Lin Bai Was Going to Write Poetry

After leaving the Carpenter's shop, Lin Bai visited the Blacksmith Shop, the Tailor Shop, the apothecary...

His identity as the Shop Owner of the Chef God Restaurant made his lobbying considerably easier.

However.

Economic theories that were who knew how many years ahead of this world led more people to regard him as a lunatic spouting nonsense.

The good-tempered ones merely smiled and left it at that.

When he encountered blunt, outspoken types, they hurled barbed words right in his face, accusing him of pandering to the crowd and corrupting Jiamao City's atmosphere.

Lin Bai did not mind these people who failed to understand him.

One step ahead made you a genius; three steps ahead made you a lunatic. It was only natural that artisans clinging to traditional ways of doing business could not understand his advanced ideas.

Hadn't Jack Ma been treated as a joke when he first promoted B2B?

Lin Bai had never expected to turn Jiamao City into a calling card for incompleteness in one fell swoop. Creating a trend single-handedly was an incredibly difficult undertaking to begin with.

What he was doing now was making his face familiar around Jiamao City, while planting a vague concept in the minds of people from every trade.

When the winds rose in the future, someone among those in whom he had planted these ideas would surely become his advance guard. That was enough.

Quickly finding common ground with strangers through a shared matter was another way for Lin Bai to integrate into society.

By the time he had made a wide circuit of Jiamao City, spinning his spiel, it was already noon. As Lin Bai walked down the road, a notification suddenly sounded in his mind: the fruit on the Negative Emotion Tree had ripened.

On the branch, its green had turned golden yellow. It looked mouthwateringly delicious and had ripened half a day earlier than Lin Bai had expected.

[Fully ripened Spirit Fruit (ready to harvest): permanently increases spirit by 10, allowing sustained vigor over long periods.]

Permanently increases spirit by 10?

So it wasn't just the effect of drinking Red Bull anymore!

Finding a secluded spot, Lin Bai chose to harvest it.

A golden fruit abruptly appeared in his palm. It gave off a refreshing fragrance that kept wafting into his nostrils; a mere sniff left him feeling relaxed and delighted.

"It's physical now? Does that mean I can give it to someone else to eat?" Lin Bai examined the fruit in his palm, then brought it to his mouth without hesitation.

The instant his teeth touched its skin, rich, sweet juice flooded his mouth, smooth and slippery, even more satisfying than drinking fruit juice.

Before he knew it, the entire fruit was in Lin Bai's stomach.

The blissful sensation made Lin Bai close his eyes involuntarily.

When he opened them again, his mind was refreshed and his vision clear. Even the world before him seemed sharper.

His head felt especially clear. Knowledge he had learned on Earth but forgotten with the passage of time instantly became distinct, as though he had just read it in a book.

When discussing publishing a poetry collection with Carpenter, Lin Bai had worried that he no longer clearly remembered many of the classical poems he had learned from childhood through university, and might not have enough for a complete collection.

Well, that solved it.

Once the Spirit Fruit reached his stomach, he remembered everything.

"Interesting. Giving something this good to anyone else would be a waste. There's no need for it to take physical form at all."

Lin Bai muttered to himself and continued examining the emotion system in his mind.

After the fruit was harvested, the Negative Emotion Tree entered its second flowering cycle. At least he did not have to grow it from a sapling again. At the rate Lin Bai collected negative emotions, a second fruit would appear before long.

Beside the Negative Emotion Tree, another little sapling had appeared: its counterpart, the Positive Emotion Tree.

Compared with the +1, +1, +1 constantly popping up on the Negative Emotion Tree.

The +1s on the Positive Emotion Tree were pitifully few. When he opened them to look, they all came from unfamiliar names.

[Delight from Er Ya; +1]

[Delight from Zhuzi; +1]

Judging by the names, those providing positive emotions were probably all children.

The Chef God Restaurant brought adults trouble and worry, but what it brought children was unquestionably fun.

Whether they were watching the incomplete lion dance or singing the maddeningly catchy song, the children found endless joy in it.

But there were only so many children.

Besides, they forgot things quickly. In a few days, something else entertaining would draw their attention away.

Relying on this tiny amount of delight from children to make the Positive Emotion Tree blossom and bear fruit might take until the year of the monkey and the month of the horse.

If he truly wanted the Positive Emotion Tree to blossom and bear fruit, he would have to work on the majority of people.

But for now, Lin Bai did not want to spend his energy on positive emotions.

First, having unleashed a natural disaster of negative emotions on Jiamao City, he would find it difficult to reverse his public image.

The second reason was that the Positive Emotion Tree provided charisma.

Lin Bai felt he did not need that stuff. He thought he already had plenty of charisma. To sum him up in a phrase: handsome, with an outstanding presence.

The so-called charisma gained from positive emotions was merely a bonus. He could take it or leave it. If an opportunity came along, he would farm some, but it was not worth much effort.

With inner force bolstering his physique and the Spirit Fruit increasing his energy, Lin Bai felt as though his whole body brimmed with inexhaustible strength. He decided to strike while the iron was hot and put together the poetry collection.

After all.

A dear big brother in the City Lord's Residence was still waiting for him to come to the rescue. Time waited for no one.

With that thought.

Lin Bai bought some hemp paper by the roadside and returned to the Chef God Restaurant.

The Chef God Restaurant was bustling, hardly a good environment for creative work.

But the point was that Lin Bai did not need to create anything. He was not a real poet; he only needed to transplant existing work.

Commercial promotion was more his specialty.

Secretly finishing a poetry collection and sending it off for publication could hardly generate as much buzz as producing it in full public view.

With so many people outside the Chef God Restaurant, he could use them to build some hype first, then publish and distribute it. The results would surely be fantastic.

"Master, you're going to write poetry?" Hearing Lin Bai's request, [Deng Libuduo] looked utterly astonished.

"That's right!" Lin Bai nodded. "Enough chatter. Bring me a table from inside and help me grind the ink. The Chef God Restaurant isn't famous enough. I intend to use poetry to take its reputation up another notch."

"..." [Deng Libuduo] looked at Lin Bai doubtfully. "Master, can you?"

"Drop the question mark. There's nothing under heaven your Shop Owner can't do," Lin Bai urged. "Enough chatter. Hurry up."

"Master, I didn't mean anything by it." [Deng Libuduo] leaned closer to Lin Bai and said confidently, "I mean, if you're not good at writing poetry, I can help. I've got quite a stockpile in my belly, and I guarantee every one is a classic..."

"Recite an Ode to the Goose, then?" Lin Bai gave him a sidelong glance.

"..." [Deng Libuduo] froze, then said sheepishly, "Master, I really don't have one about geese. Could we change it? An Ode to Plum Blossoms or an Ode to Snow would both work..."

"No need." Lin Bai snorted with laughter and shook his head. "One look tells me you're an ignorant good-for-nothing. Get the table and grind the ink..."

I've got an entire world behind me, for heaven's sake!

I'm an ignorant good-for-nothing?

[Deng Libuduo] opened his mouth, ready to recite a poem.

But with the words on the tip of his tongue, he swallowed them again.

Recalling verses from his own world, he turned and went inside to carry out a table. He planned to wait until his NPC master made a fool of himself before coming to the rescue. Wouldn't that work better than eagerly forcing his help on him...?

However shrewd Lin Bai might be, he was still only an Intelligent AI. Perhaps the programmers had implanted methods for composing poetry, but could he really create a masterpiece?

[Deng Libuduo] did not believe an NPC who had come up with "You love me, I love you, the Chef God Restaurant welcomes you" could write poetry.

Did he even understand poetic beauty?

If Intelligent AI could write poetry, the literary world wouldn't have flourished for thousands of years.

"The Chef God Restaurant's proprietor is going to write poetry!"

"He's writing poetry!"

"The proprietor is going to write poetry!"

A few children who had overheard their conversation immediately skipped off to spread the news through the crowd.

There were quite a few scholars among the onlookers. They had an intense appetite for novelty, and most were waiting there in hopes of getting close to Ghost that evening.

Upon hearing that Lin Bai was going to write poetry, several scholars burst into mocking laughter in unison.

"This proprietor really has taken pandering to the crowd to its absolute limit!"

"What a disgrace to cultured society. Can a boor like him write poetry?"

"He hasn't even learned all his characters. Just because he wrote that topsy-turvy couplet, he thinks he can write poetry. Some people really do turn their whole lives into a joke!"

"If he can write a poem, I'll stand on my head outside his door and eat shit for three days..."

"I'll join you! I'll join you!"

"Quiet Night Thoughts

Moonlight shone before my bed, like frost upon the ground. I raised my head to gaze at the bright moon, then lowered my head..."

Before the scholars had even finished their conversation, Lin Bai had already flourished his brush and splashed his ink, completing a poem. He instructed [Deng Libuduo] beside him, "Hang it up!"

[Deng Libuduo] had watched Lin Bai write the poem with his own eyes.

He knew little about evaluating poetry.

But as he read Lin Bai's poem, although the wording seemed quite simple, an image appeared before his eyes. There really seemed to be a trace of poetic atmosphere, somewhat different from the feel of Intelligent AI-written poetry.

Yet the final words, "lowered my head," stopped him cold.

Lowered his head to do what?

This was agonizing.

Remembering the couplet with a missing character, [Deng Libuduo] felt his heart lurch. He swallowed with difficulty. "Proprietor, you haven't finished it yet, have you?"

"It's already finished." Lin Bai glanced at him. "Hang it up. This is our shop's style. We can't break the rules."

[Resentment from Deng Libuduo; +1]