Hearing this, Fan Ruoruo remembered that her conversation with her brother had fallen into his ears. She didn't know if he would bring trouble to her brother if he told Lady Liu. Fan Ruoruo's cold expression changed to one of faint worry. She looked at Fan Xian.
Fan Sizhe's gaze had changed from shock to admiration.
"What's wrong?" Fan Xian looked at him with a strange smile.
Fan Sizhe finally couldn't stand the seemingly infinite tenderness in his gaze, which was actually infinitely cold. He trembled and said, "I'm just surprised that you wrote this book."
Fan Xian was a little puzzled. "You've read this book?"
In his impression, in his previous life, if people read Dream of the Red Chamber at the age of 12 and loved reading it, then when they grew up, they would become hipsters or hooligans who deceived female hipsters.
"No." Fan Sizhe quickly shook his head. "I've read some. It's boring." Having said this, he seemed to feel that he had regained some of his dignity. He raised his head a little higher.
"It's just that Master read it, and said..." He thought for a moment, then decided to speak the truth. "Master was very impressed. He said that the author's writing style was strange, and that he had a strong heart."
These were two very high comments, but Fan Xian didn't blush. He smiled. "So you admire me?"
"I admire Master." Fan Sizhe thought for a moment. "And Master really likes your book."
Suddenly, his eyes shone with greed. "And even though I don't read it, I know that on the market, this manuscript is sold in separate volumes. Each volume can be sold for eight taels of silver."
He nodded and looked at Fan Xian as if he were looking at an idol. "You can make so much money just by writing a few words. That's amazing... I think I understand why my sister admires you so much."
"I didn't make that money." Fan Xian casually corrected him, but he felt strange. Fan Sizhe's opinion of him had improved, not because of his poetry, but because of the money he could make from writing. Thinking about it, he understood. His father, Count Sinan, was the Emperor of Qing's personal financial steward. It was no wonder that Fan Sizhe was born with a passion for money.
Fan Sizhe rubbed his hands and said enthusiastically, "But only you can write. If you are willing to earn this money in the future, I can invest in it."
Fan Xian sighed. He realized that his younger brother was actually quite naive. It was a pity that he and Fan Xian had a conflict of interest. Although Fan Xian didn't necessarily have any ideas about the Fan family business, Lady Liu's ideas were already deeply rooted.
Suddenly, he had a thought and decided to try something. After all, they were brothers connected by blood. It was best to avoid some miserable endings if possible.
"You still haven't told me why you're following me. Don't you have to go to school today?" Fan Xian had already made up his mind, so he was interested in chatting with his half-brother.
Although Fan Sizhe was young, he wasn't an idiot. He knew that what he had just revealed had made the other party happy, so he put on a cute smile and answered with a trembling voice, "Because … Mom said … Big Brother is capable, so she asked me to play with Big Brother more. It's always good to be influenced."
Fan Xian sighed in his heart. He thought to himself that no one in the world was better at pretending to be cute than him. To think that Fan Xian would actually play it in front of him. It could be said that Fan Xian pretended to be shy, and Confucius' Analects of Confucius.
He knew that Fan Sizhe was following him because of Lady Liu's idea. But there was no need for Fan Xian to be friendly. Even if Fan Xian realized that his father didn't just view him as a tool, there was no reason for him to be so reckless.
The food arrived. Fan Xian moved his chopsticks like the wind, sweeping them across the plates. The tips of his chopsticks accurately picked up some food from each plate and put it into his mouth. He didn't care about the dumbfounded expressions on the faces of his siblings.
After licking his lips and savoring the food for a while, Fan Xian nodded. "The food in the capital is really good."
Fan Ruoruo was very delicate. She casually ate some food, then stopped. She turned her body sideways to read Dream of the Red Chamber. At the table, only Fan Xian and Fan Sizhe were eating heartily. The more Fan Sizhe ate, the more depressed he became. He was much fatter than Fan Xian, so why couldn't he eat as much or as fast as Fan Xian?
The more Fan Ruoruo read, the more her brows furrowed. She realized that the bookseller's version of Dream of the Red Chamber wasn't much different from the one she had in her room. It was just that the first page of the title page had purposely extracted Lady Duo's words. She was afraid that the people who read the book in the capital would think that Dream of the Red Chamber was an obscene book.
Fan Xian saw her expression and knew what she was angry about. He smiled and put his chopsticks on the side of the fish plate. "This is just a marketing ploy. What's there to be angry about?" The siblings' voices gradually grew louder.
Fan Ruoruo vaguely guessed what marketing ploy meant, but Fan Sizhe was confused.
"Take a book for example. Before people buy it, they will definitely flip through it to see what it's about. So the preface, preface, postscript, and the like must be clear. It doesn't necessarily need to be clear about the entire book, but it must be interesting."
Fan Xian took a sip of tea and continued, "Sister, you're angry because this unscrupulous bookseller put Lady Duo's part at the very front. This part clearly doesn't explain the overall style of the story, but it can easily cause the common people to misunderstand and think that this story is about romance. Am I right?"
Fan Ruoruo opened her eyes wide and nodded. She thought to herself that such fragrant words were being sold as such filthy material. Shouldn't she be angry?
"But the bookseller must do this." Fan Xian looked at his sister's serious expression and couldn't help but laugh. "If I were to do it, I would go even further than they did. This book has ten chapters, so it should be printed on the title page of the book. Below each chapter, there should be a few lines of the most tempting words. That way, it can make the reader's heart itch. They can only buy the book and read it carefully at home. "
"Like what?"
"Like something like Lady Duo."
"Then what should I write this time?" Fan Ruoruo had already understood her brother's meaning. She smiled and pointed to a part of the book. It was chapter 23: Romance of the Western Chamber. The Beautiful Song of the Peony Pavilion Alarmed the Maiden's Heart. This time, it was about what happened before the burial of the flower. There was no way to find a phrase that would make one blush.
Fan Xian chuckled. "Since there's the word 'Beautiful Song', of course it's easy to write. If it were me, I would use the part inside … Most of the people in the garden are girls. They are in the chaotic world, innocent and unaffected. They sit or lie down without hiding, laughing without the heart. How could they know what Baoyu was thinking right now? That Baoyu's heart was not at ease, so he was too lazy to stay in the garden. He only fooled around outside, but in a daze … he saw the falling red spell. "
"Then he painted the words' sit or lie down without hiding ',' laughing without the heart ',' fooling around ',' fooling around ', and' falling red '."
Fan Ruoruo lowered her head to think and found that it was as he had said. It was just some casual words, but with this combination, and the addition of the word 'Beautiful Song', it couldn't help but give people some space to think.
Her face reddened slightly, and she said in a low voice, "So you often do these kinds of improper things."
Fan Sizhe, who was listening to the side, was stunned. He gave a thumbs up and said, "Big brother, you really are talented."
With a pfft, Fan Xian spat out all the tea in his mouth.
At that moment, an extremely arrogant voice came from outside. "Where did this arrogant person come from? His heart is filled with perversion, and he dares to call himself talented?"
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