Yun Chuhuan craned his neck in the direction Yun Shu had pointed.
"Over there? I don't see anything at all."
"No rush."
Yun Shu smiled, her eyes narrowing into playful crescents as she raised three fingers.
"Three, two, one."
With a sudden crack, fireworks erupted along both sides of the stone road.
Unlike the previous year, the fireworks this time did not shoot into the sky. Instead, they burst upward from the ground like blooming trees of flame and silver, spraying light in brilliant clusters that illuminated the once-dim path as though it were midday.
Visually, it was dazzling enough.
Yet, thanks to the article Yun Shu had written in the Capital Weekly, public expectations had been drawn to a fever pitch. Now, seeing only fireworks—albeit with a novel twist—some in the crowd could not help but feel slightly let down.
"Isn't this just a new variation of fireworks?"
Someone near the front muttered under their breath, tone tinged with doubt.
"How is this supposed to be 'era-defining'? What's so…"
Before the complaint could be finished, a sudden outcry swept through the crowd.
"What is that?!"
The speaker instinctively looked up, only to see—between the trees of flame—something extraordinary.
A vehicle, somewhat like a carriage but clearly lacking any horses to pull it, shot out from the center of the illuminated road at an astonishing speed.
In the blink of an eye, it came to a smooth, controlled stop directly in front of Emperor Xuanwu.
Only then did the crowd see that inside the strange contraption sat two people.
Those unfamiliar with the Ministry of Works strained to recall their faces.
Before they could place them, the side doors of the carriage swung open.
The two occupants stepped down, approached Emperor Xuanwu, and bowed deeply with shining eyes.
"Subjects Zheng Qiaozhang and Jiang Yuanbao pay respects to Your Majesty. Long live the Emperor, may Your Majesty live ten thousand years!"
"Rise."
Emperor Xuanwu had been surprised many times in his reign, but this was the first time that surprise came so fully formed and uncontainable.
He stepped quickly to the side of the curious vehicle, circling it with visible awe, eyes drinking in every detail. In that moment, the dignified Son of Heaven looked almost like a curious child at a festival, gazing here, tapping there.
After inspecting it thoroughly, he turned back to Jiang Yuanbao, the excitement in his eyes undiminished.
"You are called Jiang Yuanbao, yes? This contraption—you built it?"
"Your Majesty, the blueprint was drawn up by Her Highness the Crown Princess and Zheng Daren together. This humble subject merely followed their design to bring it to life."
Jiang Yuanbao dared not claim credit. He quickly explained,
"It was Zheng Daren who, with Her Highness's guidance, first envisioned the steam engine and committed its mechanisms to paper. Then, Her Highness proposed applying that engine to a carriage… and thus, this steam-powered carriage came to be."
"Steam engine?"
Emperor Xuanwu's brows lifted slightly. He recalled the thick trail of white mist trailing behind the vehicle as it had sped toward him just moments ago.
"And what is that?"
"Your Majesty, a steam engine is a machine that converts the power of steam into mechanical energy. Simply put, it uses a boiler to boil water, producing steam. The expanding steam then drives a piston…"
Zheng Qiaozhang had become completely engrossed in steam engines of late—borderline obsessed, one might say.
So when Emperor Xuanwu expressed even the slightest interest, he could not restrain himself. Words poured out like a flood as he launched into a fervent explanation, technical terms spilling forth in rapid succession.
Soon, most of the officials were entirely lost, their heads spinning. No one understood a word.
Fortunately, Emperor Xuanwu was not the type to demand mastery of every detail. After listening for a while without making sense of it, he simply turned to look at Yun Shu, who stood nearby, smiling with quiet pride.
"This steam carriage—how does it compare to a regular one?"
"The most obvious difference is that it needs no horses."
Yun Shu stepped forward and gave the carriage an affectionate pat.
"And aside from that… its speed."
She spoke slowly, letting each word settle.
"An ordinary carriage, when traveling along a well-paved road, covers about forty li in one hour. But this one, in that same hour, can travel one hundred and twenty li."
"A hundred and twenty li?"
Gasps rippled through the crowd.
One li was merely five hundred meters. That meant this carriage moved at thirty kilometers per hour—already well beyond what traditional means could manage. And that was not even its limit.
Yun Shu nodded calmly.
"One hundred and twenty li per hour is… still rather slow."
"That's considered slow?"
General Weiyuan, who had held his tongue for a good while, finally could not help but speak.
"That's nearly as fast as a galloping horse!"
"Do you truly believe This Princess went through all this effort just to match a horse's speed?"
Yun Shu arched a brow.
"Do you take This Princess for someone with nothing better to do?"
"Then…"
The general choked on his words, unsure what to say. He stared at Yun Shu, then asked in disbelief,
"Does that mean it can go even faster?"
"Of course."
Yun Shu placed a hand on the door, her tone crisp and unhesitating.
"In truth, this carriage is capable of much higher speeds. It was only completed hastily, so many aspects remain suboptimal. For instance, the body can eventually be replaced with iron for added durability, and several other components can be improved. Based on our estimates, once these upgrades are made, it should be able to travel four hundred li in a single hour."
"Four hundred li?!"
General Weiyuan's voice cracked from sheer shock.
"Your Highness… do you realize what that means? If this carriage truly reaches such speeds, one could travel from the capital to Suzhou in just five or six hours! If one pushes it slightly, it would be possible to make a round trip in a single day!"
He took a step back, his disbelief written all over his face.
"This is… how could this be possible?"
"Why not?"
Yun Shu lifted a brow.
"If This Princess had told you yesterday that there existed a carriage requiring no horses, able to move on its own, and already as fast as a galloping steed, would you not also have dismissed it as impossible?"
As she spoke, she circled to the front of the vehicle and climbed into the driver's seat. Then she looked back toward Emperor Xuanwu with a radiant smile.
"Father Emperor, would You care to come up and try it for Yourself? Your Daughter shall take You for a circuit around the palace."
"Indeed!"
Emperor Xuanwu's eyes sparkled. He glanced at where Jiang Yuanbao had disembarked, then opened the opposite door and climbed in with little hesitation.
Outside, General Weiyuan, Yun Chuhuan, and several court officials could only look on longingly.
The steam carriage, built in haste, was rather small, with just two seats.
No matter how envious they were, there was simply no room.
All they could do was watch as this bizarre yet awe-inspiring "divine chariot" darted away before their very eyes.
===
Hey guys, just a quick heads-up about my recent activity. I've actually been caught up in a totally different project—fonts. Yeah, fonts.
So, on my Android phone I've been using Droid Sans since like ever. I used to be on Roboto back in my college days (around 2017/2018 when I got my first phone), but somewhere around then I switched over and just never looked back. Even when I change phones, I always reinstall Droid Sans because I've gotten way too comfortable with it.
Recently, I suddenly thought: "What if I make this my default system font on my laptop too?" Sounds simple, right? Well… nope. The font is smaller than the default, which meant I had to spend two whole days adjusting things—editing CSS through Stylus so websites like YouTube, ChatGPT, Claude, and Deepseek, etc, don't look microscopic, plus tweaking buttons, menus, and other elements. Windows Explorer was easy (thanks to Advanced System Font Changer), but websites were another story.
On top of that, Droid Sans doesn't support certain characters out of the box—no Hanzi, no Katakana, no Hangul. And don't get me started on Pinyin diacritics, which looked totally messed up since some glyphs were pulled straight from Calibri and slapped on without adjustments. The result? Absolute chaos.
I've been patching it together by pairing Droid Sans with SimSun for Hanzi, which looks way better now. But the real headache is editing and building the Pinyin glyphs manually so they actually match the font style. As I'm writing this (Sept 18 at night), I'm still knee-deep in glyph editing. My brain is fried, and all I can think about is fonts instead of translations.
Hopefully, I'll finish all this by tomorrow and get back to translating. If not… it'll mean I've gone four days without translate anything, which feels super long to me. Normally that's enough time to crank out a bunch of chapters, so yeah, I'm kinda anxious about it.
Anyway, I think I'll share some screenshots of the "disaster phase" (my cursed ChatGPT/Claude/Deepseek screens) and the CSS edits I made on the comment section. Wish me luck—I really love this font, but wow, it's been a ride.