"You put it together yourself?"
Li Si frowned at Chen Cuo's young face. He wanted to object. Given what he knew, he could never believe someone so young had founded an entirely new school of thought without a teacher!
Even his own teacher had built on the Confucian School's inheritance and the work of those before him to develop his teachings. How could anyone make a scholarly breakthrough by hiding in the mountains for a decade or two, building a cart behind closed doors?
But before Li Si could speak, Chen Cuo gave him a searching look. For reasons he could not explain, Li Si's heart trembled, and he no longer dared voice his objection!
When he came to his senses, he was secretly shaken. He had caught a trace of the same presence his teacher possessed! But Xunzi was a great sage of the age, renowned across the four seas, his bearing nurtured in the Eastern Lands. What stature he commanded! It came not only from learning accumulated over decades, but from being honored by those above him and looked up to by those below. How could this man, not yet thirty, possess such bearing?
Li Si hesitated, then steadied his thoughts. A flash of inspiration struck him. "Sir, what you've said seems at odds with your own theory of Rise and Fall. By your account, one need only gather information and find its threads to see rise and fall. Yet a school of thought's flourishing must also depend on what came before. How could one person find the opportunity for it to flourish in so short a time?"
"Gentleman, you have a keen eye. You've reached the heart of it in a single sentence." Chen Cuo laughed, as though he had missed the challenge in Li Si's words.