Many peeping gazes fell on Chang Geng, calculating and speculating — the Emperor's fourth son, Li Min, whose identity was hidden in a riddle. But unfortunately, no one dared to come forth to start a conversation with him under the Marquis of Order’s watch. Chang Geng was concealed by Marshal Gu in a blatant manner. In the past few days, except for the Crown Prince and Wei Wang who hovered around him two times each, he had never been in contact with a single outsider.

When all of this dust had settled, Chang Geng was taken to the Marquis of Order's Manor.

From the outside, the manor was truly mighty and imposing: two enormous gates opened up, beast heads with green faces baring their golden fangs were hanging in front on either side, letting out white steam from their mouths and noses, the thirty-six clockwork gears rotating at the same time, and the heavy bolts were creaking as they were lifted up, revealing two large iron puppets* on each side.

*Iron puppets in this book were run by Ziliujin and other mechanisms, they can automatically move, you can picture them like a suit of armor that can move.

There were two sets of Black Armor for military personnel hanging on the side. The steam-powered lamp was dimly lit, the house guards stood on the side, a cold murderous aura could instantly be felt.

Of course, as one walked further in, they would soon realize that the manor's might only stayed at the main gate.

Although the courtyard of the manor was wide, vegetation and trees were very sparse and there was little in between. Under its intimidating facade, the inside only had a few servants that were already of old age. They did not say anything aside from stopping to pay respect to Gu Yun as they saw him.

The majority of the machines and iron puppets used by the common folk ran on coals. Only a very small fraction of them used Ziliujin, which usually consisted of large contraptions such as the dam and the giant puppets used for reclamation. These were owned by the local government; as for the precious gadgets, only certain grade-level officers were qualified to use them.

Of course, regulations were regulations, whether people would comply with them or not was another story. For example, Governor Guo of the small town of Yanhui absolutely did not qualify, yet the number of Ziliujin-powered objects he possessed were more than just one.

But the Marquis of Order — whose grade was definitely more than enough, his manor appeared unexpectedly poor and plain. Except for a few iron puppets, almost no other Ziliujin-powered objects could be seen.