"...Fan Jizheng of Blessed Sea City had spent his whole life cautious and prudent, trimming his sails to the wind. He was still congratulating himself on having turned down the marriage proposal with Zhang Tie during the day, thinking he had escaped a great deal of trouble. Yet Fan Jizheng, clever though he was, was undone by his own cleverness. A monstrous calamity descended upon his household in the blink of an eye. It happened on the very night Zhang Tie left Blessed Sea City: a strange black shadow arrived beneath the cover of darkness, drifting into the city like a wisp of blue smoke. In the blink of an eye, it evaded wave after wave of patrolling night watchmen and reached the outer wall of Fan Jizheng's residence. That wall, barely over two zhang high, was before that strange shadow like a seven-foot man stepping over a tavern's threshold. With a mere whoosh, the shadow vanished from outside the wall and instantly appeared within Fan Jizheng's courtyard..."
The entire tavern was silent. Every customer seated at a table had their eyes fixed on the storyteller before an eight-foot screen in the center of the first-floor hall, all pricking up their ears as he vividly embroidered the thrilling events of Black Iron Hero Chronicles.
For those who enjoyed storytelling, many had heard what came next more than once. But that was the charm of storytellers—even with the same plot, different storytellers could spin it into a different kind of splendor. Thus, everyone still listened with rapt attention, and quite a few held their breath.
On the tavern's second floor, a young gentleman in his twenties, dressed in brocade robes with thick brows and large eyes, sat in a private room, sipping tea while eagerly listening to the storyteller below.
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