Chapter 58 Chapter 58

Jiang Huai was holding a book and reading it. It was a novel that had just been published by the bookstore.

Of course, to put it another way, this novel was custom-made for Jiang Huai.

In the Great Zhou Dynasty, the rich and powerful had many ways to entertain themselves. The simplest ones were to attend banquets, watch singing and dancing performances, or play some other drinking games, or go out hunting and enjoying the spring.

For Jiang Huai, the latter can only be done occasionally, because he has no problem riding a horse now, but his archery is still not very good. After practicing for so long, Jiang Huai is fine when shooting at fixed targets, but once he shoots at moving targets, his accuracy is no longer good.

When hunting, animals in the wild will not stand still and wait to die, especially now that there are many people hunting. Animals are extremely sensitive and will run away at the slightest sign of trouble. Jiang Huai's eyesight is average, and when he sees a wild animal, the animal has already run away before he can raise his bow and arrow.

However, the most important thing is that Jiang Huai couldn't bear to hunt these animals.

Whether it was a rabbit, a fox, or a wild deer, Jiang Huai couldn't bear to kill them. Although he knew that some hunters would catch these animals for money, they did so to make a living, while they hunted purely for fun. In reality, they had no shortage of meat or fur.

Even though he knew that these animals were not protected species, Jiang Huai still couldn't bear to do anything. He couldn't stop others, but he could control himself, so after going there a few times, Jiang Huai rarely went there.

Of course, Jiang Huai knew that hunting in the wild was a common form of entertainment for the nobles of the Great Zhou Dynasty, and he didn't want his attitude to affect other people around him. The excuse he gave was not that he couldn't bear it, but that his archery skills were not good, and hunting on horseback was tiring, so he was too lazy to go.

This means that there is one less form of entertainment. As for the former, the singing and dancing performances are indeed quite nice to watch, but now you can only watch them live. It is impossible to watch any wonderful performance repeatedly on your mobile phone like before. In addition, a performance requires preparation, and the preparation time is quite long, which leaves a lot of free time in between.

The most important thing is that even if the singing and dancing are nice to watch, you will get tired of it after watching it too much. As for other drinking games, you need someone to play with you to be excited. But Jiang Huai doesn’t know anyone who has time to play with him. He feels tired just playing with those who are a little unfamiliar and listening to them talk. Even if he is praised by everyone, it doesn’t seem to be very interesting.

Finally, Jiang Huai found a good way to pass the time: reading.

However, there were not many books in Anyuan Prefecture, and the contents were rather boring. There were very few novels that Jiang Huai wanted to read. At most, there were some travel books, which were written in a very literary style. He would read a sentence and translate it in his mind. When it was really boring at the beginning, Jiang Huai could still persist in reading, and even drew pictures according to the travel notes. But after reading later, Jiang Huai couldn't continue, because the travel notes made him feel like he was looking at maps of various places.

On the contrary, Xiao Jingzhao liked reading these travel notes very much. Jiang Huai gave all the travel notes he had collected to Xiao Jingzhao, thought hard about them, and then went to find some storytellers and asked them to write some novels for him to pass the time.

Originally, Jiang Huai wanted to find scholars, but in the Great Zhou, everyone who could read and write wanted to work for the court. It would be fine if Jiang Huai didn't want them to write novels, but novels were not serious matters in the eyes of these people. Especially the cases Jiang Huai gave made them feel a little absurd, so they naturally declined.

If Jiang Huai used his power to force them to write, that would certainly be possible, but Jiang Huai knew that with their reluctant attitude, they would definitely not seriously study how to write a novel, let alone write a novel that he would find good.

Because in modern times, Jiang Huai has read countless novels, and his vision has naturally been raised. If the other party writes carefully, perhaps relying on the ancient style and the different brain circuits of the two worlds, he can still attract Jiang Huai's attention to some extent. But if he is not careful, the content he writes will be terrible.

If the other party is slow to work, it will only waste Jiang Huai's energy and time. Besides, who knows whether these people have the talent to write novels? Instead of looking for those who are unwilling to cooperate, it is better to find some talented ones who are willing to cooperate.

Storytellers came into Jiang Huai's sight. If one could tell a story, he could basically read and write, even if his learning was superficial. However, the novels Jiang Huai wanted to read did not require the other party to use exquisite words, as long as he could tell the story clearly.

The storyteller had been telling stories for so many years that he was recommended to Jiang Huai, so he must have enough talent. After all, for ordinary stories, the storyteller could not just read them according to the book. He needed to reorganize them and tell them in order to attract the tea drinkers.

This kind of organization is equivalent to training their ability to write novels. The most important thing is that these storytellers are very obedient. After knowing what Jiang Huai wants to see, they will write stories according to Jiang Huai's needs.

In fact, this kind of story whose general plot you know would still sound a bit boring, but Jiang Huai had no choice. If he just let the storyteller play freely, the story he told would be in line with the style of the Great Zhou Dynasty. Although it was okay, it was not quite to Jiang Huai's liking.

He couldn't just give them an outline and ask them to fill it in and write. Even if the writing details might not meet the requirements and he knew the direction, it was also a way to train these storytellers so that they could improve and later write stories that suited Jiang Huai's preferences.

Jiang Huai would not underestimate the abilities of these storytellers, but he would not overestimate them and think that they did not need to learn.

At the beginning of the story, Jiang Huai originally wanted to let the storyteller practice. Considering the other party's acceptance ability, he wrote an outline of a fairy tale. Unexpectedly, the storyteller had a deep understanding of gods and myths, and the story he made up based on the outline he gave was also wonderful.

Although Jiang Huai himself was familiar with the outline content, the flesh and blood filling the skeleton were extremely vivid, and Jiang Huai was very engaged in listening to it. After listening to the story, Jiang Huai even printed it into a book and sold it in order not to waste it.

However, because not everyone can read and write, the novel did not sell well in Anyuan Prefecture. Instead, some storytellers were gathered to sell the story, and then the whole story spread in Anyuan Prefecture, becoming the most popular story in Anyuan Prefecture.

After all, most of the stories told in the past were historical novels or short myths and legends. There were no such fast-paced and particularly attractive fairy tales.

Because the story was so popular, even some storytellers from other places came to Anyuan Prefecture in groups to buy books. After all, some of the printed books were sold locally in Anyuan Prefecture, while others were sold in Kyoto. They couldn't buy them even if they wanted to, so they had to come to Anyuan Prefecture to buy them.

Now that they had arrived in Anyuan Prefecture, they naturally could not just buy books, but also had to listen to the storytelling skills of their colleagues. This made them realize that the inspiration for this story actually came from Jiang Huai, and Jiang Huai was still looking for someone to write stories for him to entertain him.

This is not the point. The point is that Jiang Huai seems to have a lot of inspiration, but because he does not have enough storytellers under his command, or there are not enough capable storytellers, he has to find more storytellers to do the job.

In fact, the reason things turned out this way can only be blamed on Jiang Huai's fast reading speed. Jiang Huai originally thought that writing a book would help him to relieve his boredom for a while, at least he could read it over and over again several times. However, after reading and listening to storytelling for three or four times, he got a little bored.

But while he was reading and listening to books, he had not yet written the second story. Even if he used a charcoal pencil that wrote faster, it was not easy to write a story. What's more, the words could not be too straightforward and without any meaning, which would make writing even slower.

Seeing that he would soon run out of food, and might even run out of food from time to time in the future, Jiang Huai thought of recruiting some more storytellers. However, all the local storytellers in Anyuan Prefecture had been caught by him. Jiang Huai thought he was going to find some scholars, but he didn't expect that storytellers from other places would come and even visit him on their own initiative.

With so many storytellers coming, Jiang Huai naturally didn't want to let them go, but it was impossible for these people to stay in Anyuan Mansion to write for him. Even if the other party wanted to write, if they stayed in Anyuan Mansion all the time, their careers would be completely ruined. So Jiang Huai thought about it and signed these people directly in the bookstore. After letting them sign the contract, he asked them to clarify what they could write, share the extra ideas, and set a deadline for submission.

As a result, Jiang Huai suddenly had many more people writing stories for him, and of course, his bookshop also opened.

Over the years, the bookstore has grown bigger and bigger, more people have started writing novels, and the storytelling skills of these storytellers have become stronger and stronger.

As for the book that Jiang Huai is reading now, although it is a novel customized for him, he only vaguely described what he wanted to read. Jiang Huai is not very clear about the specific content. But now, after taking a look at it, the excitement of the content directly exceeded Jiang Huai's imagination.

Jiang Huai read with great interest. If it wasn't inconvenient to read while eating, Jiang Huai would have wanted to read while eating.

The only regret is that the handwriting speed cannot be fast after all, and the storyteller is not used to writing long, less than a few hundred thousand words. This novel is about to be finished. Looking at the remaining pages, Jiang Huai felt very sad.

As soon as Xiao Jingzhao came back, he saw Jiang Huai was engrossed in reading. Fortunately, the candle in the study was bright enough, otherwise it would be very hurtful to his eyes.

But even with candlelight, the flickering flames and the alternation of light and dark made reading at this time somewhat tiring for the eyes.

"Take a look tomorrow, or your eyes will hurt and you'll have to drink eye-clearing medicine again."

If Xiao Jingzhao had said something else, Jiang Huai might still be reluctant to put down the book, but the word "drink medicine" made Jiang Huai shudder and put down the book honestly.

I've been watching it for almost a day anyway, so I can watch it tomorrow.

After learning that Jiang Huai had been reading for a whole day, Xiao Jingzhao blinked. He wanted Jiang Huai to have enough power to protect himself, but power was not obtained for free, and it had to be paid for. If Jiang Huai really took the official position he wanted, Jiang Huai would probably be very busy. Not to mention reading idle books all day like he was doing now, even the time he spent with him would be shortened a lot.

Jiang Huai shivered unconsciously and felt another gust of cool wind blowing. He quickly closed the door to avoid catching a cold.