Li Da bowed deeply.
"Reporting to Tianzun… In our mortal world, forging firearms and mixing gunpowder are two completely different professions. This humble craftsman only forges the firearms. I do not specialize in gunpowder. I dare not take on a job beyond my skill. If anything goes wrong—boom—it may blow up the entire village. The consequences would be… severe."
Li Da's words instantly made Dao Xuan Tianzun think of the famous Tianqi Explosion, that great historical 'oops'.
"Oh? Then who are the craftsmen who mix gunpowder? Find one and bring him here."
Li Da shook his head.
"Those who handle the gunpowder are called huo yao zuo. The imperial court guards them tighter than its own underwear. Private ownership of gunpowder is considered treason. Our Gaojia Village doesn't have a single one."
Dao Xuan Tianzun frowned.
"What about in Chengcheng County?"
"Also no! Whenever the county needs gunpowder, they must request it from Xi'an Prefecture."
Dao Xuan Tianzun finally understood: only the official armory in Xi'an had the huo yao zuo, and the court guarded them like a dragon hoarding gold.
So… fireworks and firecrackers?
Yeah, better shelve those for now.
Letting Gaojia Village's merry band of mischievous, untrained rascals handle gunpowder would be basically reenacting the Tianqi Explosion, except this time the casualties would be his own villagers. That would be awkward.
Dao Xuan Tianzun had played enough city-building games to know: if you give NPCs dangerous gadgets, they will find a way to blow something up. Usually your blood pressure.
So, fireworks?
Sealed. Locked. Buried. Never speak of them again until the village recruits a real professional.
Talent…
Every step forward in Gaojia Village required the right talent. Without talent, progress crawled like a disabled snail.
Just as he was lamenting this, something moved at the edge of his vision.
Visitors again.
A horse carriage rolled up to the fortress gate. Bai Yan was driving. Madam Bai and young Master Bai lifted the curtain and stepped out.
Yesterday, when Dao Xuan Tianzun had returned to visit his mortal family, the Bai family also went home for New Year's Eve. After their reunion dinner on the thirtieth, Bai Yan personally drove his wife and son back to Gaojia Village early this morning.
The moment the wheels stopped… Bai Yan—ignoring wife, ignoring son—tore off like an arrow toward the inner fortress.
He was an old friend here. The sentries didn't even try to stop him.
"Mr. Bai! Why the rush? Want me to call Shansier for you?"
"You're too slow! I'll do it myself!"
And off he went, sprinting straight into the Nine Halls and Eighteen Wells conference building.
Shansier had just been sorting the inventory list when Bai Yan flew in, grabbed him by the arm, and yelled:
"Quick! Hand over the entire set of Primary School Mathematics, Year One through Year Six—twelve heavenly volumes—NOW!"
Shansier blinked twice.
Then enlightenment struck.
"Aha! Mr. Bai… your son crushed you in math?"
Bai Yan's face turned the exact color of unwashed pork liver.
Correct.
He had been schooled.
By his own child.
Yesterday at their reunion dinner, Bai Yan—long separated from his son—naturally wanted to test the boy's learning.
After a few warm-up questions from the classics, he drifted—of course—into his beloved subject: the Six Arts of a Gentleman. Bai Yan's Three Things in Life:
The Six Arts
The Six Arts
And the Six Arts again
The boy casually mentioned he'd been learning mathematics recently. And learning it quite well.
Bai Yan snorted.
"Math? Ha! That's my specialty! When it comes to the 'numbers' of the Six Arts, your father is unmatched!"
And so father and son began their scholarly duel.
Addition, subtraction, multiplication, division—even Chicken-Rabbit-Same-Cage—they fought evenly.
Then the boy stopped playing traditional games.
He suddenly pulled out… fractions.
From the third-grade textbook.
Bai Yan was stunned.
The boy pressed the attack—decimals.
From the same grade.
Fractions and decimals with full operations.
A father's nightmare.
Sure, Bai Yan could calculate the answers… eventually… using methods from the Ming dynasty. But he was nowhere near as fast as his son.
The "Numbers" of the Six Arts?
Defeated.
Crossed out.
Utterly destroyed.
For a man like Bai Yan, this was unacceptable.
A father could lose to heaven, lose to fate, lose to bureaucracy—
but lose to his own son?
Never.
So on the dawn of the first day of the new year, he had personally driven his family back to Gaojia Village, thrown wife and child at the gate, and sprinted inside to raid the library.
Shansier couldn't stop laughing.
"Mr. Bai, being surpassed by your own child is normal. It's not shameful. It means your boy is brilliant!"
"Nonsense!" Bai Yan barked.
"I'm still young! Bai Family Fort does not require my son to take over! Why should I concede defeat while I still breathe?! Hand over all twelve volumes!"
Still laughing, Shansier led him to the warehouse—rows of books stacked like treasure: Hanyu Pinyin, and all volumes of Primary School Mathematics neatly sorted.
"Heavenly books… so many heavenly books!"
Bai Yan dove into the piles like a madman, emerging with the full twelve-volume set clutched to his chest.
"HAHAHAHA! The Twelve Volumes of Math are mine! In mere days I shall reach the mathematics level of the Immortal Realm! Mortals shall tremble before my calculations! Hahahaha!"
Dao Xuan Tianzun overheard him and couldn't resist poking the balloon.
"Yiye! Hey, Yiye! Go tell Bai Yan: mathematics is vaster than the sea. What he holds is merely primary school. Beyond that are middle school mathematics… university mathematics… and far, far more."
Yiye ran to deliver the message.
Bai Yan froze mid-laughter.
Then continued laughing—louder.
"So if I finish these twelve volumes, Tianzun will grant me the next heavenly math? The middle school ones? The university ones?"
Dao Xuan Tianzun nearly choked.
He had meant to humble the man.
Instead Bai Yan's motivation detonated like a powder keg.
Bai Yan raised the books to the sky.
"Then I shall study! I shall master them ALL! I will reach the peak of the Numbers! Let that brat know—no matter how fast he learns, his father… is still his father!"
Footnotes
Tianqi Explosion (1626) – A massive real historical blast in Ming-era Beijing. One of history's great "someone definitely messed up the inventory sheet" moments.
Chicken-Rabbit-Same-Cage – A classic Chinese math puzzle involving animals sharing a cage and calculating their numbers via their legs. Basically ancient algebra but with fluffier variables.
Six Arts of a Gentleman – Rites, Music, Archery, Charioteering, Writing, and Mathematics. Bai Yan clearly treats "Math" as his personal martial art.
Bai Yan's reaction is historically accurate: no father in East Asian history has ever willingly admitted "my kid is better than me at math."