Chapter 173 StorytellingThere were more people eating than Li Hongyan had imagined. The dining hall was divided into two sides, half for them and the other half for the remaining people from Jicheng. Many of them were elderly people in their sixties and seventies. If they fled Jicheng, they would die on the way! They would die anyway, so it was better to stay in Jicheng and die at home, rather than leaving their bodies exposed in the wilderness. Some were disabled people, missing arms and legs, and could not travel far. Some were women with children, who had little chance of survival if they traveled far, so they could only leave their fate to fate and stay in Jicheng to see if they could survive. In such a big city, some fled and some died, leaving only two or three hundred people, which made Shi Feizhe sigh. No one knew what the tragic situation was like in Yangzhou. What a sin! The old, weak, sick and disabled ate their meals while watching the forty-five warriors on Shi Feizhe's side warily. Any one of those warriors could kill them all. But I think if we feed them, they won’t be killed, right? "Ahem..." Shi Feizhe cleared his throat when he saw that he had almost finished eating, attracting everyone's attention. "Today, we invite all the fellow villagers from Jicheng to come. There is nothing big to do, just to have a storytelling session." Shi Feizhe stood up and said as he walked to the entrance of the canteen. People on both sides of the seat could see him.
"What is a storytelling session? It's about chatting about family matters and telling your own stories. If you tell a good story, everyone will applaud. If you tell a bad story, everyone should not laugh at you!" said Shi Feizhe. Naturally, no one responded to his words. Whether it was the old, weak, sick and disabled people in Jicheng or the people of the Sacred Heart Church, no one knew what it meant? "Tell me your story. I'll start with myself." Shi Feizhe saw that the audience was a little bored, and he didn't know if this story would be useful, but he wanted to give it a try. Meeting Xiongba and Shi Laomo made Shi Feizhe realize that there are still some normal people in the world. But these people are too few and have even been pushed into a corner by the world and ignored. "I first arrived in Qiuyang City. As far as I can remember, I was always hungry. I haven't had a full meal for a long, long time." Shi Feizhe said. He talked about his own experience, which immediately attracted everyone's attention. No one expected that the real warrior in front of them had also become hungry like this. The same experience can resonate most with everyone. "Later, by coincidence, I started practicing martial arts, but I wasn't very strong, so I was chased like a dog. The martial arts world is full of real people and Zhoutian warriors. You can't avoid them at all. You'll run into them everywhere." "I almost learned someone else's great medicine technique. My life would be ruined. The world of martial arts is too difficult." This sentence was so difficult that it resonated with many Sacred Heart Sect warriors. Before joining the Sacred Heart Sect, they were all warriors at the lowest level. How could they not know how difficult the world of martial arts is? "Later, in order to learn some martial arts, I went to Kongtong Mountain to gather..." Shi Feizhe recounted some of his experiences. His speech was vivid and interesting, especially his bad luck along the way, which made people on both sides feel relaxed. When real warriors encounter problems, there is not much difference between them and them, we are all human beings. "Later, I opened a martial arts school, preparing to teach the people in the martial arts world, so that they wouldn't have to practice martial arts so hard. But after I beat up the younger ones, an older one came out, who had no martial ethics, and chased me away like a dead dog." "Finally, I came to Jicheng to look for my friend, but I couldn't find him, so I came to Sacred Heart Church." "Tsk tsk tsk, I feel like my career in the martial arts world is really going to be so unlucky." Shi Feizhe said self-deprecatingly. "Ha~" A child couldn't help laughing. What Shi Feizhe said was really interesting and fun.
As soon as the child laughed, the adult holding him covered his mouth. "Well, my story is over. Does anyone want to share your story?" Shi Feizhe asked. He looked at the warriors of the Sacred Heart Sect, who all lowered their heads to look at the patterns on the table. He looked at the villagers in Jicheng, who were also very afraid and did not seem to dare to say anything. Normally, who wants to listen to them? It’s hard for warriors to survive in the world of martial artists, is it easy for ordinary people? Warriors can still become stronger. Ordinary people like them have no money and power and cannot reach the level of warriors. Who cares about them? Xi Ping looked at Shi Feizhe. He thought Shi Feizhe was very interesting. He was different from the people of the Sacred Heart Sect he had met, and he was also different from the martial artists he had met. Just as he was about to say something, he heard Li Hongyan next to him say, "I'll do it." Li Hongyan said: "When I was moving the corpse today, I met a person who looked very much like me when I was a child." He recounted his childhood experiences and what he saw today, and then said, "I feel something is wrong!" Shi Feizhe looked at him and said, "That's a good point." He also didn't expect that Li Hongyan, who was moving the corpse today, would have such feelings. "Now that we, the people of the martial arts world, have finished speaking, let's let the fellow villagers from Jizhou City speak!" Shi Feizhe turned his head and looked at the old, weak and sick people in Jizhou. Naturally, these people did not dare to look at Shi Feizhe and lowered their heads. Shi Feizhe had no choice but to call up someone at random. The man came to Shi Feizhe, trembling with fear, and was several feet away from Shi Feizhe. When he saw Shi Feizhe, he wanted to kneel down. In the past, they would kneel down when they saw the city lord. But he did not kneel down because Shi Feizhe helped him up. "Fellow countryman, how can I call you that?" Shi Feizhe asked. "My surname is Tang," said Old Man Tang. "You old man are not young anymore. Do you have any life experiences to share with us younger generations?" Shi Feizhe said again. "I don't have any." Old man Tang said, trembling all over. "Uh..." Shi Feizhe saw him like this and knew that he couldn't organize any words at all. He thought for a moment and said, "How many years has Old Man Tang been in Jicheng?" "Sixty-two years!" "You've been in Jicheng almost all your life, right?" "almost." "Do you have a partner at home?" "Died of illness." "..."Shi Feizhe wisely did not ask the question "Do you have any family members?" "What did Old Man Tang do for a living when he was young?" Shi Feizhe changed the subject. "When I was young, I was a carpenter. Now that I am old and can no longer work, I can only weave some willow branches and sell them to make a living." Perhaps it was because Shi Feizhe spoke gently that Old Man Tang relaxed.
"Do carpenters make money?" Shi Feizhe asked, "It's a technical job." "What kind of technical work is that? It's almost the same as begging. The work is given to you by the master as a reward. After finishing the work, you still have to thank the master for the food and give him gifts. Sometimes, the work you do is not even worth the gifts you give." Old Man Tang shook his head and said. "Huh? There is a possibility of making a loss while working?" It was the first time that Shi Feizhe knew about this. "Many jobs seem to have high profits, but there are many middlemen who pass the profits down the chain. Apart from the material fee and the gift to the boss, a share must be kept for these middlemen. This kind of job can easily result in a loss." "But if you don't do it, they will exclude you and no one will recommend jobs to you anymore." "If you work, you have to follow their rules. If something goes wrong, you will be blamed. The middleman and the master are fine, but we workers will suffer." "The old man is still cautious, but some of his colleagues have suffered bad luck!" Mr. Tang talked about their business in great detail. The story club is full of stories.
(End of this chapter)