Chapter 55: The Martial Arts Enthusiast

That evening, Li Ye went to see Teacher Ke and learned that she had indeed applied for leave from the school because she was heading to the capital.

Furthermore, Teacher Ke told Li Ye that she intended to take away the completed portion of *The Beacon Deserter*.

Teacher Ke did not specify what she planned to do, but Li Ye could roughly guess that she wanted to use the New Year holiday to take the manuscript to the capital and make the rounds to pull strings and establish connections.

However, Li Ye believed the time was not right.

"Teacher Ke, I have only written less than four hundred thousand words so far. Shi Cheng has just recently appeared, and we are still a long way from the most exciting parts..."

Compared to traditional novels, the length of web novels is significantly greater. For instance, Louis Cha's *The Legend of the Condor Heroes* is 1.2 million words, and even the longer *The Deer and the Cauldron* is only about 1.5 million words.

Yet, this novel *The Beacon Deserter* by Xiaozhi Xinxian would reach over 1.9 million words even if it were left unfinished. (At this point, the author Lao Feng pays tribute to Xiaozhi Xinxian, wondering if the great master is well nowadays.)

Even if Li Ye had deleted some of the filler content, given Xiaozhi Xinxian's exceptional writing style, no amount of compression would reduce it to less than 1.5 million words. Thus, four hundred thousand words was truly not enough to make a strong impression.

Teacher Ke smiled helplessly and said, "I know it's not yet at the exciting part, but a manuscript of four hundred thousand words is really not a small amount. Taking it out there will barely be enough to make things work."

Li Ye glanced into Teacher Ke's eyes and saw her eagerness and anxiety, instantly realizing that she truly could not wait.

With no other choice, Li Ye said, "Alright then. Over the next few days, I will rush the writing and churn out tens of thousands more words, striving to write more scenes featuring Shi Cheng."

However, Teacher Ke replied, "Actually, that won't be necessary either. If someone shows interest in this novel, we can mail them the subsequent parts in batches later on."

"Mail them in batches?"

"Yes," Teacher Ke said. "I heard that Hong Kong has a writing method called 'serialization,' publishing a few thousand words every day without interruption. The results seem quite good."

[Of course it's good! Don't all those web novels of later generations play this exact game? Cliffhangers, chapter breaks... and even modifying the plot temporarily according to the demands of the big shots...]

[Teacher Ke, you are truly amazing. A smart person is a smart person; you can't help but admire her.]

Li Ye truly admired Teacher Ke. To be able to perceive the characteristics and advantages of serialization in the enclosed environment of Qingshui County during the 1980s showed a vision far surpassing ordinary people.

"Alright then! When are you leaving? I'll get the manuscript organized as soon as possible."

"I've already organized the manuscript and am leaving tomorrow. But I have an improper request and need your help."

"An improper request?"

Li Ye was somewhat surprised, because Teacher Ke was essentially someone who "never asked others for favors." Usually at school, it wasn't as if no teachers offered proactive help, but she would handle those situations so calmly that she inadvertently kept people at a distance.

Li Ye was the "sole" exception, but even then, it was strictly limited to their collaboration on the novel. In daily life, she never wanted to trouble Li Ye—even when Wen Leyu came along to share meals, it was under the guise of paying a stipend for a proofreader!

If you called her "aloof," that wasn't quite right either; Li Ye felt that Teacher Ke was simply deliberately maintaining the clear-headedness of someone keeping away from the crowd.

Yet today, Teacher Ke actually had an improper request, so it definitely wouldn't be ordinary.

Li Ye said with a serious expression, "Teacher Ke, just tell me what it is. If it's something I can help with, I certainly will. If it's beyond me, I'll find someone and think of a way."

Teacher Ke smiled and said, "Here is the thing: when I go to the capital this time, it's not convenient to take Xiao Yu with me. She has always stayed close by my side all these years, and she is timid... During the time I am away, could you look after her?"

[I can definitely do that! As long as she's willing, I can look after her completely... Bah, bah, bah, am I that kind of person?]

Li Ye agreed immediately, saying, "Alright, Teacher Ke, I can definitely manage this. When the time comes, I'll just take her to my house to celebrate the New Year. But is Wen Leyu willing to stay behind in Qingshui by herself?"

Teacher Ke nodded and said, "I talked to her yesterday, and she is willing."

The last shred of worry in Li Ye's heart vanished. To stay with her mother, Wen Leyu had even intentionally failed her college entrance exams, yet unexpectedly, she was willing to temporarily part ways with Teacher Ke this time.

He glanced at Wen Leyu not far away and noticed the young girl looking somewhat embarrassed.

*****

After finding out the exact time of Teacher Ke's train tomorrow, Li Ye woke up Li Dayong, who had just burrowed under the covers, and rushed to the provincial capital that very night along with Jin Peng and Hao Jian.

In the dead of winter, setting out at two in the morning to ride bicycles on the road was truly no fun at all.

After covering forty odd kilometers, Li Ye rode only half the distance before lying flat on the flatbed cart to play dead, letting Jin Peng and Hao Jian pull him along while he slacked off.

When they arrived at the provincial capital, it was still pitch dark, but the maltose vendors coming to pick up their goods were already waiting at the street corner next to the morning market.

Bags of maltose were weighed and paid for, with almost no words spoken throughout the entire process. This strange, silent feeling gave Li Ye the illusion of being in a crime-thriller movie from later generations.

"They're extremely vigilant right now. Once money is made this easily, they don't want to make a sound and draw other people's attention. Keep a low profile and make a fortune in silence."

Li Ye nodded, looking at the bustling morning market not far away.

There were country folk selling Chinese cabbages and radishes, city residents selling old clothes and old furniture, and even people selling old bicycles.

Li Ye felt a bit tempted; his eldest sister didn't even have a bicycle yet!

Jin Peng hurriedly said, "You can't just buy those bikes casually. There's a good chance they're dirty goods."

Li Ye had no choice but to drop the idea. In this era, it was truly not uncommon for a single bicycle to lead to a string of major criminal cases, and getting wrongly implicated out of carelessness simply wasn't worth it.

Hao Jian's maltose wasn't distributed in just one location; it had to be delivered to three different places. By the time the entire cartload of maltose was wholesaled out, the sky was already fully bright.

The four of them, exhausted from half the night, first ate a piping hot breakfast to completely drive the bone-chilling cold from their bodies.

Li Ye took five hundred yuan from Hao Jian and told him to head back first.

Hao Jian had been pondering where it would be appropriate to hide the money on his way back alone! Since Li Ye and the others were holding onto it, naturally, he was more than happy to oblige.

After parting ways, Li Ye, Jin Peng, and Li Dayong headed straight for an alley on the west side of the provincial capital's railway station.

Reaching the mouth of a crisscrossing maze of alleys, Li Ye saw more than a dozen people, either squatting or standing in a few separate groups, all hunched up with their necks pulled in, smoking sullenly.

This was a small black market in the provincial capital dealing in ration coupons and certificates.

Li Ye had come to exchange food coupons for Teacher Ke.

Going out to restaurants to eat in 1981 required more than just money; the vast majority of items also required matching food coupons. Without coupons, one could still find ways to fill their stomach locally, but traveling away from home without food coupons made moving an inch impossible.

For a trip to the capital like Teacher Ke's, she needed to exchange for national food coupons.

Teacher Ke earned a temporary worker's wage at the county's No. 2 Middle School, leaving her with very few ration allocations to begin with, not even enough to save a few by squeezing between her teeth.

Traveling was difficult, and traveling alone as a woman was even harder. Since it concerned Wen Leyu, how could Li Ye not care?

Logically speaking, getting national food coupons through Li Zhongfa would have been easier, but firstly, Li Ye didn't want his family asking questions about this and that; secondly, he needed a few other things as well.

Seeing the three of them approach, these people grew extremely vigilant, tightly clutching the leather bags in their hands.

Li Ye noticed that their positions were all ideally suited for slipping away at a moment's notice.

Jin Peng glanced around and led Li Ye toward a man with a parted hairstyle.

"Brother, do you have national food coupons?"

"Pfft—look at you talking. If I didn't even have national food coupons, what would I be doing here?"

The parted-hair man spat out a puff of smoke, sizing Jin Peng up with a ruffian's air, then looked at Li Ye and Li Dayong, his gaze carrying obvious disdain.

Hearing their accents, they were clearly country folk from the north—either from Qingshui or Beiyang—and two of them were just puny kids. At a glance, they didn't look like they had much oil to squeeze.

Li Ye didn't care about the fellow's look and asked directly, "Then what other kinds of coupons do you have? Do you have cigarette coupons or liquor coupons? Can you get sleeper train tickets? How are they exchanged?"

The parted-hair man's eyes brightened as he asked, "What kind of cigarettes do you want to buy? What kind of liquor?"

Li Ye replied, "Zhonghua cigarettes, Maotai liquor."

The parted-hair man rolled his eyes directly, baring his teeth as he said, "Are you pulling my leg early in the morning? What kind of coupon can buy Zhonghua cigarettes?"

Li Ye stopped talking. He only knew that first-tier cigarettes required coupons back then, but ever since his rebirth, he had never bought Zhonghua cigarettes himself and didn't know the inner workings of the market.

Jin Peng waved his hand and said, "Let's buy food coupons first then! National ones, fifty jin of them."

The parted-hair man jerked his neck and said, "One yuan twenty per jin, fifty jin makes exactly sixty."

"........."

Both Jin Peng and Li Ye were stunned.

This price wasn't just exploitative; it was utterly, damnably extortionate.

They had inquired beforehand, and the going rate for national food coupons in the provincial capital hovered around fifty cents—forty cents was normal, and sixty cents wasn't cheap either. The price quoted by this parted-hair man had straight-up doubled.

Jin Peng turned around to leave—were they treating them like complete fools?

However, the parted-hair man shouted toward the others at the mouth of the alley, "Everyone else's is even more expensive; mine is the cheapest around!"

Sure enough, after Jin Peng and Li Ye asked a few other people, the prices quoted were even more outrageous.

Li Ye smiled, walked back to the parted-hair man's side, and said, "Fine, your place is the cheapest. The three of us will buy fifty jin of food coupons each, and throw in some liquor and cigarette coupons as well."

The parted-hair man slanted his eyes at Li Ye and asked, "Do you even have that much money?"

Li Ye reached his hand into his pocket, pulled out half a wad of cash, and flashed it—it was a thick stack totaling several hundred yuan.

The parted-hair man froze for a moment, spat out his cigarette butt, tossed his chin, and motioned for Li Ye to follow him.

Following the parted-hair man into a nearby lane, Li Ye discovered that a young man who had been squatting nearby was also trailing along behind them.

The youth was bald, with a sharp gaze and an unusual aura of fierce valor emanating from his body.

The parted-hair man said smugly, "Don't worry, this is my brother, just came down from the southern battlefield. As long as you don't provoke him, he'll never provoke you."

No wonder the parted-hair man dared to bully the market and extort people openly; as it turned out, he had something backing him up.

Yet, no matter how much backing he had, Li Ye wasn't about to swallow such a loss!

Li Ye flexed his ankle and kicked fiercely against the wall on one side of the alley.

*Thud—*

With a muffled crash, the wall built of green bricks even shook slightly.

Jin Peng and Li Dayong reacted almost as quickly, each delivering a kick to the wall in succession. With two consecutive *thud-thud* sounds, it felt as though that wall was about to be knocked down by them.

The bald youth instantly moved in a flash, blocking in front of the parted-hair man, his fierce eyes locked onto Li Ye and the others.

Li Ye rotated his wrist and said indifferently, "What price did you say it was again?"

Fighting was out of the question; if a problem could be solved with a show of force, why resort to blows?

The three of them shared a tacit understanding and slowly pressed forward toward the bald man.

Though the bald man's gaze was sharp and unmoving, he muttered to the parted-hair man behind him, "Hurry up and leave..."

Those simple words betrayed his inner tension.

An expert knows the ropes at a glance; even coming from the battlefield, he wasn't confident in taking on Li Ye and the others three-on-one.

However, the parted-hair man didn't abandon the bald youth and run off. Instead, he reached out to push him aside, cupped his fists together in a greeting gesture, and said:

"Brothers, when we go out seeking a living, harmony is what matters. You can ask an exorbitant price and bargain down from there; there's no need to resort to knives and guns. Water flows and mountains meet again... Black-on-black isn't how friends do business..."

The parted-hair man rattled off a long speech, leaving Li Ye hanging in mid-air, feeling rather awkward.

Well, well! This fellow was actually a martial-arts-novel fanatic.