Chapter 408: Food and Drink
Feipeng slowly landed on a large open space outside Xiaoshi Town. During the landing, Zhou Tieyi could already see the new buildings below through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

The new chimney of the Baizhishan steel plant has been erected and is mostly built. Along the steel plant, a large piece of land has been leveled and laid with simple railroad tracks, extending directly from the mine to the steel plant. On the rails, small steam locomotives make a low hum, pulling carts of coal to the steel plant. The whole process is simple and efficient.

A little further away, in Xiaoshi Town, at the intersection of the mines, new buildings are rising from the ground, forming a sharp contrast with the surrounding low-rise tiled houses. The whitewashed walls of the buildings make ordinary people mistake them for newly built mansions of some wealthy families at first glance. And between this new Zhougong Building and Xiaoshi Town, there is a new type of building built on the site of the original Xiaoshi Town Martial Arts Academy. The sound of reading aloud coming from inside complements the low shouts of martial arts disciples in the square outside.

The three great Confucian scholars and the crowd around Zhou Tieyi also personally witnessed the changes before their eyes. The people from Shantong Mansion suddenly turned to Zhou Tieyi, bowed and said, "Thank you, Duke Zhou."

Only by experiencing the ignorance of Shantong Mansion in person can one feel the difficulty of today's education. Although the changes before our eyes only started from Baizhi Mountain, that kind of vitality is like the first flower blooming in spring, slender and fragile, but tenacious and unstoppable, and will surely bloom all over the world.

Zhou Tieyi stood with his hands behind his back looking at the scene below. This was the second time he had a feeling of being connected to this world by blood. This time it was even stronger than when he was in Tianjing. It was completely changing an era and creating a new course of civilization. In this process, the participants were as proud as if they saw their own children grow from cradles to toddlers.

He nodded slightly and said seriously, "I just opened this era. The big guys in the Mountain Copper Mansion did a good job."

Feipeng hovered and the escalator descended. Outside were luxurious carriages mobilized by officials. Zhou Tieyi naturally sat in the first carriage. This time, no one questioned Zhou Tieyi's extravagance.

Deng Zhenquan and two other great Confucian scholars got on the second car. In the second car was the legalist Cui Wanxia. At the beginning, the three of them split into two groups on Feipeng. Zhou Tieyi and Deng Zhenquan each chose a breakthrough point. Now, as a bystander, Cui Wanxia can say with certainty that Zhou Tieyi won, and won fairly. This time, the Confucianists lost the ink stone case in Shantong Mansion, but the loss was not unfair.

Deng Zhenquan and Cui Wanxia were both court officials, and the Confucian and Legalist schools had close ties, so they had a good personal relationship. Although Deng Zhenquan had roughly pieced together the changes in Shantong Prefecture from the Confucian officials in Shantong Prefecture, he wanted to see the results of the reforms in Shantong Prefecture from Cui Wanxia, ​​a third-rank official, from a more calm and comprehensive bystander's perspective.

However, when the words came to his lips, Deng Zhenquan didn't know where to start.

Seeing Deng Zhenquan's appearance, Cui Wanxia laughed, knowing that Deng Zhenquan was worried and confused, so she pulled open the curtain of the carriage. The carriage was traveling on the road. The families of the miners heard that Zhou Tieyi was coming, and they kept holding baskets and trotting after the carriage to the first inspection point, which was the newly built Zhougong Building.

After a short drive, when the carriage stopped in front of Zhougong Building, the family members inside came out to greet him. Most of them were carrying baskets filled with edible wild fruits, mushrooms, eggs and other things picked from the surrounding hillsides. When Zhou Tieyi got off the carriage, the people surrounded him with enthusiastic smiles on their faces. Maintaining order in the carriage was left to Zhou Tieyi's personal guards.

When Zhou Tieyi left Tianjing, A'da and the others were in an important stage of condensing their Gang and needed the help of the Bingsha in the Bingyuan, so Zhou Tieyi did not bring A'da and the others with him. A month ago, A'da and the others successfully condensed their Gang. As Zhou Tieyi's personal guards, they naturally had to rush over as soon as possible.

However, when the Workers' College in Shantong Prefecture was first established and expanded, Zhou Tieyi, in order to show his appreciation and support, directly sent A Da and fifty other guards to Shantong Prefecture to teach, and if feasible, he wanted to fix this system of teaching. This system has been proven to be a very good and excellent system.

Facing the young master whom he had not seen for a long time and the people around who were welcoming him, Ah Da was both proud and fulfilling his duty by using his body to block them.

Zhou Tieyi frowned and scolded Ah Da, "Why, you can't even do things after not being with me for a month or two?"

A Da hurriedly stepped aside with a wry smile, then quickly picked out a white-haired old lady from the crowd, personally supported the old lady, and walked in front of Zhou Tieyi.

Zhou Tieyi kicked Ada lightly, and Ada laughed like a lackey and apologized to the people around him. After this one red-cop and one white-cop played the roles, everyone suddenly felt that the Zhou family was well-educated.

Zhou Tieyi also gave Ada a thumbs up in his heart. It turned out that Ada was a professional at flattering people and knew what to do and when.

He looked at the old woman in front of him again. Like most ordinary old women of this era, her jacket was patched and her teeth were sparse under the wrinkles. The only good thing was the basket in her hand, which was carefully padded with a piece of uncut cloth. On the cloth were a few unknown wild fruits and a basket of eggs.

When the old woman was brought to Zhou Tieyi alone, she looked a little nervous and didn't know what to say. After all, Zhou Tieyi in front of her wearing a python robe looked like a god, and was in a different world from her.

But she was really grateful to Zhou Tieyi from the bottom of her heart. Although she had never been to school, she knew from her son's mouth that because of Zhou Tieyi, her son would no longer have to worry about his madness. Her grandson, who had dropped out of school, was given meat and could continue to practice martial arts in the martial arts academy. What her grandson talked about most every day was how great the teachers in the martial arts academy were.

Of course the old woman didn't know how martial arts were divided, but she knew that the teacher currently teaching her grandson was from Tianjing and was Zhou Tieyi's personal guard. If they were placed in local areas, they would all be able to become generals, which was naturally a good thing.

In just two months, everyone from the son to the grandson has completed the transformation, and they have been included in the second batch of the Zhougong Building occupancy list.

If my spouse were still alive and hadn’t died of madness…

Thinking of this, the old woman looked at Zhou Tieyi for a moment, and was choked with sobs, and all her words turned into sad tears.

Zhou Tieyi waited quietly until the old woman stopped sobbing. He took the basket from her ears, took out a fruit, wiped it with his sleeve, and took a big bite. Although the wild fruit was juicy, it was very sour. He smiled and said to the old woman, "The fruit is delicious. Life will get better and better in the future!"

After Zhou Tieyi finished speaking, the people were quiet for a while, and then there was a wave of cheers, echoing between the hills. Deng Zhenquan and other officials got off the car and saw this scene. Suddenly, a word emerged in his mind: food and drink!
He narrowed his eyes slightly and looked at the sea of ​​luck and fortune above Zhou Tieyi's head. As a Confucian of the third rank, he knew some of the secrets of the Zhou family's bloodline. There were also fortune tellers who had secretly looked at Zhou Tieyi's sea of ​​luck and fortune before, but they couldn't make out anything. But today, Deng Zhenquan still wanted to give it a try and take advantage of the people's hearts that were now gathering like a trend!
Between heaven and earth, wisps of majestic and righteous energy rose up, lingering around the entire valley. The people's hearts gathered together, like an extremely brilliant light, reflecting on Zhou Tieyi, affecting the changes in Zhou Tieyi's fortune from the outside.

Deng Zhenquan used the fifth-grade "pacifying the people" method and with the help of the old woman, quietly pushed the evolution of public opinion. The next moment, the blazing white righteous energy parted from the middle, revealing a colorful unicorn. The unicorn was comfortable in the five-colored auspicious clouds of blue, red, white, black and yellow. Suddenly, it felt a strange gaze and let out a silent roar at Deng Zhenquan. The tide of public opinion also began to backfire towards Deng Zhenquan, forcing Deng Zhenquan to cut off his gaze from peeping at Zhou Tieyi.

Blood oozed from his eardrums, but in his last breath, he still grasped a key point. He vaguely saw that beneath the colorful auspicious clouds, deeper inside, there was a looming shadow of a dragon. Its body was circling, flowing with the energy. Its head and tail could not be seen, and it looked like an abyss.

······
Zhou Tieyi confirmed his other two achievements in the reform of Baizhi Mountain one by one. After communicating with Han Lin, the person in charge of the iron factory, Cui Yu, the person in charge of the Industrial Construction Bureau and the principal of the Workers' College, and Mo Tianheng, they proposed some problems for the further reform of Shantong Mansion, and Zhou Tieyi gave solutions one by one based on his own insights. When the discussion was over, it was already late at night. Just as Zhou Tieyi was about to rest, A Da suddenly brought in an unexpected person.

In Zhou Tieyi's temporary study, Zhou Tieyi personally took a can of tea from the side, boiled water to make tea, pointed to the seat in front of him, and motioned the visitor to sit down. At the same time, he was not idle, "What a rare guest! Why don't you go to paint, but go to dig coal instead? Is it because mining coal can make more money now?"

The Shenxiu in front of Zhou Tieyi was wearing a coarse cloth clothes dyed black by slag. His handsome facial features were dull and gray under the cover of coal. With his short stubble of hair and half dry palms, no one could have imagined that this was the handsome and intelligent traveler from the Fahua Temple.

"It's been a few months since we last met, but Master Zhou Er has become even more dazzling."

Shenxiu and Zhou Tieyi were more like enemies than friends, but when he saw Zhou Tieyi again and saw the changes Zhou Tieyi had made in Shantong Mansion, Shenxiu suddenly felt as comfortable as if he had met an old friend again.

He put his hands together in a salute and sat opposite Zhou Tieyi. The kettle slowly heated up. Zhou Tieyi looked at Shenxiu. After teasing him, he became serious. "What brought you here so far? Why?"

Shenxiu thought for a moment and said, "Zhao Fuer and I sneaked into Dazhi Zen Temple. There is a big problem in Dazhi Zen Temple."

Zhou Tieyi nodded and said, "I know."

Shenxiu knew Zhou Tieyi's ability. When he came to investigate the Moshi case, he must have found out about Dazhi Zen Temple's method of "cutting off the roots of evil and gaining the fruits of wisdom". It is estimated that with Zhou Tieyi's personality, he has been thinking about how to set a trap for Dazhi Zen Temple and make Dazhi Zen Temple jump into it on its own initiative.

However, the trap set by Dazhi Zen Temple this time was really big. He was worried that Zhou Tieyi would fall into it himself, so he thought for a long time and said, "Zhao Fuer is the reincarnation of Pratyekabuddha."

Zhou Tieyi raised his sword-like eyebrows and smiled. He picked up the boiling kettle and added water to Shenxiu's tea bowl. The dry tea leaves quickly became shiny and plump in the boiling water, and the curling tea fragrance spread out. Then he said, "You are willing to tell me such a big secret. It seems that Zhao Fuer is in deep danger."

After Shenxiu said that Zhao Fuer was a Pratyekabuddha, he took out a scroll from his bosom and handed it to Zhou Tieyi, "There is Zhao Fuer's spirit on it, so I can contact Zhao Fuer, but when Zhao Fuer entered the Great Wisdom Root Realm in the netherworld, I can no longer contact Zhao Fuer, and Zhao Fuer's last words were not to be attached to the appearance of the Great Wisdom Root Realm."

Zhou Tieyi took Shenxiu's scroll and opened it in front of the two of them. There was a strange painting inside. The Zhao Fuer in the picture had both form and spirit, but everyone knew that Zhao Fuer was just an "empty shell" at the first glance at the scroll.

Because inside this empty shell, a Buddha sits upright with kind eyes and brows, and every stroke is filled with Buddha nature. The invisible Buddha light seems to jump out of the picture and shine into people's hearts.

Zhou Tieyi frowned. It turned out that reincarnation with past wisdom, which violated the laws of heaven and earth, was very evil in itself. Even if the person doing this was a Pratyekabuddha with a majestic appearance in Buddhism and had achieved self-liberation, he had not yet liberated all living beings.

"Great wisdom root world?"

Zhou Tieyi raised his voice slightly, with a slightly questioning tone.

Shenxiu explained in the simplest terms possible, "The Great Wisdom Root Realm is the Buddhist kingdom that the Great Wisdom Monastery is trying to create. It is hidden in the netherworld. They will bring in monks who have successfully practiced the Great Wisdom Sutra to build the entire Buddhist kingdom. The Great Wisdom Sutra is the method of 'cutting off the roots of evil and producing good results'..."

Zhou Tieyi nodded slightly, indicating that he knew what the method of "cutting off the roots of evil and producing good results" was. As Shenxiu revealed a lot of information, his expression became solemn, because the word "Buddha's Kingdom" reminded him of the Western Paradise. Although it was Huanxitian who took the initiative to attack him and failed and died, he couldn't help but suspect that the Western Paradise put the blame on him, especially since the Western Paradise has a total of twenty-four heavens. Because the Lord of Daming Palace took action and Huanxitian voluntarily entered Nirvana, the Western Paradise was incomplete. That group of monks will definitely find a way to complete the Western Paradise, and the Great Wisdom Root Realm is one of the ways to complete it.

Shenxiu saw Zhou Tieyi's expression and realized that Zhou Tieyi had understood most of the cause and effect of the matter, so he told Zhou Tieyi something he didn't know, "Zhao Fuer wanted to break free from the shackles of his past life, so he has entered the Great Wisdom Root Realm. I can't contact Zhao Fuer, but you are more capable than me, and you may have a way to contact Zhao Fuer. I hope you can protect Zhao Fuer as much as possible."

"why?"

"Because he is a Pratyekabuddha, he has the power to destroy the entire great wisdom world from within."

(End of this chapter)