Returning Home in Glory

"People possess yin and yang roots, born innate; when they merge, they become spirit..."

Liang Qu rubbed the pages between his fingers and studied them earnestly.

He had always been most eager to learn. Moreover, the River Conservancy Office had not been busy lately, so after asking Su Guishan for the names of two books, he immediately found time to visit Shanghu Academy. After greeting the headmaster, he plunged headfirst into the ocean of knowledge, searching and studying.

Ever since Ping Yang Town had become a county, then a prefecture—and after the prefecture was established, gained another province and county—the Shanghu Academy where he had once studied for half a year had expanded more than tenfold, becoming the most renowned great academy in all of Pingyang Prefecture in one stroke.

Every evening after classes ended, beneath the orange-red setting sun, human figures surged like a tide.

A vast mass of students in plain robes poured out all at once. Some rode horses, some took sedans, some traveled in pairs or threes, enough to flood the bluestone avenue wide enough for three carriages to run abreast.

Anyone with urgent or important business had no choice but to take a detour.

As the academy expanded, the quality of its book collection naturally rose with the tide. Some came from Prefectural Office funding, while others were donated by high officials, nobles, and gentry from every quarter.

With money in place, there were books of every kind—even low-grade, unorthodox martial arts from the hundred schools and miscellaneous sects.

As a former "alumnus," Liang Qu had the honor, undeserved as it was, of being listed among the high officials and nobles. During the most recent expansion last midyear, he had been flush with funds and donated one hundred taels, which Headmaster Zhao had inscribed upon