Chunshan Academy, like Linlu Academy on Piyun Mountain, was an academy run by the Great Li imperial court.
The mountains rolled on, wind and haze swept clean. The river surged, and grasses grew lush.
An old gentleman in a scholar's robe strolled alone through the academy. Small and thin, with his hands clasped behind his back, he stopped outside a classroom where a teacher was giving a lesson, careful not to get too close to the window.
This had once been the site of Great Li's Cliff Academy. But the name "Cliff Academy" had been given to the Great Sui Gao Clan, so the academy here had been renamed Chunshan Academy.
It was still run by the Great Li imperial court. The decision had not gone uncontested at the time. Officials who had studied at Cliff Academy, spread throughout the ministries, had agreed it should be left unused and carefully maintained. Even the Ministry of Revenue officials, who counted every coin and caught flak for it daily, had supported them. Great Li's civil and military officials had believed Cliff Academy would return to Great Li sooner or later.
Then National Teacher Cui Chan had said one sentence. The name was changed, and no one at court raised another objection.
A young teacher on patrol, free of classes for the moment, spotted the old gentleman and asked with a smile, "Sir, are you here to visit someone at the academy, or just to look around?"
However accommodating the academy was, it still had rules.
The old scholar stroked his beard and smiled. "Life is an inn on a backward journey, and we are all travelers. No need to ask a passerby's name; wherever books are read aloud is home to me."
The young teacher gave a helpless laugh. Was the old