165: Chapter 75 The Emperor's Visit

Mid-May, the second year of Yongan, at the Yumen Pass steel factory construction site.

Li Ling crouched beside a newly installed boiler, holding a welding torch in one hand and supporting his face mask with the other, personally operating the welding of a critical section of the pipeline. In his workwear pocket was a system-manufactured portable detector, its indicator light flickering faintly in the dim light. Beside him, the German engineer Fritz Krupp stood nervously, handing over a wet towel from time to time to prevent sparks from flying into the eyes of Li Ling, while his other hand tightly gripped a fire extinguisher, ready to deal with any emergency. The onlookers didn't dare to breathe—although they knew that Li Ling frequently visited the site, seeing him personally welding pipes under temperatures of over a thousand degrees still left them terrified. Some unconsciously held their breath, some clenched their fists, and others quietly made the sign of the cross on their chests.

The blue flame from the welding torch danced at the pipe joint, the metal melting, flowing, and solidifying under the high heat to form a uniform weld. The orange-red molten iron flowed slowly in the weld, like a miniature lava river. The technique of Li Ling was skilled and precise; every weld was as neat as if it had been drawn, flowing from start to finish without the slightest pause. The German engineer beside him nodded repeatedly, his eyes shining with excitement. Fritz Krupp couldn't help but whisper in admiration: "Your Majesty, your craft is even better than our old welders at the Krupp factory who have worked for twenty years! I have never seen anyone do the uniformity and density of this weld so well. How on earth did you practice this?"

Li Ling did not look up, continuing to finish the last section of the weld. The welding torch in his hand was as steady as if it were fixed by screws. He then turned off the torch, took off his mask, and revealed a face soaked with sweat. Beads of sweat slid down his brow bone, dripping onto the hot pipe with a hiss. He wiped the sweat from his face and smiled: "Practiced? Maybe it's a debt from my past life. Alright, check the weld."

Fritz immediately took a magnifying glass and leaned in, the lens almost touching the surface of the weld. He carefully inspected it in a circle, then raised his head, his eyes full of disbelief: "Perfect! There are no air bubbles or cracks! The microstructure is also very dense! Your Majesty, are you really not a metallurgy major?"

"I studied warfare." Li Ling patted the dust off his hands and stood up. "I just happened to learn a little bit of welding on the side."

He walked to a makeshift viewing platform at the edge of the site, took a soda from an old insulated box, twisted off the cap, and took a big gulp. The soda was iced, bubbles bursting on the tip of his tongue, bringing the sweet and sour taste of orange and a hint of coolness. This was the first batch of orange-flavored soda produced by the Production Base using simple equipment. It tasted sweet and sour with plenty of bubbles, a godsend in the scorching heat of the Gobi Desert. He picked up two more bottles and threw them to Fritz and another Chinese engineer nearby. The bottles traced two arcs in the air and were steadily caught by both men.

"Try it, it's our own product. There will be unlimited supplies on the site from now on."

The workers let out a cheer, like a group of children getting candy. Fritz caught the soda, looked suspiciously at the pale yellow liquid in the bottle, and shook it: "Your Majesty, what is this? It looks like some kind of chemical agent? The color is very strange."

"Drink it first, it won't kill you." Li Ling laughed and scolded, opening another bottle for himself and taking a large gulp.

Fritz hesitated for a moment, then gathered his courage and took a sip. His eyes widened instantly, and his eyebrows almost flew to his hairline: "Oh! What is this?! It's sweet and sour! And it has bubbles! It's like countless little hammers dancing on my tongue! It's amazing! This is even better than beer in Munich!" He gulped down several mouthfuls, bubbling with happiness, with a drop of soda even sticking to the tip of his mustache.

"This is called soda." Li Ling picked up another bottle and shook it, the sediment at the bottom rotating with it. "In the future, we will produce more flavors—orange, lemon, apple, and even cola. I'll figure something out when you get tired of drinking these. But the formula for cola is still being tested, and the taste is still a bit strange."

The surrounding workers all burst into laughter. Some had already impatiently opened the soda bottles at hand, gulped down a large mouthful, and then exaggeratedly burped, drawing even louder laughter. In the sunlight, the soda bottles were covered with fine water droplets, refracting colorful light, like holding a small piece of a rainbow.

That afternoon, Li Ling went to the temporary small schoolhouse next to the construction site. It was a simple classroom built from a few mobile board rooms, the roof covered with tarpaulin that rattled in the wind. A sign nailed together with wooden boards hung at the entrance, with a few crooked characters written on it—"Steel Children's Elementary School". The chalk writing had been worn away a bit by the wind and sand, but it was still legible. The teacher was a young female student transferred from Qingxia University, named Zhou Minglan. She was only in her early twenties, wearing a clean but washed-out blue cloth shirt, her hair tied into a simple ponytail, and she was teaching a dozen children how to read. The children sat behind desks made of scrap wood, each holding a twig in their hands, carefully tracing on the sand table. The sand flowed between their fingers, writing out childish character shapes.

Li Ling did not disturb them, just standing outside the window and watching quietly. On the windowsill were a few flowerpots made from empty tin cans, in which a few drought-tolerant green plants were planted, stubbornly green in the wind and sand. The clear voice of Teacher Zhou came from the classroom: "How do you write the character 'Gong' (work)? A horizontal line on the left, a vertical line on the right, and a horizontal line in the middle—that's right, Little Tiger wrote it correctly! Next, who wants to write the character 'Guo' (state)?"

A little girl with pigtails raised her hand timidly, her palms full of sweat: "Teacher, I... I can write the character 'Guo'! My daddy taught me!"

"Okay, Little Lan, you come write it."

The little girl stood up, walked to the sand table in front of the podium, and wrote a large "Guo" character stroke by stroke with a twig. Although the strokes were a bit crooked and the outer frame was not very square, the structure was complete, and it was clear that she had worked hard to practice. After writing the last dot, she raised her head and looked at the teacher nervously.

"Well written!" Li Ling couldn't help but applaud and pushed the door open to walk in. The door of the board room made a creaking sound.

The children were stunned at first, then stood up in unison, looking timidly at this stranger in work clothes. Some subconsciously took half a step back, and some clenched the twigs in their hands. Teacher Zhou was also stunned, but soon recognized Li Ling. She opened her mouth to salute, but was stopped by the eyes of Li Ling. He raised his index finger and gently placed it on his lips.

"Who I am is not important." Li Ling squatted down, looking at the children's eyes, putting himself at the same height as them. "What's important is that you will all become the pillars of the Tang Country in the future. Study hard, and there will be plenty of opportunities in the future. Once you learn to read, you can understand the notices, read the newspapers, and understand the news of the outside world."

He took out a silver dollar, bent down, and gently placed it in the little girl's palm. The silver dollar shone with a warm light in her palm: "This is a reward for you. When you grow up, you might be able to become a teacher and teach more children how to read."

The little girl clutched the silver dollar, her eyes shining like two stars, her palms tightly closed, as if holding a rare treasure.

That night, Li Ling did not return to his board room, but spent the night in a patrol vehicle on the periphery of the construction site. The patrol vehicle was an off-road vehicle fitted with bulletproof steel plates, parked on a high ground at the edge of the construction site. It had an excellent view, overlooking the entire construction site and the Gobi Desert in the distance. He sat in the passenger seat, observing the distant horizon through night-vision binoculars, his fingers gently adjusting the focus to make the distant contours gradually clear.

"System, do you think Commander Zhao Tieshan will take action tonight?" His voice was low, with a hint of not-so-obvious fatigue, his eyelids heavy but forcibly held open.

"According to the intelligence sent back yesterday, the enemy is gathering food and grass, preparing to move towards Yumen Pass." The system's voice sounded in his mind, as clear as ever. "It is expected that a probing attack will be launched as early as tomorrow afternoon. Their advance party is about fifty people, equipped with light weapons, aiming to find out the patrol rules on the periphery of Yumen Pass."

"A probing attack?" Li Ling put down the binoculars and rubbed his sore eyes. Fine lines had already appeared at the corners of his eyes. "That means they don't intend to attack with full force yet, just want to test our bottom line?"

"Yes. The scale of this battle will not be too large, but the significance is very important. If they are allowed to find out the reality of Yumen Pass's defenses, there may be larger actions later. If an eight-hundred-man advance party can succeed, they may take the opportunity to escalate the situation, and even win over those bandit armed groups that are still waiting and watching in the area."

Li Ling was silent for a few seconds, his fingers tapping gently on the metal tube of the binoculars, and then he sneered: "Then let them be unable to figure it out."

He picked up the vehicle radio, dialed the encrypted channel of Commander Zhao Tieshan, and pressed his fingertips slightly when pressing the talk button: "Tieshan, I am Li Ling. How is the situation on your side?"

"Your Majesty." The voice of Commander Zhao Tieshan came from the radio, low and clear, with the whistling of wind and sand passing through the microphone in the background. "The enemy camp lights are normal, the night patrol has withdrawn, replaced by a batch of lazy sentries. They seem to think that the Tang Country only has border defense guards and have not discovered the lurking of our Special Forces. We have already figured out their shift schedule. They change sentries every four hours, and there is a blind spot of about five minutes between shifts."

"Good." Li Ling said, his voice showing satisfaction. "Before dawn tomorrow, figure out their patrol route. If they have any unusual movements before noon tomorrow—such as sending out small teams for reconnaissance or robbery—you don't need to ask for instructions, just take them down directly and catch them alive. I want to question them myself."

"Understood."

Li Ling put down the radio, leaned on the seat, and closed his eyes. The leather of the seat became cold and hard in the temperature difference of the Gobi Desert, pressing against his back. The sound of the wind on the Gobi Desert in the distance was howling, like some kind of low horn, coming from a long distance, wave after wave, never stopping. He turned over, wrapped his military coat tighter, and tried to find a relatively comfortable position on the bumpy seat. The collar of the coat rubbed against his chin, and the rough touch reminded him of the sparks that flew when he was welding during the day.

"System," he murmured in his heart, "do you think I'm a bit stupid for tossing myself around like this? Instead of staying in the nice palace, I have to run to this Gobi Desert to chew on sand."

The system's voice carried a rare gentleness, like a cup of warm tea in winter: "Host, you are not stupid. You just know that if you don't come in person, those people won't truly feel that the Emperor of the Tang Country cares about this land more than they imagine. Your presence here is the best encouragement for the border guards and workers. They see you welding pipes at the construction site, praising children in the small schoolhouse, and spending the night in a patrol vehicle, and they will think—this Emperor is different from all the previous ones."

Li Ling did not answer. He turned over, facing the Gobi direction, slowly closed his eyes, and his breathing gradually became even. Outside the car window, the wind and sand hit the bulletproof glass, making a fine rustling sound, like countless little hands knocking gently.

The patrol vehicle's headlights cut out two dim beams of light in the darkness, like a pair of tireless eyes, watching the horizon in the distance. In the beams of light, fine sand danced like golden dust, rotating, falling, and then being rolled up by the wind.

And at the other end of the horizon, in the darkness, several pairs of eyes were reflecting light with binoculars. Those faint flickers were cut into intermittent light spots by the wind and sand, like some kind of dangerous signal, quietly crossing the night sky in a corner no one knew. The lenses of the binoculars were covered with night dew, reflecting a cold chill in the moonlight.

In the distance, a wolf howl sounded in the depths of the Gobi, dragging a long tail, like some kind of omen, wrapped in the sound of the wind, drifting towards the further darkness.