Chu Ming walked to the back and sat down at the desk beside Lu Xian.
"Brother Chu, you're here." Whether intentionally or not, Lu Xian picked up the poems in his hands and turned to face Chu Ming. In a low voice, he said:
"Today's lesson is on 'Autumn Evening in the Mountain Residence,' the thirty-third poem in the Poetry, Politics, and Military Strategy poetry collection."
"'Autumn Evening in the Mountain Residence' describes a poet living in seclusion in the mountains and forests, writing about what he saw and felt on an autumn evening. Its diction is vivid, and its sentences are beautiful..."
"I heard the instructor lecture on this poem on my first day here, but I only half understood it, so I came to listen again today."
"This poem has such profound imagery. Just reading it a few times isn't enough to truly empathize with it. Brother Chu, why don't I explain it to you first?"
Lu Xian was very enthusiastic, and seemed genuinely eager to help Chu Ming get familiar with poetry.
But...
Wasn't this just showing off? Back in his previous life, when he was still in school, there had always been classmates who did this, finding one way after another to flaunt how much they knew.
Chu Ming simply murmured in acknowledgment, put away Poetry, Politics, and Military Strategy, then let his gaze drift toward the front of the Lecture Hall. He didn't see Senior Brother Xu He.
Beside him, Lu Xian was still analyzing the poem word by word and line by line. Without changing expression, Chu Ming took out the politics collection.
Of the five volumes of Poetry, Politics, and Military Strategy, he had finished the poetry and military strategy collections and read half of the politics collection.
"Brother Chu, this is a poetry analysis class. Why did you take out the politics collection?" Lu Xian was halfway through speaking when he noticed Chu Ming's unusual action.
"I'm just browsing," Chu Ming replied calmly.
Lu Xian's expression stiffened. Suddenly, he wondered whether Chu Ming had even been listening to his explanation of "Autumn Evening in the Mountain Residence."
"Brother Chu, I may not have done as well as you on the Academy Exam, but there's one principle that's definitely true: when studying, you mustn't let yourself get distracted. If you read a little of this and a little of that, your efficiency will be very low."
"This is a poetry class, so we should focus on reviewing poetry first." He spoke earnestly.
His voice wasn't loud, but it still drew the attention of several Students sitting nearby.
Like them, these Students had only just entered the academy. They hadn't taken any monthly exams yet, so they could only sit at the back.
None of them said anything, but they all looked at Lu Xian as if to say the same thing: With an attitude like that, how could he be sitting in the same Lecture Hall as them?
Lu Xian immediately realized he'd spoken too loudly and hurriedly apologized to Chu Ming. "Brother Chu, I..."
"It's fine." Chu Ming merely lifted his head, then continued reading the politics collection.
Before long, an old man with a white beard and gray robes slowly entered the Lecture Hall.
In an instant, the room fell into an eerie silence, just like when the homeroom teacher had stood at the door of the classroom in his previous life.
The white-bearded old man kept one hand behind his back as he walked up to the lectern. Without saying a word, he lowered his head, opened a book, and began explaining the poem "Autumn Evening in the Mountain Residence."
After lecturing for about half an hour, the old man went outside to rest, and the Lecture Hall filled once more with quiet discussion.
"Brother Chu, that old man was Shen Yu, Instructor of Baiyuan County. He's in charge of the academy's books and scholarship. He's a Subordinate Eighth Rank official, and his attainments in poetry are extremely high," Lu Xian explained to Chu Ming in a low voice.
A Subordinate Eighth Rank official?
Chu Ming's thoughts stirred. The previous Lord Feng Yuan had been a Principal Eighth Rank Registrar. He wondered whether he would come to the academy to teach.
On second thought, he probably would. Otherwise, why would he have appeared at the Academy Exam in Willow Town to hand out the rewards to the top three?
"But this instructor has a very strange temper. Every time he finishes teaching poetry, he gives us a poem to memorize and analyze."
"Brother Chu, do you know what kind of poem it is?" Lu Xian continued.
Chu Ming shook his head.
"It's a poem Instructor Shen wrote himself," Lu Xian said in an even lower voice, as if afraid anyone else might hear. "It hasn't been included in Poetry, Politics, and Military Strategy, and it hasn't appeared in any book of the Classic of Poetry. Brother Chu, do you know what that means?"
"It wasn't written well?" Chu Ming said.
"Exactly." Lu Xian looked a little excited. "That's what everyone thinks. Even the other instructors at our academy have privately said those poems are mediocre and lack any real imagery. But we still have to memorize them, because Instructor Shen sets and grades the poetry section of the monthly exam. If we don't take it seriously, we're in for trouble."
As he spoke, Shen Yu came in from outside. As before, he said nothing and went straight to explaining poetry.
After lecturing for about another half hour, Shen Yu set down the book in his hands and picked up several crumpled sheets of paper.
"Here it comes, here it comes," Lu Xian muttered.
The other Students' expressions changed as well.
Shen Yu pulled out a wrinkled sheet. His slightly cloudy eyes swept over the room. "Today's question is simple. I'll read out a passage of verse. You'll write it down from memory, then analyze it word by word and line by line, using the method I just taught you."
The Lecture Hall was very quiet, but Chu Ming could still sense the subtle shift in the atmosphere.
Shen Yu glanced at the wrinkled paper, then began reciting the lines.
As he recited, the Students hurriedly picked up their brushes and ink and copied the lines onto paper.
For Students who had passed the Middle Academy entrance exam, this wasn't difficult.
When he had finished reciting seven lines, Shen Yu's eyes suddenly lit up. In a low voice, he said, "This time, whoever can analyze the verse and continue it with three more lines will receive full marks on the poetry section of the next monthly exam without having to take it."
Continue it with three lines? Skip the monthly exam and get full marks outright?
The Students were immediately excited.
They were all Students who had passed the Academy Exam. Some had even been studying at the academy for a year or more. Surely writing three lines to follow these wouldn't be difficult.
"You have half an hour to answer."
After saying that, Shen Yu sat at the front of the Lecture Hall and closed his eyes to rest.
No one spoke. More than twenty people bent over their desks, writing with their brushes.
The first task, analyzing the poem, had already stumped everyone.
The lines they had to analyze had no meter, and their wording was very plain. They lacked the flavor and emotion of the poems included in Poetry, Politics, and Military Strategy.
To put it more bluntly, they were just plain speech, hardly deserving to be called poetry.
There was no need to analyze them. The original words and lines already explained their meaning perfectly well.
But it was precisely because of that that the Students were stumped. They could only alter the structure of the original lines and rewrite them in their own words.
Even Ning Hao, who loved poetry and song, frowned as he looked at the seven lines on the paper.
If this counted as poetry, then they might as well stop studying poetry altogether.
Of course, he didn't dare say that out loud.
Chu Ming lowered his eyes to the seven lines and paused.
He read them silently once. They felt even plainer than the poems a middle schooler in his previous life might have come up with. Was this really the work of an Instructor of Subordinate Eighth Rank?
The key was that Instructor Shen clearly had a profound understanding of poetry and extremely high attainments in it. He shouldn't have been writing at this level.
Such an obvious contradiction had to serve some purpose.
After a little thought, Chu Ming skipped analyzing the seven lines and went straight to continuing the poem with three more.
He continued it in the same plain style.
Half an hour passed quickly. The Students all stopped writing very properly and waited for their papers to be collected.
Lu Xian stole a glance at Chu Ming's answer sheet. Apart from the seven lines, the only thing on the blank page was the three lines he had added. There was no sign of any analysis.
His eyes flickered, and the corner of his mouth curled into a smile.
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