Righteousness Above All

Time slowly passed...

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

After the boost from Source Power, his body had already built a solid foundation. As long as he had sufficient nutrition, it would recover and grow stronger at an astonishing rate.

Three days passed. All five doses of medicinal soup had been used up, and his depleted Blood Energy had been fully replenished.

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

Over those three days, he remained constantly vigilant, carefully guarding against Jia Yanyong coming to his door.

He carried chili powder with him and set up numerous traps around his home.

Yet several days had passed without any sign of the man.

Yixiang Tea House.

Jia Yanyong sprawled carelessly across from Jia Yanming.

"Brother, I'm back."

He called toward the tea house's inner hall.

Unlike last time, the bloody aura around him had grown several shades stronger. There was also a new knife wound on his neck, wrapped in gauze.

"Is your injury all right?"

Jia Yanming emerged from the inner hall. The instant he saw the wound on his younger brother's neck, he frowned and asked.

"It's nothing, just a small injury. It'll heal in a few days."

Jia Yanyong said it without a care.

"Take it easy when you fight from now on. Don't always rush 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 stand by and watch them get hacked to death." Jia Yanyong shook his head.

Those who roamed the underworld put righteousness first—ready to take a blade through both ribs for their brothers!

"Foolish!"

"They're nothing but drinking-and-feasting friends. What real brothers are there in gangs? I'm your actual elder brother!"

Jia Yanming rebuked him. As a businessman, he had seen every kind of darkness and utterly scorned the brotherhood Jia Yanyong spoke of.

"Brother, you don't need to meddle in my affairs."

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

"I've got time 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 lighter then."

Jia Yanyong said with a chuckle.

Bidan Tea House.

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

"It was an age of turmoil, with war erupting across the land. There was once a dynasty called Song, wolves watching from every side..."

This was Old Master Jin's Legend of the Condor Heroes, a tale of the greatest kind of heroism: serving the nation and the people.

Through his interactions with him over this period, Lin Zheyu had discovered that although Liang Song appeared slovenly, uninhibited, and wild on the surface, he possessed a righteous heart.

He liked Yan Chixia's free-spirited boldness and upright aura, traveling the world to slay demons and vanquish evil. He also liked Thousand-Household Zuo's integrity and the righteous spirit within his breast.

Telling this story was far more troublesome than Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio. The dynastic setting of Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio was vague and nearly nonexistent.

But Legend of the Condor Heroes was different. Its dynastic setting was of the utmost importance.

Lin Zheyu made some deletions and revisions, giving it a simple fictionalized setting.

"The Qiantang River surged vast and mighty, flowing day and night without rest past Niujia Village outside 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 die for love. Yet Yan Lie persuaded her with gentle words.

Under Yan Lie's coaxing with fine clothes and delicious food, she muddleheadedly followed his arrangements and left Lin'an with him."

Lin Zheyu stood on the storyteller's platform, speaking with confident ease.

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

At first, the guests found it deeply unfamiliar. The usual tales of scholars' romantic encounters were gone—how could that do!

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

Yet as they continued listening, they slowly became engrossed.

"Despicable!"

"How could Bao Xiruo leave with that fellow? She truly is... truly is shameless, unfaithful to her womanly virtue, without any..."

Someone slapped the table and angrily denounced her.

It was a scholar whose face had gone red from listening.

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

Hearing the discussion below, Lin Zheyu smiled faintly and struck the 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 tell only half a story? Continue, Little Mister Lin!"

Seeing the crowd worked into a frenzy, Lin Zheyu hurriedly slipped away.

What a joke. This was nothing like writing novels in his previous life.

If he left a chapter on a cliffhanger while writing a novel, at worst he would be cursed as a cliffhanger dog.

But if a storyteller stopped mid-tale, he might be hauled back up by a riled-up crowd and forced to keep talking. Lin Zheyu had been fortunate enough to experience that once.

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

Lin Zheyu said with a smile, "I'm glad you liked it."

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

After going out, he walked more than two hundred meters along Baiwei Street, then turned into a restaurant.

He had arranged to meet someone here.

Lin Zheyu swept his gaze around and sat down at one of the tables.

"Gentlemen, have you considered it?"

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

They wore green robes and kept beards, their faces covered in weathered wrinkles.

Their robes had been washed until they were faded white, with inconspicuous holes in a few places. It was clear that they lived rather poorly.

These were the storytellers Lin Zheyu had found over the past several days. They had little background and could barely scrape by in Songyi City.

"Can you guarantee that the story will be as wonderful as the one you told at Bidan Tea House?" the man on the left asked.

"The styles of the stories are different, so it's hard to say which is better. But they will certainly be fresher and more exciting than those stale old tales you tell!"

Lin Zheyu said.

Competition among storytellers was fierce. Many scholars who failed to obtain scholarly honors and could no longer get by changed professions to become storytellers.

With stale and clichéd stories, poor storytelling skills, and weak ability to stir empathy, such storytellers could not draw customers.

The three storytellers Lin Zheyu had found all had decent storytelling skills, and their emotional delivery was passable as well. Unfortunately, the stories they told were rather old and lacked novelty.

This world was far too lacking in good stories.

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

People in Songyi City had listened to the good stories circulating there until calluses grew on their ears.

That was also why Lin Zheyu had become popular so quickly.

"Could you let us first see the content before we make a decision?" another man asked.

"Of course."

Lin Zheyu took several sheets of paper densely covered in writing from his clothes and handed each man a copy. Every copy contained the same content.

"You may read them first. Take the manuscripts I give you and tell the stories. Each installment costs eighty coins. If you agree, sign the contract."

Lin Zheyu said.

This was the way of making money he had previously devised: finding others to cooperate with him in storytelling.

However, stories had no copyright in this era. Once spoken aloud and heard by others, 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 ability earned seventy coins a day. Including tips and such, they could make around a hundred coins.

Using that as a basis, Lin Zheyu set the price at eighty coins.

Because good stories often earned tips that exceeded one's wages.

"...This happened in Brick Pagoda Alley, south of West Four Archways. Two brothers named Ta lived there—one was Ta Da, and the other was called Ta Er.

The younger brother worked at the Governor-General's yamen, while the elder was a cook..."

This was the classic tale that had circulated for a long time in his previous life: the Nine-Head Case.

The three men took the papers and began reading. The longer they read, the brighter their eyes became.