“Xing,” “yang.”
His place of origin was revealed.
Several gasps rose from the crowd.
A few Imperial College students trembled so violently that their lips quivered uncontrollably.
Then the wolf-hair brush swept boldly across the wall, without the slightest pause.
“Zheng!”
“Xiu!”
“Yuan!”
Three characters in rapid succession, each one carrying the weight of a thousand jun!
The final stroke flicked upward, leaving a razor-sharp tail of rich ink across the wall.
The entire street fell silent for several breaths.
Then—
Whoosh!
The whole street erupted.
Yet instead of shock, relief showed on everyone’s faces, as though a stone that had been weighing on their hearts had finally dropped to the ground.
“I knew it was the Zheng family! It had to be the Zheng clan of Xingyang!”
“The eldest legitimate grandson of Grand Libationer Zheng of the Imperial College! He had mastered the Four Books by seven and delved into the commentaries by twelve. There’s no way he could lose the Provincial Laureate title! Anyone else would have to step aside for him!”
In the aristocratic camp, Liu Wenyuan stared at the three characters on the wall. The foul breath he had been holding in since last night finally burst out in one long, satisfying exhale.
His legs, cramped from tension, seemed to come back to life. The proud bearing of a noble heir returned to his face.
He seized a classmate by the sleeve and shook him hard, his voice shrill enough to crack.
“Do you see it now? This is Heaven’s justice! This is Great Qian’s orthodoxy! No matter what demonic heresy they spout, before the great principles of the sages, it is all utterly worthless!”
“The court examiners aren’t blind after all! In the end, they chose Zheng Xiuyuan to suppress those insolent fools who don’t know the height of the heavens!”
Several Imperial College students who had nearly lost their wits after hearing “Xu Zijin, the runner-up” now revived as if they had been injected with stimulants.
They hurriedly straightened their disheveled robes and cleared their throats.
“Exactly! Naturally! Brother Zheng represents the orthodox learning of our Great Qian. How could such a vulgar performance, relying on street-corner nonsense to attract attention, ever appear in a refined hall? As for the top spot, Xu Zijin won’t even touch it in his next life!”
Among the impoverished scholars, the hot blood that had surged when Xu Zijin placed second was doused by that impeccable name as if by a basin of ice water.
Li Ke clenched his back teeth.
He desperately wanted to argue with Liu Wenyuan. Countless words rolled around on the tip of his tongue, yet he could not find a single one that would serve as a public rebuttal.
Because this was the Zheng clan of Xingyang.
This was the eldest legitimate grandson personally molded by the great contemporary scholar Zheng Bo'an.
At the back of the crowd, an old Confucian scholar leaning on a wooden staff coughed twice and waved at the angry young scholars around him.
After a pause, he struck his staff against the ground and lowered his voice.
“This old man heard a bit of inside information from a copyist who had just come out of the examination compound. Young Master Zheng’s paper was passed among all seven chief and assistant examiners. The entire hall fell so silent that not one of them dared alter even a single stroke!”
“I heard his opening argument was a mere fourteen characters—
‘Heavenly principle is complete and whole; it is not diminished by human desire. The Way of the sages is sublime and absolute; how could worldly sentiment bend it even slightly?’
“Every character rang like the great bells of antiquity, bearing down with the weight of Mount Tai!”
“They say that when Lord Yan reached the section presenting the central argument, his hands trembled with excitement. He circled that entire passage again and again, crying out three times, ‘The literary tradition of Great Qian rests in this young man’s brush!’”
The old scholar let out a long sigh.
“In the examination essays of every generation, his method is rigorous and precise. Within its strict conventions lies a profound command of structure. Such a grand and upright tide of Neo-Confucian principle is like the majestic might of Heaven itself. His first place was earned through genuine ability. The examiners could not find the slightest fault with choosing him.”
After hearing this, the resentment in the eyes of the impoverished scholars gradually turned into deep dejection. Several students who had thought highly of themselves secretly pondered those fourteen words, their faces reddening with shame at their own inadequacy.
In the end, they could only lower their heads in resignation and sigh again and again.
There was no need to read the entire essay. This glimpse alone was enough to prove it.
Zheng Xiuyuan’s writing was indeed superb.
Just as the crowd outside the examination compound roiled with excitement, a carriage without even a clan emblem slowly came to a stop at the edge of the crowd around the corner.
The horse pulling it was an old piebald creature, and the carriage itself was made of the most ordinary blackwood.
The coachman jumped down from the driver’s bench and placed a small mounting stool firmly on the ground.
A foot in a dark-blue cloth shoe stepped onto the stool. The carriage curtain was lifted.
A young scholar in a plain blue straight robe bent down and stepped out.
The garment was neatly tailored, without a single unnecessary jade pendant or scent pouch. Even the belt around his waist was a common, cheaply available one from the market.
Standing there, he exuded an innate air of rectitude.
The newly declared Provincial Laureate, Zheng Xiuyuan.
Several sharp-eyed scholars at the front of the crowd happened to meet his gaze.
One of them rubbed his eyes before letting out a shriek.
“The Provincial Laureate!”
“Zheng, the Provincial Laureate, is here!”
That single shout forcibly drew everyone’s attention back.
The crowd first fell into disarray, then tacitly parted like a receding tide.
A passage nearly three zhang wide opened from the street corner all the way to the screen wall of the examination compound.
“Congratulations, Provincial Laureate!”
“Brother Zheng is a man of great talent! Truly deserving! You have restored the good name of the Imperial College in the eyes of us all!”
Along both sides of the passage, thunderous flattery rose without end.
More than a dozen sons of aristocratic families were already pushing eagerly forward, bowing repeatedly with their hands clasped before their chests.
Zheng Xiuyuan walked down the passage.
His pace was neither hurried nor slow, as measured as though it had been taken with a ruler.
Amid the praise loud enough to tear open the sky, not the slightest trace of triumphant delight could be found on his upright face.
The corners of his mouth were faintly drawn downward, while his brows were knitted into a deep vertical furrow.
A failed candidate from a wealthy merchant family, eager to curry favor, pulled a handful of broken silver from his sleeve and scattered it directly at Zheng Xiuyuan’s feet.
“Let us share in the aura of the Star of Literature! May Provincial Laureate Zheng triumph again in the metropolitan examination!”
Zheng Xiuyuan did not even lift his eyelids. With the tip of his shoe, he swept the silver out of his path.
He walked straight through the crowd and stopped directly before the screen wall.
The instant he saw the three characters “Xu Zijin,” Zheng Xiuyuan’s pupils shuddered.
The servants of officials who had been preparing to surge forward and ingratiate themselves came to an abrupt halt.
Everyone looked at one another, their minds filled with questions.
Several thousand people stared at one another in bewilderment.
The Provincial Laureate stood beneath the ranking list, ignoring his own name and staring fixedly at the second-place candidate. What in the world was wrong with him?
Could it be… that he felt the insolent fool who had written such a heterodox essay was an eyesore beneath his own name?
That thought flashed through Liu Wenyuan’s mind.
He rubbed his hands excitedly, convinced that he had seized the perfect opportunity—one that would both crush Xu Zijin completely and win him the favor of the Zheng clan of Xingyang.
He straightened the sleeve that had been pulled askew earlier, then walked to within half a step of Zheng Xiuyuan and cleared his throat before speaking loudly.
“Brother Zheng!” Liu Wenyuan’s voice was shrill and grating in the cold wind. “In this examination, Lord Yan ultimately did not remain confused to the end! By taking the top spot through the great principles of the sages, you have restored immense honor to the aristocratic families of the realm and to Great Qian’s orthodox learning!”
He turned his head and cast a sidelong glance filled with provocation toward Xu Zijin, three zhang away. A mocking smile curled across his lips.
“What demonic filth, what nonsense about principle existing within things? In the eyes of such a vulgar madman, a butcher slaughtering pigs is heavenly principle, and any peasant or village wife can discourse on the Dao!”
“This is nothing less than trampling the backbone of us scholars into the mud! Thankfully, Brother Zheng’s essay pierced straight through that demagogue’s painted disguise and showed the people of the realm what a true, orthodox school of thought looks like…”
But before Liu Wenyuan could finish showering him with praise, Zheng Xiuyuan suddenly turned his head and shot him a cold glance.
Liu Wenyuan was instantly startled. The rest of his speech, delivered with flying spittle, was forced back down his throat by Zheng Xiuyuan’s stare.
Zheng Xiuyuan looked at him for less than half a breath.
Then he slowly shifted his gaze toward Xu Zijin, who had remained utterly impassive from beginning to end.
In Zheng Xiuyuan’s eyes—eyes steeped for years in the study of ancient classics—there appeared, astonishingly, a trace of bewilderment.
The look sent a chill down Liu Wenyuan’s spine. Stammering, he said, “M-Master Zheng, what are you…”
Zheng Xiuyuan paid no attention to this jumping clown.
He slowly drew his hands from within his sleeves.
Then, before the eyes of more than ten thousand scholars, students from humble families, common citizens of the capital, peddlers, and laborers crowding the street—
Zheng Xiuyuan faced Xu Zijin and performed the formal greeting exchanged between scholars!
The utterly silent gesture, at that moment, was more deafening than thunder crashing from the Ninth Heaven!
Liu Wenyuan was standing closest.
He froze on the spot as though struck by five thunderbolts.
What in the world!?
The Imperial Academy students who had been shouting moments earlier now stared as if they had seen a ghost, their eyes nearly popping from their sockets.
The top-ranked scholar had taken the initiative to bow to the second-ranked?!
Xu Zijin was also surprised by the sight. His brows lifted slightly, and after a moment, he courteously returned the greeting.
Seeing this, Zheng Xiuyuan’s face immediately filled with satisfaction, and the corners of his lips curved faintly upward.
Just as Liu Wenyuan was holding himself back so hard he felt ready to vomit blood and was preparing to abandon all decorum and demand an explanation—
Li Ke made his entrance once more.
He hurried straight to the center of the crowd and faced Zheng Xiuyuan, a look of doubt on his face.
“This student has one question and humbly seeks the Provincial Laureate’s guidance!”
Without waiting for Zheng Xiuyuan to respond, he asked bluntly:
“What was the subject of the essay you wrote for the provincial examination?”
