The examination question for the imperial civil service exams in the fifty-sixth year of Qianlong's reign was "spectacles," and the poem had to rhyme with "he."
The candidates looked at one another. What were spectacles?
This time, the provincial graduate at least knew what the examination was about. The problem was that his mind was in turmoil. The young prince's patron in the Imperial Household Department, Prince Zhi Yongrong, had died. Moreover, Russia had requested that the market at Kyakhta be reopened, which meant he had to return to northern Mongolia.
Should he leave or stay?
Not long afterward, something happened in his hometown. Since he had not returned for several years, the land his father had left behind had been seized by others. A friend from home wrote to tell him about it, and so he went back.
Everything seemed fated. He later went to Guangzhou and eventually ended up making a living on the streets by copying documents for others. Later, he fell ill and had no money for treatment. Fortunately, a priest at a church saved him, and then he met Nick.
By then, they had drunk almost enough, and it was time to rest. Music drifted in from outside the residence.
"It's the Golden Thread Song," the provincial graduate said after listening closely. "It's the name of a ci tune."
The provincial graduate truly seemed to intend to train Nick into a xiucai scholar. Yet Nick asked him a question: why did Zhuangzi say in "Xu Wugui" that there were twenty-five strings?
Besides the five-string qin, there was also the se, which had twenty-five strings, sometimes even as many as fifty. For example, Li Shangyin wrote in "The Golden Zither":
The golden zither has fifty strings for no cause, Each string, each bridge recalls the years