The masked man withdrew the moment his question landed.
Clean. Precise. Like flicking a pebble into still water and watching the ripples eat someone alive.
Years of bitterness—released. No follow-up. No lingering. He knew better than to hang around. A masked face already attracted enough attention; chatting with Shi Kefa any longer might trigger questions, investigations, or—worse—Dao Xuan Tianzun's casual curiosity.
And nobody survived that kind of curiosity comfortably.
Say what needed saying. Then disappear.
Shi Kefa didn't spare him a second glance.
He couldn't.
Cheng Xu was dead. Flattened by a landslide. Witnessed by an entire detachment of Imperial Guards. Written into official records with ink, seals, and the finality of a coffin lid.
Dead men did not wear masks and ask philosophical questions.
What crushed Shi Kefa wasn't who spoke.
It was what was said.
Among officials who'd survived court politics, who was truly ignorant? Everyone knew. Everyone understood.
Understanding, however, came bundled with helplessness.
Knowing where the rot was didn't mean you could scrape it off. It just meant you learned how to breathe while standing knee-deep in it.
Shi Kefa inhaled slowly.
Enough. If I keep standing here looking stunned, I'll embarrass the ancestors.
He straightened his robes and walked.
And promptly walked out of the Ming dynasty.
Buildings rose in dense, orderly blocks. Streets buzzed with people who looked… unconcerned. Shops overflowed with goods like famine was a myth scholars made up to scare students.
Children laughed. Adults argued about prices. Nobody looked like they were about to starve.
It was horrifying.
This wasn't a village scraping by.
This was a place where tomorrow had already been scheduled.
Is this a Peach Blossom Spring? Shi Kefa wondered.
No.
The Peach Blossom Spring hid from the world.
This place grabbed the world by the collar and demanded rent.
It wasn't transcendent. It wasn't immortal. It was aggressively mundane—and somehow that made it worse.
Then he saw the buildings.
New ones.
So square they looked offended by curves. Walls smooth, pale, smug. Shi Kefa didn't know what "cement" was, but he knew it was laughing at traditional architecture.
A low wall enclosed the compound. A large southern gate stood open, bearing a plaque:
Gao Family Village Vocational Technical School
Shi Kefa stopped.
Read it again.
Slower.
"…Vocational?"
His brows knitted so hard they nearly formed a faction.
Every other strange building here—factories, workshops, shops—he could at least guess. This one? Complete nonsense.
Schools taught classics.
Crafts were taught by uncles yelling at you in sheds.
What is this unholy hybrid?
Naturally, he went inside.
Immediately—
DING! CLANG! DING!
Metal screamed like it was being disciplined by Confucius himself.
Shi Kefa peered through a window.
Inside was a classroom.
A real one. Podium. Benches. Order.
Also inside: a collection of men who looked like they ate rebellion for breakfast.
The teacher was built like a battering ram. The students looked like backup battering rams.
And yet—
They sat straight.
They listened.
Attentively.
Shi Kefa's soul tripped.
"…Hm?"
Unlettered men lecturing unlettered men?
In a classroom?
The sages collectively fainted.
On the podium lay blacksmithing tools. Beside it, a furnace roared, heating iron until it glowed like a sin waiting to be confessed.
The teacher grabbed a hammer.
"Watch carefully," he barked. "Your swing goes like this—"
CLANG!
The iron bent immediately.
Ding! Ding! Clang!
In seconds, a cleaver blank appeared.
The teacher laughed. "See? A few more hits, sharpen it, and you can chop vegetables like a civilized man."
Then his face darkened.
"And you useless sacks of bones—stop staring like your brains leaked out! If you don't learn properly, you'll be digging roads for three catties of flour a day."
He sneered.
"Seven coins a catty. Twenty-one coins total. Planning to eat dirt?"
The reaction was immediate.
Those men—arms thicker than Shi Kefa's waist—lowered their heads.
They blushed.
They. Blushed.
Shi Kefa recoiled.
No.
This is forbidden knowledge.
He fled down the corridor, one hand covering his eyes like he'd accidentally walked into a bathhouse.
Once safely away, he leaned against the wall, breathing hard.
A classroom teaching blacksmithing.
In the Great Ming, craftsmen were pitied. Mothers warned their sons about becoming one. Scholars used them as metaphors for failure.
Here?
They were being threatened with poverty if they didn't study hard.
Absurd.
Then memory betrayed him.
Gaojia News.
That article. That man.
Three taels of silver a month.
Shi Kefa's indignation packed up and left without even saying goodbye.
For three taels… I'd hammer iron with a smile.
He moved on.
Second room.
Carpentry.
Another muscular teacher. Another group of attentive giants. The man shaved wood, sawdust floating everywhere.
"Village population's exploding!" the teacher laughed. "Furniture sells like mad! Learn well and your old man here will make you rich!"
Shi Kefa winced.
A teacher calling himself 'your old man'…
The literati have officially lost the Mandate of Heaven.
He walked on.
Tailoring.
Printing.
Papermaking.
Glassmaking.
Sugar refining.
Salt production.
Cooking.
Some rooms were packed to bursting. Others had three students and a teacher desperately pretending that was normal.
Each step felt like another slap.
Then—finally—the last classroom.
And suddenly, dignity returned.
At the podium stood a young man in white. Clean. Elegant. Scholarly.
A human being, Shi Kefa thought with relief.
The man wasn't hammering or sawing.
He was drawing.
Lines. Symbols. Diagrams.
"Observe carefully," he said calmly. "This is how the steam engine integrates with our equipment."
He pinned a massive sheet to the board.
Gears. Shafts. Pistons.
Shi Kefa stared.
Heavenly Book, his mind declared, kneeling immediately.
The students nodded.
One raised his hand. "Young Master Bai—are these the gears from the miniature steam train?"
The man smiled. "Correct."
He tapped the diagram. "Only a few craftsmen can currently make this system."
A pause.
"They've been promoted to senior technical engineers."
A student swallowed. "Their salary?"
"Fifty taels of silver per month."
The universe went silent.
Shi Kefa staggered.
"…Fifty?"
A craftsman.
Out-earning officials who memorized the Four Books until their souls went bald.
Shi Kefa clutched his chest.
"This—this isn't teaching anymore," he whispered. "This is a public execution."
He looked around, dazed.
"The scholars study for decades."
"The craftsmen study for months."
"And the craftsmen win."
He exhaled weakly.
"Humiliating the literati…"
A pause.
"…with extreme prejudice."