Ming Dynasty and New Rome and Infinite Magic Machine

Chapter 403 Cognition
"Hello, hello, hello." The director shook Shangluo's arm, "His Excellency Chi Shijun is indeed as energetic as the rumors. I can only see you through the light of the national surname."

"Hello." Shangluo discovered that everyone from Lanfang seemed to have one thing in common - they quite liked shaking hands.But unlike the Roman handshake, here the hand is held at the wrist and there is no contact between hands.There is a rule in Ji Nei for this kind of handshake: those who don’t know don’t shake.Only when two people really know each other can they understand each other, but Shangluo doesn't know the director in front of him now.

There seem to be some subtle differences in etiquette between the two sides, which is caused by the physical distance between regions and other differences in living habits.Considering that the distance from Pontianak to Yingtian is almost 4000 kilometers, almost as long as the Heihe Tengchong Line, the two sides can still maintain smooth communication today, thanks to the absolute hegemony brought by the Ming-Luo mutual emperor system.Therefore, the exchanges between Kinai and Nanyang have never been interrupted, and no barriers have arisen.

But Shangluo also noticed some details that were more wonderful than "estrangement".

"Director, are you not a Qigong practitioner?"

When they shook hands, he felt that there was no real energy flowing in the hands of the director in front of him.But he seems to know a lot about the news among Qi practitioners.

After a brief interview, the director left the script and took the time to help Yanqiu audition first.

"The work is a bit rushed right now." Zheng Shijie explained, "Originally, the casting director should have come to talk to you about this matter slowly. But we transferred the photography team here overnight, and there is only one director. You take a look first. If you don’t understand, I’ll tell you. After all, this script was written according to my wishes.”

"I do have a question." He put down the script first and expressed his doubts - how much ordinary people in Nanyang know about immortal arts.

This is important.Because the "curtain" of immortality will come down in recent years, at the earliest it will only be a few decades, at the earliest it will be a few years.If something unexpected happened, the curtain could come down tomorrow.

He wanted to estimate what the general public would think about this by asking Zheng Shijie.

"You ask this, this is indeed different from Kinei. If you want to ask about Nanyang, you must first define what Nanyang is. Broadly speaking, it is not just the land under Lanfang's leadership, but also many solid lands that do not belong to Nanyang. Guards, including countless princely states, as well as tributary countries such as Siam, Burma, and Laos. The situation in Nanyang is very complicated, and Lanfang is only a part of Nanyang. Of course, I also serve as the Minister of Nanyang."

"Minister of Nanyang? So, what does the Minister of Nanyang probably care about?"

"It's hard to say what we are responsible for specifically. This is a troublesome job. Theoretically, we are not their superiors, but we are responsible for the liaison between them and the court. Specific issues must be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. For example, Siam is a barbarian people of the Xia Dynasty - change In short, the king and most of the upper class of Siam are Chinese, and we must treat them with the same attitude as we treat citizens. But in theory, they are still 'chieftains' and cannot really participate in court affairs. Generally speaking, It's similar to those Han toasts in Myanmar, except that Siam is particularly big. But such a special situation will cause special problems. For example, when the king of Siam comes back to visit relatives, how will his visa be calculated?" "Then how is this calculated?"

"The Siamese family is counted as Kinai people, so they go through the return channel at the customs instead of the border inspection channel. But his excess entourage has to go separately and go through separate border inspections. This is usually the arrangement. To me, it's more The trouble is that the King of Siam is also named Zheng inexplicably, and the King of Champa next door is still named Zheng, which is the same as mine. People who don’t know think that I am related to them in some way. In fact, there is no relationship at all. Their family is from Guangdong. I'm from Chaoshan, I'm from Quanzhou, Fujian, but I can't stand people making random guesses, so they come to have random relations with me."

"Ah, so the scope of your control over the country's surname is actually quite small?"

"So here's the problem. The essence of Lanfang is an 'administrative service company'. Although our actual jurisdiction is only three cities in and around Pontianak in Borneo, Sin Chau in Malacca, and Shengzhou on Java Island. region, but the Kinei people I mentioned above who are living in the Southeast Asian countries. The official name is 'Hakka people', because the ones we register in the Ministry of Household Registration are all Hakka people. Most of them will be in Xingzhou or Pontianak. Choose one to stay in permanently, and then go out when necessary. Therefore, our population there is very dense, and information exchange is also very rapid. In recent decades, we have also begun to develop industries related to cultivating immortals, with hundreds of thousands of practitioners."

"Do they all know that immortals exist?"

"Actually, I don't really know. For example - the main industry in a certain village is growing medicinal materials, but this does not mean that everyone understands medical skills. How do you describe everyone's understanding of immortality?"

He touched his head: "I think it will be easier for you to understand from your perspective: it is the same as people's understanding of superpowers in the 20th century. Science is prosperous, but not that prosperous. The field of common sense is not everyone's understanding of superpowers." Every corner has been thoroughly explored. So you go out on the street and ask 'Do you believe in superpowers? Do you believe that the human body's potential can be unleashed?' It would be difficult for most people to say absolutely 'no'. What we have here is The same is true for the understanding of magic. Everyone knows that there is such a thing, but so far no miracle of magic has been revealed to the world, so the common mentality is 'maybe', 'maybe', 'maybe there is' ’, ‘It would be great if there was one’.”

"So that's how it is." In this case, the knowledge shown by the director just now makes sense.Based on the common knowledge, he took a step closer and directly contacted Zheng Shijie for work. Most of them talked on the phone yesterday, so it was normal to know about Shangluo.

"You seem to be very interested in this?"

"Because if we go by Daozu's plan, I will decide when to bring down the curtain of immortality. This switch is in my hand. Unsurprisingly, I will be the director of this play. This problem is very strange. What a decision. Because this will change everyone's life permanently. But compared to this, I would like to ask another thing: How much do you know about 'my family'?"

"Based entirely on the knowledge that Brother Ye shared with me, I don't know anything about it. He occasionally talks to me. I have also talked with him about the topic of 'public perception of immortality' that you just asked about. He also told me to use the metaphor of 'superpower'."

(End of this chapter)