Many of the poems in the plays had never been written by anyone before, and their quality was already on par with that of the great masters.
Writing plays and storybooks did not just require a solid foundation. One also had to be able to make the stories vivid and lifelike, as if one were there in person.
Without a certain breadth of knowledge and life experience, that was very difficult to achieve.
Su Qiao scratched her head and said sheepishly, "They're just a few stories I made up. Where would I get that kind of ability, Your Majesty? Please stop teasing me."
In any case, Su Qiao had already decided to play dumb about this matter.
The Emperor pulled out one of the books and asked casually, "You've been overseas?"
"How could that be possible? Please don't joke, Your Majesty. I've never even left the capital. How could I have gone overseas?"
In fact, Su Qiao had long since prepared herself for the day someone discovered the truth and thought about how she should respond.
She just hadn't expected the first person to discover it would be the Emperor—and so soon.
The Emperor looked up at her. "Do you know that you have committed the crime of deceiving the Emperor?"
Su Qiao blinked, her expression utterly sincere. "Your Majesty, even if you had me beheaded right now, I still couldn't make up a lie and claim that I'd been overseas."
"I heard all this from the storytellers in the teahouses, or picked up bits and pieces from merchants in the streets. Then I organized them, embellished them into complete stories, and wrote them down to earn a little money."
"With Your Majesty's abilities, surely you know that I'm merely a woman with a little cleverness, nothing worth mentioning?"
Su