Free Web NovelChapter 344: Chapter 195: How Did I Sleep Until Now? Where Did Brother Go?
He let his wife set her own pace, doing whatever felt best for her.
Lu Yuan carefully rolled Su Liyan over and slipped off the heated brick bed.
Lu Yuan had things to do today—namely, head to the Martial Hall outside the city and check on the training.
The Zhao Mansion hadn’t assigned any duties to the new batch of Mansion Guards. For now, their days consisted of nothing but eating, sleeping, and training.
"Hm? Honey, where are you going?" Su Liyan mumbled, rolling over. She was so sleepy she didn’t even open her eyes, and her words were slurred.
Lu Yuan picked up his clothes and pulled them on. "I’m heading out of the city for a bit today," he said. "I want to check on the Mansion Guards’ training."
Upon hearing this, Su Liyan said, "Honey, I’ll go with you."
But as soon as she finished speaking, she was asleep again.
Seeing this, Lu Yuan couldn’t help but smile. ’Just how tired is she? She says a few words and falls right back to sleep.’
’It reminds me of my own all-nighters at internet cafes, passed out in bed the next day.’
Lu Yuan arrived at the Martial Hall alone. From a distance, he could see a Mansion Guard standing on each side of the gate.
’The Martial Hall is way out in the suburbs. It’s not like anyone ever comes by, so why post two guards at the gate?’
Before Lu Yuan even got close, two powerful, ringing voices shouted, "Boss!"
Lu Yuan looked at the two of them and nodded. "Why are you two standing out here?"
One of them gave an embarrassed smile. "Yesterday, in the combat drills... we ranked last. The punishment was to stand guard duty here."
Lu Yuan grunted in understanding. ’This must be a punishment one of my trusted subordinates came up with for the new Mansion Guards.’
The other Mansion Guard thumped the butt of his Red Tassel Spear on the ground and quickly added, "Don’t worry, Boss! We’ll definitely beat them next time!"
The two long spears in their hands were standard issue for gate duty.
Anyone assigned to guard the gate was forbidden from taking their Rifle, Armor, or Treasure Sword outside the Martial Hall.
All this gear was still classified and kept secret from the public.
The Martial Hall was surrounded by high courtyard walls, and within them were 38 Grand Celestial Masters and 147 Celestial Masters.
Any outsider who tried to approach the Martial Hall would be discovered immediately.
As a result, outsiders could learn nothing of the activities within.
Lu Yuan didn’t enter the Martial Hall Courtyard right away. Instead, he walked a lap around the outer wall.
Inside the Martial Hall Courtyard, training was in full, furious swing.
Looking at the high walls, Lu Yuan still felt a little uneasy.
For some time now, Jinyi Guard Xiaohanzi had been passing intelligence about the Martial Hall to Jiang Huai, the Central Guard Thousand Households of the Southern Town Patrol Department.
This was the arrangement Lu Yuan had made with Jiang Huai. ’You want intelligence to complete your reports? Fine, I’ll give it to you. But you’d better be careful about what you tell the Emperor.’
’If you can’t hold back, don’t blame me for kicking Xiaohanzi out of the Martial Hall and cutting off your source.’
As long as the Emperor believed these five hundred-odd men were just ordinary Mansion Guards, he could still sleep at night.
If the Emperor knew that even the weakest of these five hundred Mansion Guards was a Traveler, he wouldn’t be the only one losing sleep.
’If everyone is focused on training, it’s possible they won’t immediately notice an outsider who comes to spy for information.’
’The Emperor is getting nothing but worthless intelligence all day. With his suspicious nature, it’s inevitable he’ll send another team of Jinyi Guards to investigate.’
Lu Yuan stroked his chin. ’If this were the modern era,’ he thought, ’a wall this big would have a dozen surveillance cameras installed on it.’
At this thought, Lu Yuan realized he could probably build such a surveillance system himself.
For Lu Yuan, manufacturing the surveillance equipment wouldn’t be difficult at all.
The principle was simple enough: convert image information into electrical signals, then convert those into virtual digital signals, compress them according to a regular encoding standard, and display them on a terminal.
’Electricity is the easy part. It’s just a matter of converting the energy from Spirit Stones into electrical power.’
After all, he had modified the power system for the motorcycle in just half a day.
’Talk about practice makes perfect. Back when he was building the factory and its production lines, he’d had to spend days figuring out the energy requirements.’
Now, for Lu Yuan, it was a piece of cake.
As for the terminal signal transmission, he would use the same method he’d developed for his mobile phones.
The network of base stations in Taiping City was so dense that transmitting image data wouldn’t be a problem in the slightest.
The real challenge for Lu Yuan was the camera itself. Features like 360-degree rotation, intelligent human-form recognition and tracking, and danger alerts weren’t the hard part. The difficulty lay in detecting Void Body Practitioners.
Physical-bodied Xingzi and ordinary people, no matter how fast they moved—even if they were just a blur—could be captured by a surveillance camera.
’And for nighttime, I’d just need to add an infrared function.’
But how could he effectively detect the intangible, invisible Void Body Practitioners? That was the major hurdle.
Lu Yuan stood outside the Martial Hall Courtyard for a long while, a rudimentary design for the surveillance system already taking shape in his mind.
Lu Yuan looked at his empty hands. ’It’s not something I can build in a day,’ he thought. ’I’ll head into the Martial Hall for now.’
Lu Yuan arrived at the Martial Hall’s main gate again. The two Mansion Guards were just about to shout when Lu Yuan silenced them with a gesture.
"I never left, no need to shout ’Boss’ again," Lu Yuan said, patting one of them on the shoulder before heading inside.
The most powerful Grand Celestial Masters had sensed their boss’s arrival long ago.
Lu Yuan’s own power was already on par with a Grand Celestial Master.
In his previous spars against the Grand Celestial Masters, Lu Yuan had always come out on top.
But because Lu Yuan had never gone to a Daoist Temple to have his power certified, he wasn’t exactly sure what his own level was.
’I’m probably on the same level as my mother-in-law,’ Lu Yuan mused. ’But compared to my wife... I’m still a long way off.’
As soon as Lu Yuan stepped into the courtyard, every Mansion Guard called out "Boss," and Lu Yuan nodded to each of them in turn.
Lu Yuan spotted Fifth Brother Liu in the distance, concentrating as he swung a Heavy Sword. The bulging muscles on his bent arm were almost as thick as his wife’s thighs.
Lu Yuan called out, "Fifth Brother!"
Hearing his boss’s shout, Fifth Brother Liu was distracted. His strength wavered, and the Heavy Sword, still swinging in mid-air, nearly threw out his back.
Lu Yuan leaped forward in a flash and caught the Heavy Sword with one hand, stopping Fifth Brother Liu from being thrown off his feet by its momentum.
The burly Fifth Brother Liu couldn’t believe it. The boss looked so slender, yet he possessed unbelievable strength, able to stop the Heavy Sword with a single hand.
"Fifth Brother Liu," Lu Yuan said, "I don’t remember you using this sword. Why the change?"
Fifth Brother Liu chuckled sheepishly. "Well, they issued us new equipment a few days back. I had the blacksmith forge this Heavy Sword for me, but it turned out heavier than I expected. Just trying to build up the muscle for it now."
Fifth Brother Liu was quite embarrassed as he spoke. Anyone who didn’t know better might think he was just being greedy, trying to get the biggest weapon he could during the Zhao Mansion’s free equipment upgrade.
Lu Yuan looked at the Heavy Sword, which was now propped on the ground. It was forged from Profound Iron, which was naturally much denser and heavier than ordinary iron.
"Keep up the good work," Lu Yuan said. "My life and fortune will be in your hands from now on."
The new gear for the five hundred-plus men was all top-grade, and the cost was equivalent to the Zhao Mansion’s entire budget for the previous two years.
But Lu Yuan didn’t care about that.
’Silver taels are just worldly possessions,’ he thought. ’What is money? Money is bullshit. If you lose it, you can always earn more.’
’Of course, there’s another saying: silver taels are great things. They make everything better, wherever you spend them.’
At its current rate of income, the Zhao Mansion would be the wealthiest household in eastern Qilu Province within a year or two. A few years after that, it would be the wealthiest in the entire Qilu Province.
In that situation, Lu Yuan naturally wouldn’t feel the sting of spending silver taels. He could confidently pat his chest and declare, "I’m not interested in money!"
Hearing his boss’s words, Fifth Brother Liu said, "I don’t have any special skills, but if the boss treats me well, I’ll treat him even better."
You could tell Fifth Brother Liu was an honest man. Lu Yuan felt he had made the right choice in appointing him as the captain of the first team.
Lu Yuan spent the whole morning at the Martial Hall observing the Mansion Guards’ training. As noon approached, his hands started to itch for a fight, so he exchanged a few moves with several of the Grand Celestial Masters.
Back in their room, a groggy Su Liyan suddenly woke up. She murmured to herself, "How did I sleep this long? Where did Honey go?"
