A silver ring with a diameter taller than a man was obviously unusable for Shan Shi'er and the others.
Li Daoxuan had dropped it inside purely to show off. Once the show was over, he still had to cut it down to a usable size. He pulled the silver ring back out, fetched his household toolbox, found a pair of pliers, and snipped off a tiny speck before dropping it back into the box.
What appeared before Shan Shi'er transformed into a fist-sized chunk of silver, heavy as hell.
Shan Shi'er cradled the enormous block of silver in both hands, his face twisted with sorrow. Gao Yiye, standing beside him as always to relay Tianzun's words, had to suppress a smile at his expression.
"Such a magnificent divine ring, reduced to a pile of little chunks. What a terrible waste!"
Li Daoxuan laughed. "If I hadn't cut it up, would you even have been able to carry it?"
"Uh... well, that's true. Still, it feels like such a pity."
"Once you've escorted your wife back to the county town, don't hurry back to the village just yet. Take this silver and find a proper teacher to bring back to Gaojia Village. If he refuses to come, hit him with a block of silver the size of your fist. If he still refuses, hit him with two."
As he spoke, he dropped another chunk of silver into the box. "And if he still refuses..."
Shan Shi'er immediately caught on. "Then I hit him with two more!"
"No." Li Daoxuan shook his head. "If he refuses after the second block, don't throw any more silver at him. Just pack everything up and leave. Let him sit there and regret turning down such a lucrative opportunity. Before long, he'll come chasing after you, apologizing profusely and begging you to take him on."
Shan Shi'er: "..."
Tianzun truly enjoys teasing mortals from time to time!
Shan Shi'er bowed deeply to the empty sky. "Thank you, Tianzun. For the sake of my daughter's education, you even snipped your divine ring. This humble servant will never forget your immense benevolence."
Li Daoxuan replied nonchalantly, "It is not just for your daughter. I want that teacher to come to Gaojia Village and teach everyone to read and write, whether they are men or women, young or old. As long as they are willing to learn, teach them all."
Shan Shi'er froze for a brief second before understanding struck him. He bowed all the way to the ground. "This servant will not fail your divine mandate!"
Ring, ring, ring!
Li Daoxuan's phone suddenly rang.
Pulling his attention back from the box, he answered the call, instantly greeted by Cai Xinzhi's frantic, impatient voice. "Daoxuan! You bastard, you don't reply on QQ, you don't check WeChat, and you vanish every single day! Do I really have to call you every time I want to reach you? I hate making phone calls!"
Li Daoxuan smiled. "Ah, I've been completely hooked on SimCity 1627 lately, so I haven't had time to check my messages. What's wrong? What's the big hurry?"
"SimCity 1627? What kind of weird game is that? I've only heard of SimCity 2000, never knew there was a 1627."
"It's a niche MOD."
"Oh, okay, whatever, that's not important. Let's talk business." Cai Xinzhi urged, "I have a weird customer here who placed a nightmare of a custom order. After thinking it over, you're the only one who can help me."
Li Daoxuan said, "Let's hear it."
Cai Xinzhi explained, "The client commissioned a custom robot model. The craftsmanship is super complex and detailed. Every single armor plate needs to be detachable and modular."
Li Daoxuan asked, "Okay, and how does that involve me?"
Cai Xinzhi replied, "He threw in an insane requirement. The cockpit canopy has to open, and inside must sit a tiny pilot figure. But that pilot figure has to be modeled after him. The facial features must match his own face perfectly, detailed enough that his eyebrows, eyes, and nose are clearly visible."
Li Daoxuan understood instantly. "You want me to carve this tiny figure?"
Cai Xinzhi said, "Exactly! A one-centimeter-tall figure! Damn it, asking me to make a face that tiny look just like him is completely out of my league. But if I say I can't do it, he'll cancel the entire robot order."
Li Daoxuan laughed. "Alright, alright. I can definitely take this order. What material does he want this time?"
Cai Xinzhi answered, "Plastic, of course! I've already finished the pilot's body and left only the head blank. You just need to handle the face for me. We've been close friends for years, so I won't play games with you. The robot's total price is twenty thousand yuan, and the guy dropped an extra two thousand just for this tiny custom pilot face. So if you help me out, I'll take the robot money, and the entire two thousand for the pilot goes straight to you."
"Two thousand, huh?" Li Daoxuan's initial thought was that it was a bit cheap. But thinking deeper, custom micro-sculptures like the Sacred Image inside a Bead were too expensive, with a very limited market. Once those few orders ran out, his two sculptors would be left with nothing to do. Simply feeding them for free would only turn them into useless mouths.
The best way to truly help them was to ensure steady work. That way, even if more sculptors migrated to Gaojia Village in the future, everyone would have jobs to do.
Even state-owned factories sometimes took unprofitable orders just to keep their workers employed.
Cai Xinzhi added, "I know two thousand isn't much, but just consider it helping out a brother."
Li Daoxuan chuckled. "Didn't you say last time that I'm generous with my cash? Earning a little less is still earning. How could I not help you out? I'll take the job."
Cai Xinzhi was ecstatic. "Now that's what I call a true friend!"
Li Daoxuan thought about it. "Your customer's idea is actually pretty clever, carving his own face onto a tiny toy figure. I feel like there's a real market we can tap into here. Why don't you put up some promotional ads in your shop for custom miniature faces? Maybe plenty of people will be interested. We can keep the price lower for high-volume sales. Even tiny details on all sorts of models, we can take any custom request they have."
Cai Xinzhi thought it over carefully. That's actually brilliant! Customizing tiny details on models might really have a market. Plus, I don't even have to do the heavy lifting. I just accept the orders, toss them to Li Daoxuan, and take my cut in the middle.
"Deal! It's a plan!"
After hanging up, Cai Xinzhi drove over a short while later to deliver a tiny plastic figure to Li Daoxuan.
The figure was in a seated pose, dressed in a futuristic, sci-fi military uniform. The uniform details were pretty rough. After all, at that scale, Cai Xinzhi's craftsmanship wasn't capable of intricate work.
The figure's face was completely flat, without any facial features whatsoever.
"I'll leave this face to you," Cai Xinzhi said. "Here are the client's reference photos. Front view and side profiles."
"Got it. Don't worry about a thing."
After seeing Cai Xinzhi off, Li Daoxuan turned on his color printer, printed the client's facial photos on a corner of photo paper, cut them out with scissors, lifted the lid of the box, and called down, "Yiye, go fetch the two sculptors."
Soon, Gao Yiye brought the two sculptors over, standing there respectfully and waiting for Tianzun's orders.
Li Daoxuan gently placed the seated plastic figure in front of the two sculptors, alongside the reference photos. "Do you see this? Sculpt this face so it matches the person in the picture."
The two sculptors understood what to do immediately. However...
One of the sculptors couldn't help asking, "Tianzun, what kind of strange material is this? It is neither metal, nor wood, nor stone. What tools should we use to carve it?"
"Use tools designed for carving jade," Li Daoxuan instructed. "Be careful while carving and don't make a mistake. This isn't like clay where you can patch a broken piece back on. Once it's damaged, there is no fixing it."
The two sculptors froze in shock. Understood! This was a rare, divine material from heaven. If they ruined it, even killing them wouldn't pay for it. They had to be extraordinarily careful and do fine work.