Chapter 480
Jinlie Cloth Shop started out as a small business selling mid- and low-end fabrics, which failed to make much of a splash in the huge capital city.
The people in Beijing who were watching the fun were not paying attention to the Jinlie Cloth Shop itself, but to the man named Jing Lie, the owner of the shop, and the four rich and powerful young men who were hanging around the shop. Because of their existence, even if there were people who were jealous of the shop, they would not dare to lay their hands on the Jinlie Cloth Shop.
This was on the surface. Privately, Jing Lie used the money invested by Li Yan and others to start manufacturing looms and recruiting people. No, he recruited workers to start weaving cloth himself. The location was an inconspicuous piece of wasteland on the outskirts of the city. Of course, he could get this piece of wasteland thanks to the reputation of the four dandy young men, otherwise Jing Lie would have to use some private means to solve the problem.
The first generation of looms were completely manually operated and employed a lot of weavers. The looms were of course much more advanced than those on the market today. For the second generation of looms, Jing Lie planned to use water power to drive them.
Jing Lie's business was booming, and Yuan Jing's first novel was also completed and handed over to Xia Zhou.
Although Xia Zhou was not favored by the Minister in his mansion and was suppressed and ruined by his stepmother, he was still the legitimate son of the original wife. Although he failed to get all the dowry left by his mother, in order to avoid gossip, he still held two shops. Of course, these two shops must not have made much money a year, otherwise his stepmother would not be willing to give it up?
One of the two shops sells groceries, which only makes a few hundred taels of silver a year. The situation of the small bookstore is even worse. Serious scholars don't like to go to this kind of small bookstore, thinking it is cheap and there are no good books inside. Now it only makes a small profit by selling storybooks, but it can't attract those storybook masters, so it has been half-dying.
However, Yuan Jing felt that his situation was better than his own. Although he seemed to have no shortage of food and drink on the surface, once the Yongyi Marquis's Mansion cut off his source of income, he would have no income at all. Xia Zhou at least still had two shops to support himself.
Yuan Jing threw the copied "Repaying Gratitude" to Xia Zhou, who was stunned. Seeing that the author's name was Si Yao, he curiously asked, "Which scholar asked the Fourth Young Master to send this? How could it catch the Fourth Young Master's eye?"
As he said this, he chuckled, thinking that only the erotic booklets he wrote would catch Yuan Jing's eye and he would specially arrange it for him.
Yuan Jing rolled his eyes and said, "I was bored, so I found something to do. It's rare for me to do something like this seriously. You have to promote this Gratitude Note for me. If it doesn't sell well, I'll punish you! By the way, don't tell Li Yan and Zhao Yu, or I'll punish you!"
"Puff!" Xia Zhou spat out a mouthful of tea. "Is it really written by the Fourth Young Master himself? Then I have to quickly read the Fourth Young Master's masterpiece."
A novel, no matter how refined it is, will still have more than 100,000 words. Yuan Jing copied several copies, which could have been printed and sold in batches. However, because this was the first novel under the pen name Si Yao, Yuan Jing did not intend to whet the readers' appetite and printed all of them out at once.
More than 100,000 words are too complicated to read in a short time, so Xia Zhou took a few not-so-thin storybooks home to read. The next day, with dark circles under his eyes, he came to Jinlie Cloth Shop to look for Yuan Jing. He would definitely find him here, and if he couldn't find him, he would send a message to the Yongyi Marquis' Mansion and he would come right over.
Yuan Jing was indeed here. Xia Zhou rushed over when he saw him. "Fourth Young Master, no, Fourth Brother, Fourth Brother is really talented. Look, I stayed up all night to finish the whole book of Gratitude. Although it is very different from the popular vernacular novels, I couldn't stop reading it. I didn't sleep all night and I had to come to find you quickly."
Yuan Jing laughed out loud when he heard this. This was not the style of online novels in later generations, which focused on the sense of rhythm, with a small climax every few chapters and a big climax every ten or so chapters. It made people itchy when they read it, and they were reluctant to stop and wanted to finish the whole story in one go. Otherwise, they would be left hanging in the air halfway through, and would be thinking about the situation of the protagonist in the novel no matter what they did.
Xia Zhou was still excited and said: "It's so exciting to see the big girl in the story fighting wits and courage with others. Why didn't I know that vernacular novels could be written like this before? But brother, you wrote Ruan Xiangjun's ending too tragically. In fact, I think the prince could have taken Ruan Xiangjun in as well."
In other words, the male protagonist is very happy, surrounded by three wives and four concubines and many beauties. However, in Yuan Jing's story of repaying gratitude, there is only the village girl. She said that they wanted to be together for the rest of their lives, but the daughter of a wealthy family ended up with a miserable ending. They could have obviously coexisted peacefully.
Yuan Jing said meaningfully: "You don't understand. I wrote this story not only for men to read, but more for the women in the backyard. Which woman do you think likes to be hugged by men?"
Xia Zhou scratched his head and stopped talking. He was a victim of disputes in the harem. His stepmother was sweet on the outside but bitter on the inside, and there were also several concubines who were causing a lot of trouble. He was not originally so idle. He had once been competitive and motivated, but then his health deteriorated and he had to stay in bed to rest. After a few times, he figured out the tricks and decided to just give up. Instead, he lived a lively life. This made him more and more disappointed with that family, and he only hoped that one day he could separate from them as soon as possible.
"But Fourth Brother, I can't guarantee that the Gratitude Record can really be sold. I have never seen a book that describes a village girl marrying into a marquis's mansion."
"Yes, those stories are about a poor scholar who is not appreciated for his talent but is spotted by the daughter of an official, who secretly supports him. Then he passes the imperial examination and becomes the top scholar. Not only does the prime minister want to recruit him as his son-in-law, but the emperor also wants to recruit him as his concubine. In the end, he simply marries the princess, the prime minister's daughter, and the official's daughter all at once. If a poor scholar can become a concubine, why can't a village girl become the wife of a prince?"
He did not simply belittle the village girl Yang Da Niu in the story of repaying a favor. If he did, who would read the story? Men and women would not even look at her, so he gave Yang Da Niu some shining qualities, such as making money by running a small business, but being spotted by a rich man who wanted to rob her, and then Yang Da Niu teamed up with the amnesiac prince she saved to fight the rich man, and finally won a great victory.
The time-travel village girl did have some qualities that women today do not have, but in the end she also embarked on the path of relying on men, gradually eroding those unique qualities in herself, and became a woman no different from other women in the Daning Dynasty, devoting herself to taking care of her husband and children in the backyard.
Xia Zhou thought it made a lot of sense, but also felt something was wrong. He couldn't tell what was wrong, but he still did his best to do what Yuan Jing asked him to do. He stayed up all night to finish reading the novel, so it was not likely that no one would be interested in it.
Seeing that Yuan Jing had tricked Xia Zhou away, Jing Lie finally couldn't help laughing out loud.
At present, woodblock printing was still used. Yuan Jing had no intention of helping Xia Zhou improve his printing skills for the time being, because the books he sold were not printed by him, but by another workshop. After working overtime, Xia Zhou finally put the storybook "Repaying Gratitude" written under the pen name Si Yao in his own bookstore half a month later, and asked the owner of the bookstore to promote this storybook to old customers as much as possible.
But another half a month passed, and only a few copies of The Record of Repaying Gratitude were sold. Those men wanted to read about rich ladies, not vulgar country girls. Xia Zhou could only run to Yuan Jing to explain the situation. The copies were not selling well. What should he do?
Huh? Fourth brother has lost a lot of weight again. From this point of view, fourth brother is much more handsome than before, especially his eyes, which are very bright. Just staring at the little girl like this can definitely make the little girl dizzy.
Yuan Jing touched his chin and said, "Of course I expected this situation. So, you will treat the three of us to a meal. At the dinner table, you will give each of us ten storybooks to take back and give as gifts. Let's build up the reputation of The Story of Gratitude first."
He felt that this novel would be more popular with women than with men. At the beginning, the amnesiac prince was just a tool who needed to rely on the village girl to survive.
"Okay, then I'll listen to you, fourth brother." Xia Zhou was busy delivering letters to the other two, and agreed to meet at a restaurant for dinner. As for the expenses, including the printing of the book, they were all paid by Yuan Jing himself. Of course, he couldn't let Xia Zhou cover the cost for him, and Xia Zhou himself didn't have much money to spend.
The cloth shop has already made money, and combined with the silver Yuan Jing got from Marquis Yongyi, it is enough to cover these expenses.
After drinking, and receiving Xia Zhou's request, Li Yan and Zhao Yu patted their chests and promised that they would help their brother to get this done. Even if the script could not be sold in the end, they would just buy it with money. They couldn't let their good brother lose money.
Yuan Jing also returned to the mansion of Marquis Yongyi with ten copies of "Repaying Gratitude". Since he had concealed the author's identity from Li Yan and Zhao Yu, he had to go through with the act. He gave one copy to each of the sisters in the mansion, making five copies in total. Yes, in addition to Zeng Jingshu, the legitimate daughter, there were four concubines in the mansion. The remaining five copies were given to Chunxiang and several maids. They should not be underestimated, as they would also be potential users of this kind of novel.
Especially since the heroine is a low-class village girl, it is probably the easiest for the maids in the mansion to empathize with the story. They fantasize that they can also meet a noble person, and then fight all kinds of monsters and demons along the way to become a superior person.
As expected, according to Yuan Jing's observation, he found that Zeng Jing's sister threw the storybook aside after receiving it. She looked down on her cousin Zeng Yuanjing, and would not like the storybook he gave her. What storybook could Zeng Yuanjing read? It would not make her lose interest after reading it. However, the concubine sisters and maids held the storybook and read it with relish. Even the illiterate maids gathered around the literate maid and listened to her read the content of the storybook.
When Chunxiang finished reading first, she met the young master who came back from outside. Chunxiang looked at Yuanjing with affection and shyness, then lowered her head and ran away, leaving Yuanjing dumbfounded. He realized belatedly and wondered if he had given the wrong signal.
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