Chapter 49049 After he brought me home, I became his dog...
My drive for action has never been so intense. An almost burning urgency compels me to get this done immediately. Ignoring Nezha's puzzled look, I simply tell him to be patient and head straight for the teahouse owner.
"Boss, want to make a deal?" I said straight to the point. "I have a plan to make your teahouse ten times more lively than it already is, and make that old-fashioned fairy-mortal love story completely unpopular."
The boss twirled his beard and eyed me suspiciously, clearly distrusting my ability. He believed the enduring popularity of immortal-mortal romances would never be replaced by other stories. I laughed at his youth and asked for pen and paper. Though he didn't believe me, he still had the waiter bring me the paper and pen, adhering to the principle that harmony brings wealth. I picked up the pen and dipped it in ink, the golden scales on my wrist faintly visible as I moved. I scrawled a few words on the paper in a flamboyant style:
Sister-in-law, open the door, I am my brother!
Then he wrote:
After he brought me home, I became his dog.
The boss leaned over and took a look. His eyes widened instantly, as if burned by the words. He forgot to move his hand, twirling his beard, and held the paper, reading it over and over again, clicking his tongue. Finally, he slapped his thigh and said three times in a row:
"Interesting, interesting!" His beard trembled with excitement. "This storybook... no, this story, when can you finish writing it? I'll have the storyteller lined up right away! I guarantee the customers will flock to it!"
I held up three fingers and said in a clear and firm voice, "Three days. In three days, I'll have the script ready for you. I guarantee you'll be satisfied. But before that, I need a deposit."
The boss twirled his beard, his eyes gleaming. Clearly intrigued by the words, his business acumen wasn't completely overwhelmed. He hesitated, rubbing his hands. "My dear, it's a good idea, shocking! But it's just empty talk. Paying a deposit without seeing the real deal is the norm in this business..."
I nodded in understanding, my smile still lingering, but my gaze shifted slightly to the corner of the teahouse. There, a petite figure sat bored on a bench, occasionally coughing. Seeing him looking over, I smiled and said,
"Your concerns are justified." I looked away, my voice lowered a few degrees, a hint of subtle heaviness in it. "To be honest, my brother and I have ended up here, just to visit a distant relative. Our money is running out, and we're so overwhelmed by the crowds. Liujia Village is just a temporary place for us to stay, and we can't wait much longer."
I paused, facing the boss's scrutinizing gaze, and said frankly and earnestly: "I urgently need this deposit, not for anything else, but just to find a more stable place for my brother to live in these three days, and to get two prescriptions to reduce his suffering from the cold. You can see that he is weak and can't withstand the bumps on the road and sleeping on the streets." My eyes once again swept over the "coughing" little figure in the corner, and the meaning was self-evident.
The boss followed my gaze and frowned when he saw the child's thin figure and pale face.
"Exchange your story for travel money to settle your brother?" the boss repeated in a low voice, his eyes moving back and forth between me and the "sick" boy in the corner.
"That's right." I straightened my back, my eyes frank. "This deposit is your sincerity in buying these two great ideas, and it's also a guarantee that I'll spend three days behind closed doors writing furiously. If after three days, I don't produce a storybook that will wow you, I won't take a cent of the deposit and will return it in full!"
The teahouse fell silent for a moment, the only audible sound being a suppressed cough from the corner. The hesitation on the owner's face gradually gave way to a mixture of curiosity, calculation, and a touch of pity. He stared at me, as if assessing the weight of my words.
Finally, he slapped his thigh, as if he had made up his mind: "Okay! For your ideas, for your enthusiasm, and for... for your brotherly friendship, I'll give you the deposit!"
He turned and called behind the counter, "Awen! Go to my cabinet in the back and get that blue cloth purse. Give this lady five hundred coins first!" He turned back, his eyes blazing at me. "Young lady, take this money and settle your brother. Three days, just three days! In three days, I want to see a storybook that will fill my teahouse and make the storyteller drool! If so..." He chuckled, with a hint of the cunning of an old fox, "If there's none, or if it's not good enough, then these five hundred coins and that idea will be mine!"
"It's a deal!" A heavy sigh of relief fell from my heart. A sincere smile blossomed on my face, and I bowed solemnly to him. "Thank you, boss, for your help. I won't let you down in three days!"
In the corner, the dedicated little Nezha, who was pretending to be sick, coughed a few more times at the right time. I walked over quickly, patted him on the back, and said gently, "Okay, okay, I got the money. I'll take you to find a place to stay and get medicine. Just bear with it."
Little Nezha nodded "weakly" in cooperation, and was "supported" by me. Under the boss's slightly sympathetic gaze, he quickly left this dangerous place.
As soon as he turned out of the sight of the teahouse, little Nezha immediately shook off my hand. The "sickly" look just now disappeared. His little face was tense and he stared at me sharply: "Is it really so easy for mortals to make money? You just wrote two lines of weird talismans?" He obviously didn't see the specific content on the paper.
I proudly lifted the heavy string of five hundred coins and waved it before his eyes. The coins clashed with each other, making a pleasant sound. "Hehe, that's what they call knowledge is wealth! Who told me that my head," I nodded at my temples, "is filled with this junk!"
Little Nezha: ...
"Oh, right," I put the money away carefully, then thought of something else. "Don't you need to report back to Heaven? You've been on earth for three or four days now, right? The Jade Emperor won't give you any trouble, right?"
He curled his lips and said nonchalantly, "It's a day off today." He glanced at me and added slowly, "A day in heaven."
One day in heaven is one year on earth! This means little Nezha can take a year-long vacation on earth!
"Great!" I exclaimed sincerely, "Okay! Then let's go to the inn now! Let's take good care of your frail brother!"
We quickly found a reasonably clean inn and used our newly acquired fortune to book a top-tier room, paying the full three-day fee. We considered booking two rooms, but after considering the size of our wallets and considering Little Nezha's comment, "This prince can just meditate; he doesn't need a bed," we decided against it.
The waiter led us into the room and asked us if we wanted dinner in the lobby or in the room. I looked at the writing brushes, inkstones, and paper in the room and said decisively, "Send it to the room. My brother needs to rest."
After the waiter left, I walked to my desk, took a deep breath, and began to grind the ink. The rich fragrance of ink filled the air.
Little Nezha immediately came over, tiptoed to look at the table, his golden eyes full of curiosity: "Hey, what kind of shocking thing are you going to write? Will it really make that boss's teahouse crowded?"
"Of course!" I spread out the paper, full of confidence. "The immortal-mortal romance is too old-fashioned. I decided to do something fresh and exciting!"
I picked up my pen and wrote those two lines of thunder again on the snow-white rice paper:
Sister-in-law, open the door, I am my brother!
After he brought me home, I became his dog.
Little Nezha stretched his neck to take a look——
"Puff—cough cough cough!" He seemed to be choked by his own saliva. He took a step back suddenly and pointed at the two lines of words. His little face wrinkled into a ball, revealing an expression of one part complexity, two parts shock, three parts disgust, and four parts confusion - the expression of a pie chart.
"W-what the hell?!" He raised his voice. "You're such a liar! What the hell is going on?"
"Go away, what do you think a kid knows about artistic creation?" I rolled my eyes at him. "Do you think I just made this up? This is called art drawn from life! It has a prototype! I just processed and sublimated it in a reasonable way!"
"True story?" Little Nezha had a look on his face that said "Are you kidding me?" and pointed at the first line. "Tell me, who is the prototype of this unlucky guy? Who is so... so..." He couldn't seem to find the right words to describe the outrageousness of this behavior.
I chuckled and lowered my voice, "You know this one! It's Sun Wukong and Princess Iron Fan! Think about the scene at Flaming Mountain, 'Sister-in-law, can you lend me your fan?' Isn't this an artistic distillation?"
Little Nezha: "..."
He froze, his golden pupils widened, his mouth slightly open, as if he had heard something that completely overturned his worldview.
After a long while, he turned his neck extremely slowly and laboriously, like a rusty machine, and pointed to the second line with a trembling finger. His voice was weak and on the verge of collapse: "Then... who is this 'becoming his dog'...?"
I acted as if it was a matter of course, even a little proud. "Is that even a question? Of course it's Erlang Shen and Roaring Sky Dog. What's going on?"
Little Nezha: “………………”
Oh no.
Little Nezha's brain seemed to have completely crashed.
Finally, I kindly told him, "These are just sources of inspiration. I won't actually write about them by name. Ultimately, our goal is to separate the Three Holy Mothers and Liu Yanchang."
When Nezha came to his senses, his expression was very complicated. I could probably guess that he was already wondering whether I would be beaten into a meat pie by the golden cudgel that fell from the sky or stabbed into a sieve by the three-pronged double-edged halberd.
"Okay, what are you going to write? What's your sense of guilt?"
As I twirled my pen, several melodramatic scenes from online literature appeared in my mind.
But before that, I asked little Nezha: "Has Liu Yanchang ever met Erlang Shen?"
Little Nezha frowned, "Probably... not."
"Alright, that's easy. Let's think about this first. The Third Holy Mother's love for Liu Yanchang must be for emotional comfort. Their current development hasn't progressed that far; at most, they're just boyfriend and girlfriend. Unless a couple in love is clear-headed, the more outsiders interfere, the more precious their love becomes, leading them to rebel against the world! So our core idea is to destroy the trust between them."
Then I added, "If we can't separate them three times, I'll give up."
Little Nezha was surprised: "Why?"
I put my hands together and said, "Respect the fate of others!"
Little Nezha agreed, "Okay, if we don't succeed three times, then I'll give up."
So, we high-fived and made a deal.
The waiter knocked on the door and brought the food: two simple bowls of vegetarian noodles and a plate of pickles. I immediately called out to Little Nezha, "Come on, come on, eat first! A full stomach gives you the energy to create!"
I already have a general direction.
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