Bright Night/Prologue

Prologue
Characters	Bingfen Twice-Cooked Pork Laziji Eight-Treasure Rice
One Day — Capital
Background Music
Bingfen	Mister, what did you...
Twice-Cooked Pork	Miscalculated.
Bingfen	With all due respect, I'm afraid this isn't a problem of miscalculating.
Bingfen looked at the room filled with festival lanterns and put a hand to his disconcerted forehead.
Bingfen	Why did you make so many?
Twice-Cooked Pork	Because of that old Laziji...
Bingfen	The Castellan?
Twice-Cooked Pork	Right... Agh, it's a long story.
One month prior...
Laziji	What the? Ugly! So ugly! My Capital won't stand for something so ugly!
Eight-Treasure Rice	Spicy, you bastard! Have you no aesthetic taste? What do you mean ugly? Master Ginseng specifically requested that I deliver this festival lantern -- a Nether World specialty item!
Laziji	So what if it's a Nether World specialty? What does that old dolt know about anything!? If I say it's ugly, it's ugly!!
Eight-Treasure Rice	You... Haha, I think you're just jealous. After all, aside from mechanisms and idiots, your Capital doesn't seem to have any special products, does it?
Laziji	Only losers would be jealous of your rubbish lantern! The Capital has plenty of special products! Twice-Cooked Pork! I want a festival lantern, one that's a million times prettier than this piece of trash!
Bingfen	……
Twice-Cooked Pork	After looking at the design, he said he liked it, so I made them. Little did I expect that those apprentices would be so enthusiastic. In just one month, they made so many... At any rate, it was my miscalculation.
Bingfen	But... *Sigh* With this many lanterns, even if every man, woman, and child in the Capital had one, there'd still be a ton left over. It truly is a waste.
Twice-Cooked Pork	Well then, what about trying to sell them off abroad?
Bingfen	That's not a bad idea, particularly these days. Ever since that guy came, the Capital can barely make ends meet on the maintenance expenses alone...
Twice-Cooked Pork	In that case, I'll make a few more.
Bingfen	No, no. Better get rid of this lot first... Although, there's a big exam coming up at the Academy, and I just can't get away...
Twice-Cooked Pork	As far as selling lanterns go, I've got a couple of candidates here actually.
Bingfen	Please, enlighten me.
Twice-Cooked Pork	Jinhua Ham, Spicy Duck Blood Soup.
Bingfen	...!
Twice-Cooked Pork	Perfect timing. These two arch-criminals need to atone for the sins they've committed.
Bingfen	Mister, just a minute... With the way these two are, if they go down to the land, they'll be sure to stir up some big trouble.
Twice-Cooked Pork	You could say that, but if we can rectify their personalities, then they won't go around causing mischief here and wreaking havoc there, and the Capital's coffers won't be in such a sorry state.
Bingfen	That's…
Twice-Cooked Pork	To solve this problem, we have to start at the source.
As if he could already see that fat stack of bills at the end of the month turn into a few meager slips of paper, the smile on Bingfen's face grew wider.
Bingfen	You've got a point!
Twice-Cooked Pork	Good, then I'll go find them.
Bingfen	Hang on, better let me go. Those two are on very friendly terms with my Darcy.
Twice-Cooked Pork	Fine by me. Thank you for your troubles, Teacher.
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