The gifts for the selection ceremony were carefully chosen and arranged in tiers, each prominently displayed. The rise and fall of a noble house could often be discerned from the items chosen by its younger generation during this ritual.
Though the Cheng family held considerable influence in the southwest, their offerings paled in comparison to the capital's aristocracy. At the center of the long hall lay four items: a colorful inkstone, a copy of "Commentaries on the Four Classics," a carved white jade lion, and a newly crafted yellow-glazed vase with black bamboo motifs.
The inkstone's value lay in its material, though its surface bore only a common landscape relief. The "Commentaries on the Four Classics" featured exquisite woodblock printing—finer than most books Cheng Jinzhou had seen in modern times. Properly preserved, it could last centuries, though this particular copy was newly made.
As for the jade lion and bamboo-patterned vase, neither counted as rare. Any of these four items might fetch around 150 taels if sold leisurely, though a pawnshop would offer no more than 100 taels.
A hundred taels could purchase four or five acres of mediocre hillside land—the entire fortune of a modest household. Yet in Cheng Jinzhou's hands, it merely meant reading 120,000 words.
Scanning the room with dissatisfaction, Cheng Jinzhou hesitated when a voice suddenly whispered in his ear: "This is Wu Zong..."
"Huh?" He whirled around but found himself alone.
Wu Zong, anticipating his reaction, continued quietly, "I'm still outside. Just wanted to tell you—among the selection gifts, there's one from a Star Master that would suit you best. Consider it your fortune."
Then silence.
Star Masters still possessed knowledge more fascinating than technology.
"Voice transmission or thousand-mile messaging—must be about soundwave frequencies," Cheng Jinzhou muttered enviously, though he knew it wasn't that simple. His flippant remark betrayed no scientific rigor.
The word "fortune" amused him coming from a Star Master's mouth. The four central items clearly weren't the gift in question, so he began circling the hall's periphery, driven by curiosity.
From Wu Zong's tone, this Star Master must be ranked. Such individuals rarely gave gifts the Cheng family wouldn't treasure. Jinzhou wouldn't waste this opportunity—perhaps it came from one of the two Star Masters seen during the recent ceremony.
In wealthy families like his, a hundred taels were commonplace, but Star Masters were rare.
The hall's items formed a rough circle. Moving clockwise, Cheng Jinzhou mentally cataloged each object until his steps halted abruptly.
A balance scale?
Rubbing his brow, he wondered if Star Masters of this era used such universal tools. Early science hadn't separated astronomy, physics, mathematics, chemistry, or biology—Darwin's naturalist origins exemplified this. A long-lived Star Master might well have eclectic interests.
Carefully, he lifted the scale from its shelf-like display, along with an attached small chest. The scale had clearly been placed conspicuously.
The simple clasped iron box connected oddly to the scale's base. Normal opening attempts failed embarrassingly.
"Don't tell me there's a puzzle too," Jinzhou mused, examining the box's exterior. Outside waited Cheng Jinhao—delaying would only irritate the boy further.
The platform scale resembled those from his past life, engraved with standard precision: 0.1g error. After a month's observation, he'd noted Star Masters' measurements aligned remarkably with his known world's standards, simplifying things.
The unusually rectangular base featured a weight box on one side, numbers 3 and 4 carved on the other, and a downward symbol at center—precisely below the scale's dial.
"Star Master riddles," Jinzhou scoffed.
...
When seeing a rectangle with numbers 3 and 4, what first comes to mind?
Many would answer "5."
So would mathematicians.
But their reasons differ entirely.
To laymen, 3,4,5 is just a number sequence—answering "5" or "2" makes little difference.
To mathematicians, 3,4,5 represents something magical—the simplest Pythagorean triple, humanity's first step toward the Pythagorean theorem: 3² + 4² = 5². A rectangle measuring 3 by 4 must have a 5-unit diagonal!
This theorem—called Pythagoras' in the West and Gougu in the East—marked mathematics' dawn, arguably civilization's first mathematical stride.
The 3,4,5 triple holds near-divine elegance. Subsequent triples like 5,12,13 or 6,8,10 lack its pristine beauty and were harder to discover. Had this first triple not been so glaringly obvious, human progress might have delayed by centuries.
The theorem's significance permeates Euclid's Elements—where old Euclid stood on Greek giants' shoulders, one being Pythagoras himself.
To Cheng Jinzhou, who spent days studying the Elements, Star Masters were inextricably linked to mathematics and physics. Deftly, he opened the scale's weight box, extracting two "5" marked weights.
Placing one on the right tray did nothing to the lock. But adding the second to the left tray made two metal wires spring abruptly from the base—one along the diagonal, another at the rectangle's midpoint.
Realization struck—this was elementary mechanical locking. Jinzhou roughly manipulated the diagonal wire.
Twisting, pressing, pulling—some motion made the stubborn clasp snap open.
Grinning smugly at the empty room, he peered inside to find: a graduated straightedge, a blunted compass, and a compact nine-grid abacus—a classic Star Master's calculation kit. Most Star Masters used such tools to compute values and operate their inscribed star arrays.
No wonder Wu Zong recommended it. This was undoubtedly the hall's most valuable item, its elaborate unlocking ritual suggesting special significance.
In no hurry to leave, Jinzhou laid out the kit's contents on the central table for closer inspection.
Of the four items, the platform scale held greatest worth—likely the most precise in all Great Xia Dynasty. Even by modern lab standards, 0.1g precision was respectable; poor maintenance could easily cause 0.5-1g errors.
In his past life, Jinzhou had ruined countless scales—discarding them for new ones when weights or riders failed, trivial expenses for research budgets.
But in Great Xia, high precision required either exceptional artisans or skilled Star Masters—both prohibitively expensive. Technological backwardness made precision instruments exorbitant, often unobtainable regardless of price.
Whether for experiments or small-scale chemical production, scales were indispensable. Even without Star Masters' allure, Jinzhou coveted this toolkit.
The straightedge and compass also showed excellent precision. In Great Xia, a <5% error graduated ruler sold for over 20 taels, the compass and scale for more, let alone the nine-grid abacus—far more complex than ordinary abacuses.
He wondered which eccentric Star Master had gifted this.
Jinzhou began imagining Star Masters' lifestyles. In this backward era, they likely lived most similarly to modern people. Yet even the Cheng family's wealth couldn't secure proper Star Master tutelage for its youths.
Without guidance, aspiring Star Masters merely wasted money on dilettantism.
After over an hour's examination, Jinzhou repacked the items, clasped the box, and hefted it. This kit might distinguish him from other family members—even those flying Cheng youths he'd seen at the training grounds merely wore expensive star arrays.
True Star Masters' arrays operated on entirely different levels.
"Now let's see if you come with an ultra-powerful star array," Jinzhou murmured, stroking the box as he exited.
Outside, the "philanthropic" father-son pair had grown impatient. Young Cheng Jinhao shot an undisguised glare before scurrying inside.
As for the elder Cheng Bingshi, his gaze fixated on the scale in Jinzhou's hands, face flushed and pale by turns—the very equipment he'd schemed for, now beyond reach.
Jinzhou's eyes darted about. His priority now? Encountering some reclusive grand Star Master who'd impart secret knowledge.
But no Star Master appeared.