Chapter 35: Lin Bai Wants to Write Poetry

After leaving the Carpenter Shop, Lin Bai went to the Blacksmith Shop, the tailor shop, the pharmacy...

His status as the owner of the Chef God Rice Shop brought great convenience to his lobbying.

However.

Economic theories that were ahead of the world by who knows how many years made more people regard him as a babbling madman.

Those with good tempers would just smile and let it go.

When he encountered those with straightforward personalities, they would simply lash out at him with biting sarcasm, scolding him for grandstanding and corrupting the social atmosphere of Jiamu City.

Lin Bai did not mind these people who did not understand him.

Being one step ahead is genius, but being three steps ahead is madness; it is normal for these craftsmen who hold fast to traditional business methods to not understand his advanced concepts.

When Jack Ma was promoting B2B back then, wasn't he also treated as a joke?

Lin Bai did not think that turning Jiamu City into a Flaw-themed business card could be achieved overnight; creating a trend with his own strength was inherently an incredibly difficult task.

What he was doing now was just getting familiar faces in Jiamu City, while incidentally planting a vague concept in the minds of people from all walks of life.

When the wind rises in the future, among this group of people he had planted ideas in, there would surely be some who would become his pawns, and that would be enough.

Quickly building a connection with strangers through a single event was also a way for Lin Bai to integrate into society.

After fooling around a large circle in Jiamu City, it was already noon; as Lin Bai was walking on the road, a notification suddenly came to his mind: the fruit on the Negative Emotion Tree had ripened.

On the branch, the green had turned into a golden yellow, looking mouth-watering, half a day earlier than Lin Bai had expected.

【Fully ripened Spirit Fruit (can be picked): Permanently increases Spirit by 10, can allow a person to maintain vigorous energy for a long time.】

Permanently increase Spirit by 10?

In other words, it's not just the effect of drinking Red Bull!

Finding a secluded place, Lin Bai chose to pick it.

A golden fruit appeared abruptly in his palm; the fruit emitted a refreshing fragrance that kept drilling into his nasal cavity, making one feel relaxed and happy just by smelling it.

"It materialized? In other words, it can be fed to others?" Lin Bai examined the fruit in his palm and, without hesitation, brought it to his mouth.

The moment his teeth touched the peel, sweet and rich juice immediately flooded his mouth; it was slippery and even more satisfying than drinking fruit juice.

Unknowingly, an entire fruit had gone into Lin Bai's stomach.

The refreshing feeling made Lin Bai involuntarily close his eyes.

When he opened his eyes again, his mind was clear and his eyes were bright; the world before him seemed to have become clear.

His mind was exceptionally refreshed; knowledge he had learned on Earth but had become blurred due to the passage of time instantly became clear, just as if he had just seen it from a book.

When discussing the poetry collection with the carpenter, Lin Bai had been worried that he couldn't remember many of the ancient poems he had learned since childhood, and feared he wouldn't be able to piece together a complete collection.

Well, this is great.

Once the Spirit Fruit hit his stomach, he remembered everything.

"Interesting, such a good thing would be a waste to give to others; there was no need for it to materialize at all."

Lin Bai muttered, continuing to observe the Emotion System in his mind.

After picking the fruit, the Negative Emotion Tree entered its second round of the flowering process; it didn't make him start from a small sapling again, and at the speed Lin Bai collected Negative Emotion, growing a second fruit was just around the corner.

Beside the Negative Emotion Tree, a small sapling had appeared: the corresponding Positive Emotion Tree.

Compared to the +1+1+1 that kept popping up on the Negative Emotion Tree.

The +1s on the Positive Emotion Tree were pitifully few; clicking to look, they were all unfamiliar names.

【Pleasure from Erya; +1】

【Pleasure from Zhuzi; +1】

Judging from the names, those providing Positive Emotion should all be children.

The Chef God Rice Shop brought trouble and annoyance to adults, but to children, it was definitely fun.

Whether it was watching the Flaw-themed lion dance performance or singing the addictive brainwashing songs, the children could reap endless joy from them.

But the number of children was limited.

Moreover, they were quick to forget; in a few days, their attention would be attracted by other fun things.

Relying on this bit of Pleasure Value provided by children to make the Positive Emotion Tree flower and bear fruit, who knows how long that would take.

If he really wanted to make the Positive Emotion Tree flower and bear fruit, he would have to start with the majority of people.

But Lin Bai currently did not want to spend his thoughts on Positive Emotion.

Firstly, having created a Negative Emotion disaster in Jiamu City, it was not easy for him to reverse his own image;

The second reason was that the Positive Emotion Tree provided Temperament.

Lin Bai felt he didn't need that stuff; he felt he had plenty of Temperament, and to describe it in one phrase, it was: handsome person with great Temperament.

The so-called Temperament brought by Positive Emotion was just a bonus; it didn't matter if he had it or not, he would farm it if he happened to, but it wasn't worth spending too much thought on.

Internal Energy bolstered his Physique, the Spirit Fruit enhanced his energy; Lin Bai felt he had inexhaustible strength throughout his body, and he decided to strike while the iron was hot and get the poetry collection cobbled together.

After all.

There was a good brother in the City Lord's Mansion waiting for him to save him, and time waits for no one.

Thinking of this.

Lin Bai bought some hemp paper on the roadside and returned to the Chef God Rice Shop.

The Chef God Rice Shop was bustling, not a good environment for creation.

But the key was that Lin Bai didn't need to create; he wasn't a real poet, he only needed to copy.

He was better at commercial operations.

Sneakily completing a poetry collection and sending it off to be published—how could that compare to the spectacle of doing it in front of a crowd?

With so many people outside the Kitchen God Rice Divination, using them to stir up some hype first and then publishing it—the results would be absolutely fantastic.

……

"Master, you want to write poetry?" Upon hearing Lin Bai's request, Deng Li Buduo looked completely stunned.

"That's right!" Lin Bai nodded. "Stop talking nonsense. Get a table out here for me and help me grind the ink. The popularity of Kitchen God Rice Divination isn't enough; I intend to use poetry to take the restaurant's reputation to the next level."

"……" Deng Li Buduo looked at Lin Bai suspiciously. "Master, can you do it?"

"Drop the 'can you'," Lin Bai urged. "There is nothing under heaven that your boss cannot do. Stop talking nonsense, hurry up."

"Master, I didn't mean anything else by that." Deng Li Buduo leaned closer to Lin Bai and said with a confident face, "I mean, if you aren't skilled at writing poetry, I can help you. I have quite a bit of stock in my belly; I guarantee every single one is a classic..."

"Recite one about a goose then?" Lin Bai glanced at him sideways and said.

"……" Deng Li Buduo's expression stiffened, and he said sheepishly, "Master, I really don't have one about a goose. Can we change it? One about plum blossoms, or snow—anything works..."

"No need." Lin Bai let out a scoff, shook his head, and said, "I can tell at a glance that you are unlearned and unskilled. Move the table, grind the ink..."

I have an entire world behind me, after all!

I am unlearned and unskilled?

Deng Li Buduo opened his mouth, ready to recite a poem.

But the words reached his lips and he swallowed them back down.

Recalling the poems from his own world, he turned and went into the shop to move the table. He planned to wait until this NPC master made a fool of himself before coming in to save the day; wouldn't that be more effective than throwing himself at the opportunity?

No matter how shrewd Lin Bai was, he was just an intelligent AI. Perhaps the programmers had implanted a method for writing poetry, but could he really create a famous masterpiece?

Deng Li Buduo didn't believe it. An NPC who came up with "You love me, I love you, Kitchen God Rice Divination welcomes you" could write poetry?

Did he even understand what poetic imagery was?

If intelligent AIs could write poetry, the literary world wouldn't have remained vibrant for thousands of years.

……

"The shopkeeper of Kitchen God Rice Divination is going to write poetry!"

"He's writing poetry!"

"The shopkeeper is going to write poetry."

A few children overheard their conversation and immediately went bouncing and hopping off to spread the word to the crowd.

Among the onlookers were quite a few scholars. They had a strong sense of curiosity and were mostly waiting there in hopes of having a close encounter with a ghost that night.

Hearing that Lin Bai was going to write poetry, several scholars let out mocking laughter in unison.

"This shopkeeper really has taken grandstanding to the extreme!"

"It's an insult to culture. Is poetry something a boor like him can write?"

"He hasn't even mastered all the characters, yet he thinks that because he wrote a half-baked couplet, he can write poetry. Some people really do turn themselves into a joke!"

"If he can write a poem, I'll stand on my head at his doorstep and eat shit for three days..."

"I'll join you, I'll join you!"

……

"Quiet Night Thought

Moonlight before my bed, suspected to be frost on the ground. Raising my head to gaze at the bright moon, lowering my head..."

Before the scholars could finish their conversation, Lin Bai had already wielded his brush and splashed ink; the poem was finished. He instructed Deng Li Buduo beside him: "Hang it up!"

Deng Li Buduo had watched with his own eyes as Lin Bai wrote the poem.

He didn't know much about the appreciation of poetry.

But as Lin Bai's poem was read out, although the words felt quite simple, a picture seemed to appear before his eyes. It seemed to truly have a hint of artistic conception, feeling a bit different from the poems written by an intelligent AI.

But the two words "lowering my head" at the end left him feeling deeply unsettled.

Lowering his head to do what?

It was so uncomfortable.

Remembering the couplet that was missing a character, Deng Li Buduo's heart skipped a beat, and he swallowed with difficulty: "Shopkeeper, you haven't finished writing it yet, have you?"

"It is already finished." Lin Bai glanced at him. "Hang it up. This is our shop's style; we cannot break the rules."

【Resentment from Deng Li Buduo; +1】

(End of chapter)