Brother Chu, Let Me Explain (Seeking Monthly Votes, Seeking Rewards)

Chu Ming walked to the back and sat down at the desk next to Lu Xian.

"Brother Chu has arrived." Whether intentional or not, Lu Xian lifted the poetry collection in his hands, turned toward Chu Ming, and said in a deep voice:

"The poem being taught today is 'Autumn Evening in the Mountain Residence' from the thirty-third entry of the 'Poetry, Politics, and Military Strategy' anthology."

"'Autumn Evening in the Mountain Residence' describes the sights and feelings of a poet living in seclusion in the mountains during an autumn evening. The diction is vivid, and the phrasing is beautiful..."

"On my first day here, I listened to the instructor teach this poem, but I only understood it half-heartedly, so I came to listen again today."

"The artistic conception of this poem is too profound; just reading it a few times makes it impossible to truly empathize. Brother Chu, why don't I explain it to you first?"

Lu Xian was very enthusiastic and seemed genuinely eager to help Chu Ming familiarize himself with the poetry.

However...

Isn't this just showing off? Back in his previous life, classmates often did this, using various methods to flaunt their own knowledge.

Chu Ming merely grunted, set aside his 'Poetry, Politics, and Military Strategy', and let his gaze drift toward the front of the lecture hall, failing to spot that senior student, Xu He.

Beside his ear, Lu Xian continued to analyze the poem word by word, while Chu Ming calmly took out his political treatise.

Of the five volumes of 'Poetry, Politics, and Military Strategy', he had already finished the poetry and military strategy volumes, and was halfway through the political one.

"Brother Chu, this class is for poetry analysis. Why did you take out the political treatise?" Lu Xian asked, noticing Chu Ming's unusual behavior.

"I'm just reading casually," Chu Ming replied calmly.

Lu Xian's expression stiffened. He suddenly felt that perhaps Chu Ming hadn't been listening carefully to his own analysis of 'Autumn Evening in the Mountain Residence'.

"Brother Chu, although my Academy Exam results weren't as good as yours, one principle is certainly correct: on the path of study, one must never be distracted. If you look at this and then that, your efficiency will be very low."

"This is a poetry class, so we should be previewing the poetry first," he said earnestly.

His voice wasn't loud, but it still drew the attention of several students sitting nearby.

These students were like them—newly admitted and yet to take a monthly exam, so they were relegated to the back.

They didn't speak, but the looks they cast at Lu Xian conveyed roughly the same sentiment: With an attitude like that, how can he sit in the same hall as us?

Lu Xian immediately realized his voice had been too loud and hurriedly apologized to Chu Ming: "Brother Chu, I..."

"It's fine." Chu Ming merely lifted his head briefly before returning to his political treatise.

Before long, an elderly man with a white beard and a gray robe walked slowly into the hall.

Instantly, the hall fell into an eerie silence, much like when a homeroom teacher would stand at the classroom door in his previous life.

The white-bearded elder walked to the podium with one hand behind his back. Without a word, he lowered his head, opened his book, and began to explain the poem 'Autumn Evening in the Mountain Residence'.

After lecturing for about half an hour, the elder stepped out for a break, and the hall began to buzz with low whispers.

"Brother Chu, that elder just now is named Instructor Shen. He is the instructor for our Baiyuan County, specifically in charge of the academy and academics. He is a Subordinate Eighth Rank official and has extremely high attainments in poetry," Lu Xian whispered to introduce him to Chu Ming.

A Subordinate Eighth Rank official?

Chu Ming's heart stirred. He wondered if that Lord Feng Yuan, the Principal Eighth Rank archivist, would come to the academy to teach.

Thinking about it, he probably would; otherwise, how could he have appeared at the Willow Town Academy Exam to present awards to the top three finishers?

"But this instructor has a very strange temper. Every time he finishes teaching a poem, he gives us a poem to memorize and analyze."

"Brother Chu, do you know what kind of poem that is?" Lu Xian continued.

Chu Ming shook his head.

"It's a poem written by Instructor Shen himself," Lu Xian said, his voice dropping even lower as if afraid of being overheard. "It hasn't been compiled into 'Poetry, Politics, and Military Strategy', nor has it appeared in any classic poetry books. Do you know what that means, Brother Chu?"

"That it's poorly written?" Chu Ming suggested.

"Exactly." Lu Xian's expression was slightly agitated. "Everyone thinks so. Even the other instructors in our academy have secretly said those poems are mediocre and lack artistic depth. But we have no choice but to memorize them, because the poetry section of the monthly exam is set and graded by this instructor. If you don't answer seriously, you're in for a miserable time."

As he spoke, Instructor Shen walked back in. Just as before, he said nothing and went straight to analyzing the poetry.

After another half hour or so, Instructor Shen put down his book and picked up a few wrinkled sheets of paper.

"Here it comes," Lu Xian muttered under his breath.

The other students' expressions changed as well.

Instructor Shen pulled out a wrinkled sheet, his somewhat cloudy eyes scanning the room below: "Today's topic is very simple. I will read a passage of poetry, you will transcribe it from memory, and then analyze it word by word according to the method of poetry analysis I just taught."

Although the hall was quiet, Chu Ming could still feel the subtle shift in the atmosphere.

Instructor Shen glanced at the wrinkled paper and began to recite the lines.

As he read, the students picked up their brushes and ink, hurriedly copying the words onto their paper.

For the students who had passed the entrance exam for the Middle Academy, this posed no real difficulty.

Once he finished reciting the seven lines, Instructor Shen's eyes suddenly brightened, and he said in a deep voice: "Among these lines, whoever can analyze them and write three additional lines based on them, I will grant them a perfect score on the poetry section of the next monthly exam, exempting them from the test."

Write three additional lines? Exempt from the monthly exam and get a perfect score?

Upon hearing this, the students became quite excited.

They were all students who had passed the Academy Exam, and some had even been studying at the academy for a year or more; composing three lines of poetry wasn't difficult for them.

"You have half an hour to complete your answers."

Shen Yu finished speaking, then sat in the hall and closed his eyes to rest.

No one spoke; the twenty-some people all hunched over their desks, wielding their brushes.

The first step, the analysis of the poetry, had already stumped the group.

Because the verses they were meant to analyze lacked any rhythmic structure and the wording was incredibly blunt, possessing none of the charm or emotion found in the poems recorded in Poetry, Politics, and Military Strategy.

To put it more bluntly, it was just plain talk; it could hardly be considered poetry at all.

There was no need for analysis here; the original words and sentences already explained the meaning perfectly well.

Yet, precisely because of this, the Students were stumped, forced to restructure the phrasing based on the original lines and rewrite them in their own words.

Even Ning Hao, who was fond of poetry and song, frowned secretly as he looked at the seven lines of verse on the paper.

If this counted as poetry, then there was no point in studying literature at all.

Of course, he dared not say that out loud.

Chu Ming lowered his eyes to look at the seven lines, stunned for a moment.

After reading them silently once, the feeling they gave him was even more amateurish than the verses composed by middle schoolers in his past life. Was this really something a Subordinate Eighth Rank Instructor should be writing?

The key was that this Instructor Shen clearly possessed a profound understanding of poetry and high attainments in the field; it should not be at this level.

A clear contradiction meant there must be a purpose behind it.

Chu Ming pondered for a moment, skipped the analysis of the seven lines, and went straight to writing the three concluding lines.

The three lines he added also adopted a straightforward style.

Half an hour passed quickly, and the Students all dutifully put down their brushes, waiting for their papers to be collected.

Lu Xian, sitting nearby, snuck a glance at Chu Ming's answer sheet. On the blank paper, aside from the seven lines of verse, there were only the three concluding lines; he saw no analysis section at all.

His eyes flickered, and a smile curled the corners of his lips.