Protect Our Chief

After sitting for half a cup of tea, Wang Ningxi finally couldn’t stay calm anymore and said in a low voice, "Ancestor Grandpa, do you already know about that matter?"

"After wandering around the two towns of Xinping and Xin’an, how do you feel?" Wang Shouzhe didn’t answer directly.

"Our Wang Family’s territory is naturally prosperous and wealthy. Though it’s not as luxurious and steeped in ancient charm as Gui Long City, it’s like the rising morning sun. Under Ancestor Grandpa’s illustrious leadership, the future will only get better and better." Wang Ningxi praised.

"I didn’t ask you to butter me up." Wang Shouzhe glared at him. "I heard you’re designing some kind of farm tool?"

"Nothing can be hidden from Ancestor Grandpa." As Wang Ningxi spoke, he took out some blueprints from his Storage Ring and said, "But it doesn’t really count as design. I just went to understand the research progress our Wang Family’s Artifact Refining Research Institute has made in power sources and mechanical transmission."

"The Research Institute has long wanted to miniaturize steam-powered engines and pair them with matching farm tools for large-scale land reclamation and planting, in order to solve the increasingly severe shortage of labor for reclamation and farming. But they’ve been stuck at a bottleneck and haven’t made the slightest progress."

"You have a way to solve it?" Wang Shouzhe’s eyes lit up slightly. "Could it be that you secretly got the core power technology of puppet devices from the Gongye Family?" Though Wang Shouzhe was a Transmigrator and had broad knowledge, he ultimately wasn’t a professional in industry or agriculture.

He could offer suggestions and general direction, but asking him to do R&D was like groping in the dark.

Moreover, what frustrated Wang Shouzhe most right now was that he still hadn’t found any natural petroleum, so there was no way to produce gasoline, asphalt, plastic, and other products.

"Of course not..." Wang Ningxi said. "Though my mother’s clan is the Gongye Family, I can’t get in touch with their core Artifact Refining technology. Besides, I’ve heard that the core power technology of puppet devices is extremely difficult. The precious Materials required and the manufacturing difficulty are both very high. If you really build one, the price is at least tens of millions of Qian Gold, and the yearly maintenance cost is practically sky-high."

During the excavation of the Grand Canal, the Gongye Family produced some large artifact excavators. Their manufacturing, usage, and maintenance costs were so high it made people click their tongues. In Wang Shouzhe’s words, it would be cheaper to hire Purple Mansion Realm Cultivators to do the work.

It’s one thing for national projects to burn money just to speed things up, but for agricultural production, cost has to be considered at every step. Once you lose cost advantage, how can you generate economic value?

"Actually, it’s that the Artifact Refining Research Institute has gone astray, insisting on solving the problem with a specific type of power source, and drilling deeper and deeper into the technology before the tech level is even there..." Wang Ningxi said. "What we really need is to change our thinking. We can start by improving traditional farm tools, using strong beasts to drive mechanical transmission structures. So what I’m improving this time is the integration of mechanical transmission structures with farm tools, so they’re suitable for common farmers. Ancestor Grandpa, look at the blueprints—here, here, and these designs are all for better transmission of force... and this design as well..."

Wang Shouzhe glanced at them and honestly couldn’t make sense of it... He coughed twice on the spot and said, "Ningxi, let’s wait until you’ve built a physical prototype before I look again."

In his heart he muttered, the Clan Academy’s education is getting more and more perverse. Has it already reached this level? No wonder it’s getting harder and harder to teach the kids nowadays...

"Ancestor Grandpa, my improvements this time aren’t that big. Look, this transmission structure is very simple; there was a course on it in the Clan Academy..." The moment he started talking about his favorite artifact design specialization, any trace of sleepiness vanished from Wang Ningxi. He spoke with great enthusiasm.

"Let’s put that aside for now. We should first talk about your withdrawal from the engagement. How did Miss Shangguan offend you? How could you insist on breaking off her marriage?" Wang Shouzhe quickly shifted the topic, thinking to himself whether he ought to go back to the Clan Academy for a full retraining.

Otherwise, what if he ends up old and muddle-headed like Emperor Longchang in the future?

Just when he was speaking excitedly, Wang Ningxi: "..."

...

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