The Analects That No One Could Understand

Gongsun Qiong was very efficient; by that afternoon, three thousand students had already received their copy of the Analects.

Residence No. 88.

The Chang Kong family sat in the courtyard, each holding a copy of the Analects.

Chang Kong was quite interested in this copy of the Analects, but when he opened the first page and read the first sentence, he was dumbfounded.

He could read the words, but reading them sounded awkward, and he didn't understand their meaning at all.

For example, the first sentence: Confucius said, "Is it not pleasant to learn with a constant perseverance and application? Is it not delightful to have friends coming from afar? Is it not the mark of a gentleman to remain unperturbed when others do not recognize his merits?"

Chang Kong couldn't understand a single word and looked completely bewildered.

Chang Kong quietly raised his head and glanced at his disciple Liu Ying and his daughter Chuxue. He found that they were also reading the Analects. However, Chang Kong could not tell from their expressions that there was anything wrong with them. It seemed that they could fully understand the contents of the book.

"Could it be that I'm just not good enough?" Chang Kong lowered his head, looking at the Analects in his hand, and thought to himself.

"That shouldn't be the case. How could someone with such poor aptitude reach the Spirit Emperor realm at the age of one hundred?" Chang Kong shook his head, rejecting the idea, and continued to focus his gaze on the Analects, trying to understand the first sentence.

Half an hour later, Chang Kong still hadn't turned a page of the Analects in his hands.

An hour later, Chang Kong's eyelids started to droop.

Three hours later...

"Master, dinner's ready," Liu Ying said cheerfully.

"Oh! Okay, let's eat first." Chang Kong closed the Analects, put it into his spatial ring, and followed Liu Ying in a daze.

"Ugh! This is too difficult."

Zhang Yunji returned home for dinner, and the whole family ate together.

"Master, did you get that copy of the Analects today? How did it go? Can you understand it?" Zhang Yunji asked Chang Kong curiously.

Zhang Yunji, like Chang Kong and the Chang Kong, was also on the list of three thousand people. He, like Gongsun Qiong, was one of the first to receive the book of the Analects.

Before Chang Kong could speak, Liu Ying interrupted, saying, "Brother, let me tell you, that copy of the Analects is so well-written, we love it; especially Master, he's so engrossed in it that he forgets to eat."

"Really?" Zhang Yunji looked at Chang Kong with a surprised smile on his face and said, "Then Master, you must have a deep understanding of this book?"

"Ahem!" Chang Kong coughed, his face very serious, and said in a low voice, "I'm alright."

"Master." Zhang Yunji moved his chair closer to Chang Kong, took out a copy of the Analects from his robes, opened it to the first page, pointed to the first sentence, and whispered, "Master, please teach me, what does 'Confucius said' mean? I've been reading it all afternoon, but I still don't understand those two words."

Chang Kong glanced at Zhang Yunji with surprise.

"I didn't expect I wasn't the only one who didn't understand the first sentence!" Chang Kong thought to himself.

"Master?" Zhang Yunji asked, puzzled, when he saw Chang Kong staring at him without speaking.

Chang Kong snapped out of his daze, his face instantly darkening. He glared at Zhang Yunji and snapped, "Idiot! You couldn't even understand the first sentence all afternoon. How did you pass the second round of testing?"

Zhang Yunji lowered his head awkwardly and said somewhat embarrassedly, "How could I possibly have time to take an exam!"

Oh, so it turns out they used connections.

"Useless trash," Chang Kong said coldly. "Look at Chuxue and Liu Ying, they're much better than you. It's a shame you even studied at the Vast Academy before; I really don't know how you got in."

Zhang Yunji was so reprimanded by Chang Kong that he dared not speak.

"Father, actually I didn't understand it either." At this moment, Baili Chuxue, who was sitting to the side, also lowered her head and said shyly.

"Well, Liu Ying, even I didn't understand it..." Liu Ying said crisply, sitting there poking at the chopsticks in her hands.

Chang Kong was taken aback, then breathed a sigh of relief.

"So it turns out no one understood it," Chang Kong thought to himself.

However, his expression remained unchanged as he said in a deep voice, "So you two were so engrossed in watching this afternoon?"

"Didn't the shopkeeper say that we not only need to understand the meaning of the Analects, but also memorize it? Even if we can't understand it, we can memorize it first! When the shopkeeper teaches us, we will naturally understand the meaning of the sentences," Liu Ying said seriously.

"That's right!" Zhang Yunji clapped his hands after hearing this and said, "This the Analects is Epic-grade book; it's understandable that we can't understand it. Otherwise, the shopkeeper wouldn't be giving lectures."

"Exactly! The shop owner sent us the books in advance, probably hoping we could memorize the contents so he could explain the meaning of the Analects to us next week!" Liu Ying nodded, then glanced at Chang Kong with admiration, saying, "But Master is Master! The shop owner hasn't even given a lesson yet, and you've already grasped the meaning of the book yourself. You're truly amazing."

"Yes, Master, you truly deserve to be one of the Nine Emperors of the Sword Sect, a peerless genius who appears only once in a thousand years. Your talent is truly exceptional!" Zhang Yunji also seized the opportunity to flatter him.

Chang Kong looked somewhat embarrassed, but pretended to be nonchalant and said, "Alright, let's eat."

Zhang Yunji and the other two looked puzzled, somewhat confused. Why hadn't their flattery worked?

However, seeing that Chang Kong's expression didn't seem very good, the three of them tacitly refrained from asking any questions and obediently began to eat.

One minute later.

"I'm full, you all continue eating." Chang Kong put down his chopsticks, got up, and left directly.

"What's wrong with Master?" Zhang Yunji asked softly, looking at Chang Kong's retreating figure.

Liu Ying shook her head, gnawing on her meat, too busy to speak.

Baili Chuxue hesitated for a moment before saying, "Father's mood has been fluctuating like this for the past two days. Sometimes he sits in the courtyard all day without doing anything."

"What happened?" Zhang Yunji asked curiously.

He goes to the Bookstore every day, so he's not really aware of what's going on at home.

Baili Chuxue shook her head and said, "I 'Taiqing either. It just happened after someone entered the Tomb of the Hegemon instance in <The Grave Robbers' Chronicles> that my father became like this."

At this moment, Liu Ying finished eating the meat in her mouth. Hearing Baili Chuxue's words, she continued, "Yes, I remember Master saying that he seemed to have seen that tomb in the book somewhere before; Brother, you don't know how shocked Master was when he saw that tomb."

"A tomb?" Zhang Yunji lowered his head in thought.

The room fell silent, broken only by the soft sounds of chewing.

As night fell, the No. 88 mansion was completely silent.

The room lights gradually began to go out.

But the light in one room remained constantly on.

Looking out the window, we could see a figure sitting on a stool, a book in hand, quietly reading...