Chapter 36 Hu Wenlang

Concubine Mo led the two of them into the yard.

There is an open-air well here, with four streams flowing into the hall.

Under the eaves of the main hall, there is a desk, with bright lights on both sides of the desk.

On the table, there were several manuscripts that had been edited and redacted. On the desk next to them, there were raspberries that were caught from well water and were chilled. They were sour and sweet, and were perfect for eating during these restless spring days.

Behind the table, there was a young man, about twenty-five or twenty-six years old, wearing a blue shirt, with his chest half open, a pen in his mouth, and playing with the civet cat with heterochromatic pupils in his arms. When he saw Zhou Tiege and his brother coming, the young man was ready to stand up to greet them.

But the double-eyed raccoon cat in his arms raised its head and rubbed against the palm of the young man's hand, not allowing the young man to raise his hand to salute. It also arrogantly glanced at the second son of the Zhou family with its half-green and half-yellow eyes.

The young man smiled, put the pen in his mouth on the inkstone, covered it with ink, and wrote on the paper, "The oil-stealing mouse has one long ear, is black in color, and is good at running fast. The civet cat cannot catch it."

Suddenly, Zhou Tieyi heard a series of squeaking sounds of mice, followed by the sound of a mouse overturning an oil pan. Just as he was wondering where the mouse was, he saw a black mouse with long ears jumping out from under the young man's pen. The civet cat in the young man's arms saw the mouse and, without asking for its owner's caress, made a hissing sound and pounced on it.

The young man held the civet cat in one hand to prevent it from knocking over the inkstand. He waited until the mouse ran out of the desk before letting the civet cat chase it.

In the corridor, a cat and a mouse were running left and right, which was very interesting.

After playing with the cat, the young man straightened his clothes, stood up and said to Zhou Tiege with a smile, "You haven't been here for a long time, I thought you forgot about me. Now you've come and brought some midnight snacks, so it's time for you to come."

Concubine Mo smiled and said to Zhou Tieyi, "Please give me the food, my dear. I will go to the kitchen to cut it and serve it on the plate."

"It's troublesome."

Zhou Tieyi handed the midnight snack in his hand to Mo Fei.

"I just came back and there are so many trivial things to do at home. As soon as I encountered trouble, I thought of you."

Zhou Tiege did not consider himself an outsider either. He pulled over a cushion, sat cross-legged in front of the table, picked up the raspberries and started eating them. Zhou Tieyi followed suit.

The young man complained, "I knew it. You would think of me when something bad happened."

"What do you mean by bad luck? Last year you came out of seclusion to travel to the border of Yuanmeng and see the ancient battlefield of Crescent Lake, but I risked my life to accompany you."

As he spoke, Zhou Tiege introduced Zhou Tieyi, "This is one of the most accomplished novelists of this generation, Hu Wenlang, who has now entered the fifth rank, not much worse than me."

"That's because you insisted on listening to me tell the second half of "Sage Qi's Trouble on the Yellow Springs Road". You couldn't help yourself and chased me out of seclusion at night because you were afraid that I would die in Crescent Lake and no one would tell you the second half of the story."

Zhou Tieyi listened to the two people bickering and roughly guessed what happened. There were no beauties in the army, so listening to storytelling naturally became a rare entertainment. Hu Wenlang traveled to Sunset Pass and whetted Zhou Tiege's appetite with half a storybook. He temporarily hired a bodyguard and went to visit Crescent Lake.

"And if we hadn't gone to Crescent Lake for a walk, how could we have discovered Yuan Meng's spies and helped you accomplish such a great feat."

Hu Wenlang counted on his fingers. Although he and Zhou Tiege were friends for life, he couldn't let the other party get the upper hand verbally.

At this time, Concubine Mo came out from the kitchen with the prepared food and complained, "Wen Lang, Brother Zhou came to see you, why are you still arguing?"

Zhou Tiege clapped his hands and laughed, "Empress Mo is still sensible." They talked and laughed for a while, ate a few bites of food, and drank a few glasses of wine.

Hu Wenlang put down his wine glass and asked, "Are you here this time to fight with Monk Shenxiu?"

"You already know this?"

Zhou Tieyi asked casually. He didn't expect Xiu'er to spread the news so quickly.

Hu Wenlang straightened his chest and said, "How many of these affairs in the martial arts world can be avoided by the literary talent in my heart as a novelist?"

Zhou Tiege explained to his brother, "In this world, if there is a gambling fight that is even slightly above the public, novelists will definitely be present. Where do you think the list they publish every quarter comes from?"

After Zhou Tiege's reminder, Zhou Tieyi remembered that his predecessor's favorite book was only one, which was the quarterly "World Affairs" published by the novelist.

It not only contains the top figures from the top nine families, but also the rising geniuses from various schools of thought, and even publishes strange supplements such as the Most Beautiful List and the Famous Instruments List every year.

Zhou Tieyi asked curiously, "Can this "World Affairs" really include all the top masters and rank them? Why didn't they kill you novelists?"

Ranking the top masters and listing their life stories, whether good or bad, is always an offensive thing, probably similar to the Forbes list in previous lives.

Hu Wenlang's chest shrank. "Not all of them can be ranked. For example, your opening of the sea on the ninth day should be on the list of submerged dragons. However, this has not been confirmed yet, so it is not published in this quarterly."

Although Hu Wenlang said something else, Zhou Tieyi heard the hidden meaning, which is that the list of "Tianxia Shi" is similar to that of Forbes, which is not entirely correct.

Zhou Tiege knew all about this matter and said to his brother, "When the book "World Affairs" was first published, several top experts tried to trouble the novelist. Among them, the experts from the historian school were the most active, but they were all blocked by the Confucian school."

Zhou Tieyi thought about it for a while and figured it out. He smiled and said to Hu Wenlang, "It turns out that you novelists are clinging to the thighs of Confucianism."

This Confucian method, which is heard by everyone from the emperor to the common people, most needs novelists to go from street to street to spread its fame.

Hu Wenlang said unconvincedly, "How can it be said that it is a matter between scholars and writers, and it is flattering?"

Zhou Tieyi smiled but said nothing.

Hu Wenlang changed the subject and asked, "I haven't heard much about Monk Shenxiu. He was hidden very deep in the Fahua Temple and only came out to travel the world this year. You tried a move with him, but you were not sure?"

He knew how powerful Zhou Tiege was. Back then at Crescent Lake, he had defied the evil spirit and led hundreds of Yuan Meng's spies into the half-open Yellow Springs Road in the ancient battlefield. With the help of the ghosts who died in the battle, he killed a fifth-rank wizard and a general of the enemy, and then rushed out of the Yellow Springs Road. At that time, Zhou Tiege was only a sixth-rank wizard!

Zhou Tiege picked up the wine glass, pinched the bottom of the glass with his fingers, glanced at Zhou Tieyi, and then said, "To be honest, I have already lost a move."

"How did you lose?"

Zhou Tiege told the story of how Shenxiu hid the Buddhist teachings in the scroll and used the scroll to imprint his mind, but he omitted Zhou Tieyi's suggestion and instead said it was Zhou's mother's suggestion.

Even as a novelist, Hu Wenlang was amazed by what he heard. He then laughed and said, "On the battlefield, almost none of the various schools of thought can defeat your military strategists. But away from the battlefield, in the temple of Tianjing, even a sixth-rank Confucian scholar can play with your military strategists."

(End of this chapter)