"Make these costumes immediately and dress up these black fort ghosts in them. Also, forge a batch of these five-pronged forks." I said.
"The costumes are easy," Yao Yao replied. "When we transferred over earlier, I saw a paper effigy factory. These styles are quite simple; once the molds are made, they can be mass-produced. But... the weapons are a bit tricky. If we have the Da Jin Qiang Sect forge such a large batch, it would take at least two days."
"It's not a real war!" I laughed, pointing to the woodworking machinery in the workshop. "Chen Lu's family can make them."
"You want to use wooden forks? Will that work?" Yao Yao frowned. "Besides, the color won't match!"
"Red wood forks, painted white, that's all there is to it!"
"As clever as ever!" Yao Yao smiled. "Alright, I'll be in charge of the costumes, and you'll handle the weapons!"
Just then, the eagle demon reported that the Mohe people had left the hotel and were continuing their journey towards Shengjing. If they didn't stop again, they would likely arrive by one o'clock in the afternoon.
I checked the time; there were still over three hours, which should be enough.
Yao Yao took two demons to the paper effigy factory. I called Chen Lu and explained that I wanted to forge a batch of wooden "tools." Chen Lu immediately called for reinforcements, summoning the master who operated the machine tools. The shape of the fork was simple, and a blueprint was ready in five minutes. It was then fed into the CNC machine, and a finished product was produced.
Because it was made of rosewood, it was dense and had a substantial weight, over twenty catties. It felt like it could serve as a weapon, but after painting it white, I noticed a problem: the white paint wouldn't dry completely in a short time. If you touched it, your hand would be covered in paint, revealing the deception. But Bing Bing reminded me that it might not be the case once it was transformed into the hands of ghosts.
I thought that made sense. I called the village chief, asked him to materialize, put on gloves, hold the fork, and then dematerialize. When he reappeared, he took off his gloves. Indeed, the fork had been "etherealized" once. Upon reappearing as a solid object, the white paint hadn't peeled off. Instead, the fork had transformed into a weapon of very high quality in terms of material and texture, looking exactly like the picture Sha Wuji had sent. I even suspected that the weapons of the ghostly soldiers were custom-made in the mortal world!
This experiment was conducted secretly in a small room, unknown to Chen Lu and the master. I instructed them to go full throttle with production. In less than an hour, over 200 identical forks were produced. They were all immersed in the paint pool. Then, I let the factory workers go home. After they left, I had the ghosts materialize and line up, each receiving a fork. The ghosts were quite pleased, saying they would be very handy for forking sorghum stalks.
They thought they were agricultural tools!
An hour later, Yao Yao and the fairies arrived with two pickup trucks, unloading a large number of newly produced Qing Dynasty soldier costumes. Even the hats were made of stiff cardboard. I put one on and looked in the mirror; they were completely convincing.
Furthermore, when I distributed the costumes to the villagers, a strange phenomenon occurred again!
After the costumes underwent the solid-to-ethereal-to-solid transformation, just like the forks, their texture changed significantly, making them look like real clothes. I bravely touched the character "查" on Zhang Xiaomiao's chest. The texture was soft and elastic—I was referring to the fabric of the clothes, which felt like a combination of silkworm silk and cotton.
"Very good!" I was quite satisfied. At this point, Chen Jianguo's money had also been collected, one hundred million, filling a small truck.
With everything prepared, I confidently called the eagle demon to ask the Mohe people's whereabouts.
The eagle demon was still in eagle form and couldn't speak, but she had mastered Pinyin input and sent me a WeChat message with her eagle claws: Just entered the city, heading towards Chen family villa.
"Should we tell them directly, or let them find us?" Yao Yao asked me.
I thought for a moment: "It's better to tell them directly. This way, it shows we are confident. We are not fleeing here; we are here, waiting for them."
"Faking preparedness, impressive!" Yao Yao said seriously. "If you were born in my era, I would nominate you as my General Jiang!"
"Can your General Jiang sleep with you at night?" I chuckled.
Yao Yao gave a sly smile: "That depends on him, whether he's capable enough..."