Loyalty Above All Else

Time passed slowly...

Every day, Lin Zheyu practiced Wild Bull Fist for two or three hours, then ate large quantities of meat.

After being enhanced by Source Power, his body had already built a solid foundation. With enough nutrition, it would recover and grow stronger at an astonishing rate.

Three days passed. All five batches of medicinal broth had been used up, and his depleted blood and qi had been fully replenished.

Lin Zheyu's body grew increasingly robust, his muscles taut and powerful.

During those three days, he remained on guard, carefully watching out for Jia Yanyong coming to his door.

He carried chili powder on him at all times and had set up numerous traps around his home.

Yet several days passed without even a glimpse of the other man.

Yi Xiang Teahouse.

Jia Yanyong sat carelessly across from Jia Yanming.

"Brother, I'm back."

He called toward the teahouse's inner hall.

Unlike last time, the bloody aura around him was even thicker, and there was an additional knife wound on his neck, wrapped in gauze.

"Is your injury all right?"

Jia Yanming emerged from the inner hall and immediately spotted the wound on his younger brother's neck. He could not help frowning as he asked.

"It's nothing, just a minor wound. It'll heal in a few days."

Jia Yanyong spoke as though it did not matter.

"Be more careful when you fight in the future. Don't always charge to the front."

"Your life is your own, but the money belongs to others. Why risk your life so desperately?" Jia Yanming said.

"Brother, you don't understand."

"They're all my brothers. I can't just watch them get hacked to death for nothing." Jia Yanyong shook his head.

Those who roamed the underworld put loyalty above all else; they would take a blade through both ribs for their brothers!

"Foolish!"

"They're all drinking-and-feasting friends. What true brothers are there in gangs? I'm your real brother!"

Jia Yanming rebuked him. As a businessman, he had seen all manner of darkness and scoffed at the brotherhood Jia Yanyong spoke of.

"Brother, you don't need to concern yourself with my affairs."

"Didn't you want me to teach... mm... right, Lin Zheyu!"

"I'm free now. Let me recuperate for two days, and the day after tomorrow I'll give him a beating for you. Don't worry, I'll go a little easier on him then."

Jia Yanyong said with a chuckle.

Bi Dan Teahouse.

Lin Zheyu had promised Liang Song that he would tell him a story about martial artists.

"It was an age of turmoil. Wars raged across the land, and there was a dynasty called Song, surrounded by wolves on every side..."

This was Old Master Jin's The Legend of the Condor Heroes, a tale of the greatest heroes serving their country and their people.

Over this period of acquaintance, Lin Zheyu had discovered that although Liang Song looked slovenly and unrestrained, he possessed a righteous heart.

He admired Yan Chixia's free and unbridled spirit, his upright righteousness as he roamed the world slaying demons and exterminating evil. He also admired Zuo Qianhu's integrity and the righteousness in his breast.

Telling this story was far more troublesome than Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio. The dynasty in Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio was vague, almost nonexistent.

But The Condor-Shooting Tale was different. Its historical setting was immensely important.

Lin Zheyu revised it somewhat and gave it a simple fictionalized setting.

"The Qiantang River surged vast and mighty, flowing day and night without end past Niu Jia Village in Lin'an, eastward into the sea."

"Along the riverbank stood a row of several dozen..."

"..."

"...Now, after Bao Xiruo was rescued by the mysterious man calling himself Yan Lie, she wished to take her own life and follow her love in death, only to be dissuaded by Yan Lie's gentle words.

Beguiled by Yan Lie's fine clothes and sumptuous food, she muddleheadedly followed his arrangements and left Lin'an with him."

Lin Zheyu stood atop the Storytelling Platform, speaking with eloquence and confidence.

It was a long tale, and as he narrated, its contents gradually unfolded.

At first, the customers found it deeply unfamiliar. There were no longer any tales of scholars' romantic encounters—how could that do!

They had all come for stories of scholars' romantic encounters!

But as they listened, they gradually became engrossed.

"Detestable!"

"How could Bao Xiruo leave with that fellow? She truly... truly had no shame, no virtue as a woman, no..."

Someone slapped the table and angrily denounced her.

It was a scholar, his face flushed red from listening.

"Stop making noise. Quiet down and let Little Mister Lin continue."

Hearing the discussions below, Lin Zheyu smiled faintly and struck the attention-getting clapper. "If you wish to know what happens next, listen to the next installment."

"..."

"Ah, that's it?"

"No, hurry up and tell us! What happened afterward?"

"How can you stop a story halfway through? Continue, Little Mister Lin!"

Seeing the crowd's emotions running high, Lin Zheyu hurriedly made his escape.

What a joke. This was not like writing novels in his previous life.

If he ended a chapter while writing a novel, at most people would curse him for being a cliffhanger dog.

But if a storyteller stopped at a cliffhanger, careless moments could see him dragged back up by an impassioned crowd to keep talking. Lin Zheyu had had the good fortune of experiencing that once.

"The opening was good. Very exciting," Liang Song commented.

Lin Zheyu smiled. "As long as you like it."

After chatting with Liang Song for a while and asking him about some doubts concerning martial arts, he left.

Leaving the door, he walked more than two hundred meters along Hundred Tastes Street, then turned into a Wine House.

He had arranged to meet someone there.

Lin Zheyu swept his gaze around and took a seat at one of the tables.

"Gentlemen, what have you decided?"

Lin Zheyu looked at the three somewhat elderly scholars before him.

They wore blue robes, sported beards, and their faces were covered in weathered wrinkles.

Their robes had been washed white with wear, and a few places bore inconspicuous holes. It was clear that they lived rather poorly.

These were the Storytellers Lin Zheyu had found over the past few days. None had much of a background, and they were struggling to get by in Songyi City.

"Can you guarantee that the story will be as exciting as the one you told in Bi Dan Teahouse?" the man on the left asked.

"The style of the story is different, so I can't say which is better or worse. But it will certainly be fresher and more exciting than those stale old stories you tell!"

Lin Zheyu said.

Competition among storytellers was fierce. Many scholars who failed to obtain academic honors and could no longer make a living switched professions to become storytellers.

Storytellers with old, clichéd tales, poor storytelling skills, and weak ability to stir empathy had no way of drawing customers.

The three Storytellers Lin Zheyu had found were all fairly skilled, and their emotional delivery was passable as well. Unfortunately, the stories they told were all rather old, without much novelty.

This world was desperately lacking in good stories.

Or rather, this world did have good stories, but because written information did not circulate conveniently enough, they only spread within small regions.

The good stories circulating in Songyi City had been heard so often that people had practically grown calluses on their ears.

That was why Lin Zheyu had become popular so quickly.

"Could you let us look over the contents first before we decide?" another man asked.

"Of course."

Lin Zheyu took several sheets of paper densely covered in writing from his robes and handed one to each man. The contents of every copy were identical.

"You may read them first. Use the manuscripts I provide to tell stories. Each installment costs eighty copper coins. If you agree, sign the contract."

Lin Zheyu said.

This was the way he had previously devised to make money: finding people to collaborate with in storytelling.

However, in this era, stories had no copyright. Once told and heard, they became someone else's.

For that very reason, it was difficult for Lin Zheyu to sell them at a high price.

A storyteller of middling skill earned seventy copper coins a day. Including tips and the like, they could make around a hundred copper coins.

Lin Zheyu had based his price on that, setting it at eighty copper coins.

Because good stories often earned tips that surpassed the day's wages.

"...This affair took place in Brick Pagoda Alley, south of West Fourth Memorial Arch. Two brothers named Ta lived there: one was Ta Da, and the other was called Ta Er.

Lao Er worked at the Military Governor's Office, while Lao Da was a cook..."

This was Nine Heads Case, a classic tale that had circulated for a long time in his previous life.

The three men began reading the pages in their hands, and the farther they read, the brighter their eyes grew.