After leaving the stationery shop, Ji Yuan weighed the handful of silver in his hand. It was at least two taels. It was not comparable to the thousands of gold coins in the TV dramas of his previous life, but it was no small amount. For Ji Yuan, this was naturally quite good.

In fact, silver lasted quite a long time in this world. He had only had to make three large expenditures thus far.

The first was because he did not understand that his own destiny could not be predicted rashly, so he had asked Taoist Qingsong to tell his fortune, resulting in the other party being seriously injured. The gold nuggets and silver coins Ji Yuan had left behind at that time were worth more than thirty taels, which was enough for both the master and his disciple to recover safely and return home, with a lot of money remaining.

The second was to charter the boat. To charter the boat for himself and the other passengers, and it only cost him about six hundred coins, which was equivalent to a little over half a tael of silver.

The third was in Chunhui Prefecture when he was feeling gluttonous and bought a few catties of Qianrichun, which cost less than four taels.

The remaining expenses for food and accommodation were not too large. For food, if he went to a restaurant and ordered something luxurious, it would only cost a few hundred coins. A bowl of noodles would only cost a couple coins. One tael of silver was equivalent to one string of coins, which was one thousand coins.

Ji Yuan had hardly stayed in an inn anyway since he had journeyed out, not to mention the low price of accommodation. He only stayed in an inn occasionally to take a shower or something similar, and a good room in a top-notch inn cost only one hundred coins.

Therefore, apart from the gold ingot which had some of its corners cut off,¹ Ji Yuan still had nearly ten taels of silver in loose change, and the shop owner this time had paid him quite a bit.

Putting the silver back into the purse in his arms, Ji Yuan tucked the umbrella away and strolled around the capital city of Juntian Prefecture with his bag on his back, like a leisurely wanderer.

Carts passed by, their wooden wheels rolling over the stone pavement, children chased each other with candied haws² in their hands, street vendors and shopkeepers along the road shouted and hawked their wares. The aroma of rouge, makeup powder, and snacks wafted in the air…

“Hero Zuo, oh Hero Zuo, so this is where you grew up!”

Sometimes, Ji Yuan remained quite sentimental, just like at this moment. In his mind, he imagined Zuo Li as a little kid back then, holding a wooden sword and chasing after his friends in the martial arts world.

Following the aroma of tea and the shouts of customers, Ji Yuan walked to a teahouse that seemed to be doing good business. Inside, a storyteller was talking and singing with great emotion.

A tea specialist³ saw Ji Yuan approach and immediately stepped forward to greet him enthusiastically.

“Oh, sir, please come in. We have soups, fried dished, and brewed teas!”

“Okay, let’s find a lively place, preferably next to the storyteller.”

“Oh, unfortunately, all the seats over there are full. Would you mind being seated a little to the side?”

The tea specialist glanced at the storyteller in the middle of the hall and before speaking.

“Alright, please arrange it!”

“Then, sir, please follow me!”

Following the enthusiastic tea specialist, Ji Yuan walked to a pillar on the left side of the center hall, where there was an empty four-person table. The tea connoisseur quickly took a cloth and wiped away the traces of tea stains on the surface.

“Sir, what kind of tea would you like to drink, and what can I bring you to eat?”

Ji Yuan pretended to look at the blurry menu sign of the teahouse across the street, and spoke on his own without letting the tea specialist say anything more.

“Bring a pot of your best new tea, and plates of your three most famous snacks.”

“Okay! Please wait a moment!”

As soon as the tea specialist left, Ji Yuan’s attention was completely focused on the room around him. People at the surrounding tables were all drinking tea and eating snacks, listening attentively to the storyteller’s tale, which was most likely about some general’s famous battle.

“There were hundreds of enemy rafts floating on the river, and they were about to attack our weak point at the rear. General Huang, who at that time only commanded one hundred men, discovered the crisis, but he was quick-witted. He ordered his men to report back to the camp, and, at the same time, he divided his troops into several squadrons and rushed into the nearby woods…”

At these words, the storyteller put down his fan, picked up his tea cup, took a sip of tea to moisten his throat, and wiped the sweat off his face with a towel. The guests drinking tea below asked him impatiently.⁴

“Could it be that General Huang repelled the enemy forces with just these few soldiers?”

“Hey, don’t interrupt!”

“That’s right, let the gentleman speak!”

As soon as the storyteller put down his teacup and picked up his paper fan, the noisy discussions below naturally quieted down. Although his words were not yet spoken, to Ji Yuan, it seemed as if the worldly laws were already accompanying them.⁵

“At that time, General Huang knew that with the few troops he had under his command, facing them would be like hitting a rock with an egg. However, the general was resourceful. He ordered his men to prepare dry firewood in the pine forest to start a fire, but did not set it off. At the same time, he and his troops did their best to scare away the birds in the forest and send them flying!

“The enemy’s general, who was crossing the river, was no fool. When he saw that all of the birds in the forest on the other side of the river were startled away, he realized that something was wrong, and ordered that the crossing of the river be postponed. He only sent a dozen small rafts across the river to investigate… It was at that moment!”

At that moment, the storyteller suddenly raised his voice and slapped the table⁶ hard, waking some unresponsive guests of the teahouse. It startled the audience drinking tea, but no one interrupted him.

“General Huang ordered his men to light all of the dry firewood they had prepared. Suddenly, over a dozen columns of smoke rose in the forest… The enemy general on the other side of the river was so frightened that his countenance changed drastically. He called out that he had discovered an ambush, and ordered his men to retreat quickly. Many of the soldiers on the dozen or so rafts were so frightened by the columns of smoke that they fell into the water…”

The storyteller vividly recounted the fierce battle of the past with his splendid words and presented General Huang’s strategy and bravery though his tale, amazing the people drinking tea.

Ji Yuan also listened with great interest, and nodded frequently. This, too, was an art form!

The storyteller expended a lot of time and effort by the time he finished telling the story. Ji Yuan and some of the more generous teahouse guests nearby gave him a few coins, and the teahouse also gave him a determined fee, which was considered a good income.

The next chapter of the tale “The Battle of Dong Mountain”⁷ would begin in a while. The storyteller was currently resting and drinking tea. Ji Yuan placed all of his food onto a saucer, and walked over, carrying the teapot.

“Sir, would you mind chatting with me for a brief moment?”

When the storyteller saw that Ji Yuan had come over with a teapot and snacks, looking quite gentle, he smiled and nodded.

“Please take a seat!”

Ji Yuan tactfully set down the snacks, took a new cup from the table, and poured his own high quality tea for the storyteller.

“Please have some tea! And please also help yourself to the refreshments!”

Ji Yuan had already noticed that the tea the teahouse provided to the storyteller was all old tea, which was definitely not as good as his own.

The latter did not stand on ceremony either. He smiled, picked up a white sugar sponge cake,⁸ and put it in his mouth, then took a sip of tea.

“Does this gentleman have something to ask?”

“That is correct. I would like to ask you, sir, about the Zuo family in Juntian Prefecture, that Zuo family that was famous in the martial arts world decades ago. What happened to their descendants?”

The storyteller frowned and looked at Ji Yuan, slightly surprised, and observed him carefully. He was wearing a wide-sleeved green shirt and a bun with a wooden hairpin. His hands were slender, and he did not seem to have a strong body.

“Sir, are you a warrior?”

“Haha… I have some entanglements with the martial arts world, but I am not a martial artist. It’s just that the ancestors of the Zuo family have done me a favor, so I came here to find their descendants.”

The Zuo family ancestors?

The storyteller frowned and looked at Ji Yuan again. It was absurd, but he couldn’t tell exactly how old he was. Then, he finally noticed that his half-open eyes were pale.

The storyteller didn’t dare to look any longer. He could not be certain that the person in front of him was a martial arts master. Anyway, whatever happened to the Zuo family had nothing to do with him.

“Few people in the city know about this. The Zuo family was once a prominent family, but… unfortunately, fortune plays tricks on us all. Zuo Jianxian was obsessed with swordsmanship, and the Sword Intent Inscription he left behind after his death caused a bloody storm in the martial arts world, and brought disaster to the Zuo family. Despite the fact that the great Hero Zuo Qiu had anticipated this and arranged for it, the Zuo family still found it difficult to extricate themselves…”

Over a quarter of an hour later, Ji Yuan exited the teahouse, frowning, and headed towards the old house of the Zuo family in the west of the city. However, it took him two hours to find the place, and even the placard on the facade had become “Qian Residence.” Not even the doorman knew anything about the Zuo family when asked.

As the sky grew dark, there were fewer people on the street and many shops closed, but Ji Yuan was still wandering alone on the west side of the city.

“Could it be possible that the Zuo family has completely died out?”

While muttering to himself, he saw that the place in front of him was still brightly lit and bustling. Aside from some spots with entertainment and fireworks, there was also a restaurant with the word “gambling” hanging in front of it.

Coincidentally, Ji Yuan heard a familiar voice coming from the door of the gambling house in front of him.

“Wait, I’ll be right back! I’ll be right back!”

“Don’t be so embarrassed if you lose~! Hahaha!”

“I still have something, wait for me!”

The flatbread cake vendor with whom he had been chatting during the day rushed out of the gambling house with sweat all over his forehead. His steps were brisk but his expression was completely different from when Ji Yuan had been speaking with in the daytime.

“What a pity! Good did not suppress evil…!”

Ji Yuan shook his head slightly and changed his route, heading somewhere else.

After obtaining the “imperial decree” technique, Ji Yuan could now write “edicts” without harming his fundamental cultivation. Although his edicts were not very powerful, they could indeed be considered miraculous.

In Bright Strategies, the power of the Imperial Decrees was exaggerated to high heavens, saying it could only accomplished by a true Taoist master. Ji Yuan was taking a shortcut, but the effects he achieved might even be superior.

At the same time that the flatbread cake vendor was running home in a cold sweat, the owner of the stationery shop, who had framed the calligraphy, was admiring the characters carefully, and couldn’t help but copy them down.

There was an underworld night patrol passing by the shopkeeper’s house, and occasionally a divine aura was visible from inside, as if the walls of the house were clearer and more transparent at night.

1. T/n: presumably from JY giving some gold nuggets to Taoist Qingsong ↩︎
2. Also known as tanghulu, it’s rock-sugar coated fruits on a bamboo skewer. Traditionally made with Chinese hawthorn. I want to eat them so badly. ↩︎
3. 博士 (bóshì): in modern times means someone who holds a Doctorate, but the archaic meaning is someone specialized in a skill or trade. I considered using “connoisseur,” but the word “specialist” encapsulated the more practical application of knowledge better than connoisseur ↩︎
4. T/n: LOL classic cliffhanger ↩︎
5. The exact translation was “the Dharma/law/Tao was there before the words were spoken,” but I decided on this translation for several reasons: 1) it’s much clearer what’s happening, and 2) I had no idea whether to translate it as Dharma, Tao, way, law, or world, (usually there are at least some context clues) so I went with an approximation of all of them. ↩︎
6. 醒 (xǐng): to wake up, 木 (mù): tree/wood/unresponsive/numb, the various translation tools tried to tell me this was “wake-up wood” or something but it makes so much more sense if he was waking up “wooden” (i.e. drowsy/unresponsive) people. It’s not eeeexaaactlyyyy what was written but those are the trials of translation I suppose, and I didn’t want to just leave it out ↩︎
7. Several “Battles of Dongshan” (or “Battles of Dong Mountain”) exist in our world today, but best I can tell this is not particularly inspired by any of them. ↩︎
8. It’s not an exact translation, but Bai Tang Gao was the closest equivalent ↩︎

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by Aunomay Read