At dawn, the west wind scattered the dark clouds that had shrouded the capital for three days.
The rear hall of the Directorate of Communications.
Zhang Chenglu, the Left Assistant Director, stood with both hands trembling as he stared at the memorials piled on the desk—nearly half a man’s height.
Those with blue covers were submissions from censors and officials of the Six Ministries. Those with gilt-paper covers were jointly signed by the heads of the great academies south of the Yangtze. There were also more than a dozen blood-written petitions bearing the seals of the Grand Secretaries of the Imperial College.
“Lord Zhang!” A clerk rushed in, wiping the cold sweat from his brow and gasping like an ox. “There are… there are two more carts outside! They’re all impeachment memorials accusing Xu Zijin of defying morality and abandoning the teachings of the sages! The Ministry of Rites has descended into chaos as well. Several Vice Ministers have declared that if these memorials don’t make it into the Imperial Study today, they’ll go smash their heads against the pillars outside the Chengtian Gate!”
Zhang Chenglu’s throat bobbed.
He picked up a memorial. Across its top were written, in bold characters, “Punish the Madman Severely to Set Things Right.” The names signed at the bottom all belonged to eminent scholars of the south whom no one could afford to offend.
This was beyond containment!
With the entire body of upright officials attacking in unison, a fourth-rank official like him would be devoured alive by those Confucian scholars if he dared suppress the memorials on his own.
“Prepare the sedan!” Zhang Chenglu ground his back teeth and slammed a fist onto the desk. “I’ll take these memorials to the Wenyuan Pavilion. Let us ask the Grand Secretary to decide what to do!”
Better for someone else to take the fall than for the thunderbolt to strike him directly.
Inside the Wenyuan Pavilion.
Grand Secretary Xu Jie sat upright on a rosewood couch, a steaming cup of ginseng tea in his hands.
Zhang Chenglu knelt below him, not daring to raise his head.
“That’s all?” Xu Jie asked flatly as he skimmed the foam from the surface of his tea.
Zhang Chenglu hurriedly bowed his head to the floor. “Reporting to the Grand Secretary! From the twelve wards of the capital to every circuit south of the Yangtze, there are a total of six hundred and seventy-two impeachment memorials! They’re all here.”
Xu Jie did not even glance at the memorials.
Instead, he turned his head slightly and looked toward Eunuch Li, who stood in the shadows nearby.
With a flick of his horsetail whisk, Eunuch Li walked forward with a broad smile. He extended the tip of his shoe and casually kicked the pile of memorials twice.
“Grand Secretary,” Eunuch Li said in his shrill voice, “His Majesty has issued an oral decree. The weather has been cold lately, and reading too many memorials in the Imperial Study is hard on His Majesty’s eyes. The Imperial Medical Academy has advised him to rest and recuperate.”
Zhang Chenglu abruptly raised his head, his face full of astonishment.
The Emperor did not want to see them! He was making his attitude perfectly clear—he had no intention of taking up the matter on behalf of the upright officials!
Xu Jie set down his teacup.
“Do you understand?” he asked, looking down at Zhang Chenglu.
Zhang Chenglu shuddered all over.
The imperial power refused to take the bait, and the grand council power refused to speak.
“Your subordinate… your subordinate understands!” Zhang Chenglu scrambled to his feet. “The Directorate of Communications will seal these memorials and place them in storage for now!”
“Go. And keep your mouth shut.” Xu Jie waved a hand.
Zhang Chenglu backed out of the Wenyuan Pavilion.
Once the doors closed, the smile on Eunuch Li’s face grew even wider.
“Grand Secretary,” Eunuch Li said in a lowered voice, “His Majesty said that the fire on the main street burned splendidly. It’s just that the flames were a little too bright, and some people who couldn’t see past them have started making a fuss. He’ll have to trouble the Grand Secretariat to clean up the mess. Keeping the memorials in the palace without issuing them is just fine.”
Xu Jie folded his hands into his sleeves and half-closed his eyes.
Seeing this, Eunuch Li’s smile deepened. “Then this humble servant will take his leave!”
…
The Imperial College, lowest-grade dormitory.
Bang!
The dilapidated courtyard gate was kicked open.
The instructor stormed into the yard, furious, a thick wooden rod clutched in his hand.
“This is outrageous!” he roared. “You’ve all skipped your Classics and History class, and now you’re gathered here reciting this seditious nonsense! Li Ke, get out here!”
More than a hundred students in white robes washed pale from years of wear sat cross-legged across the open ground.
At the very center stood a three-legged wooden table. More than a dozen official histories lay upon it, their pages worn and ragged from constant use.
Li Ke rose to his feet and casually brushed the dust from his clothes. Unlike usual, he did not bow his head and admit his fault. Instead, he strode forward.
“We have not forgotten a word of your instruction, sir.” Li Ke looked straight at the instructor. “But the Classics and histories you teach cannot explain why the price of rice south of the Yangtze has risen three times in a single month! They cannot explain why the women working in the factories can earn pure silver with their own hands! We study dead principles, while Xu, the provincial runner-up, teaches living knowledge! ‘Truth lies in practical affairs’—every word of it concerns the realities of Great Qian. Why should we not study it?”
“Impertinent!” The instructor raised his rod and was about to strike. “You show no respect for your teacher and dare to criticize the great families. Is that your so-called truth?”
The instructor was filled with helplessness!
At first, the controversy had been confined to scholarship. Now, however, the students’ desire to discuss the world beyond the teachings of the sages had grown immense!
Crash!
More than a dozen students nearby rose at the same time and stood shoulder to shoulder in front of Li Ke.
Hundreds of eyes fixed upon the instructor. Those gazes were filled with the resentment of years spent under the oppression of the great clans, as well as a fervent passion for seeking the truth.
“Sir!” Li Ke shouted from behind the crowd. “Even if you strip every one of us of our student status today, we will still pursue the truth!”
The instructor’s raised hand froze in midair.
He looked at these impoverished students, who had always been meek and submissive.
The instructor swallowed hard. His hand slowly lowered. In the end, he stamped his foot furiously, turned around, and slunk out of the courtyard.
There was simply no suppressing them.
The intellectual world of Great Qian had been split cleanly in two by a single official record.
In the great academies south of the Yangtze, steeped in centuries of tradition, elderly scholars who had secluded themselves for years were so enraged by the document that they flew into a fury.
Several eminent scholars emerged from seclusion that very night. By the light of a candle, they ground ink and wrote furiously, composing the Refutation of the Mad Record. Every word accused Xu Zijin of being the greatest criminal against the sacred teachings in a thousand years.
Xu Zijin’s identity underwent a complete transformation within a few short days.
He was no longer merely the provincial examination candidate whose ranking had been forcibly suppressed with a vermilion brush by the examiners. Among countless impoverished students and practical-minded officials, he now possessed a new title of tremendous weight—
Foremost Scholar of the New Learning.
He held neither office nor official position, yet in the realm of scholarship he had, by sheer force, attained equal standing with the Grand Secretary of the Imperial College.
Where there was reputation, there was power.
Where there was power, there would be no shortage of sycophants.
The street outside the Chengyi Earl’s residence had undergone a complete transformation in recent days.
Those mid-ranking officials from the Six Ministries and heads of second-rate clans who had once sneered at the New Learning—and who had even gone out of their way to avoid the Xu residence on the eve of the examination results—now arrived carrying gold, silver, and precious goods, completely blocking the entrance to the Xu household.
Meltwater mixed with mud, trampled into sludge beneath the expensive boots of the visitors.
Chief Steward Xu stood beside the stone lions at the gate with more than a dozen guards, his hands planted on his hips.
“Chief Steward Xu! Please, be so kind as to announce me!” A smiling Six Ministries clerk in a green robe held a rosewood box high in both hands. “Your subordinate has brought a fine She inkstone and hopes to pay his respects to Xu, the provincial runner-up! Perhaps we might discuss practical affairs together!”
“Steward Xu! I have a rare Song-edition agricultural text! Young Master Xu will surely appreciate it!”
“Make way! Make way!”
A shrill cry came from the edge of the crowd.
A dozen elaborately dressed matchmakers forced their way to the front.
The leading matchmaker’s face was thickly coated with rouge, and she waved a bright red handkerchief in her hand.
Xu Fu recognized her at a glance. She was the very matchmaker who, on the eve of the examination results, had decided that Xu Zijin would bring trouble and used her ink brush to cross out his name.
“Why, Master Steward Xu!” The matchmaker’s face crinkled into a smile as she pulled more than a dozen bright-red betrothal cards from her voluminous sleeve. “Young Master Xu is now a Grandmaster of the New Learning, famous throughout the realm! His prospects are boundless! Just look here—this is the horoscope of the third young lady of the Left Assistant Censor’s household in the Secretariat. She is a legitimate daughter, no less! And this one is for the second daughter of the Vice Director of the Ministry of Works…”
Xu Fu let out a cold laugh.
He knew perfectly well that just a few days earlier, when he had taken Xu Zijin’s calling card to this matchmaker’s shop to make inquiries, she had refused to let him through the door and had even mocked him with a few pointed remarks.
“That’s enough! All of you, shut up!” Xu Fu suddenly bellowed.
The surroundings fell silent at once.
Xu Fu raised his right hand and pointed his thumb toward the tightly closed vermilion gate behind him.
“My Princess has given her orders! The residence is busy with countless matters these days, and Young Master Xu must close his doors to visitors and devote himself to his studies. As for the Huizhou inkstones, rare books, and all these blasted betrothal cards the gentlemen have brought, take every last one of them back!”
“Steward Xu, please, have mercy. Can’t you make an exception…”
“Make an exception, my foot!” Xu Fu was a hot-tempered man himself. With a grand sweep of his hand, he shouted, “Guards! Form ranks! Anyone who dares force their way in gets beaten out with sticks!”
The guards drew their truncheons in perfect unison and planted them firmly on the ground.
A deathly silence descended outside the gate.
A group of high officials and nobles exchanged awkward glances. Clutching their lavish gifts, they could neither retreat nor advance, and were left standing stiffly in the icy wind.
In the rear residence, a copper kettle on a small brazier burbled and steamed.
Xu Qinghuan reclined against a cushioned couch, holding a piece of rose pastry between her fingers as she chewed it slowly.
Hearing the faint commotion outside, she curled her lips in undisguised mockery.
“What a pack of old foxes.” Xu Qinghuan brushed the pastry crumbs from her fingertips. “Their talent for following the wind is truly unmatched. Since His Majesty and the Grand Secretary haven’t stepped forward to suppress you, they’ve all decided that you, Xu Zijin, are destined to become a Grandmaster of the New Learning. Now they’re scrambling to curry favor while the stove is still hot.”
Xu Zijin sat upright at the writing desk below them.
With a lake-style brush in hand, he was painstakingly copying passages from The Great Learning. The uproar outside did nothing to disrupt the rhythm of his writing.
“Let them make as much noise as they please.” Xu Zijin did not even raise his head. The tip of his brush glided across the xuan paper. “These sycophants can bring gold and silver to flatter me today, but if the winds change tomorrow, they will be the first to trample me into the mud. Best not to have anything to do with such people.”
Xu Qinghuan lifted her teacup and took a generous sip, then shifted her gaze to Xu Zijin.
“The matchmakers sent by those officials brought the betrothal cards of several quite lovely legitimate daughters,” Xu Qinghuan teased, deliberately drawing out her words. “As the Foremost Scholar of the New Learning, don’t you want to choose one?”
The brush in Xu Zijin’s hand came to a halt.
He looked up at Xu Qinghuan, his expression unusually solemn. “Princess, please don’t tease me. The principles of learning remain unclear, and the New Learning has yet to be established. This life of mine, this knowledge I possess—all of it was given to me by the Princess. Without you, I would still be wasting away somewhere in obscurity, with no idea where my life was headed.”
Well… Actually, even without me, you would have risen to become Grand Secretary.
“Ahem! As for matters between men and women, I truly have no time to concern myself with them.”
Xu Qinghuan stared at him for three full breaths, then broke into a gossipy grin. “Really~?”
Xu Zijin’s expression changed at once. “Absolutely!”
…
Just as the Xu residence had closed its doors to visitors and the various factions remained locked in a stalemate, the dead calm hanging over the capital was finally torn apart by a sudden and bizarre rumor.
At the Deyue Teahouse outside Xizhi Gate, the storyteller was holding forth with spittle flying as he recounted the tale of Xu, the provincial runner-up, battling the old-school scholars in the middle of the street.
The tea drinkers below were thoroughly engrossed, pounding the tables and shouting their approval.
Bang!
A loafer in a gray cloth robe kicked open the teahouse door and burst inside, bringing with him a blast of icy wind and snow.
He did not even have time to remove the battered felt hat from his head. He charged straight to the nearest Eight Immortals table, seized the large teapot resting on it, and gulped down a mouthful.
“Stop listening! Forget the story!” The loafer hastily wiped the water from his lips. His eyes were wide with barely contained astonishment and fervor. “Hey! Do you know what happened?!”
The teahouse fell silent in an instant. Even the storyteller shut his mouth.
Dozens of eyes turned toward the uninvited guest.
The loafer drew a deep breath and lowered his voice, yet somehow every person in the teahouse heard him clearly.
“Hey! Do you know?!”
The suspenseful opening made everyone itch with curiosity.
“Quit spouting hot air and spit it out!” a butcher shouted, leaping to his feet and slamming his palm onto the table.
