Those Poor Storytellers

Eunuch Hai is a loyal fan of Zhou Wanwan, so many items used at this palace banquet were from Zhou Wanwan.

It's better to share happiness with others than to enjoy it alone.

Eunuch Hai implemented this principle very well.

He smiled and said, "I tried this milk tea and thought it tasted so good that I recommended it to you. What do you think, Your Majesty?"

The emperor took another sip, nodded, and said, "It is indeed very delicious. What flavor is mine?"

"Moli milk tea, and of course other flavors as well, you can try them all."

Here are some other fruits and vegetables, why don't you try them?

Then they saw several palace maids bringing plates of melons and fruits to the emperor.

The emperor took a bite and exclaimed repeatedly, "This watermelon tastes so much better than the ones we eat, and it's even seedless! It's amazing!"

"And these lychees taste great too, and they're very fresh, like they were just picked from the tree."

"These are cherries, right? Are cherries this delicious?"

"Oh, there are grapes too! There are six different flavors of grapes? These grapes taste really good."

The emperor has a very discerning palate; if he says it's good, then it's excellent.

With a smile, Eunuch Hai asked, "Shall we continue the storytelling we prepared earlier?"

He hasn't had enough yet!

"Continue, of course we must continue!" Even the Emperor hadn't had enough!

Soon the storytelling in the main hall resumed, and it was so captivating that we listened until midnight.

Zhou Wanwan nodded repeatedly. Were these people crazy? Were they planning to listen to audiobooks all night?

The ladies and young women were even more reluctant to leave, listening with great interest.

Isn't it just Journey to the West?

Is it really that nice to listen to?

Zhou Wanwan stood up helplessly and said, "Grandma, it's getting late, I need to go back to sleep."

The eldest princess looked at her and said, "Aren't you going to listen to such a wonderful book? I was really enjoying it! I never imagined there were such beautiful books."

Zhou Wanwan said helplessly, "Grandma, you'd better not stay up so late. If you want to hear it, I'll have them come to your place to tell the story tomorrow."

The eldest princess asked softly, "Wanwan, these aren't all your people, are they?"

Zhou Wanwan nodded and said, "Yes! They're all my people."

The eldest princess smiled and said, "Alright, then I'll go back and rest early too, and continue listening tomorrow morning."

I'm addicted to it.

The key point is that Zhou Wanwan's family doesn't just have Journey to the West; she has people write all sorts of other books.

In her past life, she read quite a few novels. Although she couldn't possibly copy all the content from them, she still managed to copy dozens of the better ones.

Even the foreign visitors listened with great interest, and the second prince, unwilling to leave after finishing, exclaimed, "Ah! Who came up with this? Journey to the West, it's truly fascinating, so incredibly fascinating!"

Jialuo was even more reluctant to leave. "How much do these storytellers cost? Let's just buy them and they can tell us stories every day."

This must have been tough on the storytellers.

They talked about it again and again, but the important person wouldn't let them leave, and they didn't dare to leave either!

They talked like that all night long, and finally finished just as dawn was breaking.

Noble Consort Ning had already fallen asleep on the table. Zhou Wanwan had just woken up when she heard the Old Scholar Tree laughing uncontrollably.

The palace banquet last night is still going on!

Then, when they ran out of snacks, they actually had our delivery guy bring some over overnight.

The palace was quite generous; they gave us a thousand taels of silver.

Zhou Wanwan raised an eyebrow and said, "Looks like my snack shop is going to be a huge hit today."

This advertising campaign was unprecedented and will likely never be repeated.

This is exactly the effect Zhou Wanwan wanted.

Noble Consort Ning wanted to monopolize all her businesses—how could that be possible?

She had so many businesses, take salt trading for example! It's the kind of business that requires the least capital; she didn't need to invest any money at all.

Moreover, her salt was much cheaper than that of the salt merchants, so ordinary people were willing to buy her salt.

The key point is that her salt can be delivered to your door.

She is no longer satisfied with Great Xia; she wants to expand into overseas markets.

That's why she had a proper conversation with the second prince of Khotan.

Looking at the breakfast delivered from the Imperial Kitchen today, she said, "Why is the breakfast from the Imperial Kitchen so lavish today?"

Chicken porridge, white fungus and lily bulb soup, stir-fried shredded vegetables, cold bamboo shoot salad, crystal shrimp dumplings, thin-skinned steamed buns, sesame shumai, red bean paste cake, yam cake, refreshing pickled radish, tender braised tofu, steamed pumpkin, glutinous rice balls, Longjing tea soup, jujube paste rolls, Ruyi rolls, and stir-fried seasonal vegetables.

Zheng Xing'an said helplessly, "They didn't serve breakfast today, they just ate snacks."

"Pfft... Hahaha... These people are really interesting!"

Zheng Xing'an said helplessly, "It should be time to end this now, since the morning court session is about to begin. However, Xie Cheng'en is preparing six banquets today; I wonder if he can manage it."

Xie Cheng'en rushed home because the storyteller was so captivating that he was completely engrossed in listening. It was only after his servant called him back that he was finally brought back.

Xie Cheng'en returned home and asked, "Have all the dishes been prepared today?"

The person in charge kept shaking his head and nodding.

Xie Cheng'en said speechlessly, "What does it mean to shake your head and nod at the same time?"

The manager said helplessly:

"We've prepared everything, but some of the ingredients are simply not good enough; the quality is poor. For example, we can't hunt any wild game at all."

Some of the seafood was delivered that wasn't fresh at all and was completely unusable.

Xie Cheng'en looked at him and said, "So you mean the dishes aren't even all prepared yet?"

The manager nodded, wiping the sweat from his brow, and said, "Several hundred tables of food cannot be prepared in a short time."

Xie Cheng'en rolled his eyes in anger:

If we don't handle this well, how can people trust us in the future?

How am I supposed to face people in the capital? Think of a solution quickly."

The manager said helplessly, "There's another way. We need to find a way to use food delivery, otherwise we definitely won't make it in time."

"Takeout?" Xie Cheng'en rolled his eyes in exasperation.

He snatched the takeout from Zhou Wanwan and is now making her Zhou Wanwan takeout for her.

Isn't that ridiculous?

But now he was in a bind. He coughed and said, "Go and order it secretly, don't tell anyone, understand?"

The manager nodded and said, "Understood, I understand. I'll go place the order now, don't worry."

He searched several shops before finally finding a takeout option in a corner store.

The food delivery owner was sleeping when he woke him up.

The shopkeeper looked at him and said, "What are you trying to do?"

The manager looked at the shopkeeper and said, "I'm here to order takeout, a big order."

The shopkeeper shook his head and said, "We don't do takeout anymore, don't you know that?"

The manager's face stiffened. "What? You're not doing takeout anymore? Why? We're willing to pay for it."

The shopkeeper shook his head with a wry smile and said, "These are orders from above. I'm just a lowly subordinate; I can't make that decision myself."