My husband, please respect yourself. The princess is here to grab the bride.

After welcoming the two old scholars into the pavilion, Bai Shaoqiu brewed another pot of tea.

Mr. Fang looked around and became more and more fond of Chunman Cottage.

"It may seem simple, but it is actually elegant...True elegance requires no elaborate decorations; it is like felling trees from the hills behind and chopping bamboos in front of the door."

"Use wood for the pillars and beams, bamboo for the bones, then use yellow mud to paste it, and cover it with thatch..."

“People are in the pavilion, the courtyard is in the flowers, everything is in the scenery, great beauty!”

Bai Shaoqiu poured tea and grinned, "To be honest, this little house was built by Lanlan. I... have only stayed here for three or four days."

"I am a common man, and I don't appreciate Brother Fang's insightful remarks."

The elder scholar Si glared at Mr. Fang and said, "What a brilliant idea he has! He just wants to save some money!"

Mr. Fang stared at Mr. Si, puffing his beard and glaring: "Civile!"

"Why do you get more vulgar as you get older?"

Si Lao was not willing to be outdone:

"Pack!"

"There's no one here, why are you pretending?"

"Do you think I don't know your past?"

Mr. Fang was immediately discouraged. He sat down at the table and looked at the pear tree in the corner of the courtyard:

"This is what it means to be careless in choosing friends and meet the wrong people!"

Si Lao ignored him and looked at Bai Shaoqiu: "Where are you lazy?"

"She was going to check on how her fields were doing. She left this morning and said she wouldn't be back for ten days or so."

Mr. Si and Mr. Fang were stunned for a moment. The two old foxes were silent, and then they grinned.

Si Lao nodded: "Well, her family has a lot of fields, it will take quite a while to go around them."

"I came here today because you left in a hurry at Lanting yesterday, and my brother and he felt that you had not said enough."

As he said this, Mr. Si picked up a stack of papers next to him.

That was the manuscript of the first eight chapters of The Story of the Stone.

"Her Highness the Ninth Princess wanted to invite you to lunch, but you left first."

"Her Royal Highness the Ninth Princess has also left."

"The prince and princess probably felt that having dinner with two old men, Lao Fang and me, was boring, so they left."

"We are the same people as Master Qi..."

His words stopped abruptly!

His eyes were fixed on the first page of the manuscript!

He didn't say another word and just read on very seriously!

After a moment, he turned the page, still without saying a word. His eyes moved closer to the paper, and the expression on his face became more excited.

Mr. Fang, who was standing by, took a look...

"Brother Bai has written new poems?"

Mr. Si seemed to be immersed in the manuscript and ignored it.

Bai Shaoqiu smiled slightly and said:

"I'm trying to write a chapter novel... My family used to run a bookstore, and now I'm a son-in-law of the royal family. But I don't want to live off the royal family forever, so I'm thinking about whether I can write something myself and open the bookstore again."

"I told Brother Si before that I wanted to borrow his name to ask him to write a preface for my book."

When Mr. Fang heard this, he was stunned!

"Chapter novel?"

"Well, this thing has a strong storyline and can be serialized. I figured even if I don't make much money, I won't lose much either. I'll just treat it as a way to kill time."

Mr. Fang immediately became interested.

He reached out and took the first page that the old scholar Si had read.

At the literary gathering yesterday, this Brother Bai showed a talent in couplets and poetry that surprised everyone. I came here today and wanted to ask him how he accumulated such talent over the past ten years.

This is an excellent inspirational story.

He wanted to take Bai Shaoqiu's story to Kyoto and tell it to the students of Jinghua Academy.

He wanted those students to understand one thing -

The distance between waste and genius is only the diligence and hard work that no one knows about!

He hopes that the students of Jinghua Academy can also get up early and work hard, and calm down and study hard.

However, he didn't expect that before the topic even started, Brother Bai gave him another big surprise!

It’s not something that just anyone can write a long chapter novel!

Even he has written it, but it ultimately did not make much of a splash in the market.

On the contrary, the old fellow Du Ziteng from the Imperial College, who is also a great scholar, is called Master Du because of the extremely good sales of his two long chapter novels!

It was also because his two novels had a great influence that among the portraits on the third floor of Wenyuan Pavilion, Du Ziteng's portrait was ranked before his and Si Lao's.

This made him very unhappy!

Of course, this dissatisfaction is only one aspect.

On the other hand, Du Ziteng stood on the side of Zuo Xiangye Qionglou!

This made Mr. Fang look down on him, thinking that he had lost the integrity of a scholar, but he didn't care at all and lived a very comfortable life.

Even if Mr. Fang wanted to embarrass him, he couldn't do it because he couldn't write a chapter novel that surpassed Du Ziteng's.

After all, scholars value strength.

He felt insecure when he knew he couldn't surpass Du Ziteng in this field.

Now this old man Bai actually wrote something like this...

He was both excited and nervous!

Because he knew very well how difficult it was to surpass Du Ziteng in this genre!

But after he finished reading the first page...

He watched it again!

This time he focused his mind and cleared away all distractions, watching with great seriousness.

Then, he picked up the second page... the third page...

Chapter 8 has a total of forty-eight pages!

The two old men were like two serious students, they read the book word by word carefully without putting it down.

Bai Shaoqiu originally wanted to ask about the three thousand taels of silver that Si Laowen would reward him, but after seeing this, he felt too embarrassed to interrupt and ask.

Take another look...

Mr. Si was a clean-handed man and it seemed that he had not brought the three thousand taels of silver with him at all.

Well, wait until they have finished reading it before asking.

Time passes by slowly turning the pages.

As the sun was approaching its zenith, Bai Shaoqiu took a look and saw that most of them had not yet seen it, because they were seeing it slower and slower!

So Bai Shaoqiu got up and left, he had to make lunch.

His departure did not alarm the two old men at all. They seemed to have entered a state of oblivion.

It seems that this book is also very awesome in this world.

Bai Shaoqiu was very happy.

He sat in front of the stove, lit a fire, and started working around the stove.

Half an hour later, he prepared the meal and came back to the pavilion.

The two old men were still looking at the manuscripts, and even their sitting posture had not changed at all!

"I say, it's noon, shall we eat first?"

No one paid any attention to him.

Bai Shaoqiu thought about it, turned around, and went to the kitchen to have lunch.

When he returned to the pavilion again, the two old men were still immersed in the manuscript.

The fire in the tea stove has gone out.

The tea in the teapot has gone cold.

It’s past noon…

Bai Shaoqiu sat down and brewed another pot of tea, thinking that it would probably take them another half an hour to finish reading the manuscripts.

So he simply picked up the charcoal pencil and wrote the ninth chapter of The Story of the Stone.

I wrote half of it.

Mr. Si slapped the table with a loud "bang"!

“Great book!”

"A rare and unique book that is rarely seen in a thousand years!"

"To write the preface to this book, I must burn incense and bathe before I dare to pick up the pen!"

Mr. Fang also put down the manuscript at this moment and shouted excitedly:

"no!"

"The preface to this book must be written by me!"