Xu Zijin set down the Zihao brush caked with thick ink.
“Old Madam Xie’s family just impeached Vice Minister Xu at court, claiming the Xu family allowed their servants to disrupt the grain transport.”
“If You are saying You’ve come to teach me how to write essays, even the boy sweeping the gate wouldn’t believe it.”
Xu Zijin leaned back in his chair, resting against the backrest, his gaze carrying a hint of scrutiny.
“Miss Xie, let’s speak plainly. You went through all this trouble—what exactly are You after?”
Xie Yunwan’s seated posture faltered slightly.
A faint blush crept up her ears. She turned her head, avoiding his gaze, and looked toward the antique shelf in the corner of the study.
“I …”
Xie Yunwan opened her mouth, then raised her hand, covering the lower half of her face with her wide sleeve, and coughed lightly.
Her usually aloof and composed demeanor showed a rare hint of awkwardness. She steadied herself, pressed her legs together, and sat upright again.
“The factional strife at court—that’s my grandfather and father’s concern. I’m but a woman, and I do not involve myself in it.”
Xie Yunwan lowered her sleeve, her voice returning to its cool clarity.
“I came today for only one thing.”
She paused, her words deliberate and heavy.
“I want to borrow the original manuscript of Princess Xu’s Treatise on the Investigation of Things.”
Xu Zijin was stunned for a moment.
He looked Xie Yunwan up and down, then burst into laughter.
“So, after all this, Miss Xie is here to steal a book?”
“The granddaughter of the Grand Secretary, the top talented woman in the capital, dons a night robe in the dead of night …”
Xu Zijin slapped his thigh.
“This behavior is just like the rooftop-hopping thief in those folk tales.”
He pointed at the hooded hat Xie Yunwan had dropped beside her.
“If those students at the Imperial Academy, who worship You like a goddess, saw You dressed like this, they’d jump into the moat in unison!”
Xie Yunwan furrowed her elegant brows, her composure finally cracking.
“A scholar’s pursuit—how can You call it theft!”
She retorted quickly, a hint of indignation rising in her tone.
“I was unsettled by Lu Huaijin’s essay ‘Ode to Scornful Water’!”
Xie Yunwan pointed at the discarded sheet of paper on the floor.
“That essay of his—grandiose in rhetoric, yet utterly hollow!”
“Water flows downhill—that’s the most fundamental truth of heaven and earth. Yet he had to twist it with terms like ‘Mandate of Heaven’ and ‘Dragon Vein’s Grace’—nothing but far-fetched nonsense.”
“Those pedantic scholars at the Imperial Academy have no understanding of Princess Xu’s learning.”
Xie Yunwan’s chest heaved slightly, her eyes burning with frustration.
“All they do is pile up empty words on paper, unable even to discern what true ‘principle’ is.”
“For Princess Xu to deliver such a blunt yet profound conclusion, she must have a complete system of thought behind it.”
She leaned forward, her gaze intense, fixed on Xu Zijin.
“You couldn’t capture the essence of that system, and Lu Huaijin distorted it. I must see the original manuscript myself!”
Xu Zijin watched Xie Yunwan, who was now nearly trembling with the urge to debate.
He dropped his playful demeanor, turned, and walked to the rosewood cabinet at the back of the study.
From his waist, he pulled out a brass key and unlocked the latch.
Xu Zijin retrieved a thick stack of bound papers, their edges yellowed with age, covered in densely written small script.
He returned to the desk and set the manuscript down with a heavy thud.
“It’s all here. Before Princess Xu left the capital, she entrusted these to me, asking me to compile them.”
Xu Zijin gestured at the manuscript.
“I’ve been reading through it for days, but I’ve only grasped a fraction.”
Xie Yunwan, abandoning all pretense of restraint, crossed the room in two steps and stood before the desk, her eyes blazing as she fixed them on the top page.
The page bore no colloquial language, but a bold line of text:
“Principle lies within matters; do not seek principle in the void.”
Xie Yunwan’s fingers brushed over the characters, her breath catching.
She continued reading:
“The Heavenly Principle is the immutable law governing all things in the universe. Water seeks the low, fire seeks the high, the sun and moon alternate, the four seasons cycle—all are necessary manifestations of principle.
“Things have their roots and branches; events have their beginnings and ends. The investigation of things does not mean sitting in meditation to seek the Heavenly Principle, but examining the constant laws of all things through actual observation.
“Understand why water flows downward, and you can channel it to irrigate fields; understand why iron is hard, and you can forge it into armor and weapons. This is what is called ‘applying knowledge to govern the world.’”
Xie Yunwan’s heart trembled violently.
The great scholars of her time all advocated “preserving the Heavenly Principle and extinguishing human desire,” treating “principle” as an exalted, abstract moral constraint.
But Xu Qinghuan had directly dragged “principle” back into the mud of earthly reality!
Using the most orthodox framework of Neo-Confucianism, she had embedded a core that sought the constant laws of the heavens and all things, transforming “the investigation of things” from idle study into practical inquiry.
Xie Yunwan flipped rapidly through the manuscript.
“Therefore, principle resides in matter; matter transforms into things. Surveying distances and calculating numbers are not mere cunning tricks, but steps toward clarifying principle.
“He who does not understand numbers cannot speak of principle. He who does not observe things cannot speak of the Way.”
Her shock deepened with every page.
Every phrase struck squarely at the fatal flaws of the current official education.
If this doctrine were made public, the white-haired pedants at the Imperial Academy would likely smash their heads against the Confucian temple. Xu Qinghuan had used their own familiar classical phrasing to rebuild the very foundation of all things!
“Is this … truly Princess Xu’s work?” Xie Yunwan murmured to herself.
Even hearing her straightforward talk rumors, Xie Yunwan had only taken Xu Qinghuan’s eccentric behavior. She had never imagined that Xu Qinghuan’s scholarly achievements had reached the level of founding a new school of thought.
Xu Zijin poured a cup of tea nearby and slid it toward her.
“Before she left, Princess Xu said this era had too many scholars prattling about mind and nature, and too few doing tangible, practical work.”
Xie Yunwan did not take the teacup.
She lowered her head again, her gaze locked onto the manuscript.
She turned page after page, her pace quickening. When she reached a particularly brilliant passage, she could not help but sigh and slap her palm on the table.
“Excellent—‘the Way is even in excrement and urine’! Excellent—‘practical learning to save the world’!”
“Lu Huaijin’s ‘Ode to Scornful Water’—next to this manuscript—is nothing but a toddler’s babble!”
At that moment, Xie Yunwan bore no trace of the noble-born lady’s reserve.
She was utterly immersed in the new world Xu Qinghuan had built. All the obscure, contradictory dead ends she had encountered while reading classical texts became clear under this doctrine of “Way and matter are inseparable, seek principle in things.”
Xu Qinghuan had not only given her a blade to refute Lu Huaijin but had also reshaped her very state of mind.
From outside the Xu residence, the drum marking the third watch sounded.
Xie Yunwan paid it no mind.
She turned to the middle section of the manuscript, titled “Mathematics and the Heavenly Principle.”
“All things have numbers; when numbers are exhausted, principle becomes clear.
“Thus, measuring heaven and earth, charting the stars—these are not divinations, but the method of understanding the constant of heaven’s Way.”
Xu Zijin stood opposite, watching Xie Yunwan in her absorbed rapture. He shook his head, refraining from disturbing her.
This top talented woman of the capital, who usually looked down her nose at flattering scholars, was now like a parched land, finally blessed with rain, devouring the manuscript as if starving.
Xu Zijin walked to the window and pushed it open halfway, letting the night breeze cool the stuffy room.
He watched Xie Yunwan scribble away on paper, calculating the math from the manuscript.
Time slipped by.
The candles on the desk burned down more than halfway, their flames flickering.
Xie Yunwan finally set down her brush.
“I actually managed to deduce it…”
Xie Yunwan stared at the paper filled with mathematical calculations, utterly shaken.
The great principles of heaven and earth, the cycles of the four seasons—could they truly be pinned down with the same precision as divination using numbers and tallies?
This struck her more profoundly than any elegant rhetoric or the subtle teachings of the sages.
She turned to look at the stack of unfinished manuscripts.
It was a tidal wave capable of upending the entire foundation of the Great Qian civil service.
“Xu Zijin.”
Xie Yunwan straightened her back and called his name with solemnity.
“This theory must not be left to gather dust in a cabinet.”
Xu Zijin raised an eyebrow.
“Miss Xie, once this theory spreads, those officials who clawed their way up by memorizing the Four Books and Five Classics will tear us apart limb by limb.”
He walked back to the writing desk and pressed both hands against its surface.
“If your grandfather, the Elder Xie, found out you slipped here in the dusk to do this, he’d bring out the family discipline rod.”
But there was no trace of hesitation in Xie Yunwan’s eyes.
“I’ve spent more than ten years reading books and memorizing the words of the sages,” she said.
“Yet it feels like only today I’ve learned what true knowledge is.”
She picked up the sheet on top that read “Principles Reside in Matters” and spoke each word with steel in her voice:
“Court factions fight for temporary power. But this theory by the Princess of Xu—it fights for the foundation of all generations under heaven!”
