“Five hundred and ten taels.”
A clear, gentle voice came from behind the crowd.
Everyone turned to look. The newcomer wore a narrow-cut lotus-colored dress with crisp, clean lines along the hem. The skirt fell just to the tops of her shoes, allowing her to plant her feet firmly and walk faster than ordinary women.
While the merchants from out of town were still wondering who she was, the local merchants immediately rose and knelt in greeting.
“Greetings to County Princess Linghui.”
When they turned and saw everyone around them kneeling, the visiting merchants’ pupils contracted. They hurriedly dropped to their knees as well, shouting along with the others, “Greetings to County Princess Linghui!” Their foreheads struck the floor, and they wished they could burrow straight into the ground and hide.
“There is no need for such ceremony. Today, this county princess is merely an ordinary merchant looking to buy some land.”
Though she said this, who would truly dare treat Song Jinzhao as an ordinary person?
Only after she had taken her seat did the others cautiously rise and sit down again, keeping their bodies rigid and barely daring to settle fully into their chairs.
Song Qiming held his breath and called out, “Five hundred and ten taels. Does anyone wish to bid higher?”
The room fell so silent that even the sound of breathing could be heard. It was as if everyone’s mouths had been glued shut.
No one had wanted the land, but now County Princess Linghui was buying it. She was clearly here to support Prefect Song.
If only they had known, they should have bought it earlier. Spending five hundred taels to make a good impression on Prefect Song and County Princess Linghui would have been well worth it!
Regret swept through them. They wished they could turn back time; they would certainly have been the first to raise their hands.
“Five hundred and ten taels, once. Five hundred and ten taels, twice. Five hundred and ten taels, three times.”
“Sold.”
As the wooden gavel fell, the plot known as Guanyin Miao successfully became Song Jinzhao’s.
The auction came to a smooth close. In the finance office, the clerks working out the accounts rattled their abacuses so loudly that, by the end, their eyes were nearly filled with tears.
A total of 223 plots had been auctioned for 53,000 taels. It was an outrageous profit.
Once the auction ended, the first thing every merchant who had won a plot did was seek out builders, carpenters, and tile workers to begin construction.
The cement shop received orders for more than seven thousand sacks that very day. There were not enough workers, so even seventy-year-old men from outside the city were found work carrying bricks.
Five days after the auction ended, the registration deadline for the storybook competition arrived.
Looking at the manuscripts piled throughout the room, Song Anhao felt the enormous workload weighing heavily on her.
Manager Lou held the registration list and reported, “We received 1,046 valid manuscripts in total. Of these, 562 are domestic-drama romances, 175 are mystery and courtroom stories, and the rest cover a wide range of subjects, including the supernatural, love stories, travel journals, and tales of people building their fortunes.”
After consulting Song Jinzhao, Song Anhao had decided that the storybook competition would place no restrictions on genre. Their goal was to make sure they did not overlook talented writers in any field.
Early the next morning, the judges they had recruited in advance arrived.
Twenty desks had been arranged in the spacious room. The proprietors of fifteen bookshops would carry out the first round of cross-screening. Each of them had more than ten years of experience reading books.
After three days, when the 1,046 manuscripts reached Song Jinzhao and the others, only 100 remained.
Liu Ruoxi randomly picked up a domestic-drama manuscript and began reading. Liu Ziyuan headed straight for the mystery and courtroom stories, while Song Jinzhao, Song Anhao, and Manager Lou started with the relatively few manuscripts in the other genres.
Compared with the first round, the second round of screening was much more thorough. They read every word and every sentence.
The writing, characterization, plot, originality, and even the outline for the later chapters all fell within the scope of their evaluation.
Selecting 100 manuscripts from 1,046 took fifteen people three days.
Selecting twenty from those 100 took five people a full four days. They scrutinized every word and were exacting about every detail.
In the end, Song Jinzhao personally chose the top three entries.
The first two were popular domestic-drama romances, while the third was a mystery and courtroom story.
Seeing his area of expertise lose once again to his younger sister, Liu Ziyuan was completely resigned. How were there so many people who liked all that lovey-dovey nonsense?
To promote the influence of the storybook competition, Song Anhao specially reserved the largest restaurant in Suining City and arranged a grand banquet.
Everyone who had entered the competition was welcome to attend.
The first and second floors were packed to overflowing, leaving barely enough room to walk.
