Chapter 156: You Cannot, But I Can

Always feeling as though someone were talking about her, Wang Ge frowned.

With a quarter of a quarter-hour to spare, she finished sorting a hundred bamboo strips. The craftsman official inspected them with astonishing speed, much like someone plucking lute strings.

Wang Ge rubbed her hands together to soothe the soreness. Barely had she squeezed them a few times when the official declared the task "passed." As the official picked up the shallow basket and she followed him back to the material piles, she cast a quick glance behind her. The production area was completely packed, not a single spot vacant.

After recording her place of origin, name, and the time slot in which she completed the task, the craftsman official said, "Every daily task comes with a reward."

Ah? Surprises really were to be found everywhere; Female Official Meng had never mentioned anything about rewards. A moment later, Wang Ge carried a small shallow basket and returned along the original path in high spirits, no longer having to worry about having nothing to do upon her return.

The rewards were: the wooden-handled iron knife she had just used to split the bamboo strips, a small whetstone, and twenty raw bamboo strips.

Some rejoiced while others despaired. The hypocritical candidate's daily task had been judged a failure.

The stone feeding trough was only a dozen paces away from the exit of the fence! Yet no matter how much his arms and legs trembled with exhaustion, no matter how stubbornly he refused to yield, straining until his teeth nearly loosened in his grip, that trough—seven feet long, two feet wide, and thick—refused to budge even an inch.

He was entirely drained of strength, collapsing onto the slippery ground and leaning against the feeding trough, his face smeared with sweat, tears, and mucus.

He had truly tried his best, testing every method he could possibly conceive. When he first realized that the mud and dust on his hands could not be rubbed off, the craftsman official had already appeared behind him. He had hurriedly asked the official and, upon learning that it was permitted to splash water on the ground to wet it, felt overjoyed, knowing that walking in muddy water made it easier for one's feet to slip.

Indeed, he had splashed basin after basin of water; his feet did slip, but the feeding trough did not. Instead, it sank even deeper into the mud.

Then, catching sight of numerous stones beneath the wooden bridge, he had gathered them up and wedged them under the trough, hoping to elevate it before tipping it over and rolling it all the way to the fence exit. Although crude, the method might just... might just my foot, it was completely useless! It was a sheer waste of time; the stones he wedged in were simply crushed into the mud by the weight of the trough.

"Ha." He was at his wits' end.

When the craftsman official announced "Failure," the hypocritical candidate seemed to experience a final burst of frenzied vitality. He let out a cold laugh, hauled himself up by leaning against the trough, and pointed accusingly at Wang Ge, who had just come over to watch the spectacle. "Ha, it was you! You framed me. You framed me!"

What a mad dog! Wang Ge felt neither fear nor haste. She asked, "How did I frame you?"

"You and I arrived at this wooden enclosure one after the other. You took the initiative to speak to me, saying that we had a conflict on the way to Shanyin County, and that you wanted to resolve it by letting me take on the task here. I never imagined you were so petty-minded that you still held onto that grudge, so I thought I would just humor you to keep you from dwelling on it and letting it ruin your examination in the future. Yet, this is an utterly impossible task! Who could possibly move a feeding trough out of a wooden fence by oneself within a single hour? If it weren't for you meddling..."

"I can."

The craftsman official tilted his head slightly, holding back a laugh. Two other observing candidates were utterly astonished, thinking they had misheard.

"Y-you can what?" The hypocritical candidate had rehearsed his stream of lies sentence by sentence, and was completely bewildered by the sudden interruption.

Wang Ge first set her shallow basket against the veranda, walked back, and repeated, "If the task is as you described, and you cannot complete it, I can."

"You sp..." He laughed out of sheer anger, his expression turning even more ferocious. Had others not been present, he would have loved to choke this spouter of arrogant nonsense to death. "Ha! Very well, since you make such a claim, then you do it."

Wang Ge cast an inquiring look at the craftsman official.

The craftsman official crossed his arms and smiled faintly. "This task has already been voided. This young lady may give it a try, and it won't add to her task score. However, if you succeed, you receive no reward, while he receives a penalty." He looked toward the hypocritical candidate, his smile vanishing. "If the young lady manages to move the feeding trough out of the wooden fence within one hour, today's incident will be deemed your groundless provocation, and your qualification for the Master Craftsman Grand Competition will be revoked. Well? Do both of you still wish to try?"

Wang Ge replied, "I am not afraid."

The hypocritical candidate screamed, "I am even less afraid!" If he backed down now, he would have even less face left to remain in the intensive training camp! He refused to believe Wang Ge possessed divine strength. Huh? What was she doing? What on earth was she doing?

The structure of the fence consisted primarily of upper, middle, and lower horizontal logs, with the two ends of each horizontal log bound by hemp rope to a thicker vertical post at regular intervals. A vertical post, three horizontal logs, a vertical post, three horizontal logs... This was the pattern used to enclose the livestock pen.

The stone trough inscribed with the task was both pressed tightly against the fence and positioned right in the middle of the three horizontal logs.

The task was to move the feeding trough out of the fence. Since the trough could not be moved, one simply had to move the fence instead.

The hemp ropes tying each horizontal log to the vertical posts were extremely tight and exceptionally difficult to untie. Thus, the one-hour time limit was clearly meant to account for untying the hemp ropes.

There were three horizontal logs, each ten feet long. She untied only the hemp rope on her left side for the middle log, and only the rope on her right side for the bottom log. Then, she dragged these two logs, pivoting them vertically to form the shape of "｜｜".

By this point, the onlookers—including the hypocritical candidate—had already realized what Wang Ge was attempting to do.

Because the feeding trough happened to be situated right between the "｜｜".

At this moment, more than half an hour still remained.

The hypocritical candidate trembled even more violently than he had when he was exhausted earlier, his complexion turning sallow. "She's cheating! She's cheating, how can she do that?"

As for the uppermost horizontal log, she untied the ropes on both ends entirely. Grimacing with exertion, Wang Ge lifted it over the feeding trough, and then with a few kicks, maneuvered it to the top of the "｜｜", forming the shape of an inverted U ("冂").

The feeding trough was now outside the fence.

The craftsman official praised, "Brilliant!" A single word that signified Wang Ge had passed the task.

Wang Ge's fingers were bleeding from untying the ropes, but it was worth it! She picked up her shallow basket and said in a ringing voice, "On the way to Shanyin County, you and I indeed had a conflict. As for what happened and who was right and who was wrong, the county officials must have already handed the matter over to the officials of the Timber Park. Whether your character is flawed or mine is, a simple investigation will reveal the truth. Furthermore, when I passed by here on my way to the material area to receive my task, I did not even run into you. I trust there are those who witnessed what happened at the time." With that, she bowed to the craftsman official and returned to the Fifth Courtyard of the bamboo section.

Since an enmity had already been formed, one had to strike the drowning dog. Words that made it clear she had been wronged simply had to be spoken!

In a distant place, the Palace Directorate of Supreme Works in the capital.

A young man of about twenty was standing under a red bean tree feeding fish. One fish in the ceramic basin was exceptionally foolish, spending all day shaking its tail and wagging its head solely in the direction of the tree, refusing to eat even when food was tossed behind it. The man was quite handsome, and his attire was all the more lavish. On his upper body, he wore a purple silk tunic over a white undergarment, paired with a wrap-around skirt made of fine purple kudzu fabric spliced with double-layered black silk. Atop his head was a jade hairpin carved in the shape of an exotic beast, its eyes inlaid with crystal gemstones of the exact same purple hue as his garments.

Standing one step behind him were Grand Commandant Huan Maolun, Colonel of the City Gates Bian Wangzhi, and libationer of the Imperial Academy Zhang Jiying.

A palace attendant hurried over accompanied by the Minister of Supreme Works and several senior master craftsmen, standing solemnly half a zhang away.

The Minister of Supreme Works said, "Your subordinates were unaware that Your Majesty was visiting..."

"It is of no consequence." Sima Youzhi stopped feeding the fish, folded his hands, turned around, and stated his purpose: "For this year's Junior Master Craftsman Grand Competition, add one more assessment criterion."

To return to Wang Ge, she had happily returned to her quarters just in time to hear Female Official Lin say to Female Official Meng, "One of the female craftsmen is so terribly unlucky; her task is to carve a crane. Having never even laid eyes on a crane, how is she supposed to carve one? I also heard that uncompleted tasks get hidden away in new locations, which means we might very well end up assigned this task ourselves another day. Alas, what are we to do? I've never seen a crane either."