Xu Zijin stood bathed in the halo of the early morning light, gazing at Zheng Xiuyuan across from him.
Xu Zijin knew perfectly well that Zheng Xiuyuan possessed the bearing of a true gentleman.
But the entire Xingyang Zheng clan behind him, along with academic factions like Liu Wenyuan that clung to power like parasites, formed the real wall standing in his way.
So… one essay, “On the Void as Qi,” was far from enough.
Xu Zijin lifted his chin slightly. Facing the biting wind sweeping down the street before the examination compound, he spoke coldly:
“Your essay cites commentaries from thirteen schools and distinguishes the ancient and modern usages of a single character. One might call it diligent.”
At those words, the corners of Liu Wenyuan’s mouth curled upward.
He thought this madman had finally admitted defeat and realized he needed to give the Honored Provincial Laureate a way out.
But before his smile could fully bloom, Xu Zijin’s voice suddenly turned sharp.
“Yet after spending a lifetime exhaustively studying the classics, all you have gained is knowledge of the insects, fish, plants, and trees in a heap of dead papers!” Xu Zijin swept back his sleeve and pointed directly at all the scions of aristocratic families behind Zheng Xiuyuan. “You have never glimpsed the complete substance and practical workings of the heart!”
The entire scene fell silent.
No one dared even breathe too loudly.
The aristocratic clans had their children memorizing obscure passages in their libraries from the moment they could read. Yet in Xu Zijin’s mouth, all of it had become mere study of dead things—knowledge of insects, fish, plants, and trees—without the slightest vision of the grand order of Heaven and Earth.
At the very edge of the crowd, the stout proprietor of Shulin Studio was standing on tiptoe, craning his neck to see inside.
He was a merchant whose eyes saw nothing but copper coins.
The moment he heard the words “spending a lifetime exhaustively studying the classics,” his whole body trembled.
A windfall!
Xu Zijin was slapping the Imperial Academy Chancellor in the face right there in public.
Once word of today’s events spread, candidates throughout the capital would go mad trying to buy a transcript of the confrontation.
The moment it was printed, those sheets of paper would turn into shining silver in his hands!
He suddenly looked toward the young clerk he had brought along to take notes.
The boy was deathly pale with fright. He clutched a charcoal pencil, his hand shaking like a sieve.
The half-sheet of rough paper before him was covered in black dots where the pencil had jabbed it. There was not a single legible character.
“Useless wretch!” the proprietor cursed furiously.
He rushed forward, snatched the charcoal pencil and rough paper from the clerk’s hands, and looked frantically around for a desk.
There was nowhere to write.
In desperation, the stout proprietor locked onto the cart beside him, where a vendor was selling braised meat and soup cakes.
He shoved aside the astonished vendor without a second thought. He did not even care that the pork fat from the cart smeared across his face and his newly tailored silk robe.
He began muttering every word Xu Zijin had spoken, afraid of missing even a single phrase that might fetch a fortune.
A servant hurriedly handed several pieces of silver to the vendor. The vendor had just been about to protest, but upon seeing the money, his face broke into a delighted smile.
“Of course! No problem!”
In the middle of the street, Liu Wenyuan had completely lost his mind.
He could not accept it.
The classical commentaries he had always been so proud of had just been dismissed by some unknown nobody as nothing more than knowledge of insects, fish, plants, and trees.
Liu Wenyuan roared:
“Outrageous! You brazen madman!”
“What are you, and what right do you have to comment on orthodox scholarship?”
“Zheng’s essay clearly states, ‘Principle must be found in the classics, and the Way must be found in history!’ That is the unchanging truth handed down through the ages by the sages! You have cast aside the sages’ laws, filling your mouth with sophistry. You are plainly a heretic using crooked doctrines and false teachings to mislead the people!”
Having finished, Liu Wenyuan spun around, raised both hands, and faced the thousands of scholars and examinees filling the street. He shouted even louder:
“Fellow students! You all heard him! This man has forgotten his ancestors and dared to insult the sacred Way in public. If such demonic doctrines are allowed to run rampant among scholars, what purpose would there be in our ten years of arduous study? The literary heritage of Great Qian must not be destroyed by an arrogant and rebellious scoundrel like this! Drive him out with clubs! Seize him and deliver him to the Court of Judicial Review for punishment!”
The examinees who had come to the capital from elsewhere, along with the large number of conservative students from the Imperial Academy, relied most heavily on this system of commentaries and established rules.
Yet now Xu Zijin had dared to speak with such outrageous arrogance!
A storm of denunciation surged through the entire street.
“Wicked doctrines! He deserves to die!”
“Chain this mad scholar up and take him to the authorities!”
“You know nothing about commentaries! An ignorant street thug like you dares to pontificate on the Great Way?”
The abuse bore down upon Xu Zijin, surrounding him alone at the center.
Li Ke and more than a dozen other students from humble families tried to fight back.
But the moment Li Ke shouted, “What gives you the right to stop people from speaking?” several red-eyed Imperial Academy students behind him seized him by the shoulders and dragged him backward.
The sliver of approval Xu Zijin had earned with “On the Void as Qi” was about to be drowned out by the overwhelming prestige of the aristocratic clans.
At that critical moment, Zheng Xiuyuan, who had remained silent all this time, moved.
His brows had already drawn together into a deep frown.
Zheng Xiuyuan saw the situation clearly. If Liu Wenyuan were allowed to continue making a scene, Xu Zijin’s reputation might indeed be ruined—but the Xingyang Zheng clan’s doctrine would win only through the volume of its voice, not the strength of its reasoning.
He could not tolerate such humiliation.
At once, he raised a hand.
“Silence.”
Liu Wenyuan, who had been cursing with great enthusiasm, froze. He turned toward Zheng Xiuyuan, his face full of unwillingness.
“Brother Zheng, this kind of madman deserves death to appease the people’s anger…”
Zheng Xiuyuan’s gaze was cold as ice.
Liu Wenyuan’s heart trembled. Gritting his teeth, he shot Xu Zijin one vicious glare before forcing down his anger and retreating into the crowd.
The thunderous shouting around them gradually subsided as well, quelled by that single gesture from Zheng Xiuyuan.
Zheng Xiuyuan had not taken advantage of the situation to suppress Xu Zijin. He wanted Xu Zijin to finish what he had to say.
Facing the wave of shouting that had only just ebbed, Xu Zijin’s lips curved into a mocking smile.
Taking advantage of the silence Zheng Xiuyuan had granted him, he stepped forward with firm purpose.
His gaze was fierce. He unleashed his full force.
“Did the sages leave their teachings so that later generations might drown in pedantry, delight in trifles, and neglect what truly matters?”
“No! They wished people to seek the Way through things and pursue principle through reality! Yet you have turned learning into a contest of memorization, leaving it suspended in midair!”
Xu Zijin shook his broad sleeves and gave a cold snort.
“The scholarship you boast of is nothing more than a contest over who can memorize one more obscure volume and recognize a few more rare characters. Relying on the handful of libraries left by your ancestors, you presume to monopolize the truth of the world! How is this method of rote memorization any different from the merchants you so disdain in the marketplaces, haggling over every ounce and penny?”
Li Ke was shaken to the core by these words. In that instant, enlightenment burst upon him.
He could no longer restrain himself. He shoved away the Imperial Academy student holding him.
“Well said, Young Master Xu!” Li Ke’s eyes were bloodshot. “If learning cannot be applied to reality, it is nothing more than empty talk and account-book arithmetic! To call the monopolization of books a righteous cause is shameless beyond words!”
Liu Wenyuan and the others found themselves surrounded by mocking voices and pointing fingers. Their faces turned from red to white, then from white to green. They trembled with pent-up frustration, racking their brains, yet they could no longer find a single word with which to reply.
In that instant, the tide of public opinion completely turned.
Looking at the aristocratic faction collapsing before him, Xu Zijin gave them no chance to catch their breath.
He pressed forward again, stopping barely two paces from Zheng Xiuyuan.
“You regard the classics as the ultimate source of heavenly principle, yet you fail to understand that the qi of Heaven and Earth is ceaselessly generating and transforming.”
Every word Xu Zijin spoke struck at the hearts of those present.
“Human beings are born between Heaven and Earth, receiving the qi of the Great Void as their nature. If you insist on speaking of principle only through the classics, without understanding that principle exists within concrete affairs, you will inevitably sink into empty words.”
Xu Zijin paused for a breath.
He looked into Zheng Xiuyuan’s trembling eyes.
“This is not the will of the Sage!”
Xu Zijin’s voice rang out like a thunderclap.
“It is merely a remnant of the Buddhist school—those who admire empty quietude and despise statecraft! Your learning is not the old learning. It is nothing but corrupt learning!”
Corrupt learning!
Xu Zijin had dismissed their scholarship as utterly worthless, condemning it as the deviant remnants of Buddhism—nothing more than empty talk and a contempt for practical work.
Was he trying to cast the great clans and aristocratic families out of the Sage’s lineage altogether?
At that moment, the tens of thousands gathered along the long street fell utterly silent.
Countless scholars stood with their mouths agape, so stunned by this earth-shattering verdict that they could no longer think.
Zheng Xiuyuan’s fingernails dug deeply into his palms. Threads of blood had already seeped out, yet he remained completely unaware of it.
At the edge of the crowd, the portly shopkeeper lay sprawled across a greasy bench. The charcoal pencil in his hand snapped cleanly in two from the force he used to finish writing the final character: “learning.”
He stared at the page, covered from beginning to end with his record of the exchange, and breathed heavily with excitement.
“The sky is changing… The examination halls of Great Qian truly are about to see a great upheaval…”
“I… I’m going to make a fortune too!”
The morning breeze swept past.
Xu Zijin glanced over the crowd, still reeling in shock.
Calmly, Xu Zijin straightened his collar, which had been disheveled by the wind.
His steps were steady, neither hurried nor slow.
Under the awe-struck and fearful gazes of more than ten thousand people, Xu Zijin walked into the thin mist that had yet to disperse.
