The Academy Head Writes a Preface

Since the fiftieth year of Jingtai's reign.

Top Scholar Hall had sent several volumes of new books to the academy, all commentaries on Confucian classics, but their reception had ultimately been unremarkable.

Books of this kind had a vast market, but with so many competitors, attracting attention was difficult.

Until they sent in Tales of the Executioner.

The moment this book entered Jixia Academy, it sparked enormous debate. The first objection was to its vernacular language.

Fortunately, Zhou Yi had made it clear at the outset that the book was intended for ordinary people. Moreover, Great Qian did not honor Confucianism alone; schools such as the Eclectic School and the School of Fiction did not reject vernacular writing.

Then its contents stirred another controversy.

For the first volume of Tales of the Executioner, Manager He had deliberately selected several supernatural stories featuring scholars as their protagonists.

Scholars, demons and ghosts, the Demon-Slaying Bureau-the endings were always the same: families ruined, lives lost, demons destroyed, and ghosts slain.

This painted an entirely different picture from the Fox Demon Fragrance and Snake Spirit Bed-Warming tales the students usually read, which took a few twists and turns before ending in perfect happiness.

Some therefore questioned the authenticity of Tales of the Executioner, believing that some scholar had fabricated it all and that it had to be boycotted.

The leader of the boycott was none other than Wang Bo'an, who had met Zhou Yi once before. Her original name was Wang Hao.

At her first glimpse of Tales of the Executioner, Wang Bo'an could not help thinking of Zhou Yi, who had accused her of "relying on Daddy." Reading through the tinted lenses of prejudice, she naturally found endless faults and errors everywhere.

The heads of the Buddhist Academy and Daoist Academy, two great scholars deeply versed in Buddhist and Daoist scriptures, brought this second controversy to an end.

Studying Buddhist and Daoist scriptures inevitably brought them into contact with Buddhist and Daoist cultivators, giving them a deeper understanding than others of the current relationship between humans and demons in Great Qian.

Reality was crueler than Tales of the Executioner.

The head of the Daoist Academy personally wrote his appraisal: "To observe the affairs of demons and monsters through a minor clerk's eyes and warn those who come after-this is a worthy undertaking!"

A worthy undertaking!

Those words were already extraordinarily high praise.

Wang Bo'an was merely an instructor, and without solid evidence that Tales of the Executioner spread falsehoods, she could only lower her banners and still her drums. But she did not concede defeat. Instead, she studied the book closely, swearing to uncover an even greater problem.

Since ancient times, scholars had been tireless in ruining others.

They were versed in writing, law, and historical allusions, skilled at fathoming officialdom and emperors, and knew precisely where to strike with the surest, sharpest blow.

Emperor Jingtai of Great Qian had reigned for sixty years. Praised as resembling Emperor Guangming since childhood, he had always made that his lifelong ambition, inevitably developing a taste for grand achievements and glorious acclaim.

Now that the crown prince governed as regent, he listened only to reports of a prosperous nation, peaceful people, calm seas, and clear rivers. He disliked memorials describing troubles within and threats without, rebuking their authors for alarmism.

For one thing, this demonstrated the crown prince's ability to govern; for another, it pleased his imperial father.

Unable to find errors in the book, Wang Bo'an instead targeted "the emperor's heart."

The stories in Tales of the Executioner featured people from every walk of life besides scholars, and almost all of them were poor.

In the case of the ox demon abducting people, the incident had begun with a shortage of grain.

"Our Great Qian is rich and its people strong, with surplus grain in every household. In this golden age of peace and prosperity, how could poor people possibly resort to eating others?"

Wang Bo'an slapped her thigh in excitement. "The author must be slandering us, firing veiled shots and throwing filth upon our mighty nation! This book harbors malicious intentions. It must be banned!"

She immediately drafted a document to submit to the crown prince as regent, demanding that the authorities ban Tales of the Executioner lest its poison spread throughout the realm.

At the same time.

Wu Ke, head of the Legal Academy, was reading Tales of the Executioner. Several pieces explaining the law were particularly to his taste.

The hundred schools contended in Great Qian. Apart from Buddhism and Daoism, as well as the smaller, peripheral schools, Confucianism and the Legalist School broadly stood side by side.

"Using witty, entertaining ghost stories to explain and spread knowledge of the law-marvelous, simply marvelous!"

Wu Ke had truly ventured among the lowest classes to investigate, traveling among the poor whom Great Qian's elite overlooked-or rather, ignored. Their world was utterly different from the splendor of the Capital.

He had once written a volume on this subject, hoping to spread the teachings of the Legalist School among the poor so they could avoid being fleeced by bullies and petty clerks.

Unfortunately, the poor had their own ways of surviving, entirely different from those of Wu Ke's class. The arrogance and prejudice carried by the written word itself left his book untouched.

"The common people might not have the money to buy this book, or the literacy to read it, but its stories will reach them."

"I should give it a push, for my own sake as well! The Newly Collated Five Classics can circulate only among the upper classes, but these stories could appear in any corner of Great Qian!"

Wu Ke immediately had someone contact Top Scholar Hall. He was willing to write a preface for Tales of the Executioner.

When Manager He heard the news, his first reaction was to print more copies!

A new book that could attract an academy scholar to write its preface was already first-rate.

Now an academy head would wield the brush-how extraordinary was that!

Together with the Daoist Academy head's appraisal, they could advertise it as enthusiastically recommended by two academy heads!

The uproar at Jixia Academy had nothing to do with Zhou Yi.

Reporting for duty every day, copying books and contemplating scriptures, slaying demons and vanquishing monsters-there was truth in a quiet, ordinary life.

Each time Zhou Yi copied a Daoist scripture, his understanding of the ancient sages' classics deepened a little.

After comprehending the meanings of Daoist scriptures, he could perform certain techniques of the Daoist Order with greater ease. Each volume also earned him more than twenty taels of silver.

His only regret was that he still could not catch even a glimpse of the Yin Spirit.

Manager He had invited several master calligraphers to appraise his calligraphy, multiplying the value of Zhou Yi's manuscripts. Sales were limited to one volume a day, and supposedly reservations already stretched several months ahead.

Zhou Yi had begun looking for a residence in the Capital.

His Dao Attainment had reached a minor bottleneck. After it reached ten thousand years, perhaps because his magical power had undergone a qualitative change, killing a minor demon in the Heaven-Class Prison no longer yielded even a year of Dao Attainment. It took more than a dozen to accumulate enough for the Demon and Monster Compendium to issue a notification.

Dao Attainment increased by one year.

Fortunately, the rewards for greater demons in the Earth-Class Prison had not diminished much. With a little diligence every day, his Dao Attainment continued growing just as quickly.

That morning, Zhou Yi had executed a practitioner of a heterodox path.

Dressed as a wandering Daoist priest, he was actually a spy for the Bare Body Sect who ordinarily traveled far and wide gathering intelligence.

He had safely made his way from Flying Cloud Province in the far north to the Capital, only to encounter one of the Capital's notorious wastrels: Xu Ye, son of the Dragon Cavalry General.

The priest told Xu Ye's fortune, flattering him by saying that beneath his wastrel exterior lay a heart embroidered with brilliance, and that he would surely accomplish great things in the future.

Xu Ye flew into a rage. Together with several other wastrels, he beat the priest savagely, then falsely accused him of being an evil Daoist and prepared to throw him into death row.

Left with no choice, the priest revealed his strength and severely wounded Xu Ye and his companions. In the end, he failed to escape the experts from the general's residence who hunted him down, and was thrown into the Demon-Slaying Bureau's prison without so much as a trial.

Before his death, the priest's resentment soared to the heavens. He had not fallen to Great Qian's secret agents, but had instead come to grief before a few ignorant wastrels.

The Demon and Monster Compendium rewarded Zhou Yi with a transformation method called the Body-Shifting Technique.

Inferior transformation methods relied on external objects for disguise and could only alter one's physique slightly; cultivators could see through them at a glance. The finest transformation method was naturally Embryonic Transformation, which changed even the soul, aura, and karmic ties. Even an immortal standing face-to-face could not discern it.

The Body-Shifting Technique barely qualified as intermediate. It allowed one to freely change one's height and build. Unless cultivators deliberately sensed the soul's aura, they would struggle to recognize the user, making it far superior to ordinary illusions.

There were many ways to break illusions: the Spirit Eye Technique, innate spirit pupils, Dharma artifacts, and so on.

Certain cautious cultivators particularly liked using the Spirit Eye Technique to look at people.

This will make things even safer. If I encounter an immortal master underground, I won't have to risk having my illusion exposed.

In a good mood, Zhou Yi returned to the inn and stood behind the lobby counter, reciting the Daoist scripture he had copied that day.

Copying and reciting, day after day, would surely bring insight in time.

Bai Yutang had been dragged away by his wife, and the manager had yet to return from Yu Province, so Zhou Yi temporarily took over as manager.

A "No vacancies today" sign hung outside all day. They only served the occasional passing traveler who stopped for a meal, so it was not much trouble.

"Mr. Zhou, that fried chicken you mentioned-after wasting a dozen or so chickens, I finally managed it."

The inn's cook was not surnamed Li, but shared Zhou Yi's surname. Zhou was an uncommon surname in Great Qian, giving them a slight sense of kinship.

"You managed it already? Bring it over and let's have a taste."

Eating the same few dishes Old Zhou cooked every day, Zhou Yi had begun missing the fried chicken and beer of his previous life. He had no idea how to make the latter, but could more or less guess the former from imagination alone.

Coat chicken legs in flour and fry them slowly!

One failed attempt, then two, then three-and after a dozen or so, success at last.

Old Zhou rubbed his thumb and forefinger together.

"Sir, perhaps you could reimburse me for those dozen or so chickens first?"

Today's resolution: at least two updates every day. I have to live up to my pen name!!!!

I'm a complete beginner. After seeing a colleague write novels, I started writing on a sudden impulse too. I'm really slow at typing; after a whole day of slacking off, I only manage a chapter or half a chapter...

This is a newbie's first book, so please leave comments if you spot any problems. I'll fix anything unreasonable, bugs, and so on whenever they come up~

Thanks to Shu Huang Le Zenme Ban1358 for the tip of 5,000 coins~

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