The wildly popular Dream of the Red Chamber (1)

The sisters Yang Aijin and Yang Ailian were fairly quick cooks. Before long, they had stewed the chicken, cooked a pot of white rice, and stir-fried a vegetable dish.

The chicken in this era was completely natural, and the chicken soup tasted wonderful. The white rice and vegetables were delicious too.

The first rule of preserving one's health was to eat all-natural food, with no chemical additives in it whatsoever.

It was still early after dinner. Once the sisters Yang Aijin and Yang Ailian had finished washing the dishes, Zhou Yao decided to write another chapter or two of Dream of the Red Chamber.

This time, Zhou Yao would dictate while the sisters Yang Aijin and Yang Ailian wrote, and his wives were very happy about it.

And so Zhou Yao paced as he spoke, while his two wives listened to their husband and wrote. Zhou Yao dictated two chapters in one go.

By then it was already very late, so Zhou Yao decided to write more tomorrow. Ah, time for bed! And of course, how could newlyweds do without becoming as one, like water and milk mingling?

Meanwhile, after Yan Liusheng had seen Young Master Zhou Yao out of Liusheng Bookshop and watched him walk away, he returned to the back room.

Yan Liusheng paced back and forth in the room, thinking about how to promote the novel Dream of the Red Chamber.

He instructed his book attendant to have the people under him work overtime printing the first ten chapters of Dream of the Red Chamber. The first batch would be a thousand copies, priced at two taels of silver each.

Even at two taels a copy, I think plenty of people will still fight tooth and nail to buy it. Young Master Zhou Yao said he wouldn't bring another ten chapters for another fifteen days.

At two taels for every ten chapters, if there are another ten-odd batches of ten chapters, who knows how much money that will make? Even with a thirty-seventy split with Young Master Zhou Yao, our Liusheng Bookshop will make quite a lot!

At that thought, Yan Liusheng was so happy he danced with joy. Hahaha...

The next day, a large wooden board stood at the entrance to Liusheng Bookshop. A large sheet of paper pasted on it bore an introduction to the novel Dream of the Red Chamber.

Quite a few people came to Liusheng Bookshop to buy books, and nearly all of them were scholars, so naturally they saw the introduction to Dream of the Red Chamber. All of them were drawn to it, and they went into the shop one after another to ask Yan Liusheng how much the novel cost.

Yan Liusheng smiled and answered, "This is the newly released novel Dream of the Red Chamber. The author has only written ten chapters so far, and the rest is still being written. These ten chapters cost two taels of silver per copy."

When they heard the owner of Liusheng Bookshop, Yan Liusheng, say that a copy containing the first ten chapters of Dream of the Red Chamber cost two taels of silver, every scholar present flew into a rage, stirring up public indignation. They all denounced Boss Yan as a blackhearted merchant and declared that they would never again come to Liusheng Bookshop to buy books or the four treasures of the study.

Yan Liusheng did not stop the furious scholars. Instead, he let them make as much noise as possible.

Some of the more impassioned scholars ran outside Liusheng Bookshop and shouted to passersby, cursing the owner, Yan Liusheng, as a blackhearted merchant for charging them two taels of silver for a novel containing only ten chapters.

They said he was completely blinded by profit, had gone mad with greed, and was utterly outrageous. Then they shouted, "We must all stand firm and boycott this blackhearted Liusheng Bookshop! From now on, we must never come here to buy books or the four treasures of the study!"

Hearing the scholars say this, the passersby did not know what was going on, but all of them soon joined the crowd condemning Liusheng Bookshop.

They hurled every sort of filthy curse at Liusheng Bookshop. Those who loved a spectacle and never cared how big the trouble got used the nastiest words they could find, cursing the shop owner Yan Liusheng's ancestors back eighteen generations. Still unsatisfied, they started in on all eighteen generations again.

Yan Liusheng watched the people outside heap abuse on him and his family, and he smiled. Everything was under his control. This was exactly what Yan Liusheng wanted, the very effect he was after, because whether Dream of the Red Chamber could become a huge hit depended on this.