Acai's Sky

Chapter 945: Forget Worry Night Banquet: A Clash of Ingenuity

Qin general Wang Li pinched the blue and white wine cup with his slender fingers and turned it gently. The amber wine rippled in the cup, reflecting the little paper man jumping in the air.

A little guy was standing upside down and playing the bixiao. The gold powder on his skirt fell like meteors and happened to land on the Taotie pattern on his armor, as if adding a bit of playfulness to this majestic pattern.

He suddenly leaned closer to Ah Cai and lowered his voice, his tone carrying the melancholy and impatience typical of a veteran. "Your Majesty, do you know that before the Battle of Julu, the shamans under the Widow Qing clan sang 'Wu Yi' (The Clothesless Man)? That song made the spears and halberds of the 300,000 Qin troops glow green in the moonlight. These little gadgets of today, though exquisite, lack the powerful force that inspires morale!"

Before he finished speaking, there was a "thump" sound, and Mozhe's weak bamboo stick gently knocked on Wang Li's armor, making a crisp sound.

Mohist Xu Ruo was dressed in plain linen clothes, his sleeves fluttering gently in the breeze. He brushed past the table, and the Mohist mechanical diagrams stacked on the table moved without wind, as if controlled by a mysterious force.

"General, don't underestimate these paper spirits." Mohist Xu Ruo's gaze was profound. His pale fingers slowly traced the hem of the paper figurine's skirt, and a magical scene occurred—the originally flat, twining patterns seemed to be imbued with life, curling and entwining. "Although my Mohist puppets can play 90% of the Shao music, they lack the unique 'vividness' of these Taoist paper figurines. Look at the fluorescent light on my fingertips. It's the fluctuation of the curse created when the star sand was mixed into the paper pulp. It truly is 'when the false becomes true, the true also becomes false.'"

"Mr. Xu, you've hit the nail on the head." The eyes of the Mohist Gongshu Ban standing by were gleaming with excitement, and the wooden kite eye mask he was wearing was glowing warmly under the candlelight.

The craftsman bent down and carefully examined the little paper figure, his rough thumb gently stroking the tassels around its waist.

The tassel looks ordinary, but it actually holds a secret. It is made with the rope-weaving technique of Qin Dynasty bamboo slips, but is decorated with fluorescent particles of interstellar intelligence, perfectly blending the ancient and the modern.

Suddenly, the Mohist Gongshu Ban swiftly grasped the wrist of the little paper figure playing the pipa. With a metallic "click", the paper figure's knuckles came apart like a mechanical puppet, revealing the inner layer of talisman paper fixed with Mohist mortise and tenon joints.

"Wonderful! It uses Taoist talisman paper as its bones, Mohist mechanisms as its tendons, and even has the Star Track Clan's light-focusing chips embedded in it!" Gongshu Ban was so excited that his voice trembled, his eyes full of admiration and amazement at the exquisite craftsmanship.

Ah Cai felt a headache and her temples throbbing as she watched Gongshu Ban studying the little paper figure intently, as if he were dismantling a siege weapon.

Who would have thought that this old craftsman had such sharp eyesight that he could spot even a light-focusing chip the size of a fingernail at a glance?

Just as she was thinking of how to change the subject, Wang Li suddenly pointed at a small paper figurine chasing after his wine cup and shouted in a hoarse voice, "My Lord, look! This thing is trying to steal my wine! If my wine soldiers were so mischievous back then, they would have been taken away by General Meng Tian to guard the granary!"

"General, if you find the noise annoying—" Xu Ruo leisurely took out a three-inch-tall wooden box from his system backpack. The lid of the box was intricately carved with a map of the twenty-eight constellations, a simple and mysterious sight. "My group of puppet musicians uses the remains of the Handan tuning master to make reeds. They can make bronze swords ring when they play Guangling San. If the Lord doesn't mind the Mohist mechanism being crude..."

"Stop, stop!" A Cai quickly reached out and held down Xu Ruo's hand which was about to open the wooden box, with a helpless and embarrassed smile on her face.

Only then did she remember that Xu Ruo had once sent her a set of musician puppets, which were fully functional and proficient in playing all kinds of musical instruments and singing, but she had long forgotten about them and never used them once.

In the previous dimension, she used small paper figures to dance every day, and she was used to it, so this time she just took it out to fit in with the occasion.

Looking at Wang Li's dissatisfied raised eyebrows and Gongshu Ban's shining eyes, Ah Cai had an idea and raised her hand to signal the little paper people to change the song.

Suddenly, a cheerful music sounded: "I have picked flowers from the south of the Yangtze River, I love the spring breeze and the red candles, I am as sentimental as ever, I love the world, I am willing to meet you in this world, I am lucky to have seven or eight close friends, they invite me to play the altar, I am drunk with the clouds..."

"I have watered my horse in the north of the Yangtze River. I am as ruthless as the west wind and the yellow sand. I cut the peach blossoms with my sword. It is difficult for us to meet in this world. I thank the green mountains for turning my hair white. I am generous only to the frost and snow. I give you a scar between your eyebrows..."

The little paper people danced to the music, their movements light and agile, some flipped and moved in the air, some chased and played with each other, and some jumped and spun on the table.

The cheerful rhythm and beautiful melody instantly ignited the atmosphere of the entire banquet hall.

The guests put down their glasses one after another, attracted by the wonderful performance, with happy smiles on their faces.

Mohist Gongshu Ban, still unsatisfied, suddenly untied the Luban lock from his waist and began to twiddle with it with his nimble fingers. In the blink of an eye, the Luban lock transformed into a miniature stage, breathtakingly exquisite. "This old mechanical puppet has just learned the Tang Dynasty legend 'The Story of Liu Yi.' The dragon girl's sleeves really splash when she flicks them."

As he was speaking, the puppet in the center of the stage began to rotate. Amazingly, it took the shapes of musicians from eight different dynasties.

Some hold Qinzheng, which is simple and elegant; some hold Hu Lei, which is full of exotic style; the most amazing one is the interstellar puppet at the top, which has a glowing electronic pipa on its back, which is full of technology.

Wang Li stared at the ingenious mechanism intently, finally putting down the wine cup in his hand, a hint of anticipation in his eyes: "If I can really get the Dragon Girl puppet to sing 'Without Clothes', I'd like to see which is brighter, the fluorescent light of the paper figurine or the cold light of my Qin army's spears."

He suddenly caught sight of the little paper figurine he had just disassembled hiding in Ah Cai's hair, using gold powder to paint a face on her temples. He couldn't help but burst out laughing, "But, this little paper figurine does look like a scout under the lord's command. It looks mischievous, but quite endearing."

In the flickering candlelight, Ah Cai looked at the three people arguing endlessly, her heart filled with emotion.

The armor of Qin general Wang Li was still stained with the gold powder of the small paper man, as if it was covered with a layer of starlight; the Mohist Xu Ruo was carefully drawing a puppet improvement diagram on the desk with a charcoal pencil, with a focused expression; the Mohist Gongshu Ban was muttering to himself at the "broken finger" of the small paper man, immersed in thinking about mechanical engineering.

In other corners of the banquet hall, wonderful exchanges and collisions were also taking place.

In the distance, Emperor Li Shimin of the Tang Dynasty was having a heated discussion with Tong Jiayuan about the interstellar calendar. One was a wise king of ancient times, and the other was an interstellar sage, and different wisdoms blended here; Ming general Qi Jiguang and Qin general Meng Tian were comparing the similarities and differences between the Mandarin Duck Formation and the Qin army's square formation, their faces filled with love and persistence for military strategy.

And those little paper people who had caused trouble were now surrounding Wang Li's wine jar, using their sheng pipes to poke tiny specks of fluorescence into the wine, as if they were brewing a jar of intoxication that belonged to Wangyou City and transcended time and space.

At the night banquet in the City of Forget-Your-Sorrows, antiquity and modernity intertwine, war and peace resonate, wisdom and joy collide, and together they compose a wonderful melody that transcends time and space.