I Want to Fight All Four!

Mr. Xun was still speaking onstage, using his lecture to the fourth prince to take veiled jabs at everyone from Great Qi present, as though putting on a brilliant display of moral instruction.

He could sense the silence around him and was immensely pleased with himself.

So what if they could wage war? They were a bunch of barbarians with brawny limbs and simple minds. They ought to listen to the teachings of the sages.

In truth, however, most of the people were listening to the inner voice, holding their breath in excitement as they watched Shen Anxin's every move. The fervor hidden in their eyes made it seem as though they really were looking at a sage.

Even Xiao Yanshu was distracted. Before Shen Anxin had reached them, he turned to look at her.

The youth's still-immature face was unnaturally pale. He had clearly been dealt a crushing blow, and his eyes shimmered uncontrollably with tears as he looked to Shen Anxin for help.

"Lord Shen." In his heart, Xiao Yanshu obediently added, Sister Shen.

Xiao Yanshu was the most gentle and obedient of the princes. Whenever he saw her, he would usually greet her with a smile that revealed his little dimples.

Most of the time, he stayed quietly by his brothers' sides.

This time, he had actually stepped out ahead of all his brothers to speak up for the scholar. Clearly, he had been pushed to the limit.

Seeing him bullied like this now, Shen Anxin felt awful!

Then she looked at the scholar from a farming family beside him. He was too afraid to breathe, looking as though his Dao heart had shattered. Ever since he had begun studying, he probably had never imagined that a great scholar they looked up to so highly would look down on people like them.

"Your Highness, and you, young master, please wait a moment. Let me ask Mr. Xun a few questions first."

Shen Anxin stepped forward, shielding the two of them as she faced the people onstage.

Mr. Xun frowned. Judging by her clothes, Shen Anxin was an official.

"What is it? Does Your Lordship disagree with what I said?"

Shen Anxin smiled faintly. "Sir, do you dare answer a few questions?"

Mr. Xun sneered. "Ask."

"May I ask what your grandfather did for a living?"

Mr. Xun froze. "Why do you ask?"

"Is it a difficult question?"

"Hmph, what's so difficult about it? My grandfather was also once a hall master at Jixia Academy."

"Oh, it runs in the family."

Mr. Xun smiled disdainfully. "Not just anyone is qualified to hold the books of the sages in their hands!"

"I see. A long family tradition of learning is very important." Shen Anxin nodded in agreement.

The others at the gathering could not help frowning. They did not understand which side this young official was on.

Some of the "inner voice members" did not catch on right away either, but the clever ones seemed to understand what Shen Anxin was getting at.

"How clever," Emperor Hongyao said in admiration.

Xiao Yanchen smiled. This was not a particularly hard weak point to think of, but only a soul from another world like Shen Anxin, who had never been conditioned, would dare to think of it and act on it.

Those like them, who had lived here since childhood, were bound hand and foot even if they understood the reasoning, unable to speak up in rebuttal.

In fact, neither Great Xia in the past nor Southern Xia today had any written law dividing people into categories.

But as the great clans and powerful families established their monopolies, those divisions gradually took deep root, making it difficult for a person to change their life from the moment they were born.

For example, a farmer's child would basically remain a farmer for life. They could not afford to study, find a way in, or become a master's disciple. Staying alive without going hungry and continuing the family line was considered a very good life.

Great Qi was different. It was always changing, always developing, and its interest groups were constantly reorganizing and shifting, making it difficult for them to form a united force to block others from rising.

Military merit in the past and the imperial examinations now had never placed restrictions on a person's origins. Emperor Hongyao needed a great many talented people, so naturally anyone could have their day to rise.

Great Qi was flowing water, while Southern Xia was a pool of stagnant water. Almost everything had become hereditary.

For a farmer's child to read books instead of tilling the fields, and even stand at a literary gathering wanting to compete with them, was, to the people of Southern Xia, an affront to the natural order.

That was why Mr. Xun had blurted out those words without feeling there was anything wrong with them.

But Mr. Xun would probably have a hard time answering Shen Anxin's next question.

The thought of what she was about to ask made Shen Anxin want to laugh.

She looked at Mr. Xun's face, as withered as a dead tree. "Then what did your grandfather's grandfather do?"

The question stunned Mr. Xun, who had been looking down from on high just a moment ago.

"What?"

"Surely not. Mr. Xun, don't you know what your grandfather's grandfather did? Doesn't your family have a genealogy?"

Mr. Xun's expression changed slightly. He seemed to have realized something was wrong.

The onlookers: Huh?

"Naturally... naturally we do. My grandfather's grandfather was also a scholar."

"Oh, then what about your grandfather's grandfather's grandfather? Were your ancestors for eighteen generations... all scholars?"

Mr. Xun's expression changed completely, and he glared at Shen Anxin in shock and anger.

The onlookers: ...Ah!

Xiao Yanshu and the scholar from the farming family finally caught on. Both could not help looking at Mr. Xun, waiting for his answer.

Shen Anxin narrowed her eyes slightly, giving Mr. Xun no chance to react.

"What about further back? Before books even existed, surely your ancestors were already scholars?"

Shen Anxin: Showing off, my ass. Back then we were all monkeys in trees!

The inner voice members: Pfft!

"You, you, you..." Mr. Xun seemed ready to faint from anger.

The people from Jixia Academy finally caught on too. Quite a few rushed forward to support Mr. Xun, their expressions as ugly as could be.

"Do you not know, or do you not dare admit that among your ancestors there must have been mud-legged peasants scratching a living from the soil?"

Shen Anxin feigned surprise. "No way, no way. The great scholar Mr. Xun, famed throughout the land, is actually someone who forgets his own roots? You don't even dare acknowledge what your ancestors were?"

"You, you, you!" His hand trembling, his heart trembling, the trembling Mr. Xun could only glare at her.

He could not answer. If he said no, he would be making up blatant lies and truly forgetting his roots. But if he said yes, he would be slapping his own face. He was caught in a dilemma.

How could anyone be so shameless, twisting words from such a devious angle? She showed no regard for a scholar's dignity at all!

By now, quite a few people below had begun murmuring among themselves. After all, whose ancestors had never farmed?

What a joke. Those who had never farmed had probably starved to death long ago, leaving no descendants.

For once, the people from Jixia Academy began to panic. For the first time, they realized how little ground their long-held beliefs stood on. Dig just a little at the roots, and the whole thing began to totter.

Shen Anxin looked at Mr. Xun and marched toward him, thump, thump, thump.

Shen Anxin: He looks like he's about to keel over. I'll go comfort him.

Chacha: Host, you're so kind!

"I've always wondered why Mr. Xun is the deputy head of the academy rather than the head. Is it because someone among your ancestors was a farmer, and your literary qi was tainted, so you can't compare to the head?"

Mr. Xun: ?????

What on earth was she saying?!

The inner voice members: You call that comfort?

Shen Anxin continued to offer her well-meaning suggestion. "Why don't you go back and look through the head's genealogy too? Maybe his ancestors started studying later than yours.

"By your Southern Xia rules, what matters isn't literary talent but the purity of your literary qi. Maybe yours was purified earlier than the head's and is cleaner. Don't give up hope."

Mr. Xun drew a sharp breath, his face turning ashen. What the fuck was she even saying?!

Although it was ridiculous, the onlookers below burst into laughter.

With that string of remarks, Shen Anxin had practically reduced Mr. Xun's earlier lofty discourse to a joke.

"Absurd, absurd! Glib-tongued and twisting logic!" Mr. Xun finally lost his temper, spraying spit as he spoke.

Shen Anxin sidestepped the spit attack, looking innocent. "All right, your literary qi is purer, so you're right."

Another burst of laughter came from below. The words "literary qi" kept popping up here and there.

Words that had once been so sacred and solemn now had a different flavor.

Even Emperor Hongyao's shoulders began to shake. "After this, I'm afraid no one will dare speak of 'literary qi' again."

Xiao Yanchen said, "She's returning study to its roots."

Shen Anxin: Folks, today I'm bringing the value of "literary qi" crashing down!

Chacha: V5V5! Wait, Host, you've spent all your points. When are you going to show off?

Shen Anxin: What's the hurry? You always save your ultimate move for last! Guess how they'll turn things around in a bit?

Chacha: With genuine talent and learning?

"Lord Shen, Mr. Xun's words just now were indeed somewhat inappropriate, but that was because he holds this cultural exchange with Great Qi in the highest regard. Such a precious opportunity should naturally be reserved for those who are prepared. A scholar from a farming family surely cannot have as much grounding in this regard as other scholars. Mr. Xun did not want to waste time, which was why he spoke a little too harshly. I trust His Majesty the Emperor of Great Qi can understand."

Shen Anxin looked at the speaker. It was the "chosen sufferer," Southern Xia's minister of rites.

The man had suffered a complete defeat in diplomacy. Now he could only try to recover a little chance of victory through the cultural exchange.

Since the literary gathering began, he had finally been able to smile and drink his tea in a good mood. He could not let anyone else ruin it.

Once he spoke, Mr. Xun finally recovered himself as well.

"Leaving everything else aside, this is the venue for a literary contest, not a place for a war of words. If Lord Shen has no business here, don't delay our competition."

Shen Anxin blinked. "I'm here to compete."

Mr. Xun choked. Although he did not know her level, he was inexplicably wary of her. He had better avoid her edge for now; he had a feeling she did not play by the usual rules.

"Then what about His Highness the fourth prince?"

Xiao Yanshu said, "I still have a ci poem I'd like to submit for your instruction!" He also wanted to see how great the gap was.

Mr. Xun frowned, then looked at the farmer's son, the one he held in the lowest regard. "I can let you submit your work for the contest, but if you suffer too crushing a defeat, you can't blame me. I did try to stop you."

At that moment, Mr. Xun's face plainly said: I'm stopping you from making a fool of yourself for your own good!

The scholar from the farming family was actually somewhat nervous, but the fourth prince and Lord Shen were both watching him now. If he backed down again, he would be unworthy of being a scholar of Great Qi.

"I ask for your instruction!"

The four great talents onstage, the masters of shi, ci, ge, and fu, had paid him no heed just now. Now they were practically sharpening their knives.

The contest worked by having people from Great Qi submit their works for evaluation by the talent specializing in the relevant form.

If anyone disputed the evaluation, the talent would pick one of the accompanying students to compose a piece on the same theme on the spot, using their utterly overwhelming skill to crush the challenger's confidence.

That way, everyone from Jixia Academy had a chance to show what they could do.

If they encountered someone truly skilled from Great Qi, one of the four great talents would present a work of their own to deliver the finishing blow.

Overall, they were the judges looking down from on high.

This time, the farmer's son wrote out his shi poem for the shi talent to evaluate.

After reading it, the shi talent sneered. "Plain and crude, with no poetic backbone whatsoever. The wording is a tangled mess, enough to make one's teeth go cold. To speak frankly, it reeks unmistakably of the soil. You dare bring a poem like this for us to evaluate? Are you trying to insult us?"

This was the first time the shi talent had given such a merciless evaluation.

Although the farmer's son had known he would be dealt a blow, he had not expected the other man's words to be so vicious. They were an invisible knife that killed.

Quite a few people thought the evaluation unfair and spoke up in support. Most, at least, felt that the farmer's son's poem was actually above average among those presented at this gathering.

"What? You don't accept it?" The shi talent sneered. Without selecting anyone else, he composed four poems on the spot, each one utterly crushing the challenger's work. In an instant, everyone present fell silent.

In the end, the farmer's son said nothing. Eyes red, he walked off the stage, while the people of Great Qi below remained utterly silent.

The people from Jixia Academy cheered and rejoiced.

Next, the fourth prince stepped forward and submitted his ci poem. The ci talent was not overly harsh; he merely wrote one on the same theme on the spot and took the opportunity to quietly mock the royal family's level of skill. Finally, he added, "Your Highness, you'd better study for another two years before coming to seek instruction."

Xiao Yanshu pressed his lips together. He had enough backbone not to let his eyes turn red. What he had written was actually not bad; it simply was not as good as the ci talent's work.

Shen Anxin: Holy shit, they're such show-offs. No, I have to think of a way to show off even more!

The inner voice members craned their necks, waiting expectantly, their hearts pounding as they waited in suspense.

At last, Shen Anxin's eyes lit up, and she walked onto the stage.

The four great talents looked over, a cold glint in their eyes. Mr. Xun sneered. "I wonder which form Lord Shen wishes to compete in? This old man is very much looking forward to seeing Lord Shen's great talent."

Shen Anxin raised a brow and slowly lifted her hand, pointing at each of the four great talents in turn. "Who said I was only competing in one? I'm competing in all four!"

I want to fight all four!!!!