Before the red sandalwood desk, the thick ink had not yet dried.
Gu Zongming did not ask the nearby green-clad page boy for help. He reached out with hands covered in calluses and chilblain scars, carefully pinching the four corners of the rice paper. He didn't dare to fold it too tightly, afraid of damaging the writing.
He folded it three times.
With trembling hands, he fished out a flat iron box meant for silver needles from deep within his inner garments, emptied its contents, pressed the folded rice paper flat inside, and shut the lid tightly.
He clutched the iron box to his chest with both hands.
"From this day forth, this text and this box," Gu Zongming exclaimed, "shall grow into the very flesh and blood of Gu Zongming. As long as I live, the box remains."
Inside and outside the waterside pavilion, everyone was stunned into silence.
Five hundred imperial students and failed scholars knelt in a dense, dark mass on the scorching ground.
Sweat dripped from their jaws onto the stone surface, sizzling and evaporating instantly.
No one dared to move.
Until the Chancellor of the Imperial College and the leading luminary of the Jiangnan literary circles spoke, these five hundred pairs of knees had to remain kneeling.
Zhao Xuan knelt at the very front, the fabric of his back long soaked through with alternating cold and hot sweat.
Earlier, he had fanned himself with a gold-flecked folding fan, pointing at Xu Qinghuan's nose and cursing her as a "wicked merchant woman," mocking the Xu family for "only having the strength to be subjected to property confiscation."
At this moment, those words stung him fiercely, leaving him with no place to hide his shame.
Kong Zongyun paid no mind to the students collapsed like mud on the ground.
Thud.
His purple bamboo cane struck the bluestone slab heavily. The Grand Chancellor turned around, facing outward from the waterside pavilion.
Towards the waters of Shichahai.
The scorching sun hung high.
Leaning on his cane, Kong Zongyun's gaze swept over the shimmering ripples outside the pavilion before finally landing back on Xu Qinghuan.
The old man's eyes lost their previous sharpness, replaced by the demeanor of a gentle elder. Even the smile at the corners of his mouth carried a touch of benevolence.
"Commandery Princess Xu is truly talented, even Elder Gu holds you in such high esteem." Kong Zongyun spoke slowly. His voice was not loud, but it echoed clearly throughout the pavilion. "It is just that this 'Inscription on a Humble Dwelling' is solitary, cold, and exceedingly lofty. It perfectly captures the character of a scholar, yet it is a bit too bitter."
He raised a withered hand and pointed at the sparkling lake outside.
"Today, the sunlight over Shichahai is just right, and scholars from all over the world are gathered here. This old man would be so bold as to ask Commandery Princess Xu for another poem."
Kong Zongyun paused, looking at her with a smile. "Do not write of this solitary coldness and bitter hardship, but simply of the lake and water before us. Treat it as a word of encouragement bestowed by the Commandery Princess upon all the younger generation present. What does the Commandery Princess think?"
The scholars inside and outside the pavilion held their breath.
The Grand Chancellor himself asking for a poem! What a tremendous honor this was!
Those present only thought Kong Zongyun cherished talent and intentionally gave this junior a stepping stone to become world-renowned.
But upon hearing this, Xu Qinghuan's mind was as clear as a mirror.
What encouragement for the younger generation? This old fox was asking for a certificate of allegiance.
How could the threshold of the Imperial College be so easily crossed? Having an unyielding, tough backbone alone could not serve as the Kong family's protective talisman.
If you wanted others to act as your shield, you had to produce something capable of governing scholarship and establishing doctrine; you had to display a broad vision that could encompass all rivers.
This was the true stepping stone to enter the Imperial College.
Political transactions at the grandmaster level never showed their peaks or revealed their waters; they were all hidden within these few sentences of gentle, breezy chatter.
Xu Qinghuan saw through it but did not point it out, merely offering a slight smile.
You want broad vision, right? Fine.
"Since the Grand Chancellor has spoken, Qinghuan will naturally offer her humble work."
Her tone was calm, without any evasion, as she turned and walked straight toward the wide red sandalwood desk.
In her heart, however, she was already calling for backup: Sys, we got work to do. Let's open the eyes of these Great Qian natives.
But before she could speak, Xu Zijin made a move first.
He did not touch the carved bronze water dropper on the desk. Instead, he reached out a slender hand, picked up the Duan inkstone that had just ground out a bloody mark, and took a few steps to the edge of the pavilion's stone steps.
With a flip of his wrist.
Splash—
The remaining thick ink in the inkstone was thrown directly into Shichahai by him.
The black ink rolled twice in the water. Xu Zijin lifted the hem of his green cloth gown, crouched on one knee, and dipped the Duan inkstone into the lake.
With a gurgle, half an inkstone of Shichahai lake water was scooped up.
He walked back to the desk and laid the inkstone flat.
Then, taking a new piece of Hui ink free of any impurities, he ground it in circles against the bottom of the inkstone with moderate pressure.
"Water taken from here," Xu Zijin said with downcast eyelashes, his tone exceedingly flat.
Below the steps, Zhao Xuan heard these four words.
He suddenly understood: taking the water of Shichahai to compose a poem about Shichahai.
Using the holy ground that they scholars took the most pride in as an ink washer.
Xu Qinghuan watched the ink color gradually dissolving in the Duan inkstone.
She thought to herself, the literary circles of Great Qian have retained the remnants of the Six Dynasties for a century. A pool of stagnant water. Since you want to see my trump card, I'll show it to you completely.
Deep in her mind, the system interface awakened.
[Match successful, "Thoughts on Reading, Part 1 by Zhu Xi"]
[Redeem]
[Deduct silver, one hundred thousand taels.]
The numbers on the account were instantly deducted, and Xu Qinghuan gritted her back teeth.
One hundred thousand taels, to buy the lifeblood of Great Qian's scholarly tradition, to buy the backbones of the righteous officials of the entire court.
This deal was too profitable.
A philosophical height that transcended the piling of rhetoric and pierced through the essence of the development of things poured into her mind like a torrent.
It was a philosophical dimension that native Great Qian scholars could not touch even if they racked their brains.
The tip of the brush was fully dipped in the new ink Xu Zijin had just ground.
"A half-acre square pond opens like a mirror,"
Kong Zongyun leaned forward half a step.
This massive Shichahai, under her pen, had actually just become a half-acre square pond?
A square pond, the water surface like a mirror.
"Where the light of heaven and the shadows of clouds linger together."
Xu Qinghuan's brush moved like dragons and snakes.
Sunlight, cloud shadows—above this stagnant water, the flowing firmament was actually reflected.
Was this writing about the lake water? It was more like writing about the myriad phenomena within a square inch.
Containing Mount Sumeru within a mustard seed.
The imperial students below the steps pricked up their ears.
Zhao Xuan's nerves, stretched so tight they were about to snap, relaxed slightly.
The artistic conception was indeed extremely beautiful, but... it was only beautiful.
He harbored a fluke of hope.
But he was wrong.
"I ask the pond, how can it be so clear?"
A single question made all the scholars present tremble in their hearts, stung deeply.
Why was it clear? Why were there flowing cloud shadows? Why had the scholarly tradition of Great Qian become this putrid, rigid, lifeless dead end today?
Xu Qinghuan gave no one a chance to catch their breath.
"Because there is living water flowing from the source."
The characters settled.
Clack.
Xu Qinghuan released her fingers, and the wolf-hair brush dropped onto the desk, rolling half a circle and staining a small patch of the red sandalwood black.
To others, these words clearly meant:
Living water. If I don't stir up this situation, you all can just soak in this stagnant water until you rot.
Gu Zongming stood there, both hands still placed over his chest where the iron box was hidden, his whole body trembling violently.
"I ask the pond, how can it be so clear... Because there is living water flowing from the source..."
He chewed over these characters again and again.
With every recitation, the wrinkles on his face deepened by a fraction.
