Chapter 49 (Seeking Follow-up Reads) Experiment Failed

The comforting words and playful banter of his friends temporarily eased Chen Ping's heavy heart.

However, no matter how nonchalant he appeared on the surface, Chen Ping could not simply let the matter go.

Whether it was the mysterious mastermind attempting to delay the road renovation for unknown reasons, or the road repair project itself—planned for many years and now finally getting back on track—everything weighed like an invisible pressure upon his chest.

Knowing that he was currently too young and lacked influence, and that anything he said would be utterly useless in convincing Elder Ye and Magistrate Wang to step away from this dangerous whirlpool, he decided to forge a different path.

A few days later, under the blazing sun.

Chen Ping wiped the sweat from his forehead from time to time, his eyes fixed unblinkingly on a pile of objects on the ground.

After waiting for two quarter-hours, those thin, grayish-black slab-like objects finally dried completely.

Chen Ping rushed forward, picked one up, and stroked it. After weighing it in his hands a few times, he cradled it carefully as if it were a priceless treasure.

This could be a major breakthrough for the road repairs.

He Qingxuan and Ye Chongwen walked over as well, looking with considerable curiosity at the crude, clay-tablet-like object in Chen Ping's hand.

As the son of a merchant, He Qingxuan possessed a natural curiosity for novelties.

He leaned in for a closer look, yet despite his broad experience, he could make nothing of it.

He finally asked, "Is this the wonderful thing you said could replace stone slabs?"

"Are you certain this isn't just an ugly, crude piece of pottery?"

"Can this truly replace stone slabs and bear the weight of carriages and horses?"

Chen Ping had not been reading quite so frantically over the past two days.

Instead, he had gone mad in a different way: aside from his studies and classes, he spent all his time playing with mud.

First, he crushed various materials into powder and mixed them together.

Then, he stuffed the mixed powder into a clay pot and baked it in the kitchen stove.

Once baked, he added water to blend it, pressed it into thin slabs, and dried them in the sun once more.

Every day, he held a sheet of yellow paper, constantly recording the mixing proportions of various materials, the baking time, the amount of water added, and other details.

Such bizarre operations made him look as though he were possessed by an evil spirit.

His two companions had nearly gone up the mountain to invite a Daoist priest to perform an exorcism.

Fortunately, Chen Ping stopped them in time and offered a reasonable explanation.

He claimed that once he successfully baked the material he wanted and recorded the entire process in a ledger, the construction cost for repairing the roads in Yongshun County could be cut by at least half.

From then on, not only for road repairs, but for any project requiring bricks and stones, construction costs would be greatly reduced.

Hearing Chen Ping speak with such mystical confidence, even Ye Chongwen—who usually cared little for such matters—was filled with curiosity.

Let alone He Qingxuan, who came from a merchant family and had been extremely sensitive to the word "cost" since childhood.

To He Qingxuan's doubts, Chen Ping gave a noncommittal response, choosing instead to let the facts speak for themselves.

Chen Ping stood tall, took a firm stance, and gestured for the other two to step back a few paces.

Then, raising the clay brick in his hand, he mustered all his strength and hurled it fiercely at the stone in the corner of the wall.

"Crack!"

A crisp sound rang out. He Qingxuan and Ye Chongwen both let out a startled cry and instinctively leaped back a step or two.

Only Chen Ping stared blankly at the shattered fragments scattered all over the stone, a look of utter disappointment on his face.

After badgering and pleading for days, and even slightly pulling rank by invoking Elder Ye's name to finally get the academy's kitchen manager to indulge their nonsense and let them create this hand-crafted "cement," it turned out to be so utterly fragile and completely useless.

Forget comparing it to stone slabs; its hardness was not even on par with a thick piece of pottery.

Chen Ping carefully recalled all the steps and key points of cement production he knew, still unable to understand where he had gone wrong.

According to what he had learned online in his past life, cement was not some high-tech marvel nor did it have any technological barriers; a primitive version had been made thousands of years ago.

Furthermore, all the raw materials needed to make cement—including limestone, clay, and slag—had been used without missing a single one.

So why on earth had it failed to bake properly?

With glazed eyes, Chen Ping stared blankly at the messy ruins in deep thought, while He Qingxuan immediately went to inspect the pieces himself.

He Qingxuan picked up a fragment, examined it earnestly, and then tested it himself by throwing it against the stone.

The result was identical: with very little force, the fragment shattered into even smaller pieces.

Ye Chongwen also crowded closer, pointing at the clay slabs with a chuckle. "I think that so-called ancient text must have been the wild imagination of some impoverished scholar trying to show off and fool people. How could such a thing possibly exist in this world?"

"For thousands of years from antiquity to the present, countless construction projects have depended on stone slabs, troubling generation after generation of able ministers and wise officials."

"If someone had truly ever produced cement capable of replacing stone slabs, how could it be so obscure? How could it have never been promoted and used?"

Before the experiment, in order to make people believe him, Chen Ping had borrowed the authority of the ancients.

He had falsely claimed that he caught a glimpse of the method for making cement in some ancient text kept in the county academy's study.

Now, Ye Chongwen had logically dismantled and thoroughly dismissed the existence of that non-existent ancient book.

Chen Ping wore a gloomy expression, He Qingxuan sighed in disappointment, and their previous experiments were ultimately dismissed as mere childish folly.

Cement certainly existed, and it truly had countless miraculous uses.

The main problem was that after numerous trials, they could not produce a finished product capable of convincing anyone, creating only these crude and fragile clay slabs.

Chen Ping squatted on the ground in despair, racking his brain for a solution.

He Qingxuan, however, was not as hasty in his judgment as Ye Chongwen. He had dabbled in such matters before and knew that the materials Chen Ping used were indeed standard components for building supplies.

Moreover, lime was obtained by calcining rocks, clay was essential for making pottery, and slag contained residual iron scrap.

Since soft clay could be fired into hard ceramics, combining these various materials to forge something with a hardness comparable to stone was not entirely far-fetched.

Seeing Chen Ping in such deep distress, He Qingxuan stepped forward, patted him on the shoulder, and gently consoled him.

"I believe the cement you spoke of does exist; it's just that we haven't found the specific method to fire it yet."

"If we persist through repeated attempts, disregarding the cost of time and materials, there will eventually come a day when we successfully bake cement that can replace stone."

Chen Ping took He Qingxuan's words as mere comforting remarks between brothers.

In truth, Chen Ping was never an engineering whiz with strong practical skills, nor had he ever personally manufactured any industrial products in either of his two lives.

This failed experiment had completely dispelled his previous notions.

Since he could not use modern scientific techniques to save the day, he would simply have to walk the path of the imperial examinations honestly, following the rules of this world.

After all, this world was not lacking in skilled craftsmen. Once he gained influence and a voice in the future, he would have plenty of opportunities to guide them in experimenting with the various technological creations of his past life.

Having lost the inclination to continue making cement, Chen Ping intended to return and immerse himself in books once more, but He Qingxuan's curiosity had been fully piqued.

He pulled Chen Ping aside for a detailed, meticulous interrogation, quickly draining him of every bit of knowledge Chen Ping possessed regarding cement production.

He Qingxuan solemnly recorded these key points of knowledge and meticulously drew out all the steps for the trial production.

Seeing He Qingxuan so infatuated and ready to throw himself into the endeavor, Ye Chongwen spoke with an air of profound maturity.

"What has gotten into both of you? It's just a pile of clay powder. Are you still like little children, refusing to outgrow your obsession with playing in the mud?"

"We are scholars, after all. We must never let trivial pursuits sap our ambition."

These words instantly diverted the attention of both Chen Ping and He Qingxuan away from the fragments.

Chen Ping patted He Qingxuan resignedly and said solemnly,

"It's your turn!"

"This child lacks discipline—just don't beat him to death!"