"Thank you, sir, for saving my life." Yang Da respectfully kowtowed to Old Master.
"I didn't save you. My dog did." Old Master pointed at Huang Ergou by his feet.
"Thank you, Brother Dog." Yang Da immediately kowtowed to Huang Ergou as well.
Don't ask why he had knelt to a dog. In feudal times, prison was no place for human beings. The stench alone, with filth everywhere, had claimed countless lives.
"Don't mention it, don't mention it. The court is dark, and mediocrities hold power. Brother Yang, do you have any good ideas?" Huang Ergou asked hopefully.
Yang Da was not at all surprised that a dog could speak. Even parrots could talk. The power of Great Confucian Scholars was immensely wondrous; turning stones into spirits was nothing extraordinary.
"When this petty person first began his studies, he heard that the Holy Temple of scholars throughout the realm once possessed a Spring and Autumn Brush, capable of writing every truth. Yet during the Xuanwu era of the dynasty before last, it was seized by treacherous officials and never appeared again. That was why the world came to have so many dark affairs." Yang Da spoke indignantly.
He had suffered disaster for no reason at all. He truly had rotten luck.
It might have looked like a blessing in disguise, but what if something like this happened again? Could he count on the old gentleman's calling card to save his life another time? The Spring and Autumn Brush? Huang Ergou thought. Wasn't Spring and Autumn style all about fabricating facts and concealing the faults of the honored? That was the Confucian School's specialty.
No matter how impressive you were, if they refused to write about you, everything you did was in vain.
They had praised countless Duke Wenzhengs and Duke