As soon as such things appeared, they spread with lightning speed.
Villagers and scholars had always been the most enthusiastic about tales of gods and monsters.
For a time, rumors such as "Go west, find the Fountain of Youth, and be reborn in the next life..." became enormously popular. From south to north, from cities to villages, they spread everywhere in the footsteps of peddlers and traveling merchants.
Fountain of Youth Water had officially gone on sale. The Imperial Palace held a monopoly over it, and it could only be traded outside the palace gates; it could not be bought anywhere else.
A small bottle, enough for just one sip, sold for three thousand taels of silver.
With tangible goods and real examples to see, the news naturally became far more popular than usual.
On every street and in every alley, storytellers, city idlers, wealthy young masters, and rich young ladies all discussed such matters with relish.
For example, some family's master died that day, yet that very night, one of his servants gave birth to a child. The child claimed that he was the master of that household.
But then the child was drowned by the master's eldest son...
The story had been spread by the servants.
Some sighed, some gloated, and some said that the master had been too foolish. His vast fortune and concubines already belonged to his eldest son. How could the eldest son possibly hand them back?
Others said that the eldest son had not been his biological child in the first place. The wife had been unable to bear children and, fearing that the concubines would rise in rank, had adopted a child.
You could never truly know what was in another person's heart...
That master had died in such a stifled and miserable