The Daily Life of a Concubine

Chapter 111 - No Place for Merit

"Mother, don't chase me, I can't run fast anymore."

"Mother, go chase big brother; it was big brother who wrote the wrong character."

"You two are talking nonsense; clearly, we all messed it up together."

When Zhao Jinzui arrived at the backyard, he saw mother and sons chasing each other in a courtyard, all covered in dirt. He hurried over to intervene, "What are you doing?"

Unfortunately, he underestimated how dirty they were. "Don't come near me."

With the emperor's presence, the three children found their support and started to mess with their mother, Bai Jingxian. Suddenly, the small courtyard was bustling with activity.

They played until they were tired before finally stopping.

"My love, what are you all doing? Where did all this ink and mud come from?" Seeing the ink on himself, he frowned.

"Hmph, the emperor isn't helping me, so I'm not talking to you." Bai Jingxian was usually casual in front of Zhao Jinzui, and as she carefully flattered him, their relationship grew even closer.

"If you don't care, then I won't either; our sons will tell you."

These three mischievous kids were quite unlovable, looking as if they didn't care for their mother at all.

"That's right, Father, we'll tell you."

Zhao Jinzui looked at Bai Jingxian's increasingly displeased little face and smiled joyfully, "Okay, then Father will listen to you."

Although the three kids were still young and didn't quite understand what their mother was doing, they knew they could use that thing to write.

Now Zhao Jinzui was alarmed.

"My love, what's going on?"

Printing technology was quite ancient during this period; therefore, books in the Da Yue dynasty were precious; otherwise, how could there be a saying that civil officials are all from one family?

But now he heard something: Bai Jingxian had actually developed something that could write.

Though the children weren't very clear in their explanation, he understood.

"The emperor can just take a look himself." She knew the principles behind movable type printing.

It was genuinely not hard to produce.

She took Zhao Jinzui to see her invention, first selecting a few characters, then placing them in a wooden board, brushing them with ink, closing the board, and placing a piece of white paper underneath.

With a strong press, rolling a wooden log over the top board, she pulled out the white paper.

There were six large characters on it: "I am the emperor of the world."

Seeing these six characters, Zhao Jinzui's hands trembled with excitement, "How, how is this done?"

Bai Jingxian thought for a moment before expressing her reasoning.

In essence, she wanted to print some big characters for the three kids to recognize, but she herself didn't know many characters, and writing was even more out of the question.

That's how she thought of this method.

"Can it print a whole article?" Zhao Jinzui excitedly asked.

Bai Jingxian nodded, "Yes, but I don't have many character molds here, so the emperor will have to find someone to carve some. The servants in my palace don't know many characters." As she spoke, her little face turned red, looking quite embarrassed.