Your Majesty, here is today's newspaper. "Si Tu respectfully placed the newspaper on Ying Zheng's desk.
Ying Zheng nodded slightly and picked up the newspaper.
The newspaper was placed on a plate made of sandalwood and pressed by a piece of beautiful jade.
However... no matter how beautifully packaged it is, newspapers are still newspapers and there is no difference from what is sold in the market.
Ying Zheng opened the newspaper and glanced at it twice, and suddenly laughed: "Isn't this so-called debate between immortals and Confucians over yet?"
Si Dou said: "Yes, not only has it not ended, but it has intensified. However, the winner is about to be decided."
Ying Zheng said calmly: "From the beginning of the debate, the winner has been decided. Those Confucian scholars are full of benevolence, righteousness and morality, as if apart from them, the world is full of evil people."
"But their opinions are always the same, over and over again, and there is no foundation at all."
Si Dou responded: "Among the courtiers, some people were originally undecided. After reading the newspapers, they are now somewhat inclined to banish the immortal. Perhaps after this debate, more people will like to banish the immortal. Statecraft.”
Ying Zheng nodded.
He recalled that when Huaiguzi first entered the court, he could not even write. He did not expect that in just a few years, he would be on par with hundreds of other schools of thought.
Ying Zheng couldn't help but laugh: This Huaiguzi is really fearless.
…………
At Daqin Newspaper Office, Fu Yao is designing the layout of the new issue of the newspaper with great enthusiasm.
In fact, the name "Da Qin Newspaper Company" was given by Li Shui.
After picking up the name, Li Shui excitedly mentioned four words: Daqin Daily.
He said to Fu Yao: "Now your newspaper has become famous. Such a famous newspaper needs a celebrity to put the masthead. Later, you can print these four words "me" at the front to make your newspaper even better. building."
But Fu Yao was a little reluctant to these four words.
Li Shui asked dissatisfiedly: "What? Do you think Master is not worthy?"
Fu Yao laughed dryly: "My disciple has great respect for Master's character, but for the word Master... I am also thinking about the sales of the newspaper."
Li Shui looked at him helplessly: "Your ability to judge people needs to be improved."
Fu Yao escaped, then found Ying Zheng and wanted Ying Zheng to write an inscription.
Ying Zheng refused directly.
In Ying Zheng's opinion, Fu Yao's little tricks are not worthy of being inscribed by him. How could the word "Eternal Emperor" be mentioned casually?
Fu Yao found Wei Young again.
Weiyang agreed to write the inscriptions, but there was a request. He only asked for two inscriptions, and let Li Shui inscribe the remaining two.
Fu Yao was worried that Li Shui's words would affect the sales of the newspaper, so he ran away again.
Finally he found Chun Yuyue.
Chun Yuyue's calligraphy is not known, but now that the debate between immortals and Confucianists is fierce, he may not be willing to write inscriptions.
So Fu Yao played a little trick.
He said to Chunyu Yue: "Doctor, please help me write a few aphorisms. I can take them as a warning."
"The first sentence is, Great Qianyuan."
"The second sentence is: I will examine myself three times a day."
"The third sentence is: repay evil with kindness."
"The fourth sentence is: Give it to Qin Gongzi Fu Yao."
After Chunyu Yue listened, he found that most of these aphorisms were sentences from Confucian classics. He was very happy, so he wrote them with thick ink.
After Fu Yao got these four sentences, he immediately ran away. Then at the newspaper office, a word was cut out from each sentence to form the four words of Daqin Daily, and it was handed over to the craftsmen to engrave the blocks.
When Fu Yao was happy, a guy from the newspaper office came in and said to the young master: "Yesterday's sales have been calculated."
Fu Yao hummed.
Daqin Daily used a statistical chart newly created by Ji Nu. The daily sales volume was calculated as a point and then connected in series with line segments.
Like a stock market chart, it's clear at a glance whether sales are rising or falling.
Today's sales are a bit low, lower than yesterday. Yesterday's sales were lower than the day before yesterday.
Fu Yao asked: "Do you know the reason?"
The guy said: "The villain probably knows something. Although our newspaper has attracted some scholar-bureaucrats to watch because of the debate between immortals and Confucians, the common people cannot understand these things after all."
"And the people who buy the most newspapers are ordinary people. Therefore... when they heard that the newsboy was shouting about the content of the debate between immortals and Confucians, they didn't want to buy it."
Fu Yao asked again: "Then what good plan do you have?"
The waiter thought for a while and said: "I think there should be two newspapers. One newspaper is specially for the scholar-officials to read and publishes more elegant things. The other newspaper is specially for the common people to read and publish anecdotes."
Fu Yao pondered for a while and said: "Your method may be feasible in the future, but it is not feasible now. In Da Qin, there are only a few literate people after all."
"A newspaper must appeal to everyone in order to sell it at a good price. If it is divided into several different newspapers, profits will be greatly reduced."
"Well, I think the debate between immortals and Confucians is basically over. Those Confucian scholars are going back and forth, just a few things. Today's newspaper pages. Half of them are the debates between immortals and Confucians, and the other half are anecdotes."
The clerk responded, then handed Fu Yao a stack of paper: "These are anecdotes that reporters have recently investigated."
Fu Yao opened it and looked at it, and found that it was all trivial things.
A certain adult bought two more beauties. There was a fight between a slave of a powerful family and a powerful servant. Why does a certain adult have a weird habit? At home, he sometimes dresses up as a farmer, sometimes as a beggar, sometimes as a merchant, and sometimes even in the dead of night, he even dresses up as a woman...
If this news were in the past, people would definitely read it with gusto.
But now that Fuyao needs to boost sales, these reports are not weighty enough.
He thought for a while and said to the clerk: "In the past few days, didn't the reporters write a lot of news about General Li slapping people? Now it can be used."
The clerk was stunned for a moment and said: "If this news is reported, it will reveal the secrets of those courtiers. Will they..."
Fu Yao smiled slightly: "It doesn't matter, I have my own plan."
The clerk responded and went to find those manuscripts.
…………
Wu Chi is very happy recently because there is always something exciting to read in the newspapers.
The Great Debate between Immortals and Confucianism was really addictive for Wu Chi.
Anyway, he is not a Confucian scholar. He doesn't feel uncomfortable when he sees Confucian scholars beaten to the ground and looking for teeth. On the contrary, he feels a sense of schadenfreude.
Today he opened the newspaper again to see what new news there was.
Hmm...are the Confucian scholars still debating?
Wu Chi read it about once and found that the same opinions that Confucian scholars kept coming back and forth were no longer new.
Zhou Qingchen and his group of Immortal Schools directly said: Regarding the views of Confucian scholars, they have been refuted point by point in the previous issues of the newspaper and will not be repeated again. If a Confucian scholar cannot come up with new ideas, please admit defeat and don't mess around.
It was a slap in the face, and it was a slap in the face.
Wu Chi smiled and shook his head. Then he turned over the newspaper.
Once he turned around like this, he couldn't laugh anymore.
A big headline was written in large fonts on the newspaper:
Slap Hou: General Li Xin.
There is also a subtitle below: How many courtiers were slapped on their own initiative?
Then comes the solid evidence analysis.
These analyzes are not just as simple as hearsay. There are accurate times when courtiers enter and leave Li Xin's house. There are analyzes of the injuries on their faces, and even photos of them entering and leaving Li Xin's house.
In the end, the article analyzed: "The relationship between these courtiers and General Li Xin is not very good. They have been frequently in and out of the general's mansion recently. It is probably clear what their intentions are."
Wu Chi looked at his photo in the newspaper, stretched out his hand and tore the newspaper into pieces. He hammered the table hard: "Li Xin, you are such a shady person. Didn't you agree to keep it secret? I'll be slapped." You paid the money."
Wu Chi shouted to the housekeeper: "Wu Jia! Wu Jia!"
Butler Wu Jia ran in panting and said nervously: "Master."
Wu Chi said: "Have you read today's newspaper?"
Wu Jia said with a grimace: "I saw it, but..."
Wu Chi said: "Okay, you take the stick and follow me to Li Xin's mansion."
Wu Jia was almost scared to death: What are you doing? Looking for a fight with Li Xin? He is a general. Are you looking for a fight with him? What's the difference between that and seeking death?
Wu Jia hesitated and said: "Master, I think..."
Wu Chi was furious and said to Wu Jia angrily: "What? Don't you dare to go?"
Wu Jia said with a bitter face: "It's not that I don't dare to go. It's just that I think... this... the master has been reported in the newspaper. If the master goes now, won't he give the truth to others?"
Wu Chi sneered: "My face has already been ripped off, why do you care about my face? If I don't go today, it will make people think that I have acquiesced."
Wu Jia tried to dissuade him again and again, but Wu Chi just refused to listen, so he had to prepare his carriage and horses.
While on the road, they saw many courtiers' cars on the street, rushing towards Li Xin's mansion.
When Wu Chi arrived at the door of the mansion, Li Xin's steward Li Jia stood at the door and said the same thing to each courtier individually: "The general has many guests to see today. I hope you can meet the general alone to avoid embarrassment between each other."
The courtiers naturally understood that someone else came to Li Xin to seek justice.
Naturally, you can't let others know about paying for a slap in the face. Even if everyone feels sympathy for each other, it is difficult to speak out.
So...the courtiers expressed their willingness to wait.
Li Jia added: "Do you want to sit in the hall and chat with your colleagues while waiting? Or do you want to enter the guest room alone and wait slowly?"
The courtiers all expressed their willingness to enter the guest room and wait.
After all, the purpose of everyone coming here is a bit shady, so don't embarrass yourself in the hall anymore. Talking together? What's there to talk about? Open each other's scars?
After Li Jia received the reply from the courtiers, he added that Li's residence was small and if the courtiers wanted to enter the guest room... they would have to pay some money.
The courtiers immediately cursed, but after they finished cursing, they still obediently paid and went in.
Now the courtiers can see that Li Xin has learned a lot from Huaiguzi.
Wu Chi waited in the small guest room for an hour, and then Li Jia came and took him to see Li Xin.
Wu Chi had been holding back a lot of anger and was finally able to vent it out.
He pointed at Li Xin and almost jumped up: "General Li, how did you promise me in the first place? I paid the money, why was my name in the newspaper?"
Li Xin made a sound: "Please keep your voice down. There are many courtiers outside. It would be bad if they hear you."
Wu Chi could only swallow his anger and said: "General Li, your name is Li Xin, but you are unfaithful."
Li Xin said aggrievedly: "Brother Wu, you have wronged me. What does this have to do with me?"
Wu Chi held back his breath and said, "Do you still need to ask me this? Why is my name in the newspaper?"
Li Xin took out a newspaper, pointed to the photo on it and said, "Brother Wu, look carefully. This photo was clearly taken secretly, and it was taken secretly before entering my house."
Wu Chi looked at it carefully and was a little puzzled: "Really?"
Li Xin said: "It must be so. Look at your expression, you are uneasy, cautious, and hesitant...it's obvious that you haven't been slapped yet, so you don't know what to do."
"Think about it, when you walked out after being beaten that day, did you feel much more at ease and calm?"
Wu Chi recalled it carefully and said hesitantly: "It seems...it seems like it is really like this."
Li Xin said: "Therefore, you were secretly photographed before you entered our office. What does this have to do with me? And when you read the report, which sentence did I disclose to the reporter? It was clearly because you were accidentally photographed. You guessed it."
Wu Chi thought for a moment and realized that was really the case.
It seems that Li Xin really can't be blamed this time.
Wu Chi thought for a while and felt that this matter should be discussed with the person who ran the newspaper.
The newspaper was run by Fu Yao. Although Fu Yao was a prince, Wu Chi was so old that even if he complained to Fu Yao, Fu Yao would still have to give an explanation, right?
So Wu Chi bowed his hand to Li Xin, turned around and left.
Unexpectedly, Li Xin stopped him.
Wu Chi looked at Li Xin in confusion: "What? Brother Li, is there anything else?"
Li Xin smiled slightly: "Brother Wu, are you going to argue with Mr. Fu Yao?"
Wu Chi was silent for a moment and said, "So what?"
Li Xin said: "Is the theory over? Are the people no longer laughing at your jokes? You still have to laugh when you should."
Wu Chi asked with a grimace: "Then what do you think we should do?"
Li Xin said: "This is easy to handle, please upgrade the slap package."
Wu Chi didn't understand: "What upgrade?"
Li Xin smiled: "This is a new word I learned from Brother Huai. When you were slapped, didn't I recommend three levels to you?"
"First level, after the slap, I will keep it a secret for you. One hundred thousand dollars."
"The second level, after the slap, you will receive anti-swelling medicine. Two hundred thousand dollars."
"Third level, if anyone doubts you, I will help you refute the rumors. One million dollars."
"Brother Wu, now is the time to upgrade to the highest level. As long as you pay one million dollars, I will personally tell others that you didn't beat me, won't your face be saved?"
Wu Chi hesitated for a long time, and finally sighed in his heart: I am not a Huaiguzi after all, I still have to live on this face.
So he gritted his teeth and said, "That's all, then help me refute the rumors."
Li Xin nodded happily.
I really didn't expect that this slap also came with after-sales service.
