After leaving the stationery shop, Ji Yuan weighed the handful of silver in his hand. It was at least two taels. It was not as much as the thousands of gold he had seen in TV dramas in his previous life, but it was not a small amount either. It was naturally good for Ji Yuan.
In fact, silver is quite durable in this world. His biggest expenditure was three times.
The first time was because he did not understand that his fate could not be predicted rashly, so he asked Taoist Qingsong to tell his fortune, which resulted in the other party being seriously injured. The gold beans and silver coins left by Ji Yuan that time were worth more than thirty taels, which was enough for the master and disciple to recover safely and return home with a lot left over.
The second time was by boat. We chartered a boat with others and it only cost us about 600 wen, which was equivalent to a little over half a tael of silver.
The third time was when Chun Huifu bought two kilograms of Qianrichun because he was greedy, and spent less than four taels.
The remaining expenses for food and accommodation are not large. For food, if you go to a restaurant and order something luxurious, it will only cost a few hundred coins. A bowl of noodles will only cost a few coins. One tael of silver is equivalent to one string of coins, which is a thousand coins.
Not to mention accommodation, Ji Yuan had hardly stayed in an inn since he came out. He only stayed there occasionally to take a shower or something, and a good room in a top-notch inn cost only a hundred coins.
So, apart from the gold ingot that had some corners cut off, Ji Yuan still had nearly ten taels of silver in loose change, and this time the shop owner compensated him for a lot of it.
Putting the silver back into the purse in his arms, Ji Yuan wandered around the city of Juntianfu with an umbrella and a bag on his back, just like a leisurely stroller.
As the cart passed by, the wooden wheels crushed the stone pavement, children chased each other with candied haws in their hands, and people in street vendors and shops along the street shouted and hawked their wares. The aroma of rouge, powder and snacks wafted in the air...
"Master Zuo, Master Zuo, you grew up here!"
Sometimes Ji Yuan was still quite romantic, just like at this moment, he imagined in his mind the little kid Zuo Li back then, holding a wooden sword and chasing around in the martial arts world with his friends.
Following the aroma of tea and the shouts of customers, Ji Yuan walked to a teahouse that was doing good business. Inside, there was a storyteller who was talking and singing with great enthusiasm.
A tea doctor saw Ji Yuan coming and immediately came forward to greet him enthusiastically.
"Hey, sir, please come in. We have soups, fried dumplings, and brewed teas!"
"Okay, let's find a lively place, preferably next to a storyteller."
"Oh, that's unfortunate. The seats over there are full. Can you move to the side?"
Dr. Tea glanced at the storyteller in the middle of the hall before speaking.
"That's fine, you arrange it!"
"Then please follow me, sir!"
Following the enthusiastic Tea Doctor, we walked to a pillar on the left side of the center, where there was an empty four-person table. The Tea Doctor quickly took down the cloth and wiped off the tea stains on it.
"Sir, what kind of tea would you like and what snacks would you like?"
Ji Yuan pretended to look at the blurry sign of the teahouse across the street and spoke without letting Dr. Tea say anything.
"Bring me a pot of the best new tea, and three plates of your most famous snacks."
"Okay~~Please wait~~!"
As soon as Dr. Tea left, Ji Yuan's attention was all focused on his surroundings. People at the surrounding tables were all drinking tea and eating snacks, listening attentively to the storyteller's story, which should be about a general's famous battle.
"There were hundreds of enemy rafts floating across the river, and they were about to attack our weak point in the rear. General Huang, who only had a hundred men at the time, discovered this situation and was quick-witted. He ordered his men to report back to the camp, and at the same time, he divided his troops into several groups and rushed into several nearby woods..."
When the storyteller said this, he put down his fan, picked up the teacup, drank a sip of tea to moisten his throat, and wiped the sweat off his face with a towel. The tea drinkers below asked him impatiently.
"Could it be that General Huang repelled the enemy with just these few soldiers?"
"Hey, don't interrupt!" "That's right, let the gentleman speak!"
As soon as the storyteller put down the teacup and picked up the fan, the noisy discussions below naturally quieted down. It seemed to Yu Jiyuan that he felt that his words were being followed by the Dharma.
"At that time, General Huang knew that with the few troops he had, it was like hitting a rock with an egg. However, the general was resourceful and ordered his men to prepare dry firewood in the pine forest to start a fire, but he did not set it off. At the same time, he tried his best to scare away the birds in the forest with his troops!"
"The enemy's general who was crossing the river was no unknown man. When he saw that all the birds in the forest on the other side were startled and flew away, he realized something was wrong and ordered to temporarily stop crossing the river. He only sent a dozen small rafts to cross the river to investigate... It was at this moment!"
At this point, the storyteller suddenly raised his voice and slammed the wake-up stick hard, startling all the tea drinkers but no one interrupted him.
"General Huang ordered his men to light all the dry firewood that had been prepared, and immediately more than a dozen smoke signals rose in the forest... The enemy general on the other side of the river was so frightened that his face changed drastically, and he said that he had discovered the ambush and ordered his men to retreat quickly. Many of the soldiers on the dozen or so rafts were frightened by the smoke signals and fell into the water..."
The storyteller vividly recounted the fierce battle of that year with words and presented the strategy and bravery of General Huang through stories, which amazed the tea drinkers.
Ji Yuan also listened with great interest and nodded frequently. This is also art!
After the storyteller finished telling the story, he had wasted a lot of time and effort, and some generous tea drinkers like Ji Yuan and the nearby gave him some tips, and the teahouse also gave him a certain fee, so it was a good profit.
The next part of the book, "The Battle of Dongshan", would begin in a while. The storyteller was now resting up and drinking tea. Ji Yuan poured all the snacks onto a saucer and went over with the teapot.
"Sir, would you mind chatting for a minute?"
When the storyteller saw Ji Yuan coming over with a teapot and snacks, and looking very gentle, he smiled and nodded.
"Please take a seat!"
Ji Yuan tactfully put down the snacks, took a new cup from the table and poured his own good tea for the storyteller.
"Please have some tea! And some snacks too!"
Ji Yuan had already smelled it, that the tea provided by the teahouse to the storytellers was all stale tea, definitely not as good as their own.
The latter was not polite either. He smiled and picked up a piece of crispy cake, put it in his mouth, and then took a sip of tea.
"Does this gentleman have anything to ask?"
"That's right. I would like to ask you about the Zuo family in Juntianfu, the Zuo family that was famous in the martial arts world decades ago. I wonder how its descendants are doing now?"
The storyteller frowned and looked at Ji Yuan with a little surprise, observing him carefully. He was wearing a wide-sleeved green shirt, a bun with a wooden hairpin, and his hands were slender, and he did not have a strong body.
"Sir, are you a chivalrous knight?"
"Hehe... 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 look for their descendants."
Ancestors of the Zuo family
The storyteller frowned and looked at Ji Yuan again. He felt it was ridiculous that he couldn't tell exactly how old he was. Then he finally saw clearly that his slightly opened eyes were pale.
However, the storyteller did not dare to look any longer, as he could not be sure that the person in front of him was a martial arts master. Anyway, what happened to the Zuo family was none of his business.
"Few people in the city know about this. The Zuo family was once prominent, but fate plays tricks on us. The sword immortal Zuo was obsessed with swords, and the sword notes he left behind after his death caused a bloody storm in the martial arts world, and also brought disaster to the Zuo family. Even though the great hero Zuo Qiu had anticipated and arranged this, the Zuo family still found it difficult to extricate themselves..."
A quarter of an hour later, Ji Yuan came out of the teahouse and headed towards the old house of Zuo family in the west of the city with a frown. However, it took him two hours to find the place, and even the doorman had become "Qian Mansion". When he asked the doorman, he didn't know anything about the Zuo family.
When it got dark, there were fewer people on the road and many shops were closed, but Ji Yuan was still wandering alone on the west side of the city.
"Is it possible that the Zuo family has completely disappeared?"
While muttering to himself, he saw that the place in front of him was still brightly lit and bustling. Apart from some places of romance and fireworks, there was also a restaurant with a lantern with the word "gambling" hanging on it.
Coincidentally, Ji Yuan heard a familiar voice coming from the door of the gambling house in front.
"Wait, I'll be right back! I'll be right back!"
“Don’t be so embarrassed to lose~~~Hahaha~~~!”
"I still have Ben, wait for me!"
The pancake vendor who had been chatting during the day rushed out of the gambling house with sweat all over his forehead. His steps were still brisk, but his expression was very different from when he was chatting during the day.
"What a pity! Good will prevail over evil..."
Ji Yuan shook his head slightly and changed his route, heading somewhere else.
After obtaining the method of "imperial decree", Ji Yuan can now write "decrees" without damaging the foundation. Although his decrees do not have great power, they can indeed be called magical.
In Tongming Ce, the decree was exaggerated, saying that it could only be accomplished by Taoist Master Dao Miao. Ji Yuan was taking a shortcut, and the effect might even be better.
At the same time as the pancake vendor was running home in a sweat, the owner of the copywriting shop who had framed his calligraphy was carefully admiring the handwriting and could not help but copy it.
There was a night patrol of the underworld passing by the store owner's house, and the owner's house was occasionally visible with a divine aura, as if the house was clearer and more transparent in the night.