Chapter 173: Storytelling Session
There were more people eating than Li Hongyan had expected.
The dining hall was divided into two sides, one for them and the other for the remaining people in Jicheng.
Many were elderly people in their sixties and seventies. They would die on the road if they fled Jicheng! Either way, they were going to die, so it was better to stay in Jicheng and die at home, rather than having their bodies exposed in the wilderness.
Or they were disabled people, missing arms or legs, unable to travel far. There were also a few women with children. Their chances of survival were slim if they left, so they could only leave their fate to heaven, staying in Jicheng to see if they could survive.
A large city, with people fleeing and dying, only two or three hundred people remained, making Shi Feizhe sigh with emotion.
Yangzhou was in an even more miserable state.
It was truly a sin!
As the old, weak, sick, and disabled ate, they looked warily at the forty-five martial artists on Shi Feizhe’s side.
Any one of those martial artists could easily kill them all.
However, since they were given food, they probably wouldn’t be killed, right?
“Ahem…” Shi Feizhe cleared his throat when everyone had almost finished eating, attracting everyone’s attention.
“I didn’t invite all the folks from Jicheng here for anything major today, just for a storytelling session,” Shi Feizhe said, standing up and walking to the entrance of the dining hall. From this position, people on both sides could see him.
“What’s a storytelling session? It’s just chatting about everyday life, telling our own stories. If it’s a good story, everyone can applaud. If it’s not, please don’t laugh!” Shi Feizhe said.
Naturally, no one responded to his words.
Neither the old, weak, sick, and disabled of Jicheng nor the people of the Sacred Heart Cult understood what he meant.
“Tell your own story. I’ll start with myself.” Seeing the awkward silence, Shi Feizhe didn’t know if this storytelling session would be useful, but he wanted to try.
Encountering Xiong Ba and Old Demon Shi made Shi Feizhe realize that there were still some normal people in the Jianghu. However, these people were too few, even pushed to the corners of the Jianghu, unnoticed by others.
“I was initially in Qiuyang City. From as far back as I can remember, I was always hungry, never having a full meal for a very, very long time,” Shi Feizhe began.
He spoke of his own experiences, immediately capturing everyone’s attention.
No one expected that this True Realm martial artist had also gone through such hunger.
Shared experiences resonate the most with people.
“Later, by chance, I started practicing martial arts, but I wasn’t strong, and I was chased around like a dog. The Jianghu is full of True Realm and Zhoutian martial artists, you can’t avoid them, you encounter them everywhere.”
“I almost ended up practicing someone else’s Grand Medicine Technique, which would have ruined my life. The Jianghu is too difficult.”
This phrase “too difficult” resonated with many Sacred Heart Cult martial artists.
Before joining the Sacred Heart Cult, they were all low-level martial artists. How could they not know the difficulties of the Jianghu?
“Later, in search of a martial arts manual, I went to Kongtong Mountain Market…” Shi Feizhe shared some of his experiences.
He spoke vividly and humorously, especially about his unlucky encounters along the way, making people on both sides feel relaxed.
When True Realm martial artists faced difficulties, they weren’t that different from them. Everyone was human.
“Later on, I opened a martial arts academy, intending to teach Jianghu people so that practicing martial arts wouldn’t be so difficult for them. However, after fighting a junior, a senior appeared, not playing by the rules, and chased me away like a dead dog again.”
“Finally, I came to Jicheng to find a friend, but I couldn’t find him and ended up joining the Sacred Heart Cult.”
“Tsk tsk tsk, I feel like my journey in the Jianghu has been really unlucky,” Shi Feizhe said self-deprecatingly.
“Ha~” A child couldn’t help but laugh. What Shi Feizhe said was truly funny and entertaining.
As soon as the child laughed, the adult holding him covered his mouth.
“Alright, my story is over. Does anyone want to share their story?” Shi Feizhe asked.
He looked at the Sacred Heart Cult martial artists, but they all lowered their heads, staring at the patterns on the dining tables. He looked at the people from Jicheng, but they were also very afraid and seemed hesitant to say anything.
Normally, who would listen to them?
It was difficult for martial artists to survive in the Jianghu, but was it any easier for ordinary people?
Martial artists at least had a path to become stronger. Ordinary people like them had no money, no power, and no connections to martial artists. Who cared about them?
Xi Ping looked at Shi Feizhe. He found Shi Feizhe interesting, different from the people he had met in the Sacred Heart Cult and the martial artists he had met in the Jianghu.
โฟโฟโฟ
He was about to say something when he heard Li Hongyan beside him say, “I’ll go.”
Li Hongyan said, “While carrying corpses today, I met someone who reminded me of myself when I was young.”
He recounted his childhood experiences and what he saw today, then said, “I feel like something’s not right!”
Shi Feizhe glanced at him and said, “You spoke well.”
He hadn’t expected Li Hongyan, who had been carrying corpses all day, to have such feelings.
“Now that our Jianghu people have finished, let’s invite the folks from Jizhou City to speak!” Shi Feizhe turned to look at the old, weak, sick, and disabled of Jizhou.
Naturally, these people didn’t dare to meet Shi Feizhe’s gaze and lowered their heads.
Shi Feizhe had no choice but to randomly call someone up.
The person, trembling with fear, came to Shi Feizhe’s side, keeping a distance of several feet from him. He wanted to kneel as soon as he saw Shi Feizhe.
In the past, they would kneel when they saw the City Lord. But he didn’t kneel because Shi Feizhe helped him up.
“Old friend, how may I address you?” Shi Feizhe asked.
“This old man’s surname is Tang,” Old Man Tang said.
“Old Man, you’re not young. Do you have any life experiences to share with us, your juniors in the Jianghu?” Shi Feizhe continued.
“This old man doesn’t,” Old Man Tang said, his whole body trembling.
“Uh…” Seeing him like this, Shi Feizhe knew he couldn’t organize his thoughts, so he thought for a moment and said, “Old Man Tang, how many years have you been in Jicheng?”
“Sixty-two years!”
“Almost your whole life in Jicheng?”
“Pretty much.”
“Do you have a wife at home?”
“She died of illness.”
“…” Shi Feizhe wisely didn’t ask the question, “Do you have any other family?”.
“Old Man Tang, what did you do for a living when you were young?” Shi Feizhe changed the subject.
“When I was young, I was a carpenter. Now I’m old and can’t do it anymore, so I just weave willow branches and sell them to make ends meet.” Perhaps Shi Feizhe’s gentle tone made Old Man Tang relax.
“Does carpentry make money?” Shi Feizhe asked, “It’s a skilled trade.”
“What skilled trade? It’s almost like begging. If there’s work, it’s because the master gives it to you. After finishing the work, you still have to thank the master for giving you food and send him gifts. Sometimes, the gifts you send are worth more than the work you do,” Old Man Tang shook his head and said.
“Huh? You can lose money even when you work?” This was the first time Shi Feizhe had heard of such a thing.
“Many jobs seem profitable, but there are many middlemen. After deducting the cost of materials, the gifts for the master, and the share for the middlemen, it’s easy to lose money.”
“But if you don’t do it, they will exclude you, and no one will introduce you to jobs in the future.”
“If you do it, you have to follow their rules. If something goes wrong, you’re the scapegoat. The middlemen and the master are fine, but we workers suffer.”
“This old man is cautious, but some of my colleagues were unlucky!” Old Man Tang spoke eloquently about their profession.
After all, a storytelling session is all about stories.
