Chapter 140 Information, Propagation, Public Opinion

Li Su neatly packed away all his belongings, sat down, and immediately began to open the letters.

His reading speed for these letters was much slower than when he read books, as he carefully went through them word by word.

He noticed the varying handwriting styles, meaning that everyone in his family had probably written their own.

His grandfather's letter was very special; he could understand his grandfather's intentions, though some characters were written apart in separate components.

As for the letters from the other family members, they had likely dictated their thoughts first, had the younger members help write them down once, and then copied them out in their own hands.

Regardless, the family had clearly put an enormous amount of thought and effort just into writing these letters.

The expressions in the letters were not overly formal, but they were all filled with deep, rich affection.

Li Su carefully gathered up the read letters and placed them uniformly into a box. The box already contained quite a few letters; besides those from his family, there were also letters written to him by Xiao Ze, Xiao Ming, and Shuhua.

Although they were not studying at the same academy, their correspondence had never been broken, and the three of them were currently studying with great dedication.

He believed that there would be more and more letters in this box in the future.

It was then that Li Su spoke up, "Worthwhile brother, and Brother Qianhe, would you like these bags handmade by my mother? You can come and pick one you like."

His mother had instructed him in her letter to share these bags with his close friends and to get along well with them.

Yun Qin and Song Sheng were pleasantly surprised and flattered. "Can we?"

Truthfully, they had both been eyeing them with envy, but those were handcrafted by their worthy brother's mother.

"Of course you can, of course you can. My mother specifically instructed me to share them with you." Li Su displayed the bags, letting Yun Qin and Song Sheng each choose one.

With a bright gleam in their eyes, Yun Qin and Song Sheng began selecting. Each took the one they liked best, their faces beaming with joy.

"Worthy brother, I really love this! Your mother is so skilled!"

"Yes, Brother Li, thank you!"

Holding their respective bags, Yun Qin and Song Sheng looked radiantly happy.

"Worthy brother, how about we carry these bags to the academy together tomorrow?" Yun Qin looked at Li Su with hopeful anticipation.

This was a bag given by his worthy brother, and such a unique one at that.

Song Sheng gave Yun Qin a surprised look. The more time he spent with Yun Qin, the more he felt that Yun Qin was different from what he had originally imagined.

Or perhaps, Brother Yun was different when interacting with them compared to how he was in front of others.

In front of outsiders, Brother Yun was entirely consistent with the impression people had of him.

Li Su nodded and said, "Alright."

In the Heavenly Study Hall of the academy, every desk was already supplied with brushes, ink, paper, and an inkstone, so students did not need to bring their own to class. Whatever writing supplies the students needed were kept in their own living quarters.

Of course, the writing materials provided in the classrooms were not free; the academy students paid a fee, but the academy offered a heavily discounted price.

If they were to go down the mountain to purchase writing materials of the exact same quality on their own, it would only be more expensive.

Therefore, students only needed to bring their assigned textbooks along with any other books they wished to read.

Some students would also bring their own polished policy essays and poetic rhapsodies to share and discuss with everyone.

A bag like Li Su's was actually quite suitable for use within the academy.

Previously, Li Su hadn't brought it out often because he only had this single one and cherished it dearly.

He mostly carried it when going to see his master, rather than bringing it into the lecture hall.

Li Su and Yun Qin noticed that upon this return, Song Sheng was burying his head in frantic writing even more than before, as if he were rushing to finish something.

Just as Yun Qin and Li Su were lying down to sleep, Song Sheng was still furiously scribbling away.

Yun Qin poked his head out from under the quilt and said, "Brother Qianhe, you've been writing this late every night since you came back. Studying is certainly important, but do take care of your health as well."

Lately, the dark circles under Brother Qianhe's eyes had grown increasingly heavy.

Having learned from his own past experience, Li Su had a lot of say on this matter and chimed in, "Knowledge is boundless, but the body is the foundation of everything."

"I... I'm not studying..."

"Huh?"

Song Sheng adjusted his breathing. In truth, staying together for this long meant that Brother Li and Brother Yun would figure it out sooner or later.

"I'm actually writing popular vernacular tales..."

"Because the journey back and forth delayed a lot of time, I've written a bit too little this month."

A trace of shock flashed through both Yun Qin's and Li Su's eyes.

In an instant, Li Su connected many disparate pieces in his mind. "Brother Qianhe, could it be that Recluse Hemo is actually you?"

He was the author of that popular fiction that had left Xiao Ze and the others completely captivated and unable to put it down.

"Brother Li, you know of it?"

From Song Sheng's perspective, it seemed impossible that Li Su and Yun Qin would read such books.

Yun Qin wore a blank expression; he genuinely had no idea.

"I have three good friends who are very fond of your books. They would read them with such utter absorption that they completely lost track of time."

"Really?"

"Truer than pearls. Back then, in order to restrain themselves from reading, they even wanted to deposit all the books with me for safekeeping."

"When we went to take the prefectural examination, we visited a bookstore, and many people inside were reading that very tale."

Recalling the scene from back then, Li Su never expected that the author of those stories was none other than Brother Qianhe.

"Popular fiction? What kind of story is it?" Yun Qin asked with curiosity.

He truly had never read vernacular fiction and knew nothing about it, but because it was written by Song Sheng, he felt a certain curiosity.

Song Sheng found it somewhat difficult to put into words.

While writing, he hadn't felt anything amiss, but being asked to recount it out loud made him feel rather embarrassed.

Besides, he had only ever mentioned this matter to Brother Li and Brother Yun.

After Song Sheng gave a brief summary, Yun Qin nodded in sudden realization. "Listening to it, it sounds quite interesting."

Yun Qin thought to himself that the next time he went down the mountain, he would buy a copy to read.

Actually, the Song family had originally handed over their bookstores to Song Sheng, and the Song family bookstores were located in many prefectures and provinces.

At that time, Song Sheng hadn't paid much attention to them and didn't put his heart into managing them.

Even so, the bookstores continued to operate as usual because of their established momentum.

Later on, since Song Sheng never showed up to take charge, and the Song family worried that interfering might displease him, they stopped keeping a close eye on the business as well.

This neglect led many of the bookstores to the brink of closing down.

When Song Sheng learned of this news, he was unwilling to ask his family for help, and since he didn't have many friends at the academy, he came up with this clever stratagem.

Ultimately, it truly revived all of the Song family's bookstores and even generated massive profits.

However, nowadays many other bookstores also featured popular tales similar to those of the Song family's bookstores.

Song Sheng felt that relying solely on popular fiction alone might be difficult to sustain in the long run.

He had some ideas in his mind, but they hadn't yet crystallized into concrete, actionable methods.

Song Sheng cast his gaze toward Li Su, thinking that perhaps Brother Li might have a good solution.

"Brother Li, I currently have some thoughts. It involves having the bookstores periodically publish folk tales that possess a sense of entertainment, polishing these stories to make them even more engaging, and through these narratives, letting ordinary people understand certain principles of conduct as well as any new government policies."

"However, gathering these stories would require a massive amount of manpower."

"And I don't know if such an endeavor can maintain its longevity."

Li Su felt that Song Sheng's mind was truly agile to have conceived the idea of collecting folk tales and using them to impart lessons and reasoning.

In a flash, many thoughts raced through Li Su's mind as well; executed properly, this could be of immense utility.

Information, dissemination, public opinion.

In this era where information traveled extremely slowly, mastering this mechanism could well be a formidable weapon.

Presently, there was still quite some time before they would enter officialdom to serve in the court, and they could proactively accustom the common people of the world to the existence of such a publication.

Ideally, they could cultivate in the people the habit of reading it regularly.