Chapter 1521: A Public Demonstration: The Shock Brought by Movable Type Printing

Boom!

As soon as these words left Gao Yang's mouth, they were like a massive storm, instantly sweeping through the entire Changancheng. Countless people could not help but wear expressions of shock, their eyes wide.

"Sage books should be like grains of rice, readable by everyone?"

"The words of the sages in Da Qian should be like the sun and moon hanging in the sky, illuminating the human world?"

Huang Zhizhan was stunned.

His eyes shone with a wild light, and even his fists were clenched tightly without him realizing it.

Chen Wanjuan was also incredibly excited.

Even Chi Potian, who had been extremely calm from beginning to end, could no longer sit still.

He looked toward the circular platform at Gao Yang, who was speaking passionately and with great excitement, his heart shaken.

Compared to the backgrounds of Chen Wanjuan, Huang Zhizhan, and the others, Chi Potian came from a humble family and knew the hardships of the path of learning; the journey he had taken was far too arduous.

Seeking knowledge in this world had never been an easy task.

Therefore, when Gao Yang declared he would protect the scholars of humble origin across the world and open schools far and wide, the shock to his heart was beyond words.

This was also the fundamental reason why, later on, when Wang Zhong continued to stir up trouble, it led him to take such actions.

And what touched Chi Potian the most was that although he was a scholar of humble origin, his family... had once been wealthy in the days of his ancestors, only to decline later, which was why it was termed a humble family.

In this world, there were still too many commoners, too many students thirsting for sage books, who were not even from humble families; they couldn't even afford a single sheet of mulberry paper, let alone sage books.

Borrow?

A sage book costing dozens of taels was extremely precious; who would be willing to lend it?

Of course, sage books were also copied using cheaper hemp paper, and the cost dropped accordingly, but even so, the price was still not something an ordinary family could afford.

Seeking knowledge was too difficult!

Once upon a time, Chi Potian had wondered if there would ever come a day in this world of Great Harmony where everyone could afford to eat and everyone could afford to read sage books.

Knowledge would no longer be the exclusive domain of the children of noble families.

But as soon as this thought surfaced, he snuffed it out.

He felt it was impossible.

For no other reason than that it was too expensive.

Paper was expensive, copyists were expensive; for commoners to want to read, it was too difficult.

But now, what had he heard?

Gao Yang said he wanted to be reckless for once, to be arrogant for once; he wanted to make sage books like grains of rice, readable by everyone, and make the words of the sages like the sun and moon hanging in the sky, illuminating the human world!

"It seems... that is not just an empty fantasy..."

Chi Potian muttered to himself, his eyes shining wildly.

At this moment, he was full of expectation.

Not far away.

Cui Xinghe was dumbfounded; he closed his eyes in pain.

Damn it all.

Although he had anticipated that Gao Yang would show off before the public, he hadn't expected him to play such a big game!

What was this Living Yama trying to do?

What, are you going crazy?

On the other side.

Pei Cheng's face was ashen.

He had raised his head almost instantly, his face full of astonishment.

"Sage books like grains of rice, readable by everyone?"

Pei Cheng's complexion turned ugly to the naked eye.

It was even uglier than before.

If mulberry paper was the Pei family's means of accumulating wealth, then the interpretation and annotation of the sages' words were the Pei family's roots!

Gao Yang... was trying to dig up his Pei family's roots!

"Ridiculous!"

"Wanting to make sage books like grains of rice, readable by everyone, and the words of the sages like the sun and moon hanging in the sky, visible to everyone—even a sage couldn't do that!"

"I admit, you, Gao Yang, do have some ability, but these words are too arrogant. Being so reckless, I'd like to see how you intend to wrap this up!"

Pei Cheng stood with his hands behind his back, looking at Gao Yang, his voice extremely cold.

He did not believe Gao Yang had such means, because in his heart, this was simply not something that could be achieved.

Although the cost of bamboo paper had been brought down, to achieve this, Gao Yang would need a method to modify the woodblocks and increase the speed of printing sage books tenfold.

But this was almost impossible; with conventional woodblock printing, even if one character was printed incorrectly, it would take a lot of time to fix it.

And that was not to mention manual copying; one had to know that for some obscure and difficult sage books, long periods of copying were extremely prone to errors.

Behind this, the costs were enormous! **CHAPTER 1523**