Demoness, where are you Fleeing to?
Chapter 729 - 604: Pure and Clean as Jade Li Qianzhi (Seeking Monthly Votes)_1

Chapter 729: Chapter 604: Pure and Clean as Jade Li Qianzhi (Seeking Monthly Votes)_1

"This indeed is a big problem," Xu Yuanxian’s eyes flashed with worry. "We can only corner His Majesty and the Empress Dowager by hastening the conclusion of the Golden Knife Case.

Yet, this case is in the hands of Marquis of Guanjun, and we are powerless to intervene. The timing and method of case resolution are all at the whim of the Marquis of Guanjun."

What Xu Yuanxian left unsaid was his fear that Li Xuan might uncover some information that could be detrimental to Prince Xiang.

Although he didn’t know the full details of the ’Dari Gold Ring Knife’ case, Xu Yuanxian couldn’t help but suspect that Prince Xiang might be involved.

Outsiders might see Prince Xiang as a benevolent and virtuous man, a magnanimous elder of high moral standing. But as a confidant of Prince Xiang, didn’t Xu Yuanxian know what kind of person Prince Xiang truly was?

"--Also, the imperial order His Majesty granted Li Xuan a while ago, it had the seal of the Sili Bureau and the draft of the cabinet. This autonomous power for court officials below the third rank, it can be ignored, but once used, who can compete with him? Marquis of Guanjun is unlike other old scholars, he doesn’t go with the flow."

Upon hearing this, son of Prince Xiang, Yu Qiyong, also couldn’t help but worry: "Can we pressure Li Xuan to close the case quickly? Didn’t Li Xuan have a falling out with Neiguan Bureau and Chief Butler Qian Long of the Sili Bureau? We can help them, can’t we?"

Xu Yuanxian listened and then slowly shook his head: "This may not be of much use. The reason why Li Xuan criticised both the Ministry of Revenue and the Shibo Division of Ningbo as well as Neiguan Bureau was to obstruct trade to retaliate against the Fusou delegation.

As long as the Qingliu faction maintains skepticism towards these parties, the development of this trade cannot continue."

He thought this was a stupid idea. The Ministry of Revenue, the Shibo Division of Ningbo, and Neiguan Bureau, which of these are squeaky clean? They are all dark and greasy, concealing filth and accepting bribes. Perhaps, none among them are clean.

Even if Prince Xiang intended to shield them, could he?

Upon hearing this, Prince Xiang, Yu Zhanshi couldn’t help but feel a touch of unease.

Was Li Xuan’s obstruction of the court granting Kanche to the Fusou people, truly out of resentment?

But that man always paid back his grudges. The informant system of Prince Xiang’s residence had not detected anything unusual.

But it was still better to be cautious regarding that particular matter, no traces could be left behind--

While Prince Xiang, Yu Zhanshi, was deep in thought, son of Prince Xiang, Yu Qiyong, continued to suggest ideas: "I feel that since Marquis of Guanjun has broken ties with us, there is no harm in trying our hand with the Neiguan Bureau. Even though we might not succeed, it could still cause some distraction. We could even befriend Chief Butler Qian Long from the Sili Bureau.

Moreover, the numbers of Marquis of Guanjun’s faction are growing daily, but this also means there are more cracks appearing. We can coordinate with people from Neiguan Bureau, take it from the Ministry of Personnel or Inspectorate, and vigorously attack Marquis of Guanjun’s faction.

Not all of those around the Marquis of Guanjun might be clean and uncorrupted. And even if they do not have any unlawful gains, they must have had some faults and flaws during their official duties in the past, right? We can very well go all out and target some of them. Once such cases grow in number, I don’t believe Marquis of Guanjun could withstand the pressure; he’d end up using his loyalists to protect the Empress Dowager and the Emperor Emeritus."

Upon hearing this, Prince Xiang, Yu Zhanshi couldn’t help but look at his son appreciatively. He felt that ever since his eldest son had been ’befuddled’ once, he’d made significant progress.

However, every time he thought of the term ’befuddled’, Yu Zhanshi felt a slight pain down below.

"Forget about the Ministry of Personnel."

Prince Xiang, Yu Zhanshi shook his head. He knew that although Minister of Personnel Wang Wen supported him becoming ’Regent Prince’, this man was ultimately loyal to Emperor Jingtai.

It is impossible for them to use Wang Wen’s power to fight against Marquis of Guanjun.

On the contrary, this would make Wang Wen wary of him, doubting his benevolence, virtue, and high moral integrity.

"However, your proposal is feasible. We could try to cooperate with the Neiguan Bureau and make them put in more effort."

It’s important to know that the Neiguan Bureau is not only financially strong, but their connections within the court are also extraordinary, as many dignitaries are associated with them.

Prince Xiang, Yu Zhanshi also had an impractical hope. If they manage to get Chief Butler Qian Long of the Sili Bureau involved through the Neiguan Bureau, that would be perfect.

※※※※

Li Xuan was unaware of the situation with Prince Xiang, Yu Zhanshi. After leaving the palace, he returned to the Marquis of Guanjun’s residence.

Since he didn’t have any teachings today, he decided to pay a visit to Leng Yurou.

Recently, Leng Yurou mastered two technologies he ’invented’, known as ’vacuum quenching’ and ’Carbon infiltration Hardening’. These technologies not only helped in artifact refinement but also allowed Leng Yurou to develop a new type of steel that was cheaper and easier to process.

This reduced the cost of the ’Rune Rifled Flintlock Rifle’ to four hundred and fifty teal.

However, Shenqi Union was still quoting six hundred teal to the Ministry of War.

Leng Yurou defended herself saying that since the court has agreed to the price, why should they reduce it? What’s wrong with making money with their brains?

Then Li Xuan felt the struggle between his brain and his buttocks. In his head, he knew that the widespread use of ’Rune Rifled Flintlock Rifle’ was beneficial to the court. However, his buttocks stubbornly sided with the Shenqi Union.

Li Xuan could only console himself that the money Shenqi Union made was also reinvested into subsequent research and development, the placement and replacement of machine tools, and improvement of the standard of living. It should be beneficial for the economic development of the Jin Dynasty.

The key was that he provided the ’technology’ ideas and got a percentage of the profits from the ’Rune Rifled Flintlock Rifle,’ approximately seven percent or so.

Apart from that, Leng Yurou has made significant breakthroughs in the development of organ puppets.

Over the past year, with Li Xuan’s covert support, the Mohist School regained some of its vitality, and in return, they shared some crucial technology regarding organ puppets with Leng Yurou.

Yet Leng Yurou was deeply disappointed with this, "The blueprints for the power furnace that the Mohist School provided is still the same as that from thousands of years ago. With many of the materials from the Pre-Qin era no longer available in this era, the power technology from the Mohist School has actually regressed."

"Really?"

Feeling surprised, Li Xuan stared fixedly at the fully rejuvenated ’Fumo Vajra’ and ’Kongque Qianji’ in front of him, his eyes lit up in undeniable delight, "I think that the Mohist School’s Ju Zi, as well as the current generation of Lu Ban, are both open-minded thinkers, not ones for adhering rigidly to convention. Besides, haven’t these two organ puppets made it past the heavenly level?"

Strictly speaking, they hadn’t really reached the heavenly level, they could only temporarily achieve the battle capabilities of that level.

According to Leng Yurou, they could probably maintain the battle power of the heavenly level for about six hours. Combined with the 4th tier ’Great Five Elements Yin-Yang Magnet Miejue Needle’ that Leng Yurou equipped them with, this level of battle power was terrifying. Not just any heaven level might be capable of withstanding it.

Li Xuan felt that the more than ten million patterned silvers that he had continuously invested over the past year and a half had already paid off.

-- If one could exchange twenty million patterned silver for a heavenly level, many people in the world would flock to it.

"They’re not rigid in their thinking, but they’ve spent all their time and energy looking for alternative materials. The way they breached the heavenly level relied more on immortal runes, calling on the Yuan Qi of the universe as much as possible through runes, and then over-utilizing it at the expense of the lifetime of the power furnace."

Leng Yurou shook her head in disagreement, "But these runes still rely on the help of spell cultivators. Even so, they’re unable to reach the standards of the Pre-Qin era.

These power furnaces will be destroyed after just three to five overuses, and the cost to build a power furnace alone could be several million. Why does the Mohist School only have those two heavenly-level puppet, and dare not use them normally? This is because they can’t afford to build or use them.

I have used the gears, bearings, and hydraulic technology you came up with to drastically reduce costs. But the cost of this power furnace is still over two million."

Li Xuan could feel his wallet becoming much lighter, and realized that the price of two million is indeed expensive.

He’d been poor from the beginning, and now he was even poorer beyond imagination.

It would be hard for outsiders to imagine that the champion Marquis usually had less than a thousand patterned silver in his pockets. Now when he wanted to eat something delicious to appease his appetite, he could only freeload off meals at Jiang Mansion; Luo Yan and Qianqian were also footing the bill for the wages at Marquis of Guanjun’s Mansion.

Jade Qilin hadn’t spoken to him for several days because he’d stopped supplying North Sea ice fish for three days.

-- He shouldn’t have offered such an expensive fish as fodder, as it was difficult to transition from luxury to thrift.

"To truly break the shackles seems like we still need to work on the miniature nuclear power generator that you mentioned. Our research on fuel power will probably have to end here."

Leng Yurou had displayed visible signs of frustration when she spoke at this point.

Li Xuan had indeed taught her the formulas needed for nuclear fusion, but Leng Yurou could not understand them yet.

What does E=MC² mean, with E representing energy, M representing the mass of an object, C representing the speed of light—she was still in the dark.

The key issue was that her current cultivation level wasn’t sufficient to resist the ’radiation’ that Li Xuan had mentioned, so she couldn’t conduct relevant experiments.

"You’re already doing very well. Just take it slow."

Li Xuan thought to himself, if you continue your research, I’ll go bankrupt.

Just as he was about to say some words of comfort, his ’Divine Blood Azure Phoenix Niulang’ flew in and communicated a few sentences with him through Divine Consciousness.

Li Xuan’s demeanour shifted slightly, and he returned to his Marquis of Guanjun’s Mansion.

At this time, there were several dozen carriages parked in front of Li Xuan’s mansion, and many civil and military officials were waiting for his audience.

However, when Li Xuan returned to his mansion, the first person he summoned was an individual dressed like a Fusou samurai - Fusou delegation’s head envoy, Onodera Keigo.

This man fell to his knees in front of Li Xuan as soon as he saw him.

"Lord Marquis, I sincerely apologise for our earlier conflict and our rudeness. What would it take for you to let us off the hook and promote this joint venture trade?"

"Mr. Onodera, you should have come earlier." Li Xuan gave a slight smile and confidently laid a sheet of paper out in front of Onodera Keigo.

"Take a look at this. As long as your Fusou people can fulfil the conditions outlined here, I can facilitate the joint venture."

Onodera Keigo immediately took the proclamation nervously, revealing a strange expression.

The conditions Li Xuan laid out drastically exceeded his expectations.

Contrary to what he had imagined, Marquis Champion did not make outrageous demands for compensation or anything else, but had different plans.