhou Demao looked up, his gaze more scrutinizing than when they first met.

"Disciple Zheng Yifei greets Director."

"Come sit here."

Zhou Demao waved his hand to interrupt the pleasantries, picked up Yang Jie's report from the table, and flipped to the table sandwiched in the middle: "Yang Jie said you developed a new accounting method that can increase efficiency by 70%. I don't believe it. Demonstrate it for me."

straightforward.

Zheng Yifei didn't waste any words.

He took out a quill pen, a ruler, and a stack of cut prayer paper from his sleeve and spread them out on the empty table in the inner room.

"Please specify any quarterly ledger of a merchant, Director."

Zhou Demao gestured with his chin toward the bookshelf behind him.

The deacon in the dark blue robe stood up and casually pulled out a thick booklet, handing it over.

Zheng Yifei opened the cover—No. 89 Fengming Street, East District, Wanbaolou Branch, last quarter's ledger.

It was a full ninety-six pages, densely packed with spiritual text, with three scrap pages that had been altered interspersed in between.

He picked up a quill pen and began to take notes.

The inner room fell silent, with only the scratching sound of pens tracing across paper.

Zhou Demao, who had been leaning back in his chair, sat up straight when the first page of the form was completed.

He stood up when he finished the second page of the table.

In half an hour.

The 96-page quarterly ledger was condensed into a three-page table.

Every day's income and expenses are clearly recorded, the monthly summary can be seen in a single line, and the quarterly profit and tax payable are clearly marked on the last line.

Zhou Demao picked up the three pages and compared them item by item with the original ledger.

After a while, he put down the table.

"What are these curved symbols called?"

"Simplified numbers".

Zheng Yifei didn't use the name "Arabic numerals," but instead used a term acceptable in the cultivation world: "A total of ten basic symbols, which can represent any number, and the writing speed is three to five times that of spiritual numerals."

"Difficulty level?"

"Recognize them all in half a day, master them in three days."

Zhou Demao tapped his fingers twice on the table and turned to look at Yang Jie.

"You're being conservative by saying efficiency will increase by 70%."

His voice wasn't loud, but everyone in the inner hall could hear him clearly: "If this is implemented fully, it will save at least 80% of the time, reduce the consumption of paper and spirit ink by 60%, and cut the number of people responsible for accounting by half."

He turned back to look at Zheng Yifei.

"Starting today, the tax bureau will fully implement the new accounting method. Zheng Yifei will be in charge of teaching, starting with the tax officials in the five tax offices, and then extending it to the merchants in the jurisdiction."

Zheng Yifei opened his mouth.

He wanted to say, "Director, I'm going to the casino to make money tomorrow," but he obviously couldn't say that.

"Disciple obeys."

Zhou Demao nodded and added, "Yang Jie, take him to the Weapon Refining Peak."

"What are you going to the Weapon Refining Peak for?"

Yang Jie asked.

Zhou Demao picked up the quill pen and twirled it: "This thing is too crude. If we're going to promote it, we need a standardized tool. Have the people at the Refining Peak make a batch of proper pens based on this principle, and then make a batch of standard rulers."

He looked at the table drawn by Zheng Yifei and pondered for a moment.

"Can the format of the tables be standardized for batch production?"

"able."

Zheng Yifei answered decisively, "Make a printing plate, brush it with spirit ink, and you can print thousands of blank forms in the same format every day, which is a hundred times faster than drawing by hand."

Zhou Demao's eyes lit up.

That afternoon, Yang Jie took Zheng Yifei to the miscellaneous items shop on the weapon-refining peak to meet with a steward named Xu Jian.

Zheng Yifei drew three blueprints.

The first picture is a cross-section of a fountain pen—a hollow copper tube with a tapered tip and an ink reservoir embedded inside. Pressing the mechanism at the end dispenses ink, making it ten times more durable than a quill pen.

The second one is a standard ruler—cast from Lingtie iron, with graduations accurate to the millimeter.

The third one is the printing plate—a wooden base with table lines inlaid on the surface using copper wire, then inked and pressed, forming a single print.

After looking at the blueprints, Xu Jian picked at his ear and said, "That's it? You call this weapon crafting? My apprentice could do that."

Three days later, the first batch of finished products was delivered to the tax office.

Fifty fountain pens, thirty rulers, and two printing plates.

When the first form of the trial printing plate was lifted from under the mold, Zhou Demao stood beside it, staring at the blank form with straight lines and a uniform format, and remained silent for a long time.

Then he said, "This system isn't just for the tax authorities."

Zheng Yifei's heart sank.

Sure enough, that evening he received official notification from the tax department—

In addition to instructing tax officials and merchants, a complete "Manual for the Use of Simplified Numbers and Forms" was to be compiled and submitted by the tax office to the General Affairs Department, which would then promote it to the entire sect as appropriate.

His gambling plans have been temporarily shelved.

I earn tens of thousands of spirit stones less each month.

Zheng Yifei closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

Fortunately, Zhou Demao said something at the end that made him feel a little better.

"If you handle this matter well, I will personally recommend you for credit to the General Affairs Department. The reward will exceed your expectations."

"Your disciple obeys."

Zheng Yifei bowed respectfully, a smile playing on his lips; as long as there was a reward, that was enough.

Zhou Demao is at the peak of Foundation Establishment, and his words carry weight in the General Affairs Hall. If this favor is handled properly, its value is far more than tens of thousands of spirit stones.