My cultivation disguise has been exposed by Xiao Sizi.

Looking at the charcoal drawing on the stone table, he reached out his hand.

My finger hovered over the picture, but I didn't dare touch it, afraid of rubbing off the charcoal ash.

"Chen'er." Li Shimin swallowed hard, his voice hoarse.

"Um?"

"The foundation of a noble family..." Li Shimin raised his head and looked at Li Chen, "...has been destroyed by you."

Li Chen didn't reply. He lay back in the rocking chair and closed his eyes.

"You're blocking my fishing, move aside."

……

Fifteen days later.

There are five days left until the spring imperial examination.

Chang'an West Market.

The door of Lu's Bookstore was open, and the clerk was dozing off behind the counter.

A copy of the Analects, costing ten taels of silver, was placed in a prominent position.

The street across the street.

In front of a closed-down fabric shop.

Chen Ping sat on the steps, holding a broken calligraphy brush in his arms.

On the street, there were many poor scholars like him, in twos and threes, their faces ashen.

"Da da da—"

The sound of horses' hooves.

A large horse-drawn carriage stopped in front of the cloth shop.

The driver jumped down and tore off a piece of red cloth. A brand-new wooden sign hung above the cloth shop's entrance.

"Qin King's Printing House".

Several men in blue robes came out and carried out a long table.

The clerk at Lu's Bookstore was woken up by the noise.

I rubbed my eyes and stepped out the door.

He looked at the other side and let out a sneer.

"The Prince of Qin's mansion sells books? If they had a few old scholars copying them for half a month, could they even produce ten copies?"

The scholars on the street also looked up, their eyes numb.

The long table was set up, and Cui Ming, dressed in a clean blue long gown, came out.

He didn't smile; his face carried a chilling aura.

He walked to the back of the carriage and yanked off the thick oilcloth.

A strong, pungent, yet invigorating scent of ink wafted through the air.

Inside the carriage, there was no silk, no gold or silver, only books.

Stacks and stacks of books, piled up like mountains.

Yellowed bamboo paper, neatly cut edges, and glossy black ink.

"The Analects, Mencius, and the Great Learning."

Cui Ming picked up the top book and held it high. His voice echoed through the streets of West Market.

"His Highness the King of Qin has given an order."

"The Four Books and Five Classics, the complete set."

Cui Ming held up one finger.

"Ten coins."

The wind stopped.

All sound on the street vanished. Lu Ji's waiter stared, mouth agape, jaw seemingly dislocated.

Chen Ping, who was sitting on the steps, dropped the broken pen he was holding to the ground.

He slowly stood up, staring intently at the book in Cui Ming's hand.

Ten coins? The complete set?

Chen Ping squatted on the still-damp muddy ground of the long street in the West Market, picking out the scattered copper coins one by one.

Mud and water covered his fingernails, but he didn't wipe them off. Clutching the money, he walked step by step to the long table.

Ten copper coins were placed on the edge of the wooden table, and Cui Ming didn't mind that they were dirty.

With a flick of his sleeve, he swept the copper coins into the money box.

He turned around and pulled four books from under the tarpaulin on the carriage.

The books were stacked together and placed in Chen Ping's hands; they were quite heavy.

The pressure made Chen Ping's wrist feel heavy.

He held the book in both hands, took two steps back, and ran his fingers along the cover.

The paper is yellowish and has the rough texture characteristic of bamboo fiber.

Not slippery, not expensive.

Some of the edges and corners were even not cut neatly.

But he turned a page.

The handwriting was black and glossy, with straight lines and each character printed neatly on the paper.

There were no scribblings from a tired copyist, no ink blots from corrections. It was spotless.

He lowered his head and buried his face in the pages of the book.

He took a deep breath.

The smell of pine soot ink was strong, piercing his nostrils and making his eyes sting; tears fell directly onto the yellow paper. The ink didn't smudge.

"The real book..." Chen Ping murmured. His voice was hoarse.

He suddenly clutched the four books to his chest, holding them tightly. He squatted down in the mud and burst into tears.

The crying acted as a trigger, snapping the taut string that had been stretched taut along the entire street.

The once-dead-quiet street was suddenly engulfed in chaos.

"Give me one! I have money!"

"Don't push! Don't step on my shoes!"

Hundreds and thousands of impoverished scholars, like wolves smelling blood or travelers dying of thirst, pushed forward with red eyes.

Copper coins rained down on the long table.

Inside the threshold of Lu's Bookstore across the street.

The guy was dumbfounded.

He glanced back at the handwritten copy of the Analects on his counter, priced at ten taels of silver. It was a joke.

He panicked, ran into the back room, and called out to the shopkeeper.

The shopkeeper came out and glanced at the carriage opposite. His face turned deathly pale.

"Lower the price! Lower the price now!" the shopkeeper shouted at the top of his lungs. "One tael of silver! No, five hundred coins! We'll sell it for five hundred coins too!"

The man quickly grabbed a brush and began to make corrections on the red paper.

Hang it outside the door.

Nobody paid any attention.

The scholars on the street didn't even glance in their direction.

Everyone was staring at the carriage that was continuously unloading books.

The shopkeeper's legs went weak, and he slid down the door frame to sit on the ground.

It’s over.

……

Taiji Palace.

Lizheng Hall.

Li Shimin sat on a soft couch. On the small table in front of him was a set of yellow paper books that he had just bought from the West Market.

He reached out and picked up a copy of Mencius.

Turn it over.

The paper is rough.

The ink is very heavy.

Li Shimin's finger swept across the page.

He stared at it for a long time.

Turning the pages one by one.

He flipped to the last page, closed the book, and tossed it onto the small table.

"Ten coins." Li Shimin leaned back on the soft couch, looking at the sky outside the palace.

Empress Zhangsun brought over a bowl of ginseng soup, placed it on the table, and glanced at the rough book.

"Erlang, this paper..." Empress Zhangsun asked softly.

"It's made of bamboo," Li Shimin said. "That kid's method involves soaking all the broken bamboo on the mountain until it rots and turning it into pulp. It's worthless."

He pointed to the words in the book.

"The characters are made of clay, fired until hard, arranged in a frame, brushed with ink, and then printed. After printing, they can be taken down and reused on the next page, so they are not worth much."

Empress Zhangsun understood, and a hint of shock flashed in her eyes.

"Those libraries held by aristocratic families..."

"A pile of waste paper." Li Shimin picked up the ginseng soup and drank it all in one gulp. "A long-standing scourge that has plagued us for decades, I couldn't even cut off their roots with a sword in hand. That brat was lying in the courtyard, throwing out two blueprints, and that was it."

Li Shimin suddenly laughed.

It started with a low chuckle.

Shoulders shrug.

Then he burst into laughter.

The laughter made the bronze incense burner inside the hall vibrate loudly.

He laughed until tears streamed down his face.

He wiped his face.

"Excellent! Excellent King Qin! Excellent clay lettering!"

……

The Lu family's villa in Fanyang. A secret room.

The atmosphere was deathly heavy.

On the table was a set of the Four Books and Five Classics, costing ten coins, printed on yellow paper with black characters.

The head of the Lu family sat in the main seat, his hands supporting him on the table, his eyes bloodshot.

The head of the Cui family of Boling stood aside.

He was holding two copies of the Analects.

He turned to the same page in both books.

pave.

Bring an oil lamp closer.

"Look here." The head of the Cui family in Boling pointed to the paper, "The character '子' in '子曰' (Confucius said), the horizontal stroke on the left is slightly raised. In both books, the degree of upward movement is exactly the same. Not a fraction different."

The head of the Lu family's eyelids twitched violently.

"And the ink stains on this page," the head of the Cui family of Boling continued. "When it was typesetting, the characters were slightly uneven. When printed, the edges are dark and the middle is blurry. Every book is the same."

He straightened up. The book in his hand fell onto the table.

"It wasn't copied, it was printed, like an official seal, stamped on."

The head of the Lu family was breathing heavily. "One page per wooden board? If even one character is carved incorrectly, the whole board is ruined. Where does he get so many carvers?"

In the corner, an elderly scholar with gray hair stepped forward, holding a magnifying glass in his hand.

"Master. The words are alive."

The old scholar's voice trembled, "Look at the spacing between the characters. Some are tight, some are loose. There are no wood grain patterns connecting the characters; it's as if each character was carved separately and then assembled in a frame before being inked."

Carve it separately, assemble it separately, and use it repeatedly.

The head of the Lu family stood frozen in place.

It felt like a heavy hammer had been smashed into my head, making it buzz.

The monopoly on books relied on the extremely slow speed of hand-copying and the high cost of hemp paper.

Now, the paper is made of bamboo, and the words are made of mud. The speed is a thousand sheets a day.

Costs were crushed.

Lu Jia insisted on speaking. Suddenly, a metallic, sweet taste rose from deep in his throat.

"puff."

A mouthful of blood splattered onto the yellowed bamboo paper. It was a glaringly red.

He swayed twice and then fell straight backward.

"Master!" The steward rushed forward to support him.

Chaos reigned in the secret room.