xymnovel Chapter 1142 - 1124: Can You Calculate It?
Chapter 1142 - 1124: Can You Calculate It?
Xie Pi still didn’t know what exactly he had said to King Langya and to Wang Dun respectively that had made the two men, who had once been relatively amicable, grow ever more suspicious of each other after his departure—to the point that even Wang Dao could not dissuade them.
Oh, right. As one of King Langya’s confidant military advisors, Xie Pi also knew that one turning point when King Langya’s and Wang Dun’s mutual suspicion deepened was Guo Pu’s disappearance.
They had clearly agreed to send Guo Pu to the Northern Land to carry out a mission of sowing discord, yet Guo Pu vanished halfway there.
King Langya could not help but grow suspicious, because the men escorting Guo Pu had all been arranged by Wang Dun, while King Langya himself was very interested in the private divination Guo Pu had done for Wang Dun.
And now, it was being stated that the missing Guo Pu was serving under Zhao Hanzhang as Junior Minister of the Ministry of Rites—did King Langya know this?
Did Guo Pu really escape here to throw himself into Zhao Hanzhang’s service, or was he still carrying out their orders and working here to sow discord?
Also, now that Zhao Hanzhang was heavily employing Guo Pu, did that mean she too placed great faith in Guo Pu’s divinations?
Xie Pi lowered his eyes, doubts instead rising in his heart. He disliked Guo Pu and had never believed in these occult arts.
If Guo Pu were not of illustrious birth, he would have cut him down with his sword long ago; his elder brother, however, believed in him very much. If Zhao Hanzhang trusted thaumaturges the way King Langya did, was the Northern Land still worth the Xie Family’s return?
While his mind was being pulled in opposite directions, someone suddenly shouted loudly, "The rain has stopped, the rain has stopped."
Yang Yi and the others hurriedly called to everyone, "Move, move, let’s go."
The dark clouds in the sky had not yet been completely blown away and still half-veiled the sun, but they could not fully block it. Sunlight threaded through the cloud layers, spilling down between and along their edges; those edges in particular seemed inlaid with gold as the golden light poured down, as if gilding the human world with a thin sheen.
There was still moisture in the air, yet sunlight bathed everything—this was a sunshower. Not only children loved such weather; even the adults could not help but look up at the sky.
Someone cried out in surprise, pointing toward the horizon, "A rainbow!"
Xie Pi looked up and saw, hanging in midair above Luoyang City, a seven-colored rainbow, with the red, orange, and blue especially bright and dazzling, clearly distinct.
In his twenty-nine years of life, it was the first time Xie Pi had seen such a vivid rainbow; he was momentarily dazed.
If even the well-traveled Xie Pi reacted thus, there was no need to mention the young men like Yang Yi. They all stared up at the sky with mouths agape, and after a long moment said, "This is a lucky omen, foretelling that our meeting with General Zhao tomorrow will go smoothly."
Xie Pi, who had never been particularly superstitious, fell silent at these words.
Guo Pu, however, truly was not superstitious. Standing on the pavilion whose roof had been dismantled, he looked up at the sky, calculated on his fingers again and again, then calmly stroked his beard and said, "There will still be a sudden rain tomorrow. I merely failed to calculate that there would also be a sudden rain today, so that doesn’t count as my having miscalculated."
Fu Tinghan was beside him adjusting the equipment and did not respond.
Guo Pu went on, "But I truly didn’t calculate the rainbow. Ting Han, did you foresee it?"
"No. Come take a look, I’ve finished adjusting it." Fu Tinghan assembled the telescope, and after confirming that it could move freely he stepped back to the side, giving up his place. "The armillary sphere has also been set up. The pavilion’s space is limited, so I had them put it downstairs. Once you’ve finished your observations, you can draw the star charts onto it."
Guo Pu leaned toward the armillary sphere and glanced it over. "It’s daytime now; there’s nothing much to see. Let’s wait till night."
He straightened up and went to look at Fu Tinghan, asking, "Can I go take a look at the Glass Workshop? I’m very interested in your Thousand-mile Eye. I don’t find it strange that you could make lenses for the Thousand-mile Eye, but that you could actually make such mirrors for observing celestial bodies truly surprises me."
"You can. I’ll write you a note; with it you can go in."
Guo Pu was taken aback. "You’re not going with me?"
Fu Tinghan said, "I need to go on a field trip. It may be some time before I return."
Guo Pu: "Where to?"
"To take a look at the Yellow River."
"What are you going there for?"
"Didn’t you say that this year the middle reaches of the Yellow River will have abundant rain, and the lower reaches might flood?" Fu Tinghan said. "I have to go see for myself, and while I’m along the Yellow River, I’ll also look for hermits skilled in water control."
Guo Pu quietly studied him for a moment, and when he was sure Fu was serious he burst out laughing and asked, "Water control? You still need to ask someone else? Isn’t your grandfather the greatest expert?"
"In matters of hydraulic engineering, who in Great Jin can surpass him?"
A hint of worry appeared on Fu Tinghan’s face. "My grandfather is gravely ill. My father and mother have already taken the Imperial Physician and medicines with them to Chang’an, and of the officials and staffers who once followed him in water-control projects, the vast majority are no longer alive. Those who remain are scattered all over; we are currently sending people to search for and recall them, but whether they can be found, no one knows."
Guo Pu froze for a moment, then fell silent.
In the twenty years of Great Jin’s turmoil, too many had died—especially in the last ten years, with almost yearly wars. In each coup, the first to die were invariably the court officials and the great families of Luoyang.
No wonder there was a gap in talent.
"Then you... haven’t you learned your grandfather’s skills?"
Fu Tinghan shook his head. "I only studied by his side when I was a child."
As for water control, he did know a rough set of guiding principles, but in actual application there were countless problems.
"Damming is inferior to dredging"—but how to dredge so as to save both manpower and material resources?
Which stretch of land should be opened up so that damage would be minimized while a greater volume of floodwater could be diverted?
There were many subtleties involved; it was not something that could be handled by a single rough principle.
The study of hydraulic engineering, as Fu Zhi put it, was something one could research for an entire lifetime. A good water engineer not only knew how to control water, but also how to use water.
For instance, there was Dujiangyan, which could benefit the people for a thousand years.
When Fu Tinghan had written to consult Fu Zhi, perhaps fearing that Fu Tinghan might rashly rush off to manage the waters, Fu had warned him that if he did not understand the principles, he must not meddle blindly.
Water control was like treating an illness: if you could not identify the disease and did not understand pharmacology, prescribing at random would harm people even more than not prescribing at all.
He warned Fu Tinghan that if he did not understand, he must not act lightly, lest he harm others and himself.
Guo Pu: "Then your father? Did he not inherit your grandfather’s mantle either?"
Fu Tinghan shook his head.
His father loved reading, all kinds of books, but he simply did not like hydraulic engineering.
However...
"I have an uncle. Grandfather said he was very good at water control, but he disappeared, and there has been no news of him for many years. Could you..." Fu Tinghan sized Guo Pu up from head to toe, hesitated, and in the end could not help but say, "help me divine his whereabouts?"
Guo Pu was both startled and delighted; he could not help but plant his hands on his hips and laugh aloud. "So you do believe in me after all, hahahaha..."
He and Fu Tinghan had taken to each other at first sight, and in mathematics he could be said to have met his match.
Guo Pu had always been proud, convinced that, in mathematics, none in the world today could surpass him—only to run into Fu Tinghan here.
Confronted with such an opponent, Guo Pu naturally could not resist competing with him. Besides mathematics, he also wanted to compete in the Zhouyi and in divination, but... Fu actually held an attitude of disbelief toward divination.