The announcement had barely gone out before the entire village erupted in excitement.
Xing Honglang stared, baffled.
"An awards ceremony? For what?"
The road workers shrugged.
"No idea. But if the higher-ups call, we go watch. Maybe they're handing out steamed buns."
"Fair enough," he said, waving his own craftsmen forward. "Come on, let's go see who's getting celebrated before dinner."
They joined the flood of workers streaming toward the main fortress—because apparently even in a famine era, gossip spreads faster than plague.
The fortress courtyard was already jammed with people: short-term laborers, reform-through-labor inmates, villagers, apprentices… roughly three layers inside and another fifty outside. When Xing Honglang's group arrived, there wasn't even space to plant a foot. They could only stand at the outer rim and crane their necks toward the wall.
Up on the wall stood Shansier, and beside him Saintess Gao Yiye—sporting such heavy dark circles she looked like she'd lost a fistfight with insomnia.
Next to them stood three men in simple craftsman robes—mud-stained, sun-darkened, the type of guys who were so ordinary that even a street dog wouldn't bother sniffing them twice.
The newcomer craftsmen Dengjiang and Xu Dafu were overwhelmed.
"What is with this place?" Dengjiang whispered. "Back in Xi'an, refugees filled the streets, everyone miserable. But here everyone looks like they just saw free rice raining from the sky."
Xu Dafu glanced toward the wheat fields glowing in the dusk.
"They're about to harvest. No drought. No famine. No wonder they're smiling."
Then Shansier raised his hand and pressed it downward.
The entire courtyard went silent instantly—like someone pressed pause on a thousand villagers.
Xu Dafu and Dengjiang straightened instinctively, as if preparing for a military drill.
Shansier projected his voice:
"This morning, three of our mud-workers contributed a great achievement. They successfully perfected the formula for our very own Immortal Cement. From today onward, we can produce it ourselves!"
The villagers burst into cheers.
"We can make immortals' building materials ourselves now!"
"Amazing!"
Xu Dafu blinked.
"Immortal… cement? That's supposed to mean something?"
Dengjiang squinted. "Sounds like… fancy mud?"
Then Shansier invited the three mud-workers to speak.
The three shuffled forward nervously. One tried to speak—and his very first syllable cracked like a dying rooster.
"Da—aaah—"
He coughed violently, swallowed, tried again.
"Hello everyone… We… uh… we're just very ordinary, very poor mud-workers. But Tianzun gave us shelter, food, sleep, and the formula for Immortal Cement. We simply followed the instructions. This achievement isn't ours—it belongs entirely to Tianzun."
Xu Dafu whispered, "So they're just mud-workers."
Dengjiang nodded. "And their… amazing achievement is… fancy mud."
"Fancy mud hardly deserves applause," Xu Dafu muttered. "In Xi'an, even if you make something impressive, the higher-ups toss you scraps and call it kindness."
Dengjiang sighed.
"I once made a beautiful lamp for Qin Prince's manor. They praised it to the heavens… then rewarded me with twenty copper coins."
"Tch. Twenty." Xu Dafu shook his head. "I'm a resident craftsman. No matter how much I make, the wage is dead fixed. Might as well be a brick."
At this moment, Gao Yiyi appeared, leading a group of helpers carrying three enormous basins—each piled mountain-high with pork.
Shansier declared:
"For their great contribution, Master Craftsman Gao Yiyi will present each of them the Workshop Special Award—one hundred jin of pork each!"
A gasp spread through the crowd.
"One hundred!? For each!?"
Even wealthy households rarely saw that much meat at once. Turning excess into smoked bacon? That was basically culinary royalty.
Xu Dafu and Dengjiang nearly exploded from jealousy.
"What kind of village is this? Mud-workers get one hundred jin just for mud? In Xi'an we'd get a pat on the head and maybe a bowl of thin porridge!"
As the workers trembled in gratitude at their pork mountains, Shansier continued:
"The Workshop Special Award was only the beginning. Now we present the Dao Xuan Tianzun Special Award. Tianzun personally decreed that anyone who makes a major scientific breakthrough or invention will receive one giant silver sphere."
Three enormous silver spheres—each the size of a human head—were set before the craftsmen.
The courtyard collectively lost its mind.
Silver.
Actual silver.
Enough silver to buy a small village or two.
The shock was so great that the cheering died into stunned silence. Even the Shaanxi wind seemed to stop blowing for a moment.
Shansier proclaimed:
"You all saw it. Make a breakthrough, create something great, and you too have a chance at Tianzun's award. One invention… and you can become as rich as the legendary Tao Bai."
No one cheered.
But countless fists clenched.
A path to wealth, and to changing one's fate, had suddenly become real.
In the crowd, a man named Li Da stared at the half-finished spring in his hand. His research had stalled for months—every time he reheated and reforged a piece of Tianzun's divine spring, it lost all elasticity.
He'd nearly given up many times.
But seeing the mud-workers ascend to instant wealth reignited a bonfire inside him.
"I must succeed," he muttered. "When I do… I won't just leave the craftsman class. I'll rise above nobles."
He hurried back to his smithy, standing before the furnace like a monk facing enlightenment.
"How do I restore your elasticity…? Come on, old friend, show me a miracle."
…
A short historical aside followed—your resident Curator-Time-Traveler narrator steps in:
The reason the author wrote Liang Shixian and Fang Wushang as "decent enough officials" is tied to a weird historical gap. Zhang Yaocai's death signaled the beginning of the late-Ming peasant uprisings—yet after that, the county of Chengcheng practically vanished from records. No rebellions, no uprisings, no notable events. Just… nothing.
Why the sudden calm?
Did everyone decide one revolution was enough for a lifetime? Unlikely.
Most historians assume management improved enough that people stopped revolting. Since we don't know the exact reason, the author gives those two officials a relatively positive portrayal.
Footnotes
Immortal Cement — Inspired by advanced historical lime-based mortars. Some ancient structures (Roman sea-concrete) lasted over 1,500 years thanks to volcanic ash additives. The novel exaggerates this into "immortal-grade cement," but the cultural connection is real: ancient builders treasured formulas that made structures endure through dynasties.
One hundred jin of pork — In late-Ming purchasing power, this was absurdly generous. Pork was the "festival meat." Ordinary farmers might eat it three or four times a year, total. A hundred jin per person could feed a family for months.
Silver spheres — Huge lumps of processed silver were used historically as large-value currency, often in ingot form. A human-head-sized chunk? That's life-changing. Historically equivalent to the wealth of a minor landlord.
Craftsman classes — In Ming law, craftsmen were hereditary status groups. Escaping that status was extremely difficult. The chapter's "invention = chance to break destiny" mirrors real frustrations of skilled artisans stuck in low social rank despite immense skill.
Wheat fields and harvest scenes — In cultural symbolism, ripe wheat often indicates "Heaven has not abandoned us." Villagers seeing golden fields after years of drought created collective hope—a survival psychology commonly recorded in famine-era documents.