Dad, don't be greedy! My brother climbed into the emperor's bed, and I became famous overn

Gu Mingli suddenly stood up.

He raised his left index finger, which still bore the needle mark, and pointed it straight up to the sky.

The vigor of youth and the fearlessness of modern people are perfectly blended in him.

"Instead of being confined to a mere hundred years of wretched existence by fate, why not make a grand and spectacular undertaking? Let's overturn this rotten game that Heaven has laid out!"

"To hell with this damn curse, we're going to defy fate!"

Xiao Ye tilted his head slightly, following Gu Mingli's gesture of pointing to the sky, and looked up at the roof beam above his head.

The heart inside my chest, long accustomed to darkness, began to beat violently and uncontrollably.

So what if there were no famous ministers to change fate?!

He waited for Gu Mingli.

A person who dares to speak so boldly as to pull him out of a dead end;

A madman willing to share his lifespan and fight alongside him;

A person who made him no longer fear life, death, or loneliness in this world.

The darkness that had weighed on his heart for over a decade dissipated, and he saw the light beyond his life.

Xiao Ye couldn't help but smile, revealing a genuine smile.

"Alright, let's defy fate."

The two looked at each other and smiled, their fear gone.

A crisp system notification sounded in Gu Mingli's mind.

[Congratulations, host, on completing this palace intrigue mission: Tender Affection]

[Rewards: 1 complete papermaking process manual, 1 cutting-edge printing press design drawing]

[Xiao Ye's favorability towards you +50! Current favorability: -361]

……

In the side room of the east courtyard.

Gu Mingyue sat at her desk, with a cup of tea that was almost cold beside her.

Taozhi was already sitting on a small stool by the door, leaning against the door frame and dozing off.

Gu Mingyue was not sleepy at all. She was writing something at her desk, and her mind was still repeatedly going over the process of starting a newspaper after returning to Beijing.

Papermaking, printing, content, distribution channels...

Every step requires manpower.

Familiar footsteps came from outside the door.

With a creak, Gu Mingli pushed the door open and came in.

Gu Mingyue looked up and saw that her older brother looked like he had just returned from the underworld.

Although his eyes were a little red, he was unusually energetic.

It exudes a sense of profound understanding that comes from experiencing profound enlightenment.

"How is it?"

Gu Mingyue stood up and stepped forward, asking in a low voice.

"Is the mission complete?"

"All done. Blueprints in hand."

Gu Mingli closed the door, walked to the table, poured himself a glass of cold tea, and drank it down.

Gu Mingyue breathed a sigh of relief, then asked again:

"So, you and Huang Jiaojiao... didn't have any unpleasantness, did you? You stayed in his room for so long."

Gu Mingli put down his teacup, sat down opposite her, and remained silent for two seconds.

Some things cannot be said.

Xiao Ye's secret, the prophecy of Heaven, thirty years of lifespan, a pact of shared life and death...

If even a single word of these things were leaked, it would be a fatal threat to Xiao Ye.

But there are some things he needs to let his sister know.

Gu Mingli looked up at his sister with a solemn expression.

"Mingyue, my relationship with Xiao Ye can no longer be described as that of an ordinary ruler and subject."

Gu Mingyue: "What?!"

She sat up abruptly, her eyes gleaming with gossip, her voice rising uncontrollably.

"Do you have some other relationship?"

Gu Mingli pondered his words for a moment.

How do you explain that?

They said we signed a contract to live and die together, so if I get a needle prick, he bleeds, and if he gets slashed, I die of pain.

Forget it, it's too complicated.

Gu Mingli didn't think much of it and simply nodded in agreement.

"Yes. From now on, Xiao Ye will be your brother too."

"He is me, and I am him. You should also pay attention to his affairs."

Gu Mingyue's eyes widened instantly, feeling utterly incredulous.

"What's going on? I have an extra brother?"

Her face was filled with undisguised excitement, and the corners of her mouth curled up higher and higher, even carrying a subtle hint of lewdness.

"Good heavens, my brother's turned the emperor into family? This promotion path is too wild! Others work to get a raise, you work to get a higher rank?"

Gu Mingli frowned, looking at his sister's expression that said, "I've just heard something big."

"Tsk." He turned his head away in disgust. "Your tone is weird."

No way.

Gu Mingyue put away her slightly frivolous expression, cleared her throat, and said calmly:

"I'm happy for my two older brothers. After all, you used to be the subordinate working for Huang Jiaojiao, and you were inferior to her."

"Now that you're brothers, does that mean when I see him in the future, I have to call him... Second Brother?"

Gu Mingli's lips twitched.

"Just call him Your Majesty, don't try to claim kinship with him."

"oh."

Gu Mingyue nodded obediently, but in her heart she was already planning how to use this "cheap second brother's" name to spend money in the future.

But business is more important.

Gu Mingyue put away her joke and took out some work plans she had just made and spread them on the table.

"Now that you've got the blueprints for papermaking and printing presses, we need to get the newspaper office up and running as quickly as possible."

Gu Mingli nodded and became serious as well.

"There shouldn't be any major problems with papermaking. The blueprints show a rapid process that uses a mixture of bamboo and tree bark to make pulp, which produces paper at a speed more than twenty times faster than the current handmade papermaking in Dayong."

"The printing press is powered by both movable type and hand-cranked/foot-pedal. With the rotary typesetting plate, a skilled worker can print three thousand single-sided sheets a day."

He quickly wrote down some calculations on the paper.

"Three thousand single-sided sheets, which is equivalent to 1,500 double-sided tabloids. With ten machines running simultaneously, that's 15,000 sheets a day."

"That's enough."

Gu Mingyue nodded.

"Kyoto has a permanent population of about 500,000 to 600,000, with a literacy rate of about 10%. But newspapers don't require everyone to be literate. As long as the storytellers in teahouses and restaurants can read them, one newspaper can easily reach 20 to 30 people."

"Of the 15,000 copies, 5,000 will be kept in Kyoto, and the rest will be sent to various parts of the country through logistics stations."

Gu Mingli gave a thumbs up.

"sharp."

After saying that, the brother and sister looked down at the other major items listed on the paper.

Paper mill site selection, machine manufacturing, typesetting worker training, and content acquisition and editing.

When Gu Mingyue saw the words "editing and reporting", she pointed to them.

"In the early days of the newspaper, we had the equipment and technology, but what we lacked most were skilled people."

Gu Mingli leaned back in his chair, arms crossed.

"Who is it?"

"Those who go out to explore and gather information, and those who edit the column."

Gu Mingyue looked up at him.

"The core competitiveness of a newspaper is not the paper, but the content. We need a group of people who can discover news, dare to write the truth, and make it understandable to the public."

"These days, scholars either work in officialdom or teach in academies. There are very few who can write in vernacular Chinese. Moreover, the newspaper we run is going to wage a war of public opinion against powerful clans, so the writers have to be trustworthy."

"So, what kind of person should we hire?"