Xie Yunwan stepped back half a pace, glaring at the line: "Though the common man and woman can comprehend and practice it."
These fifteen characters smashed the lofty Way of the Great Dry Dynasty ruthlessly into the mud.
The subtle words of the sages, the principles that generations of great Confucian scholars had spent their entire lives daring to touch, under Xu Zijin's brush, had become something that even the old farmers in the fields and the market women on the streets could understand.
Heresy! In the Great Dry, this was absolutely an unforgivable crime!
Xie Yunwan couldn't utter a single word. She simply took her leave and walked toward the door.
Her steps were chaotic, completely devoid of the dignified bearing expected of a noble lady from a prominent family.
The veil hat left on the desk was utterly forgotten.
She pushed open the study door and rushed into the bleak morning wind, racing down the corridor at full speed.
Stumbling and staggering, she pulled open the back door of the Xu residence and vanished into the gloomy gray sky.
Xu Zijin stared at the empty doorway, his gaze falling back to the floor littered with crumpled balls of paper.
These draft pages, scratched out and filled with words of transgression, could not be left behind.
Even a single fragment reaching the outside world would cost both the Xu family and himself their heads.
Dragging his numb legs to the corner, he grabbed a brass brazier and struck a few sparks from the flint.
Embers fell, igniting the kindling grass at the bottom of the basin.
Xu Zijin bent down to pick up a crumpled ball of paper at his feet, unfolded it, glanced at the line: "Nature is principle itself, yet the common people use it daily without knowing," then tossed it into the brazier.
Flames leaped up, swiftly devouring the paper, emitting a burnt smell of ink.
He picked up the second piece and threw it into the fire.
The firelight reflected in his bloodshot eyes, exhaustion pressing down hard on the nerves that had been taut all night.
Just as he reached for the third crumpled page, his body tilted, and his head landed heavily on the armrest of the grand armchair.
Snoring followed immediately, and even the half-finished draft he held in his hand dropped onto the brick floor.
Half an hour later, a fine summer rain began to fall outside.
A Fu pushed open the door, holding a brass basin filled with clear water, ready to help Xu Zijin wash up.
As soon as his foot crossed the threshold, he stepped on a crumpled ball of paper.
A Fu looked down. The study's brick floor was covered in a white blanket of crumpled Huizhou rice paper.
"What a waste!"
A Fu muttered under his breath with a groan, setting the brass basin heavily onto the wooden stand, splashing a few drops of water.
He picked up a crumpled piece of paper with pity and unfolded it to look.
"This is premium rice paper worth two taels a ream! This young master Xu didn't burn paper last night—he burned silver!"
A Fu glanced at Xu Zijin, who was fast asleep, and crept to the back of the door, pulling out a large sack normally used for storing coarse grains.
Working with both hands, he picked up the spent drafts from the floor one by one and stuffed them into the sack.
"These scholars have such big gaps between their fingers, tossing out an entire sheet for just one wrong word. If I sold all this, I could get myself a lot of candied hawthorns. At Li's shop at the south market of the city—five coppers a skewer, sweet and sour—and still have some coins left over to listen to a bit of storytelling at the teahouse."
"Ah! Blissful!"
A Fu muttered to himself, filling the sack until it was bulging.
He tied the neck tightly, hoisted it onto his shoulder, slipped out of the study in a flash, and pulled the door shut behind him.
He completely forgot to help Xu Zijin wash up...
A Fu hoisted the sack onto his shoulder, holding a tattered oilpaper umbrella, and slipped out through the back door of the Xu residence.
As soon as he turned the corner past two alleys, he ran straight into Old Man Wang, pushing a broken wooden cart.
Old Man Wang wore a tattered straw cape, crying out in the rain calling for scrap.
"Old Man Wang!"
A Fu called in a low voice, waving his hand.
Old Man Wang stopped his cart, leaned in, and wiped the rainwater off his face.
A Fu dropped the sack on the ground, splashing mud everywhere.
"Premium Huizhou rice paper, just swept from the residence's study. One copper per sheet!"
Old Man Wang untied the sack, peeked inside, and immediately curled his lips in disgust, revealing a mouth of yellow teeth.
"You little scamp, think you can fool me? This stuff's all scribbled over in black ink. Besides being used for wiping your arse, what else can it do? Even for that, I'd say it's too rough!"
Old Man Wang held up three rough fingers, black dirt packed under his nails.
"Including the sack, weighed by the jin. Ten coppers, not a penny more."
A Fu stomped his foot in frustration, pointing at the sack and shouting.
"Bullshit! This is paper from the Xu residence, soaked in the ink of the Scholar Star! Do you even know what 'ink treasure' means? If I sold this to those impoverished scholars outside, they'd treat it like an offering!"
Old Man Wang made a move to push his cart away, his face full of disdain.
"Can the Scholar Star's ink fill a stomach? Are you selling or not? If not, I'm leaving. Who has time to haggle with you in this heavy rain?"
A Fu grabbed Old Man Wang's cape, afraid of losing the deal.
"Fine, fine! Take the money!"
Old Man Wang fumbled in his tattered purse for a while, pulled out three copper coins covered in grime, and slapped them into A Fu's hand.
Then he hoisted the sack in both hands and tossed it onto the cart.
"Giddup!"
Old Man Wang shouted, pushing his cart through the rain, rattling straight toward the Eastern Market.
...
In the Eastern Market, the rain gradually stopped, leaving large murky puddles on the ground.
Zhang Apo's stall selling roasted seeds and nuts had a tattered oilcloth canopy overhead, with water still dripping from its edges.
Old Man Wang pushed the handcart under the shed and dragged the sack down.
“Zhang Apo, top-quality wrapping paper—want some?”
Old Zhang Apo was stir-frying five-spice melon seeds in a large iron wok, steam rising thick. Hearing this, she came over gripping the metal spatula.
She untied the sack, grabbed a crumpled paper ball at random, and flattened it out.
On the paper was written: “A century of classical learning—focusing on externals while neglecting the inner self, splitting hairs with trivial details to escape difficulty—the rectification of the heart grows ever more distant.” The handwriting had been slashed through with a thick, black streak of ink by Xu Zijin.
Zhang Apo stared at that ink streak, her brow furrowed into a knot.
“Old Man Wang, what worthless trash did you collect from some prodigal son?”
Zhang Apo’s rough fingers jabbed hard at the paper, nearly poking through it.
“Look at this writing! A huge, dark mess! How much ink must have been wasted? Ink doesn’t grow on trees!”
She flung the paper against Old Man Wang’s chest, ranting and spraying spittle.
“If I fold this into a cone for melon seeds, my customers will get their hands all black after eating them—how am I supposed to do business? People will think I’m selling coal cinders! One copper coin—I’ll take the whole bag, consider it your tip for the trouble!”
Old Man Wang stomped his foot in exasperation, jabbing a finger at Zhang Apo’s nose.
“Zhang Apo, your heart is too black! I paid ten coppers for this! One coin is practically begging for charity!”
The butcher from the next stall, Li Tuhu, had just finished chopping a slab of pork ribs with streaks of fat and lean.
He stuck his cleaver into the greasy chopping block, wiped his hands on the dirty towel hanging around his neck, and sauntered over.
“What’s all this racket? How’s a man supposed to do business in the morning!”
Li Tuhu pulled a sheet of paper from the sack, held it up close to his eyes, and examined it.
It read: “Principle lies within concrete matters; one cannot seek principle in the abstract.”
Li Tuhu stared at it for a long time, then burst into loud laughter. He stretched out his greasy hand and pointed at the paper, smearing it.
“These bookworms—their writing has no strength, not even a proper skeleton! Look at this left-slanting stroke—sloppy and floating. If I were doing my job, a single slice wouldn’t even cut through pigskin with that kind of stroke! Not as neat as the marks my cleaver leaves!”
Li Tuhu pointed at the words “Li zai shi zhong” (Principle lies within matters) and turned to the vendors gathered around to watch the fun.
“What does this say? Principle within matters? Does he need to write that down? I slaughter pigs every day—of course I know that principle!”
He wiped his blood-stained hands on his apron, then mimed pulling out a pig’s large intestine in the air. He thumped his chest and announced loudly:
“A pig’s large intestine is full of crap. If you don’t turn it inside out and scrub it three times with coarse salt and soda ash, the stench would knock a man out!”
“If it’s not cleaned, customers will spend three days running to the latrine after eating it. That’s ‘principle within the shit’!”
“Once it’s clean, it becomes a tray of good offal you can sell for a decent price. These scholars have never even washed a pig’s intestine in their lives, yet they act high and mighty, spouting great truths!”
The surrounding vendors burst into roaring laughter.
An old vegetable seller laughed so hard she couldn’t stand straight, nodding repeatedly, the bunch of water celery in her hand trembling.
“Li Tuhu is right! These scholars’ principles aren’t worth a sliver of pig’s head meat!”
Taking advantage of the commotion, Zhang Apo shoved five copper coins into Old Man Wang’s hand.
“Take it, take it! Don’t be ungrateful. Stall any longer and you won’t get a single coin!”
Gripping the five coins, Old Man Wang grumbled and cursed, pushing his empty handcart away, muttering under his breath about taking a big loss today.
Zhang Apo dragged the sack behind her stall. She grabbed a sheet of Huizhou raw-rice paper, densely covered with Neo-Confucian writings.
With a quick twist and fold here, a flip there,
the paper was turned into a cone!
She scooped up a handful of freshly stir-fried five-spice melon seeds, filled the cone, and placed it on the wooden board in front of the stall.
On the outside of the paper cone, the bold characters “Investigation of Things and Rectification of the Heart” were clearly visible, with a smear of melon seed shell ash beside them.
Zhang Apo folded a dozen or so paper cones in succession, lining them up in a row.
Those startling, world-shaking essays had all become containers for five-spice melon seeds.
Just then, a splash sounded from a puddle in front of the stall.
A young scholar and an old one, both in gray-blue robes, stood before the stand.
