Notes:

　　Pie π sounds the same as clap 拍 (pai) and r sounds like 阿(ah) , which is an expression similar to ‘what’.

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　　“Well, my question is...” The Princess paused, cutting off mid-sentence. Her eyes glimmered, they had an aura of elegance and it was without a doubt they were beautiful like the rest of her.    She released s soft laugh.

　　Feng Ming consulted with his inner conscience. His Aunt was one fine-looking widow thanks to An Xun’s blood on his hands. It will be such a pity to destroy her second spring. With that thought, Feng Ming’s flashed his eyes onto the King of Li.

　　This proved to be an untimely mistake on the Prince’s behalf, the very moment he turned to face the man, their eyes locked. The King’s gaze was sharp as the tip of a blade, and they did a great job of piercing into the Prince. Feng Ming could easily imagine electric sparks streaming from the man’s eyes.

　　Rong Tian’s gaze had the same level of electrifying intensity, however, it was different. Feng Ming would turn into gooey hot mess, his heart and brain would be completely fl.u.s.tered, as if he had accidentally poked his finger into a power socket.

　　Instead, Ruo Yan’s gaze was startling, like cracks of lightning and once he struck, you were left surrounded by a harsh chill. The unfriendly gesture, was etched into Feng Ming’s mind, he couldn’t help but break into a cold sweat. Feng Ming never knew that a man could send him trembling with unease by the mere use of his eyes.

　　The pinning stare lasted for a brief moment although the effects lingered on the Prince. Ruo Yan switched on a more amicable look and nodded in acknowledgement to the Prince. The King’s action sent every last strand of hair standing on his body, Feng Ming s.h.i.+fted from his spot from discomfort.

　　As he backed away, he felt a tug on his sleeves.

　　“Prince?” Fen Yan asked gently.

　　“Huh?”

　　The maid gave him a giggle, “Prince An He, the Third Princess has given her question to you.”

　　“Oh?” Feng Ming was amazed by his own absentmindedness.

　　Any reason to break away from Ruo Yan’s line of fire was good at this point. Feng Ming pulled his sleeves down and patted the beads of sweat from his forehead before turning his attention back to the Princess.

　　The Princess’s observant eyes noticed her nephew’s paled complexion, with a frown she continued, “Why is the Prince in a panic? “. She thought for a moment, before advising, “As for the question I have set for you, there is currently no defined method to resolve an answer efficiently. Nor has anyone come close to solving the problem. Therefore, it is completely understandable that answering this question on the spur of the moment is beyond your capabilities.” 

　　Rea.s.suring his Aunt that this challenge was the last of his problems Feng Ming replied, “I’m fine, I’m just feeling a bit cold.” With that said, he automatically turned his attention to the sand pit.  The question, installed for him was neatly drawn out with a bamboo stick. Studying closer, his Aunt had drawn a perfect circle, almost as if she had drawn it with a compa.s.s.

　　The audience were all focused on the shape in front of them, it was clear that the topic was centric around a circle.

　　Feng Ming frowned, “A circle?”

　　Don’t tell me you want me to find the circ.u.mference of a circle or the area of one?

　　Now he was secretly kicking himself on the inside for not listening, he might as well play the fool, “Royal Aunty, forgive me, as for the question, An He did not understand clearly, could you inform me again?” 

　　The Third Princess was surprised to see Feng Ming’s persistence, she stated, “The Prince must be well acquainted with this area of mathematics to have such confidence in a topic with little negativity. “

　　Ecck! Feng Ming had a gut feeling that he was supposed to know the question just by looking at the shape she drew.

　　Is this how the ancient folk set out questions? What does she want me to answer?

　　Fortunately for Feng Ming, lady luck was smiling on him. Fen Yan, out of kindness whispered softly just within his ear’s reach.

　　“Your Highness, the Third Princess’ requested the calculation of how many granules of sand does it take to fill a globe.” 

　　In the end, Feng Ming’s worst concerns were coming true, even in this era mathematics was well developed. The young man quickly forced himself to think quickly. A bolt of lightning struck his thoughts as he realised, the question was basically asking him, how to work out the volume of a sphere.

　　He laughed inwardly, isn’t this a piece of cake?

　　Given relief, Feng Ming’s tensed muscles could finally relax. The Prince offered his eager audience a smile before blurting, “Well, if it is this question, it is rather simple.  If one seeks the volume of a sphere, it can easily be solved by a formula. First we will need to know the radius and the formula is four thirds multiplied by pie and further multiplied by radius cubed.” ***

　　Feng Ming had answered nonchalantly, as if it was the simplest problem he had encountered. Everyone in the room was surprised.

　　The Princess’ face was painted with confusion, she queried, “ Aunt cannot follow your prompts, what’s clap? And what’s Ah? What did you mean by four thirds and cubed?”***

　　“It’s quite simple, if Aunt would review what I have mentioned here.”  Feng Ming grabbed the bamboo pole and etched in the formula on the surface of the sand. He drew a line from the centre of the circle that extended to the edge to represent the radius.

　　He patiently explained, “This line is given the name R, and pie is roughly a number valued at 3.14159, and cubed indicates a value to the power of three. Four thirds is the same as, four parts divided by three“.

　　Feng Ming was very fortunate, that during his younger years he’d often get punished writing out formulas by his maths teacher. Now, not only did he retain his knowledge for a broad range of formulas, he could explain them in a detailed manner. This was sufficient to pull off his stunt of a maths genius.

　　Fen Yan was astonished, how the belittled Prince had instantaneously managed to captivate everyone’s attention. All eyes in the room was drawn to where he had made scribbles during his lecture.

　　Master Dong, was wide eyed and eager, it was clear the man was still trying to process this new found information. The man’s jaw coated with a grey bearded jittered. Naturally, as a proud researcher in the field, Master Dong’s first reaction was to send a servant to retrieve measurement tools, so he could immediately exercise Feng Ming’s solution. He wanted to test whether such profound formula would solve this challenge.

　　Prior to the Prince’s induction, as part of his research, Master Dong had manually quantified the number of sand granules in a given sphere. However, this was a primitive method, and an attempt to work backwards trying to find any patterns in the numbers. They had simply filled certain spheres with their capable volume of sand. The contents of the spheres were measured in pre-weighed boxes.  This tedious manner was carried out over various sizes of containers. When brush and paper arrived, Master Dong jotted down the calculations and found that Feng Ming’s formula gave the same answer to his research.