Chapter 357 — Squandering the Family Fortune, Draining the Treasury

"With Grandpa Deaf here, I am spared the trouble of drawing up structural diagrams. The Sun-Shooting Divine Cannon is complex in construction; if Grandpa Deaf paints this cannon and it appears in the real world, measuring it will be far easier, far simpler. Refining it will be much easier too. " Shen Mu finally let out a breath of relief.

The Deaf Elder had peddled his paintings for months without a single sale; Shen Mu had helped him sell for only a little while, and the money earned already surpassed everything the old man had made in his whole life, leaving this Crown Prince of Tiantu sighing with endless feeling and lamenting that men's hearts were no longer what they had been.

Now that he wanted for neither food nor clothing, when Shen Mu asked him to return to the Grand Academy and lend a hand, he did not decline. Once at the Grand Academy, Shen Mu did not stop to rest but at once gathered his people and assigned tasks. Qingyou, Youhe and Youyun of Little Jade Capital; Daoist Master Lin Xuan of the Daoist Sect and ten Daoists of profound attainments in the arts of calculation; the masters of calculation from the Grand Academy, the court's Bureau of Design and the Heavenly Sage Cult; and Li Zheng as well — twenty-six in all, plus Long Qilin — were together made responsible for copying the illustrations in the Golden Book and Precious Scroll and for organizing the spatial calculation models.

— Long Qilin's attainments in the arts of calculation were by no means low; he was no inferior to those old Daoists.

Long Qilin was moved to tears of gratitude; having at last found a reason not to be carried off to the dinner table, he naturally redoubled his efforts.

The Golden Book and Precious Scroll needed no personal attention from Shen Mu; all his energy went into building the Sun-Shooting Divine Cannon. Wang Muran, Mu Qingdai and Long Yu, meanwhile, Shen Mu assigned to work alongside the calculation masters of the Daoist Sect, the Grand Academy, the Bureau of Design and the Heavenly Sage Cult in organizing the spatial calculation models and formation models of the Sun-Shooting Divine Cannon; Pei Wujiu was among them. Many of the archivists of Tianlu Tower in the Grand Academy were also great masters of formations, thoroughly versed in every kind of spell and divine power, veritable walking treasuries of cultivation methods, and Shen Mu invited them over as well. The Sun-Shooting Divine Cannon had originally been an eye technique called the Sun-Shooting Sacred Pupil; after the Imperial Preceptor of Jingping obtained it, it was recorded in Tianlu Tower, and so the archivists were needed to give guidance. Shen Mu conferred with the archivists of Tianlu Tower for several days, mastered the formations and construction of the Sun-Shooting Sacred Pupil, converted the Sacred Pupil into the sequence of formation patterns for the Sun-Shooting Divine Cannon, and then framed the cannon's body.

The Deaf Elder watched from the side, and once Shen Mu had settled the cannon's structure, he immediately set to painting.

Though he was honored as the Painting Sage, it took him five days to paint this divine cannon.

When the painting was done, the Deaf Elder carried the finished drawing outside the city, chose an open patch of ground and unrolled it — and at once a fearsome artillery platform a hundred zhang tall appeared, occupying an enormous area, some thousand mu around.

Unlike other true-essence cannons, this Sun-Shooting Divine Cannon that Shen Mu had designed had no barrel at all; it looked like nothing so much as a colossal terrace. On either side of the terrace were two frames, extending outward from its flanks in curving arcs of grain, and at the top a thick axle. The two axles were symmetrical, not joined together; each end bore a semicircular fork, and between them lay a gap eighty zhang across, in the middle of which floated a sacred pupil blazing with fire, rolling and tumbling now and then.

When the eye opened, fire gushed forth. When the eye closed, it turned in place upon the terrace.

This was the Sun-Shooting Divine Cannon Shen Mu had designed from the Sun-Shooting Sacred Pupil! Hundreds of calculation masters at once crowded around, climbing over every part of the huge platform, measuring, calculating and breaking it down, resolving the giant cannon into one component and part after another, recording the structure, length and breadth of each, permitting not the slightest error.

And the formation patterns on every component and part had to be measured out as well; the volume of calculation was immense. Shen Mu had not designed every single part of the Sun-Shooting Divine Cannon; he had designed only the cannon's main body.

But no foundry could possibly exist large enough to cast such a monstrous cannon in one piece. So to refine it, it had to be broken down into individual parts and components, forged separately, and then assembled.

This was precisely why Shen Mu needed so many calculation masters.

With so many people measuring and calculating in concert, coordinating them was a discipline in itself, and not the slightest error could be allowed. Shen Mu simply invited Emperor Yanfeng out from the capital to coordinate the calculation masters' efforts. The Emperor's wounds had healed, but they had been so grave that his divine storehouse was still a battered ruin in need of recuperation, and his cultivation had not recovered.

Shen Mu and the Little Poison King, Fu Yuanqing, had treated him, and the medicine had been so fierce that it tormented both him and the Imperial Preceptor of Jingping badly; Emperor Yanfeng still brooded over it. "Your Majesty, these calculation masters are all people I invited.

They are not Your Majesty's subjects. If something displeases you, Your Majesty cannot have their heads cut off," Shen Mu cautioned.

Emperor Yanfeng laughed. "I am not the sort of tyrant who keeps 'off with his head' on his lips. Set your mind at ease, dear minister.

" "The Imperial Preceptor of Jingping is attacking Loulan's Golden Palace.

When we came back, the fighting had not yet begun," the Minister of Works reported to Emperor Yanfeng.

Shen Mu at once summoned the officials of the Ministry of Works and discussed matters with them, and the Minister of Works reported to Emperor Yanfeng: "Superintendent Shen complains that the five foundries Your Majesty granted him are too small, and that they are set too far apart.

He intends to tear down all five and build a new one by the river. " Emperor Yanfeng raged: "Tear down my five foundries? Those foundries were built with real gold and real silver! He spends money with both hands like that — it isn't his money he's spending!

I want his head!

" The Minister of Works smiled. "Has Your Majesty forgotten? The foundries of our Jingping were all improved and designed by Superintendent Shen.

" The Emperor's expression softened. "He is indeed a capable man.

Note his head down for now.

" After a while, Shen Mu requisitioned tower ships, dismantled the five foundries and hauled them to the bank of the Tu River.

Ling Yuxiu's talent for leadership and command was no small thing, and Shen Mu asked her to come and help coordinate the work of building the new foundry. Shen Mu also ordered various divine metals and divine materials, heavenly treasures and earthly rarities carried out of the national treasury and sent to the new foundry. Emperor Yanfeng, for his part, was busy coordinating and directing the many calculation masters so that no mistakes would occur, pouring all his energy into it.

More than ten days later, the calculation of the Sun-Shooting Divine Cannon was complete. The many calculation masters pooled their work and, using primordial qi, shaped part after part and component after component, fitting tens of thousands of them together without the slightest discrepancy — exactly one Sun-Shooting Divine Cannon.