Seeing that the Eldest Miss did not ask any more questions, Zhou Ming continued his story.

At Guiyun Manor, heroes from all walks of life gathered, and Guo Jing witnessed the unfathomable depths of the Central Plains' Martial Forest for the first time.

Zhou Ming glossed over these Jianghu grudges quickly, but he laid out the appearance of every key character and every major battle in exquisite detail.

Outside the window, the sun moved from the east to directly overhead, and then tilted a few degrees to the west.

Chunlan quietly refilled the teacups several times, and they had only eaten some pastries for lunch.

When he spoke of Guo Jing and Huang Rong reuniting by Taihu Lake, boating together on the water while Huang Rong sang "Water Dragon Chant."

When she sang, "In this eternal land, there is no place to find a hero like Sun Zhongmou," Empress Su Mingyue's fingertip tapped ever so lightly on the table, landing precisely on the beat of the name "Sun Zhongmou."

Zhou Ming noticed this but kept his face expressionless and continued telling the story.

Huang Rong figured out the old beggar's weakness and prepared delicious dishes for him in various creative ways.

Beggar's Chicken, Eight-Treasure Fat Duck.

Every dish made Hong Qigong beam with joy, and for every dish he ate, he taught Guo Jing a stance of the Eighteen Subduing Dragon Palms.

He spoke of how Zhou Botong was imprisoned on the island for fifteen years, yet no one was ever allowed to lay a finger on him.

When Empress Su Mingyue heard the words "Peach Blossom Island," her eyes flickered slightly as if she recalled something.

Then came the climax: in Dali, Guo Jing knelt outside Great Master Yideng's meditation room for an entire night, begging Great Master Yideng to heal Huang Rong, who had been wounded by Qiu Qianren's Iron Palm.

The old monk, as withered and thin as a piece of dried bamboo, sat on a prayer mat, rolling his Buddhist beads. His voice was even lighter than the sandalwood incense drifting through the Buddhist hall: "Do you know that if this old monk saves her, it will cost me three years of my cultivation?"

Guo Jing's eyes shone with startling brightness in the dark night. He uttered only four words: "Take my life."

Empress Su Mingyue picked up the teacup on the table.

She brought it to her lips and took a sip, but her gaze never left Zhou Ming.

After that was the Sword Trial of Mount Hua. Zhou Ming spoke of how the five masters—the Eastern Heretic, Western Venom, Southern Emperor, Northern Beggar, and Central Divine Ability—gathered at the summit of Mount Hua to vie for the title of Number One in the World.

When those four words were spoken, Empress Su Mingyue's brow furrowed slightly, as if she was not quite convinced by the concept.

But when she heard that Ouyang Feng had reversed the training of the Nine Yin Manual, and in his madness, actually fought both the Eastern Heretic and the Northern Beggar single-handedly, even holding a slight upper hand...

her brow slowly unfurled, replaced by a gaze so focused it was almost scrutinizing.

"Number One in the World," she repeated the phrase softly, as if chewing over the weight of those words. "Truly laughable."

Zhou Ming did not know if she was referring to the characters in the book or something else. He did not dare to respond and simply continued his narration.

From a clumsy, tongue-tied fool, to standing atop the city walls of Xiangyang facing hundreds of thousands of enemy troops and uttering the eight words, "The greatest heroes serve the nation and the people."

He had spent the length of an entire book to lay out this youth's growth.

From the Great Desert to the Central Plains, from the Jianghu to the imperial court, from a fool whom everyone deemed stupid, to a top master of the age personally acknowledged by Huang Yaoshi atop the summit of Mount Hua.

"The greatest heroes serve the nation and the people," Empress Su Mingyue repeated, this time all eight characters.

Her voice was very soft, as if she were speaking to herself.

Zhou Ming noticed the light shining in her phoenix eyes, a light he had only seen once before—when he first told her the story of the Empress.

But this time, the light was no longer burning. It was suppressed by something deeper, pressed into an extremely thin, brilliant film of water that was almost imperceptible unless one looked closely.

Zhou Ming silently recalled the subsequent plot in his mind; he knew the upcoming chapters by heart.

In his past life, he had read the novel and watched the adaptations back and forth no less than ten times. Every twist and turn was engraved in his mind, and he could recite them with his eyes closed.

He was just telling the part where Guo Jing accompanied Genghis Khan on his western campaign. The army was halted beneath the walls of Samarkand, and Guo Jing was appointed as a Noyan, leading the army to attack the city.

Using the clever plan taught by Huang Rong, he launched a night raid via parachuting, capturing Samarkand in a single night.

When Empress Su Mingyue heard "the clever plan taught by Huang Rong," the corner of her mouth twitched in an extremely subtle curve, as if she felt proud on behalf of that exceptionally clever girl.

Just then, Zhou Ming suddenly felt a wave of heat in his lower abdomen.

His words came to an abrupt halt, his voice catching in his throat for half a beat.

Empress Su Mingyue's gaze swept over. The focus in her phoenix eyes had not yet faded, now mingled with a hint of newly surfaced confusion.

Zhou Ming did not dare to delay. Taking a deep breath, he temporarily suppressed the hot current, cleared his throat, and continued telling the story.

Fortunately, the next part was a grand siege scene with very few lines of dialogue.

He used Guo Jing's shouts commanding the siege and the chaotic scenes of Samarkand's fall to cover up his previous pause, and Empress Su Mingyue did not seem to suspect anything.

However, the hot current did not stop there.

At first, it came in trickles, like small streams quietly flowing into his Dantian.

Without even looking, Zhou Ming knew that more Causal Chains were snapping.

One, two, three... He did not know who was dying, but the number was definitely not small.

He gritted his teeth and endured while speaking, fine beads of sweat already breaking out on his forehead. Empress Su Mingyue probably just assumed he had worked himself into an excited state while describing the siege battle, so she did not interrupt him.

Then, the hot current suddenly surged. It was no longer trickling but gushing in torrents, like a bursting dam, continuously pouring into his Dantian.

Zhou Ming felt the ten Qi vortices within his Dantian begin to expand, rotate, and split.

An eleventh Qi Cyclone slowly coalesced and took shape within the gaps between the ten masses of Qi.

Immediately afterward, a twelfth Qi Cyclone also began to take shape.

His Dantian was stretched to the point of aching, and Zhou Ming did not have the ability to multitask.

Under instinct, even his storytelling voice began to stutter.

Empress Su Mingyue tilted her head slightly, her gaze falling on the fine sweat at his temples, then at his suddenly frozen expression. After a moment, she waved her hand gently.

"Let's stop here for today."

"Go back and think through the rest of the story properly. Come back and tell it once you've sorted it out."

Her voice was so flat that no emotion could be detected, but Zhou Ming clearly caught a faint trace of amusement in her eyes.

It was as if she thought Zhou Ming had racked his brains and could no longer make things up, so she was giving him a way out.

She probably assumed that Zhou Ming had not planned the subsequent story well enough, and his mid-way stutter was due to him making things up on the spot.

However, she was not dissatisfied either. After all, despite the stuttering in the latter half, the content just now was countless times better than any storybook she had ever heard before.

"Thank you, Eldest Miss," Zhou Ming bowed, took three steps back, turned around, and walked out of the flower hall.

His legs moved rapidly, his gait completely different from the usual limping Steward Zhou.

Fortunately, the Eldest Miss's attention was likely no longer on him at this moment.

However, Dongmei, who had been listening to the story alongside her, muttered under her breath.

"A lazy donkey always has to pee when it's time to grind the mill."