Chapter 787: Paper Airplane

Yulong and the other two returned home. Outside the courtyard, it was bustling with noise and excitement, filled with guards and servants who had been driven out, but inside the courtyard, it was quiet; not a single sound could be heard.

The three of them knocked on Baifeng's door with some nervousness. After entering, Baifeng had them look around again to ensure there were no shadows before slamming the door shut.

"Father, we have all arrived," the eldest son, Yulong, replied to Baifeng.

Baifeng pointed to the long sofa covered in thick snow leopard fur and said, "Sit."

The few of them sat down slowly, consciously choosing their seats according to their age, with Yulong sitting in the place closest to Baifeng.

Baifeng pondered for a moment before beginning to tell them the story he had already prepared.

"Are you all very curious about why I know so many things and understand so much knowledge in various fields?"

Baifeng added another sentence: "The matter of being the son of Heaven is definitely false. Perhaps there are gods in the world, but I have never seen the gods of the present. This excuse was merely to deceive those ignorant people, to guarantee my power, and to explain the source of my knowledge."

Yulong spoke up: "We are truly all very curious, Father. Are you prepared to tell us the truth?"

Baifeng understood that one lie requires more lies to explain, but he could only do this now. However, he did not answer Yulong's question directly; he was merely telling a story, not stating a fact.

"I was once an extremely foolish savage. Perhaps none of you have heard of this. The history of Huaxia that you know only begins from when I ruled that weak tribe of savages.

And the lie I fabricated about being the son of Heaven also began when I seized power from Xiong. If I hadn't done that, I wouldn't have been able to exert my abilities."

Baifeng paused slightly, organizing his words.

"In the wilderness, I encountered a strange altar. I didn't know what deity it was dedicated to, nor did I know what the offerings were, but I was inexplicably sent to a magical place.

The people there said it was thousands of years after our current era, but I felt that it was the place where the gods lived."

"Ah???" the three children exclaimed in unison.

Changle even hurriedly asked: "Father, then, what was that place like?"

This time, Baifeng was truly reminiscing, because so much time had passed that he felt it was somewhat blurry: "I only remember that the houses were so tall they pierced into the clouds. The people there would not go hungry, would not suffer from the cold, were not afraid of being attacked by wild beasts, and people could fly into the sky, go down into the deep sea where sunlight could not reach, and even fly to the moon."

"How did they fly? Father, you have said that everything can be explained by the laws of Science. They couldn't possibly have all grown wings, right?" The most excited one was Changle.

Baifeng picked up a piece of paper on the table and folded a paper airplane. This was his first time folding one. In this world, paper was not yet luxurious enough to be used for play; even waste paper could not be used. Baifeng, who understood the principles and the making of it, did not have the mindset to play, and the children who wanted to play did not know how to fold it.

Under the gaze of the three children, Baifeng folded the simplest paper airplane, then, as if possessed, blew a breath on it and pushed it gently. The paper airplane began to glide in the air. It was quite impressive, flying a circle in the room before landing, showing the children its flight capability for long enough.

The paper airplane landed on the ground. Changle quickly got up to pick it up, and while handing it to Baifeng, he observed it carefully for a long time.

"They didn't grow wings on their backs, but they sat inside a large thing like this that had wings, a thing called an airplane."

Baifeng pointed to the wings of the airplane and said: "This is the wing. I have told you the principle of rain, and it has some connection to this. That is air; it also has weight, and it has power, capable of lifting things upward. The birds we see in the sky that can fly without flapping their wings do so for this reason."

"As long as the wings are large enough, even if they are made of Iron, they can fly. Those Iron airplanes are bigger than our home, and hundreds of people can sit inside. But because they are too heavy, they need a sufficiently large force to first drag them into the sky, just like how I picked up this paper airplane with my hand and then threw it out.

As long as the wings are large enough and the force of the lift and the push is large enough, then it can keep flying in the sky."

The more Changle listened, the more excited he became, and golden light began to appear in his eyes: "Father, if I use Iron or wood to make a large pair of wings to wear on my back, and then have someone—no, use an ox to pull me, would I be able to fly too?"

Baifeng hurriedly stopped this dangerous idea of his: "If it were really that simple, wouldn't I have gone to fly myself? Wood is too heavy, and if it has to fight against the lifting force of the airflow when flying, it doesn't have enough hardness. The ox's power is also too small; it's impossible for it to pull it.

If you want to know more clearly, I will teach you how to fly a kite later, so you can feel more truly how it flies. But wanting to make a person fly, let alone you, even in a few hundred years, it is impossible."

Miaoyin felt she couldn't get a word in, but as long as she could hear such interesting things, that was enough. As for the matter of flying, she would let her second brother think about it.

Yulong had other doubts: "Father, where is that altar? Can we go there again?"

Baifeng had long known they would definitely ask, so he shook his head very firmly: "I don't know. After I returned from that place, I have been searching for it, but I can't find it. In that original place, there is nothing. If I could find it, I would definitely want to stay in that place forever."

Yulong lowered his head in disappointment. How could he not want to go and see such a world?

"I stayed there for a very long time and learned a great many things. I brought back everything I remembered and taught you what I could. But I am too stupid; there were too many things to learn in that place, and I couldn't learn them all. For many things, I only know the name.

If you want the things from that place to appear here, you have to rely on you smart children. I believe that in a few hundred years, there will always be something similar to that world." Baifeng was painting a big picture for the children, but no one knew better than him that they were in history, in the past, not the future. The past can never surpass the future.

But as long as it gave the children more motivation, it was a good thing. It was also true that he had been searching for the altar, but he had no idea where it was. The two worlds were separated by thousands of years; let alone Grass and trees, he feared that even the mountains and terrain had changed drastically. He simply could not distinguish the location.