Bai Gongzi stepped off the strange cart with the swagger of a young hero who had finally found his purpose in life.
"Father!" he announced proudly. "By order of Dao Xuan Tianzun, I have brought the immortal flying-missile. This weapon must be assembled using immortal methods. Tianzun feared you wouldn't know how, so he sent me back to instruct you."
Bai Yan blinked. "Immortal… missile? What thing?"
Before he could even process it, Cheng Xu practically teleported to Bai Yan's side.
"Missile? A new kind of weapon? What kind of weapon?" His eyes gleamed like a man who had just found the last cabbage during a famine.
Bai Gongzi puffed out his chest. "Please send the household troops and militia to move the missile fragments off the cart. I shall guide them through assembly."
Since the gift was from Dao Xuan Tianzun, Bai Yan didn't hesitate. He waved his arm, and the courtyard erupted into motion as dozens of servants rushed forward to unload the strange, block-shaped fragments.
Bai Yan recognized them instantly — they looked exactly like the colorful blocks that made up the walls of High Village's Five-Color City. Only these were painted gray.
Are we… building a wall? he wondered. Is that the meaning? A taller wall? A stranger wall? A… gray wall?
Before he could think too hard, Bai Gongzi was already directing the workers to haul the pieces into the central courtyard — the broad open space used for martial training.
He paced around, calculating angles like a miniature general.
"This will fit perfectly! You men, lift that piece! You, take the other one! Good — raise it higher — use the bump there to match the groove there — yes, yes — now walk inward together — and push!"
"Pa!"
A crisp snap rang out as two massive blocks clicked together like oversized children's toys.
Bai Yan: "???"
Cheng Xu: "???"
Bai Gongzi clapped. "Next piece! Bring it here! Line it up! Push!"
"Pa!"
Another perfect fit.
Bai Yan stared, stunned. "I… don't understand any of this. But I am deeply shaken."
Cheng Xu finally exploded. "What in the hell are you two doing!? Do you not SEE the situation outside!? And you're here playing— playing— whatever this is?"
But Bai Gongzi remained serenely focused. "That piece! Yes, that one! Lift! Over here! Align with the groove! Push!"
"Pa!"
Block after block fell into place.
The servants were sweating buckets. Bai Yan was speechless. And Cheng Xu was spiraling into existential crisis.
Then—
"Wait!" Bai Gongzi suddenly paled. "That one's wrong. Pull it back out! We must reinstall!"
Bai Yan: "!!!"
Cheng Xu grabbed his head. "Are you playing with me!? We have to do it AGAIN!? I had such high hopes when High Wu sent things over — and THIS is what we get!?"
Bai Gongzi bowed politely. "General, please be patient. I only misplaced a small section. It will be corrected shortly."
"Don't talk like a scholar to me!" Cheng Xu snapped. "It doesn't make you more convincing!"
But the assembly continued anyway.
Block after block slammed together in a rain of crisp snaps.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the four-zhang-long monstrosity stood completed — an enormous, sleek, immaculately assembled immortal contraption that looked nothing like any weapon of their world.
Bai Gongzi stepped in front of it, bowed, and announced:
"Father, uncles, General — the immortal missile is assembled. Please witness its power."
No one understood what they were looking at.
Bai Gongzi pointed at a group of strong men. "Push the rotation axle! Yes! Turn it… now raise it… higher… a little more…"
The missile lifted its head, the launching tube pointing upward.
"You there!" Bai Gongzi shouted at a burly servant. "Strike the four circular triggers at the back with the hammer! One by one!"
The man had to climb on a table just to reach the upper triggers.
"Strike!"
The servant swung the hammer —
Boom boom boom boom!
Eight deep thuds roared out, and eight massive plastic shells — longer than two grown men — shot from the barrel with terrifying speed.
They streaked across the sky like gods' fireworks, soared over Bai Fortress, flew across cracked fields, leapt the dried riverbed, and finally—
"Boom! Boom! Boom!"
—slammed into the distant slope of Huanglong Mountain.
The shock left every man in the fortress gaping so wide a brick could have been tossed into their mouths.
Back in Li Dao Xuan's world, the toy missile launcher fired five meters.
In the late Ming dynasty?
Its range became one thousand meters.
Two full li.
Longer than any trebuchet. Longer than any giant crossbow. Longer than anything humans in this era could conceive of.
Cheng Xu was the most stunned of all. He understood weaponry. He knew exactly what this meant.
He threw both arms into the air and screamed toward the heavens:
"Hahahahaha! Heaven aids me! Heaven aids ME! With this divine weapon, what bandit army? Hahahahaha! Great-grandmother, your dear descendant will delay our reunion once again! I have turned death into life AGAIN!"
He spun around, wild-eyed. "Bai Gongzi! How many of these immortal missiles do we have!?"
Bai Gongzi extended three fingers.
Cheng Xu nearly cried from joy. "Assemble the remaining two! Quickly!"
"But—" Bai Gongzi hesitated. "We do not have another courtyard wide enough. Each missile needs at least four zhang of space."
Bai Yan leapt forward. "The back garden! Tear down the rockeries — put one there!"
Then he paused, thinking. "And the courtyard before the library pavilion — tear down the pavilion and corridors — that space can hold another!"
"But father," Bai Gongzi said gently, "the pavilion wall has your calligraphy on it. Your proudest work."
Bai Yan snorted. "For the sake of Bai Fortress, what are a few pieces of calligraphy? Out of the six gentlemenly arts, remove 'Calligraphy' for me!"
Footnotes
Assembly-style "immortal weapons" reflect the story's comedic anachronism, parodying modern modular toys reimagined in a late-Ming setting.
Typical late-Ming siege engines had far shorter ranges — a trebuchet around 300 meters and large crossbows around 100. A two-li range would be considered impossibly divine by period standards.
Ming military officials often referenced ancestors or elders in dramatic exclamations, reflecting both superstition and culture-specific expressions of fear or relief.