The Great Song Dynasty: You were put in charge of teaching, and you produced a whole bunch of prime

Jingshi Academy, with its library on the back hill.

It was less a library and more a temporary storage room that had been cleared out.

Although the walls had been freshly painted, the air still smelled of musty paper.

With a bang, the heavy wooden door was closed, and the latch was also pulled down.

Su Shi held several outlines covered in scribbles in his hand, staring dumbfounded at Jiang Lin, who was leaning against the door, grinning like a sly fox.

"Master, what do you mean by this?" Su Shi waved the paper in his hand with a look of disgust. "This is the peerless article you spoke of... that will save the people of the Song Dynasty from suffering?"

The paper reads: "The Legend of the Condor Heroes: Special Edition for the Anti-Liao Campaign".

A quick glance at the content revealed its utter vulgarity. What Seven Heroes of Jiangnan? What Taoist priests of Quanzhen Sect? What martial arts contest for marriage… Isn't this just the script used by storytellers in entertainment venues?

"Zizhan, what vision you have."

Jiang Lin didn't mind the dirt. He casually pulled over a futon and sat down, then took out a handful of walnuts from his sleeve and cracked them open.

"What do you think constitutes patriotism?"

"Naturally, I would submit memorials to the emperor, criticize current affairs, or even abandon my pen for the sword and die on the battlefield!" Su Shi said, head held high, exuding righteousness.

"Wrong." Jiang Lin spat out a walnut shell, shook his finger, and said, "For the officials in the court, it's submitting a memorial; for the soldiers on the frontier, it's killing the enemy. But for the forty million illiterate people of the Song Dynasty, patriotism is a story they can understand."

Jiang Lin stood up, pointed at the outline, and his voice suddenly became deep and magnetic, as if he were possessed by a charlatan.

"What I want you to write isn't江湖仇杀 (jianghu vendettas), but 'the great heroes serve their country and people.' I want every commoner who reads this book to want to devour the flesh of the Liao people raw, and to want to take up arms and march on the Yan-Yun region!"

Su Shi was taken aback.

The greatest heroes are those who serve their country and its people.

These eight words struck him like a heavy hammer blow. The disdain in his eyes faded somewhat, and he re-examined the outline in his hand. Although the form was crude, the idea... did seem to have some merit.

"But..." Su Shi still hesitated. His scholarly pride prevented him from lowering himself. "These kinds of popular novels are ultimately unworthy of serious consideration. If I were to sign my name, I'm afraid my fellow scholars would ridicule me, saying that I, Su Zizhan, have willingly degraded myself to write this kind of... this kind of..."

"Ten strings of cash for a thousand characters."

Jiang Lin interrupted him calmly, extending two slender fingers and waving them in the air.

Su Shi's words caught in his throat, his eyes nearly popping out of their sockets: "How...how much?"

"Ten strings of cash per thousand words, paid daily. And I'll give you a column, you don't need your real name, you can use a pen name, like... 'Lanling Xiaoxiaosheng' or 'Tiancan Tudou' or something like that."

Jiang Lin smiled like a devil, "Zizhan, think about the aged wine of Fanlou, and then think about those ancient inkstones that you've been eyeing for a long time but can't afford."

Su Shi swallowed.

That's ten strings of cash! He only gets three to five strings for writing a magnificent article, and even that depends on the recipient's mood. And these thousand words… in just half an hour?

"Bring me pen and ink!"

Su Shi took a deep breath, flicked his sleeves, and sat down at his desk with an air of righteous indignation.

"Master, you misunderstand. How could I, Su, be a greedy person? It's just that the phrase 'the greatest of heroes' resonates deeply with me! For the sake of educating the people, I, Su, have no choice but to do it!"

Jiang Lin's lips twitched slightly.

This damn "it smells so good" law.

……

Meanwhile, at the Wang family mansion in the east of the city.

Unlike the atmosphere of the academy, which was filled with the stench of money and the scent of ink.

The atmosphere in the Wang family's study was so oppressive it was suffocating.

Under the dim light, Wang Kui, the head of the Wang family, sat upright in a grand chair, twirling two shiny walnuts in his hands.

Wang Wenxuan knelt on the ground, his hair disheveled, and his face covered in bruises—the marks left during the day by angry "patriotic merchants" who had pelted him with rotten vegetable leaves and bricks.

"Father, you must avenge me!" Wang Wenxuan cried, tears streaming down his face. "That Jiang Lin is going too far! And those opportunistic, treacherous merchants, how dare they lay a hand on me... We must retaliate! Burn down their printing press! Smash their newspaper office!"

"Shut up, you idiot!"

Wang Kui slammed the walnut in his hand onto the table, making the teacups jump. "Burn? Smash? The *Great Song Morning Post* is now connected to the imperial treasury, and even to the soldiers on the front lines! Do you want the Wang family to die even faster?!"

Wang Wenxuan shrank back in fright and dared not utter a sound.

Wang Kui stood up and paced around the room with his hands behind his back. His ability to remain in power for decades was not due to acting impulsively.

"That Jiang Lin is indeed a genius. His so-called 'newspaper' broke the aristocratic families' blockade of free speech; that move was extremely vicious."

Wang Kui narrowed his cloudy old eyes, a glint of shrewdness flashing in them. "Since the hard approach doesn't work, let's try the soft one."

He walked to his desk, spread out a sheet of fine Xuan paper, picked up his brush, and dipped it in thick ink.

"Isn't Jiang Lin known for his sensationalist style and vulgarity? Then let's go for something more refined."

Wang Kui sneered, and with a flourish of his brush, wrote four elegant and dignified characters in regular script on the paper: "The Elegant Report of the Great Song Dynasty".

"Father, what is this...?" Wang Wenxuan looked bewildered.

"We also publish a newspaper." Wang Kui threw down his pen, his tone icy. "But this newspaper will only publish the profound words of sages, essays on the imperial examinations, and poems by famous scholars. And—we'll give them away for free."

"Free?!" Wang Wenxuan exclaimed in surprise. "How much money would we lose then?"

"Loss? That's buying people's hearts!" Wang Kui looked at his son, exasperated. "Which scholar in the world doesn't crave fame? Who doesn't appreciate elegance?"

"As long as we distribute this 'Elegant Gazette' to all the major academies and send it to the examination halls, soon that the 'Morning Post,' which reeks of money, will become a vulgar thing and be despised by the literati!"

"At that time, we won't even need to lift a finger; all the scholars in the world will drown Jiang Lin in their spittle!"

A sinister smile crept across Wang Kui's face. He could almost see Jiang Lin's disgrace and ruin under the condemnation of the literati.