Chapter 834: Chapter 833: Metaphysical Theories
Seeing Chen Ergou tumble backward with an arrow stuck squarely in his head, the nearby Yellow Hat worker turned pale with fright and rushed over.
"Engineer Chen!"
To everyone’s shock, Chen Ergou rubbed his lower back, sat up slowly, and blinked in confusion.
"...Huh? I’m not dead?"
He reached up, pulled off his blue hat, and revealed the arrow still embedded in it, wobbling pitifully. The arrowhead hadn’t even pierced through.
The hat... had blocked it.
Its defensive capability was nothing short of astonishing.
In an era that lacked modern chemical engineering, Gao Family Village naturally couldn’t manufacture the safety helmets of later generations. But worker safety had always been taken seriously. Song Yingxing, drawing on the most advanced technology available, had resurrected an old Jiangnan craft—
Rattan Armor.
Double-layered rattan was tightly woven into a cap, then wrapped with an outer layer of leather. Its defensive strength was essentially equivalent to a small leather shield.
Against ordinary arrows?
Utterly sufficient.
Chen Ergou stared at the arrow lodged in his hat and muttered, "Damn it... they shot the ’Test’ character right off. That scared the life out of me."
Qi Cheng burst into laughter. "That’s a good sign! It means your sentence reduction is almost complete. You’re about to become a regular worker!"
Chen Ergou’s eyes lit up. "You’re right! Auspicious! Extremely auspicious!"
Laughing happily, he climbed back onto the stacked table and stool, poking his head over the wall again.
"What am I afraid of now? I refuse to believe I’ll get hit again—"
Thwack!
Another arrow slammed neatly into his hat.
"AH—!"
Chen Ergou let out a miserable cry and toppled backward once more.
Qi Cheng sighed deeply. "You’ve got Er—’two’—in your name. Of course you got hit twice."
Chen Ergou groaned from the ground. "Brother Qi... what kind of metaphysical theory is that?"
By now, the battle had fully escalated.
Once both sides entered bow range, injuries were unavoidable. Cries of pain echoed along the walls as arrows found flesh.
The workers’ wives and children, seeing their men wounded, could no longer stay hidden. They rushed into the workshops, rummaging frantically through piles of materials.
Before long, someone cried out in surprise.
"Found something!"
They dragged out large, thick sheets of paperboard.
Except—
These weren’t ordinary paperboard.
They were A4 paper, gifts from the heavens bestowed by Li Daoxuan himself, printed with diagrams and instructions on steelmaking, iron refining, and countless mechanical designs.
Truly vital documents were locked in the factory manager’s office. Less critical sheets lay scattered across workshops. Some had even been tossed into trash piles, waiting to be pulped and recycled.
To people of this era, these discarded A4 sheets looked like impossibly thick, durable paperboard.
The women worked fast.
They cut the sheets to body-sized panels, folded them in half, and carved holes at the fold.
Then they sprinted to the front lines and slipped the paper over their husbands’ heads.
Just like that—
Two-Plate Armor.
A4 Paper Armor.
When bamboo-tipped arrows struck the paper armor, they landed with dull thwacks, the arrowheads barely poking through. The remaining force wasn’t enough to penetrate the workers’ thick cotton uniforms.
The workers simply plucked the arrows from their makeshift armor—
—and fired them right back.
"The bandits are climbing the walls!" someone shouted.
Qi Cheng roared, "Don’t let them get over! Roll down logs! Throw stones!"
"But we don’t have logs!"
"No big stones either!"
"Then throw anything that can hit them!"
Several women ran over carrying a large basket of iron spheres—neither too big nor too small.
The workers froze for a second—
Then understood.
These were the smaller cannonballs used by the Heavenly Lord’s Two Arms.
And the steel transport factory produced them by the thousands.
They were perfect.
A worker grabbed one and hurled it downward.
Thud!
A bandit’s skull caved in, blood spraying instantly.
"This works!" someone yelled. "Everyone—throw these!"
The defenders went berserk.
Iron balls flew.
Wrenches, screwdrivers, pry bars, chisels, claw hammers—every tool imaginable followed.
If the steel transport factory lacked anything, it certainly wasn’t weapons.
Morale on the wall skyrocketed.
Below, the bandits suffered miserably.
What kind of insane rich factory was this?
They were throwing iron like it was gravel!
"Do you idiots even know?" one bandit shouted while dodging a falling hammer. "A single iron tool is worth a tael of silver! You’re throwing money at us!"
In just moments, the value of what the workers had hurled exceeded several thousand taels.
One bandit turned to He Zonghan, eyes shining. "Brother, why don’t we just grab what they’ve already thrown and run? That’s already a fortune!"
He Zonghan snarled, "If what they’re throwing away is worth thousands, what’s inside must be worth hundreds of thousands! Break in!"
The bandits surged forward again.
Outside the walls, corpses and discarded tools piled up, inadvertently raising the ground level—making the walls easier to climb.
Stepping on his fallen comrades, one bandit leapt, grabbed the wall, and finally hauled himself over.
He landed inside, drew his saber, and laughed wildly.
"I’m in! You cowards—your deaths are—"
A worker charged him.
In his left hand: an iron pot.
In his right: a knife.
The steel transport factory even made cookware.
The bandit slashed.
The worker blocked with the pot.
Clang!
The noise rang painfully in both their ears.
The worker slashed back—missed.
The bandit was clearly more skilled.
Realizing this, the worker dropped the knife entirely.
He gripped the iron pot with both hands and shoved forward with all his might.
In martial lore, people debate endlessly how to counter intricate sword techniques.
The answer is simple:
Push a door at them.
Against raw mass and momentum, fancy footwork means nothing.
The bandit braced and slammed his shoulder into the pot.
Thud!
Strength met strength.
And in that instant, the bandit learned the true meaning of—
"The power of us workers."
He flew backward, landed hard on his backside, and skidded several meters across the ground.
