Ze Tian Ji (Way of Choices)

Chapter 635 – Two Imperial Designs Separated by One Thousand Years

With each line spoken by the three chief stewards, the corresponding place on the map lit up. Each point of light had a different level of brightness.

Tang Thirty-Six stood in a corner and listened, his expression growing increasingly solemn. He did not understand the numbers being reported, but he could sense the atmosphere.

The Tang Second Master gazed at those points of light as they gradually appeared on the map. He did not seem at all nervous, nor did he grow more relaxed with the passage of time.

To him, this seemed to be a very ordinary job.

After some time had passed, the three chief stewards finally concluded their report. The Tang Second Master gazed at the map and slightly creased his brow, somewhat dissatisfied. “Progress is still rather slow.”

The clacking of abacus beads continuously rose up from outside the room. The simultaneous clacking of several hundred abacuses mixed together was truly not a very good sound.

A chief steward replied, “In this year of preparation, we were only able to obtain some rough estimates. The true calculations only began tonight. It’s truly difficult to be any faster.”

The Tang Second Master gazed out of the room at those accountants all immersed in their work, continuously moving the beads on their abacuses, and said, “Only one hour is left at most.”

The chief steward replied, “I’ll keep my eye on them.”

“Just keeping an eye on them isn’t enough.” The Tang Second Master stared into the chief steward’s eyes and ordered, “All of you also go. Also, give me an abacus.”

An abacus and a large pile of files were promptly brought into the room.

The Tang Second Master paid no attention to Tang Thirty-Six in the corner. His right hand flipped through files while his left hand maneuvered the beads of the abacus. At intervals, he would momentarily pause to write a number on a file.

Compared to the accountants outside the room, his speed was not particularly fast, but every action of his was particularly clear. The speed at which his right hand flipped the pages and his left hand calculated united almost perfectly together under some incomprehensible tempo. Very quickly, he completed the calculations on the small mountain of files.

A subordinate brought in another pile of files.

These files were quickly calculated as well.

Only then did the Tang Second Master finally have a moment to rest. He took up from the table the teapot that had long since grown cold and slowly drank from it.

After completing such a vast number of calculations in such a short amount of time, he had turned somewhat blue. He had consumed far too much of his spiritual sense.

“If Xu Yourong were here calculating with her Fated Star Plate, she would probably be twice as fast as me.”

The Tang Second Master tiredly put down the teapot and said, “But if Wang Po were still an accountant of our clan, there would be no need for me to go through such hardships.”

At this moment, only he and Tang Thirty-Six were in the room, so he was naturally speaking to Tang Thirty-Six.

“Our clan does business, and when doing business, you can’t take a loss. When Father let Wang Po leave Wenshui, this business took far too great a loss.”

Tang Thirty-Six knew that his second uncle was warning him that he should not drag down the family business for the sake of Chen Changsheng and the Orthodox Academy.

“Didn’t Wang Po leave Wenshui because Second Uncle was narrow-minded and didn’t like the look of him, so thought of every way to force him out?”

He said mockingly to the Tang Second Master.

The Tang Second Master calmly gazed back at him, saying, “Shut your mouth. I still have many things to do today, and I’m in no mood to play these childish games with you.”

The results calculated by the several hundred accountants were constantly being gathered in this small room and then organized into the simplest of sentences.

Just the two matters of whether each location in the capital could be confirmed or not, and the level of strength.

More and more lights appeared on the map hanging from the wall, gradually forming into lines, ultimately transforming into a mysterious design.

Standing in the corner, Tang Thirty-Six saw this design and faintly recalled that when he was very young and being told stories from long ago by the Old Master while sitting on his knees, a matter related to this had been spoken of…

But just what was it?

Finally, all the calculations were concluded, and that annoying sound of abacus beads clacking against each other finally ceased. All that could be heard was the panting accountants, extremely exhausted and moaning from their aching arms. Tang Thirty-Six even saw two accountants who had used up too much of their energy and had fallen unconscious.

The Tang Second Master walked up once more to the stone wall, examining the design on the map. Perking his brows, he extended a hand and took an item out from his sleeve.

Countless rays of light shot out from this item and fell upon the map of the capital, similarly forming a design.

The two designs basically overlaid each other, the general outline generally the same. Only in certain tiny places was it somewhat different. In addition, the levels of brightness were different.

“Is the change large?” the Tang Second Master asked.

Tang Thirty-Six was somewhat surprised, thinking, I’ve never seen these two designs, so how can I answer? And these changes…what changes are being referred to here?

“One thousand years have already passed. The changes naturally won’t be too small.”

An elderly voice resounded through the shadows of the room, and an old man in a cotton jacket appeared there.

Tang Thirty-Six stared at the old man, asking in shock, “Great Guardian, how are you here?”

The old man nodded at him and then walked to the Tang Second Master’s side. Gazing at the two overlaid designs, he said, “Fortunately, it can still be resolved.”

Tang Thirty-Six could no longer suppress his curiosity. Walking over, he asked, “Just what is this design?”

“Both of these are the capital’s Imperial Design. The design just calculated tonight is the present one. The one that Second Master just took out is the one from one thousand years ago.”

This old Guardian from the Wenshui Tang clan replied.

The Tang Second Master added, “One thousand years of change in the capital lie within these two designs. This is history.”

Hearing this, Tang Thirty-Six once more turned to the design on the wall, and what he felt from it now was naturally very different.

“Only our Tang clan can see the changes over this period of history, because our Tang clan exists within history. At least in the history of the capital, we have a longer one than anyone else, even more than the Chen Imperial clan, so our Tang clan has enough reason to return to the capital. You must understand the necessity of revering this history.”

The Tang Second Master looked at him and said, “If you can’t even understand this, how can you deserve the surname of Tang?”

This sentence was an answer to the question he had asked Tang Thirty-Six at the very beginning: “What should our Tang clan most revere?”

Not money that could let one access godhood, not the relationships that extended to every noble clan, sect, and government, and even to Xuelao City, but the incomparably long history possessed by the head of the Four Great Clans.

Logically speaking, Tang Thirty-Six should have had some sort of reaction towards these words, but he was thinking about other things. Then he thought about something that caused his face to instantly pale.

He recalled what these two designs separated by a thousand years on this map were.

Yes, it was the Imperial Design.

Just as the Great Guardian had said.

There were very few people in the world who knew of the Imperial Design’s existence, but when he was small, he had heard about it on the Old Master’s knees.

It was the greatest secret of the capital of the Great Zhou Dynasty, and also the mightiest and most terrifying Daoist array!

Just what did the Wenshui Tangs want to do? He stared at the map of the capital, countless waves surging in his mind. Tonight, were they planning to undertake such a large task?

The Tang Second Master and the Great Guardian were also gazing at this map.

All the lines of these two designs separated by one thousand years pointed to a single location.

Right at the place where the gazes of these three people rested.

The center north of this map of the capital, the Imperial Palace.

The Tang Second Master indifferently noted, “The pivot of the array really is there.”

The Great Guardian sighed, “As it turned out, the pivot of the array was still there.”

“From the moment Taizu founded the dynasty in front of the Mausoleum of Books, he began to set up the Imperial Design, and Taizong and Emperor Xian continued this work.”

The Tang Second Master examined the map and noted, “The place altered the most, besides the lines that follow the canal at North Li of Achieving Merit, is the pivot of the array, deep within the Imperial Palace.”

The Great Guardian looked at the bright spots on the second Imperial Design and said, “It now seems that all those rumors from the past were true. Taizong built the Lingyan Pavilion just so that he could transform the most critical and most vulnerable array pivot into the most dangerous Heavenly Slaughter Array, specifically targeted at experts of the Divine Domain.”

The Tang Second Master commented, “Father said that if Emperor Taizong really did build a Heavenly Slaughter Array, even experts of the Divine Domain attempting to break in would only die.”

The Great Guardian was quiet for a very long time, finally saying, “I will try and see if it’s possible to sneak in.”

Upon hearing this, Tang Thirty-Six was shocked once more.

The Great Guardian’s cultivation was unfathomable, for many years being only half a step from the Divine Domain, was the Wenshui Tang clan’s final divine card to play excluding the Old Master himself, and he was also going to take action?