115: Chapter 115 Wang Qingcheng's Shining Moment

She shoved the Iron-Winged Bird into Wang Shouren's arms, sprang down from the bed, and ran outward while waving her hand without looking back.

"Brother, theory is theory, whether it works or not still needs to be tested before we know. Give me half a day, and I'll make that group of stubborn old men obediently listen."

Wang Shouren watched that bustling figure rushing out the door and called out.

"Alright, mind your boundaries. Most of them are your elders and brothers."

Only a vague murmur drifted back from outside the courtyard gate, its tone identical to when Wang Qingcheng hid Xiaotian's food bowl as a child.

"Didn't hear it, didn't hear it! If I don't have some majesty, would they listen to me?"

The footsteps echoed far away with a clatter. Wang Shouren shook his head and chuckled helplessly. This lass, her wings haven't even fully hardened yet, and she's already putting on the airs of a chief Puppet Master.

He turned around and met Wang Qingxin's sparkling eyes head-on.

She was still sitting cross-legged on the rush mat, having put down the Jade Slip in her hand at some point, merely tilting her head up to look at him. There was a kind of brilliance in her gaze that he had never seen before.

That brilliance was very pure; it wasn't the reliance of grasping at a straw when she first saw him, nor was it the cautious probing when Chen Yirou picked food for her at the dinner table. It was a pure adoration without any Impurities mixed in.

Wang Qingxin's world was very small, so small that it could only hold two things: killing people, and him.

She originally thought her master was already formidable enough when it came to killing people, but recently she increasingly discovered that her master's most formidable aspect wasn't even killing people.

He understood everything and could think ahead of others in everything. Even someone as smart as that chattering Sister Qingcheng had to listen to his words.

Back then, on the wasteland outside that broken village, she thought she had simply found a master who could give her enough to eat, never expecting that the person she picked up was the smartest person under the heavens.

She earnestly recited those words in her heart once, then lowered her head, the corners of her mouth curving up in stealth as she picked up the Jade Slip again to pretend to Cultivate.

Secretly thinking in her heart, since her master was so smart, she couldn't be too stupid either. At the very least, whenever killing people was needed in the future, she had to handle things splendidly for her master.

Half an hour later, Wang Qingcheng's voice burst in from outside the courtyard gate.

"All Puppet Masters of the Wang family, gather at the discussion hall immediately! Wang Shouren, you have to come too!"

Wang Shouren was sitting cross-legged in meditation. Hearing this, he opened his eyes and froze for a moment. What is going on? They want all the Puppet Masters to go over too?

What he had just said to that lass was merely a few words. No matter how it was verified, they still needed to gather the people first, sort out the procedures, and then trial-make one or two finished products—this entire set of processes, down to a minimum, would take two or three days.

How long had it been? When he walked into the discussion hall with doubt, quite a few people were already standing inside.

A dozen or so clansmen responsible for Puppet making were scattered on both sides of the long table. They were all descendants carefully selected from the clan with a certain foundation in Artifact Refining or talisman-making, including young faces of the Shou generation and several old craftsmen of the Yao generation.

Wang Yaozu and Wang Yaowen sat at the upper seats, having also been invited over together by someone sent by Wang Qingcheng.

Wang Qingcheng stood at the end of the long table, holding a stack of newly drawn blueprints in her hand. She stepped on a wooden stump beneath her feet so she could barely tower a section above everyone else.

She cleared her throat, her small face devoid of any of her usual flippancy, putting on an air even more full of authority than when Wang Yaozu held a clan meeting.

"Calling everyone here today is to announce a major event."

She lifted the topmost blueprint and unfolded it, revealing the densely packed process breakdown diagrams inside.

"Starting today, all Wang family Puppet making will completely switch to assembly-line operations. This is a new method proposed by my brother—dismantling a Puppet from start to finish into five links: material preparation, polishing, array inscription, assembly, and debugging. Each person is only responsible for one link."

"Those preparing Materials will only care about material preparation, those polishing will only care about polishing, those inscribing arrays will only care about array inscription, and assembly and debugging will be handled by me and a few other ranked Puppet Masters."

She slapped the blueprint onto the table, pressed her hands against the edge of the table, leaned her body slightly forward, swept her gaze across everyone present, and said word by word.

"To put it simply, previously each of you did everything from start to finish. A Puppet Rat would take several days to build, and in the middle you still had to prepare Materials yourselves, polish yourselves, and modify sizes back and forth yourselves."

"Now it's no longer needed—those preparing Materials cut Materials according to my dimension blueprints, and the error cannot exceed the thickness of a hair; those polishing take the material parts and polish them according to standard templates, passing them directly to the next person once polished."

"Those inscribing arrays take the polished base plates and are only responsible for inscribing array patterns. Each person only does the step they are most familiar with, repeating it over and over until they practice it to the point where they make no mistakes even with their eyes closed."

Her words took a turn, and her tone suddenly softened a bit, but the meaning within her words wasn't soft at all.

"To the elders present here, Qingcheng admires your craftsmanship, but if anyone slacks off on the work I assign or fails to follow the rules—then I'll simply have to go chat with my father about how many Spirit Stones to deduct this month."

Wang Yaowen said to Wang Yaozu: "This lass's posture is even more full of authority than Sixth Uncle holding a clan meeting."

Wang Yaozu picked up his teacup and took a leisurely sip: "Who do you think she learned it from?"

Everyone looked at the densely packed annotations and dimensions on the blueprints, first exchanging glances in dismay, and then beginning to whisper to one another.

A young disciple of the Shou generation pointed at the annotation for the polishing process on the blueprint and gasped: "Unified sizes for all joint copper clasps? Doesn't that mean changing the molds?"

"Qingcheng, have you experimented with this? No one has ever done this kind of thing. If it gets botched and the next batch of Puppets cannot be manufactured, how will our Wang family maintain our reputation?"

However, the old craftsman nearby stared at the breakdown diagram of the array inscription process, his eyes growing brighter the more he looked, until he suddenly slapped his thigh, his voice trembling slightly with excitement.

"I understand! Previously, before inscribing arrays, I had to polish the base plate myself, and after finishing the polishing my hands would be shaking, so the array patterns carved were always crooked."

"Now someone polishes the base plate for me, and I only care about inscribing arrays—just think how many blocks can be inscribed in a single day!"

Another clansman responsible for material preparation also nodded in agreement: "Materials are cut to uniform specifications, and waste is much less. Previously, when I sawed Materials myself, if one piece was sawed crookedly, the whole material would be ruined. Now with unified material preparation, scraps can still be reused."

Wang Shouren stood at the back of the crowd, watching this group of old and young Puppet Masters change from a look of suspicion to wild fanaticism, as if he could already see the scene of piles of Puppet beasts being moved out.

A young man of the Shou generation held up the blueprint and asked loudly: "Qingcheng, according to this process, how many Puppet Rats can we produce in a month?"

Wang Qingcheng slapped the calculated production table at the bottom onto the table, lifted her chin, and said crisply: "Conservatively estimated, the production of non-combat Puppets will at least triple. The assembly cycle of combat Puppets can also be shortened by half. Once you all practice until you are familiar with it, this number will still rise."

Tripled.

The discussion hall fell silent for a moment, and then exploded into an uproar.

Wang Yaowu had just walked in from outside the door, and before his foot had even crossed the threshold, he was stunned in place by this wave of sound.

After listening to Wang Yaowen leaning over to recount the assembly-line scheme, he first blinked his eyes, then slammed his fan-like palm heavily onto Wang Shouren's shoulder, his voice carrying a pride of "how does my nephew know how to do everything".

"Tripled! That thing called whatever line you mentioned last time, Third Uncle thought you were just fooling Qingcheng, but it can actually triple?! In the future, our Wang family's Puppet workshop is probably going to monopolize the entire Puppet business of the Three Counties!"

Wang Shouren's body swayed from the pat, and just as he wanted to say something, a long announcement suddenly came from outside the hall—a loud and unfamiliar voice carrying an unquestionable arrogance.

"Are the Wang Family Head and Brother Chongyang here? The Spirit Sword Sect inspection envoy has arrived, come out and pay audience immediately."