Despite this, An Jing still closed the door to the study.
As soon as the door to the study was shut, An Jing walked towards Xiao Changyi, who was seated there, pouring tea from a pot.
He poured two cups of tea.
When Xiao Changyi saw An Jing sit down opposite him, he pushed one of the cups towards her, clearly intended for her.
An Jing smiled at Xiao Changyi while placing the charcoal in her hand on the table between them.
"My dear, I’ve thought of a way to make a lot of money," she said.
"What way?" Xiao Changyi, sipping his tea slowly and leisurely, asked with a particularly relaxed demeanor.
An Jing also picked up her teacup, took a couple of sips, and then, with her chin pointed, gestured to the charcoal on the table, "This made me think of coal from my original world, which could burn just like charcoal and was called ’black gold.’ If we could find a coal field and sell honeycomb coal, we’d definitely make money."
"Uh..." An Jing paused to think before explaining in her own words, "It’s a black hard substance buried underground. In my original world, the ancients called it graphite or coal. I’m actually not very familiar with this world yet, and I don’t know if it has already been discovered here. At any rate, up to now, I haven’t heard anything about it here."
"Graphite? Coal?" Xiao Changyi mused, staring at the charcoal on the table. After a while, he said, "I’ve never heard of it either."
An Jing also fell into thought, "Perhaps someone has already discovered it here, just not under that name."
Xiao Changyi nodded, agreeing that it was indeed very possible.
An Jing continued, "Whether or not anyone has discovered it, and whatever it’s called, we can be certain that if someone is using it, it’s only a very small number of people. Otherwise, you would definitely have heard of such a thing."
"Since we don’t know where it is, we’ll have to send people out to look for it. If we really can find a coal field, the plans for our school will be set."
"There’s also the open-pit kind, which people can see without having to dig up the earth to find it. If there’s really that kind here, the chances of finding coal are very high."
"Let’s not tell the emperor about this for now. Let’s wait until we find something, so he doesn’t start suspecting me."
Even if An Jing hadn’t said it, Xiao Changyi was planning to do the same. Hearing An Jing say this, Xiao Changyi nodded, "Hmm."
Then, An Jing had Qin San call Meng Zhuqing over.
An Jing and Xiao Changyi usually gave their orders directly to Meng Zhuqing, who would then assign someone else to carry them out.
Of course, An Jing didn’t directly say the name ’coal.’ She simply described the appearance of coal and coal fields for Meng Zhuqing to send someone to search to see if it exists.
But who would have thought, just as An Jing finished speaking, Meng Zhuqing said, "I recall passing by the Emin area with my father, and it seems we saw the thing you’re talking about, madam."
"Really?!" An Jing exclaimed, both surprised and delighted.
Meng Zhuqing replied truthfully, "I’m not sure if it’s what you’re talking about, madam, but it looked very similar. My father even jokingly called it a black stone mountain."
"Mountain?" An Jing was puzzled; why call it a mountain?
Meng Zhuqing explained, "We were just passing by; the middle part of that area is low, surrounded by higher ground, like a hollow, but a very large one. The ground was covered with many small black stones. Out of curiosity, I dug a little and found that the ground underneath was also black."