The Empress’ Livestream

In most normal circumstances, Jiang Pengji had a fixed time for streaming. She opened the streaming room after she got up, cleaned herself up, and shut it down after dinner at dusk. She would adjust the streaming schedule for whenever she needed based on special streaming missions.

It was her normal streaming time now and the room was filled with an audience of more than ten thousand.

There were always backup viewers who squeezed in when they found available spots left behind by those who got bored in the middle of the stream.

Whoever had the best resource of high-speed internet and pure luck could compete for one spot in the room.

Chi Yun: “I still prefer our host to those pretend innocent b*tches. The moment I saw her eyes shine, I was shocked by her. I felt my heart throb… and like electricity went through my whole body…”

Pianxian Diewu: “I figure that feeling would be a thrill, right?”

The audience believed that there would be some hardcore background music when her eyes shone. It made people hot blooded and gave them goosebumps.

“Show me my crossbow…”

Jiang Pengji was born in an era with extremely advanced war weapons and she had even driven and conducted a battle carrier––not to mention the portable ones. Unless she traveled to a place with more cutting-edge technology, there would hardly be any weapons that would make her heart pump harder.

But clearly one wouldn’t be able to find those in the current conservative, closed off, and undeveloped technological society.

And of course, she didn’t need it.

As long as she owned a better weapon than average in the current ancient age, she prevailed far ahead of the rest.

Don’t use a sledgehammer on a nut.

It was a bold move to ask the craftsmen to do a research and modification on the crossbow in an extremely short time.

The craftsmen exhausted all their energy and knowledge day and night, and they didn’t slack because of Jiang Pengji’s command. They were relieved to see her ecstasy and eagerness.

The craftsmen handed the crossbow to her with caution. They watched Jiang Pengji take it, terrified that she was going to hurt herself.

Jiang Pengji schooled her expression and focused on some sort of crude crossbow.

It was bigger than what she expected. The crossbow was three feet three inches long, the string was two feet and five inches and painted in black. It had a distinctive paint smell when you got close to it. She could feel the weight when she was holding it, but it wasn’t overweight. It would be still considered practical.

All the materials used for the integral construction were collected by the craftsmen themselves. Jiang Pengji had only provided the data.

It was definitely astonishing that they had made a finished product in such a short time, regardless of the result of the experiment.

There were around ten black, various shaped bolts, which were relatively different from the normal ones.

Most of the bolt heads had some carved slots that were particularly sharp in order to pierce skin and make people bleed. Some of them had a number of tiny reversed hooks. If the bolt heads penetrated the target, it was obvious that they would dig hard into the big section of flesh. It would be a large piece of flesh that would come out if anyone tried to pull the heads out, which sounded quite brutal.

But she liked it.

The arrowheads were designed to be specifically used on composite crossbows based on the calculations she did with the help of the data.

Each of them had a unique strength, and each of them were designed to be used in different circumstances and locations.

The length of the bow was adjustable in order to match the different bolt heads and to reach certain shooting ranges.

The sighting device was detachable, which could minimize the loss considering how often they could get damaged.

On the other hand, the modification increased the difficulty of finding the right material and manufacturing.

Jiang Pengji took reference of the weapons in service from military recordings and the ones from historical documents to help design the crossbow. If it matched all the criterions she had made, the shooting range and power of penetration would be frightening.

There were several fanatical military fans in the stream room and they were terrified the moment they saw the reversed hooks.

Wannian Shaojiang: “Gosh, you would basically skin someone if you wanted to pull these arrows out.”

Xie Huangdou: “That looks painful. It is so horrifying that our host created something so ferocious.”

Xiang Guazi: “This crossbow seems a bit different from the one before.”

The craftsmen glanced at Jiang Pengji’s emotionless face and they started to get anxious.

Was she happy with it? Or not?

As they started to panic, Jiang Pengji put down one of the big bolts and asked, “Have you guys tried them?”

The craftsmen all shook their heads and kept their heads low. They replied to her with a sense of fear, “We didn’t want to keep you waiting for too long. We had to allocate the work in small portions to ourselves and we tried a couple of times to obtain the perfect materials for the bow. Thanks to Langjun’s trust we worked it out. We sent them in as soon as we completed the finished products.”

Even though they said so, they had quite a sufficient amount of confidence in their work.

They tested numerous materials and each of them took charge of the sections of the bow assigned to the individual persons. All the material matched the data provided by Jiang Pengji.

“Each of you took a part of the work? That’s smart and it saved time.”

It wouldn’t be efficient to accomplish the half-finished products if they didn’t divide the labor.

To Jiang Pengji, the crossbow was still just half-finished with plenty of flaws, but they were mostly minor problems. It gave her a good idea and impression with the wisdom of the craftsmen in the current era, however.

She had to admit that, even though the technology was very far behind and the society refused to change, the craftsmen were not fools and they never stopped experimenting.

Jiang Pengji’s design sketch was elaborate and there was referable data attached to each section; most proficient craftsmen would figure them out if they would like to spend time to work on them. But these people, they knew how to work properly as a team and to promote efficiency to the maximum in order to save time…

They are quite promising and worthy to be taught.

“We are flattered. Without such detailed sketches from you, we wouldn’t have been capable of achieving the goal with ten times the amount of time.”

The head of the craftsmen wasn’t going to take all the credit; instead, he tremulously touted Jiang Pengji.

Jiang Pengji wore a smile and told him, “Don’t be this uneasy. I’m not the type who doesn’t appreciate the hard work of others. If it is your work, then you’ve got to take the credit for it. You guys did a really great job this time in spite of some deficiencies, which we need to fix.”

The head of the craftsmen took a deep breath and realized that he was soaked with sweat. It seemed that they had passed this test.

Carpentry was not one of the profitable businesses of the Liu’s, but it didn’t mean the craftsmen didn’t desire to be valued. They were sick of the tedious heavy labor that basic tables and chairs required, which had nothing to do with developing or exploring their skills. There was a hierarchy in the crafting field, and they wanted to improve themselves.

Ever since they took the order from Langjun, every single one of them knew it was their chance. It wouldn’t make sense that they were not going to get recognition; therefore, they were all galvanized for their work.

With that purpose, they worked overtime in order to draw Jiang Pengji’s appreciation. It seemed like they were halfway through to achieving their goal.

“You guys leave the crossbow here for now. I will figure out the deficiencies after I do some tests. Then you guys can focus on fixing those problems,” Jiang Pengji said. “All the materials and the methods you used in the process, even the initial design sketch, were all confidential pieces of information. No one else can know about them, even your family.”

The craftsmen reverently respond to her, “Of course!”