Chapter 26

Drip—!

The metal blades snapped open to either side.

After passing the ticket checkpoint, Lin Xuan guided Xiao Sizi through the entrance.

A dark corridor extended downward.

The walls were painted a deep azure blue.

The overhead spotlights emitted faint light, simulating the claustrophobic feel of the deep sea.

Xiao Sizi instinctively gripped Lin Xuan's index finger. Her steps slowed.

At the end of the corridor was a smoothly moving escalator.

The two stepped onto the escalator.

Around the corner, a vast expanse of blue erupted into view without warning.

It was a hundred-meter-long underwater tunnel.

The floor was a conveyor belt; on both sides and overhead stretched thick, curved bulletproof glass.

Tens of thousands of tons of crystal-clear seawater were forcibly contained beyond this transparent barrier.

Ripples swayed, scattering shimmering light onto Xiao Sizi's cheeks.

She stopped breathing.

Above her head, a massive shadow loomed.

A whale shark, nearly ten meters long, glided slowly along the glass dome, its massive body undulating.

Its gray-blue back was speckled with countless white spots like stars.

Its broad, flat mouth opened and closed, swallowing and expelling tons of seawater.

After the whale shark passed, a vast swarm of manta rays filled the view.

They flapped their diamond-shaped wings up and down.

Like bat formations gliding through the dark night, they carved graceful arcs through the water.

In a cylindrical tank at the corner, hundreds of jellyfish pulsed open and closed.

Their semi-transparent bells glowed faintly with blue and fluorescent green light; long tentacles drifted with the current.

Xiao Sizi tilted her head upward, her neck aching but unaware. She released Lin Xuan's hand, took two steps to the tunnel's edge, and pressed her palms against the cold glass.

The faint vibration of the pumps traveled through the glass into her palms.

A half-meter-long grouper swam over, stared at her through the glass for two seconds, then flicked its tail and vanished into the deep.

"Lin Xuan—" Xiao Sizi's voice was dry; she swallowed hard. "This water—it has no end."

"These fish—they're as big as hills."

"Is this the Crystal Palace of the Dragon King of the East Sea?"

In her young mind,

save for the Dragon King who ruled the Four Seas in myth and legend,

no force in the world could possibly create such a miracle—trapping the waters of all four seas within these pillars.

Lin Xuan walked to her side, glanced up at the nurse shark swimming past, and shattered the illusion.

"There is no Dragon King. This is called an Aquarium."

"A giant tank made of high-strength transparent material, filled with seawater, into which sea creatures are captured and put on display for people to pay and view."

Xiao Sizi opened her mouth wide, her gaze returning to the whale shark, a wall of flesh.

"Mortals—keep such sea beasts locked up as curiosities?"

She felt her entire worldview shattered.

The people of Great Tang revered heaven and earth.

The boundless sea was seen as a forbidden zone, a devouring abyss.

Fishermen setting sail had to sacrifice animals to appease the Sea God, praying for calm waters.

Shipwrecks were common; the giant beasts beneath the waves were depicted in local chronicles as demonic monsters that overturned seas and reversed rivers.

Yet modern people spent a small sum of money to stand beneath these "demons," pointing and chatting.

Lin Xuan tapped the glass. "Overreacting. What's this?"

"Yesterday I showed you the Globe. Do you remember me saying water covers seven-tenths, land only three-tenths?"

Xiao Sizi nodded vigorously.

"You ancients fixate on the Central Plains, thinking capturing a few cities is a great achievement."

Lin Xuan drew a large circle on the glass, encompassing all the seawater in view.

"The true treasure of Earth lies beneath the sea."

"Under this water lie endless fish, shrimp, and seaweed—enough to feed hundreds of times the population of Great Tang."

"Within the seabed's rock layers lie black oil that burns, natural gas that lights, and countless precious metal ores."

Lin Xuan lowered his head, meeting Xiao Sizi's stunned gaze.

"Whoever masters shipbuilding technology, whoever can sail freely across this blue water, will fill their pockets with the world's wealth."

"Fixating on two or three mu of land to fight over grain—that's petty."

Great Tang, Taiji Palace.

——

Li Shimin stood frozen, lost in thought.

Throughout history, emperors of every dynasty had regarded the Yellow River and the Yangtze as the cradle of civilization.

The sea was the edge of the land, a foreign realm, a poisonous abyss for exiling the most heinous criminals.

The court's attitude toward the ocean has always been one of vigilance and awe.

But Lin Xuan's words tore through this facade of awe, laying bare the ocean's most real and alluring aspect, bloodily dissected before Li Shimin's eyes.

"Water makes up seven-tenths—endless minerals and food—"

Li Shimin murmured Lin Xuan's introduction, repeating it under his breath.

Unknowingly, he walked back to Lizheng Hall.

Two eunuchs jointly pushed open a massive wooden screen.

Behind the screen hung a freshly copied Map of the Great Tang Territory, traced by a painter from the Sky Screen.

Li Shimin snatched a cinnabar brush and tapped its tip on the yellow patch representing Great Tang territory.

"All seas return—"

Li Shimin stared at the blue water ripples representing the ocean along the map's edge, laughing bitterly at himself, "I often hear the ministers shout that all seas return as one! Absurd! Simply the greatest joke under heaven!"

"The Great Tang's territory is but a millet seed on this map."

"As for the seven-tenths of vast ocean, I have not even touched it; how can it 'return as one'?"

Li Shimin snapped the cinnabar brush in his hand and flung it onto the golden brick floor.

He recalled the transparent Crystal Palace in the Sky Screen.

People of later generations could dive into deep waters and keep giant sea beasts like domestic fowl for viewing.

Their control over the ocean had reached a point of doing as they pleased.

"So the true treasure lies not in the grasslands of the Turks, nor in the ice and snow of Goguryeo."

"It lies in the sea!"

Unprecedented madness and greed erupted in Li Shimin's eyes.

Zhangsun Wuji, Fang Xuanling, and other high ministers hurried into the hall and prostrated themselves on the ground.

They too had heard Lin Xuan's argument and seen the ambition burning in the Emperor's eyes.

It was the signal that the Tiance General was about to launch an epic campaign.

"Zhangsun Wuji!" Li Shimin barked in a deep, stern voice.

"Your subject is here!"

"Issue an edict to the Ministry of War and the Ministry of Revenue."

"Cease entanglements with Tuyuhun on the land borders; save the money and grain for me."

He pointed to the long coastline along the southeast coast on the map.

"Effective immediately, the Great Tang lifts the Sea Ban."

"Issue an edict to the coastal prefectures and cities of Lingnan and the Jiangnan Circuit; post notices offering rewards, and with heavy gold, conscript all craftsmen who know shipbuilding and fishermen who understand water signs from across the realm."

"The Ministry of Works shall establish a separate Shipbuilding Supervision Bureau; I do not want those flat-bottomed Grain Transport Ships that can only move grain on inland rivers."

"Build me sharp-bottomed Thousand-Liao Sea Ships capable of withstanding wind and waves."

The Minister of Works knelt on the ground, trembling all over, his voice tight: "Your Majesty, building sea ships costs a fortune, and the Sea Chart is missing; the deep sea is hard to fathom!"

But now, having seen the power in the Sky Screen, Li Shimin would listen to no remonstrance.

"If it cannot be measured accurately, fill it with human lives; pave it with wooden planks."

"If later generations can dig things out of the sea, the Great Tang cannot fall behind."

"Sell pots and melt iron; you must plant the Great Tang's war flag on the sea surface for me."

"Sea power—I must establish sea power!"

"Now that we know the location of a mountain of gold, if we do not dig, do we wait for others to dig first?"

Upon hearing these words, the Minister of Works could find no words to refute.

Overnight.

The shipyards along the Great Tang's coastal prefectures reignited their furnace fires. Craftsmen worked day and night, deducing the keel structures of sea ships.

Countless shipbuilding blueprints flew to Chang'an like snowflakes.

They piled up into a small mountain on the desks of the Ministry of Works.