"Liu Suanban, you've been going on about Fierce Tiger Stronghold for three days straight. Aren't you sick of it?"
The storyteller onstage was spraying spittle, but someone in a private booth of the teahouse had grown impatient and slapped the table.
"Exactly!"
"Our ears are growing calluses! Every day it's either Four Seas Eight Desolations Hall or those saber-wielding iron riders from the western desert—three heads, six arms, blue faces, and fangs. We're sick of hearing it!"
The other guests joined in, egging things on.
"Forgive me, Sixth Master!"
The storyteller, Liu Suanban, did not lose his nerve. "Isn't it because Fierce Tiger Stronghold has been wiped out, the trade routes are open, and the prices of rice, flour, oil, and salt have all dropped a little? Seeing that all you gentlemen will be able to make money from now on, isn't Old Liu happy for you?"
"That's true."
"It is indeed a good thing. But making money... that's hard to say."
Sixth Master revealed a faint smile, then fell into thought.
Jiang Ding noticed that several other guests dressed in obviously luxurious clothes wore similar expressions.
The East Spirit mountain ranges were a chaotic land, a natural gathering place for bandits.
Before, Fierce Tiger Stronghold had merely gathered and absorbed them. Without Fierce Tiger Stronghold, other bandits would arise; they simply would not be as strong.
To eradicate them completely would still depend on the government's methods of administration, ensuring that large numbers of landless farmers were not left unable to survive.
"Gentlemen, Fierce Tiger Stronghold is merely a local scourge of our East Spirit Prefecture. Do you know of a momentous event that has recently shaken the world?"
Liu Suanban struck his storyteller's block, drawing the attention of the teahouse guests.
"Do you know what the 'Three Sects'