Chapter 210: Chapter 210: Strange Tales

Zhu Yongkang was a little hesitant about the waiter’s suggestion.

“But if we do that, what about the customers who don’t want to watch?”

The waiter said, “Um… what if we set up a few soundproof private rooms?”

Zhu Yongkang: … ’Are we even a proper bar anymore?’

“Manager, since we can’t please everyone, we’ll just have to let a small portion of customers go. Besides, as long as Miss Jiang is here, they’ll keep coming. We have plenty of customers who leave partway through the night anyway.”

The waiter felt his brain had never worked so fast, all for the sake of being able to watch TV during his shift.

To his pleasant surprise, Zhu Yongkang accepted the proposal and immediately made a call to purchase a massive, four-sided screen.

No matter where you were, you’d have a perfect view of the show. And it would be delivered tomorrow.

’Heh heh, I’ll catch up on the three episodes I missed today during my lunch break tomorrow. Then I can watch the new episode as soon as it airs tomorrow night.’

…

Jiang Qin was still unaware of the new changes coming to the bar. She had already gone to bed.

When she woke up the next morning, she figured she had nothing pressing to do and immediately logged onto the Star Network to write.

She had currently finished updating *Strange Tales* with two stories.

One was “Lu Pan.”

This story contained the official hierarchy of the Underworld, which she described in great detail before even starting the main plot.

On Earth, that writing style would have left her starving.

But in the Interstellar era, the Underworld’s hierarchy alone was fascinating enough.

Because the system was so unique, many readers who stumbled upon it kept on reading.

It all started with a public execution by beheading.

This led to a dispute between Lu Pan and Situ.

Lu Pan believed that the executed Bai Yongcheng had been wrongly put to death because he lacked knowledge and was easily deceived. If he had been a little smarter, he wouldn’t have met such a fate.

Situ, on the other hand, argued that human nature is inherently evil. If Bai Yongcheng had been smarter, he might have become even more wicked.

Neither was willing to back down, so they made a wager: would a foolish person do good or evil after becoming intelligent?

The chosen subject was the rather dim-witted Zhu Erdan.

Lu Pan grew fond of him, treated him as a friend, and gave him a new heart to help him gain enlightenment and succeed in the imperial examinations.

After the heart transplant, Zhu Erdan became smarter, but he also became dissatisfied…

He began to turn rotten, finding his kind and virtuous wife’s face ugly and falling in love at first sight with the beautiful Zhang Xiaoman.

However, he witnessed her being murdered but lacked the courage to save her. After she died, he couldn’t bear the thought of losing her beauty.

So, he begged Lu Pan to transplant Zhang Xiaoman’s head onto his wife’s body.

But… even with a new head, he was still disgusted by his wife’s crude behavior.

For his own happiness, he began forcing her to become learned and refined…

However, Zhang Xiaoman’s fiancé, Bai Yang, discovered the truth. For the sake of his fiancée, he planned to commit suicide to go to the underworld and report the injustice to its authorities.

Despite some difficulties, he succeeded.

And Lu Pan did indeed realize his mistake. As an official of the Underworld, he shouldn’t have let personal feelings drive him to help Zhu Erdan by transplanting a head onto his wife.

In the end, it was a blatant abuse of power.

If all the deities in the world acted so lawlessly, the world would have long since descended into chaos.

So, to atone for his mistake, he switched the heads back. In the end, King Yan punished him by having him reincarnated as Zhu Erdan’s wife.

As for Zhu Erdan’s wife, she died in childbirth.

The victims, Bai Yang and Zhang Xiaoman, were sent back to the mortal world to live as a loving couple.

In this whole affair, only Zhu Erdan’s wife, Ke Shaorong, was truly innocent.

The deceased Zhang Xiaoman was resurrected, a blessing in disguise. Although Zhu Erdan had become wicked, he had also truly gained intelligence.

Lu Pan’s punishment for abusing his power was merely to be reincarnated and live a mortal life.

Only she, who had been living a good life, diligently managing the household and caring for her husband every day, ended up dying in childbirth.

Because of this ending, Jiang Qin didn’t even dare to open the comment section.

The readers’ fury was enough to burn a person to ashes.

They were all demanding that Zhu Erdan die, or that he be reincarnated as his wife to experience Ke Shaorong’s life for himself.

’That would be really satisfying, but…’ Jiang Qin chose to respect the TV drama’s original plot, so she ignored the readers’ demands.

’Life is full of regrets, after all. It’s perfectly normal for a story to have some too.’

…

The second story was also one that left a bitter taste.

It was the “Painted Skin” mini-arc from the TV series.

The male lead, Wang Anxu, could be described as a complete and utter scumbag—even more ruthless than Chen Shimei.

Chen Shimei’s wife at least made it to the capital alive before he sent assassins after her.

But Wang Anxu, after catching the eye of the Prime Minister’s daughter, Chu Hui, directly sent someone to the brothel to murder Mei Sanniang.

He left absolutely no loose ends.

The most infuriating part was that even after becoming a ghost, Mei Sanniang was still hopelessly in love and actually believed him a second time.

The result, of course, was being killed again.

Chillingly, Wang Anxu was then noticed by a Princess, so he once again went after his own wife, the Prime Minister’s daughter.

You could say he was a ruthless man who would stop at nothing for power and status.

Anyone who stood in his way had to die.

Emotion was his weapon.

As a result, the comment section was once again unreadable.

Although in the final scene, on Wang Anxu’s wedding night, the candlelight was blown out and he and the Princess let out a scream…

…the details weren’t written out!!!

So the big “The End” at the conclusion felt like it was deliberately grating on the readers’ nerves.

[Ha, impressive. Newbie authors are something else. So stubborn. Pulled this stunt with the first story, and now they’re doing it again.]

[Author Three Drops of Water, don’t take advantage of our affection to hurt us so recklessly, or you’ll lose your adorable readers.]

[Dear author, I understand you must be tired lately, so tired you can’t even see the words clearly. As long as you fix it, we’ll still forgive you.]

[Change the ending! I want to see the vengeful ghost tear that heartless bastard limb from limb, or I’m dropping this book!!!]

[Dear author, your loving reader has a ’local specialty’ they’d like to send you. Could you please provide an address?]

[I suspect the author is male. I even suspect the author’s ancestors were scholars.]

[Please serve up the details. I didn’t follow this story for so long just to read about a single scream.]

[So what? We have to imagine the ’evil gets its just deserts’ ending ourselves?]

[I’m so mad! The ending is so vague, but Mei Sanniang and Chu Hui are really dead. They died such wrongful, tragic deaths.]

[…]

Some readers were so furious they went and posted the book’s title on the Star Network just to curse it out.

Jiang Qin: … ’Actually, I’m not that stubborn.’

She shivered in fear, but she wouldn’t change it.

*Strange Tales* itself isn’t a feel-good power fantasy. If every story had a perfect ending, what would be the point of reading it?

A predictable ending makes people lose their sense of anticipation.

Especially in a collection of short, episodic stories like this.

Besides, it’s the ones that are hard to accept that leave the deepest impression.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep