Chapter 132: Two Imperial Maps Separated by a Thousand Years
As the three chief stewards spoke, the corresponding locations on the map on the wall would brighten, each to a different degree of luminosity.
Tang Thirty-Six stood in the corner, listening. He couldn't understand the data in these reports, but he could sense the atmosphere.
The Second Master of the Tang clan looked at the gradually brightening spots on the map without any particular tension, nor did he grow more relaxed as time passed.
To him, this seemed like nothing more than an ordinary task.
After an unknown period, the three chief stewards finished their reports. The Second Master gazed at the map, his brow slightly furrowed in dissatisfaction. "The progress is still too slow."
The sound of abacus beads clacking incessantly drifted in from outside the house. The noise of hundreds of abacuses being flicked simultaneously, all mixed together, was hardly pleasant to hear.
One chief steward said, "This year's preparation time could only yield some rough figures. The real calculations only begin tonight. There's simply no way to go faster."
The Second Master looked at the accountants outside, heads buried in their work as they continuously flicked their abacus beads, and said, "We have at most another half hour."
That chief steward replied, "I'll keep an eye on them."
"Just keeping an eye isn't enough." The Second Master stared into the steward's eyes and said, "You all go as well. Also, bring me an abacus."
Before long, an abacus and a massive pile of ledgers were brought in.
The Second Master paid no attention to Tang Thirty-Six standing in the corner. His right hand flipped through the ledgers while his left hand continuously worked the abacus beads, pausing only occasionally to make marks in the records.
Compared to the accountants outside, his speed didn't seem particularly fast, but every movement was exceptionally clear. The rhythm of his right hand turning pages and his left hand calculating merged together in a nearly perfect, inexplicable cadence. The mountain of ledgers before him was soon finished.
A subordinate brought in a second stack from outside.
Not long after, that was finished too.
Only then did the Second Master take a brief rest. He picked up the already cold teapot from the table and took a slow sip.
In such a short time, performing such an immense volume of calculations, his complexion had turned somewhat pale—a sign of excessive mental depletion.
"If Xu Yourong were here with the Fate Star Compass doing the calculations, she'd probably be twice as fast as me."
The Second Master set down the teapot wearily and continued, "But if Wang Po were still working as our family's accountant, I wouldn't need to work so hard."
At this moment, only he and Tang Thirty-Six were in the room, so these words were naturally meant for the latter.
"Our family is in business. In business, you can't afford to take losses. The old master letting Wang Po leave Wenshui back then—that was a terrible deal."
Tang Thirty-Six knew his second uncle was warning him not to drag the family business down for the sake of Chen Changsheng and the Orthodox Academy.
"Back when Wang Po left Wenshui, wasn't it because you, Second Uncle, were petty and couldn't stand the sight of him, scheming every way possible to force him out?"
He looked at the Second Master with a faintly sarcastic tone.
The Second Master stared at him calmly and said, "Shut your mouth. I still have many things to do today. I'm not in the mood to play your childish little games."
The calculation results from the hundreds of accountants were continuously gathered into the small room, then condensed into the simplest statements.
Whether a certain location in the capital could be confirmed, and what its intensity was—just those two matters.
The light points on the wall map grew more numerous, gradually connecting into lines, and finally forming a pattern whose meaning was unclear.
Tang Thirty-Six stood in the corner, looking at that pattern. He vaguely recalled that when he was a child, sitting on the old master's lap listening to ancient stories, something related seemed to have been mentioned...
But what was it?
Finally, all the calculations ended. The irritating clatter of abacus beads from outside ceased entirely. Only the exhausted sighs of the accountants and the groans of their aching arms could be heard. Tang Thirty-Six even saw two accountants collapse unconscious from excessive mental strain.
The Second Master walked back to the stone wall. Looking at the pattern on the map, he raised an eyebrow slightly and reached into his sleeve to retrieve an object.
Countless rays of light projected from that object onto the map of the capital, forming another pattern.
The two patterns overlapped. Their outlines were roughly the same, with only minor differences in certain details and variations in brightness.
"Is the change significant?" the Second Master asked.
Tang Thirty-Six was momentarily stunned, thinking he hadn't seen these two patterns before—how could he know the answer? And what change... what kind of change was being referred to?
"A thousand years have passed. The change naturally won't be small."
An aged voice sounded from the shadows of the room. An old man in a padded jacket appeared there.
Tang Thirty-Six looked at the old man in surprise and said, "Great Supplicant, you're here too?"
The old man in the padded jacket nodded to him, walked over to the Second Master's side, looked at the two patterns on the map that seemed about to merge, and said, "Fortunately, it can be resolved."
Tang Thirty-Six could no longer suppress his curiosity. He walked over and asked, "What exactly are these diagrams?"
"Both are imperial maps of the capital. The one just calculated tonight is the current map. The one the Second Master took out is from a thousand years ago."
The old Supplicant from the Tang clan of Wenshui explained.
The Second Master said, "A thousand years of change in the capital are contained in these two maps. This is history."
Hearing this, Tang Thirty-Six looked at the pattern on the wall again, now with a very different feeling.
"Only our Tang family can see this change in history, because we have existed within history itself. At least in the capital's history, we are more ancient than anyone—more ancient than even the Chen imperial clan. So our Tang family has ample reason to return to the capital. You must learn to revere this historical inevitability."
The Second Master looked at him and said, "If you don't even understand this, how are you worthy of the surname Tang?"
This was an answer to the question he had asked Tang Thirty-Six at the very beginning—what should the Tang family most revere?
It wasn't money that could move gods, nor the connections that spanned countless aristocratic families, mountain gates, government offices, and even reached deep into Snowfall City. It was the incomparably ancient history that made them the foremost of the four great clans.
Logically, hearing this should have stirred some thoughts in Tang Thirty-Six. But at that moment, he was thinking about something else. Then he realized something, and his face suddenly turned pale.
He remembered what the two patterns on the map, separated by a thousand years, were.
Yes, they were imperial maps.
Just as the Great Supplicant had said.
Few in the world knew of the existence of the imperial maps, but he had heard about them as a child on the old master's lap.
They were the greatest secret of the Great Zhou Dynasty's capital, and also a Dao formation of terrifying power!
What exactly did the Wenshui family intend to do? Looking at the map of the capital on the wall, countless turbulent thoughts surged within him. Was it necessary to create such a commotion tonight?
The Second Master and the Great Supplicant were also looking at that map.
All the lines in those two imperial maps, separated by a thousand years, pointed to a single location on the map.
The very place where the three of them in the room were now fixing their gazes.
Slightly north of the center of the capital map—that was the Imperial Palace.
The Second Master said coldly, "The formation's core is indeed there."
The Great Supplicant sighed with emotion, "The formation's core is still there after all."
"After the Grand Ancestor ascended the throne at the Mausoleum of Books, he began modifying the imperial map. Subsequently, the Illustrious Ancestor and the previous emperor never stopped either."
The Second Master looked at the capital map and continued, "The most heavily modified areas, aside from the line along the Luo Canal north of Jian'gong, were the formation's core deep within the Imperial Palace."
The Great Supplicant looked at the bright cluster of light on the second imperial map and said, "It seems the old rumors were true. The Illustrious Ancestor built the Lingyan Pavilion precisely to turn the most important and vulnerable formation core into the most lethal Heaven's Will Killing Formation, specifically targeting experts in the Divine Domain."
The Second Master said, "Father once said that if the Illustrious Ancestor truly completed the Heaven's Will Killing Formation, even experts in the Divine Domain would have no choice but to die if they tried to force their way in."
The Great Supplicant stared at that spot in silence for a long time, then said, "I'll try to see if I can infiltrate it."
Tang Thirty-Six, listening from behind, was shocked once again.
The Great Supplicant's cultivation was unfathomably deep. Years ago, he was only half a step away from the Divine Domain. He was the last sacred pillar of the Wenshui Tang clan, second only to the old master himself—and even he was being mobilized?