For Zhang Kang, Tingyu Cottage was not a way to make money, but had other uses. Although he was not a person who sympathized with women, after the twelve beauties of the Rain had grown old, not many of them entered the homes of nobles and officials. Except for a few who chose to practice Taoism or Buddhism, most of them stayed in Tingyu Cottage to teach the younger generation. When he thought of the efforts he had put into training these people in the past, he naturally felt a little sad.
If they can still perform on stage in the future and continue to be pursued by others, it will certainly be more useful than wasting their talents!
So, when he and Zhang Shou walked out of the courtyard one after the other, walked slowly to the backyard, crossed a small lotus pond, and stood in the middle of the wooden bridge, he glanced at the remaining lotus leaves in the pond, turned around and looked at Zhang Shou and asked, "Doctor Zhang, what do you want to say to me?"
Zhang Shou shook his sleeves lightly, revealing the watch on his right wrist. Seeing Zhang Kang was stunned for a moment, then raised his eyebrows, obviously remembering where this thing came from, he said bluntly: "Do you believe that Weinan Bo has figured out the function of this thing?"
If someone else said this in front of him, Zhang Kang would definitely sneer at it, but Zhang Shou really showed extraordinary talent in many areas, so after hesitating for a moment, he finally said half-truthfully: "Of course I believe what Dr. Zhang says. However, only the emperor looked at it for a while that day, but I didn't look at it carefully. Can Dr. Zhang open my eyes for me?"
Seeing that Zhang Shou did not hesitate at all, he took off the thing on his wrist and handed it to him with a smile. Zhang Kang was not polite and took it and looked at it carefully. Although he was a barbarian in the eyes of others, he was actually a die-hard follower of Emperor Taizu's ideas, so he fiddled with the buckle of the strap over and over again, and then stared at the even scale on the round dial.
After a long while, he finally returned the item in his hand to Zhang Shou intact, and then said thoughtfully: "Look at the scales on this round plate. Could it be that this thing was used by Emperor Taizu to calculate when he set the key to the secret box?"
Uh, Weinanbo, you have a very rich imagination...
Zhang Shou was so amused that he didn't know whether to laugh or cry. However, he couldn't despise him, because in this era, how could most people imagine how prosperous the world would be hundreds of years later? He coughed lightly, then took a step closer to Zhang Kang, and seriously showed him the spring on the right side of the dial, and then demonstrated how to wind it.
"I fiddled with it by accident and found that the needle on the watch started to move. I observed it for a while and found that one needle went around in a circle in a short time. The other two needles moved forward at different speeds. I didn't know what this meant, but when I passed by the sundial in the Imperial College, I suddenly had an idea and wondered if this could be a timekeeper."
After hearing Zhang Shou's explanation, Zhang Kang looked at the disc that he had been confused about, and immediately felt as if the fog had been lifted: "You mean to say that the scale on the disc, which looks like a cloth shop ruler, represents the time?"
He carefully looked at the dial again and laughed unconsciously: "I see there are twelve large scales in total, which should represent twelve hours... However, one hour is four quarters, how come there are five small scales in one large scale?"