After Xie Lin left, Wei Zi stood before the window with his hands behind his back.
He watched the speck of an old umbrella gradually vanish into the curtain of rain.
"Zihou, you are, after all, a man who studies principles."
At these unexpected words from Wei Zi, Zhang Zai paused, then smiled.
"Zi'an, what do you mean by that?"
Wei Nisheng turned around, his gaze calm.
"In those moments when Xie Lin lowered his eyes and said nothing, his spirit had already buckled.
What do you think he was thinking?
He was arguing with himself."
Wei Nisheng paused and looked at Zhang Zai.
"Xie Lin is proud and aloof by nature, with a very high opinion of himself.
Once a man like that begins doubting himself,
he becomes like a sharp blade turned inward, its point sinking deeper and deeper.
Just now, his expression went from anger to emptiness. He looked calm, but in truth, he had already burrowed into the tip of an ox's horn.
If no one pulled him out at that moment...
Heh, he would only burrow deeper, until there was no way out."
"And you, Zhang Zihou..." Wei Nisheng lifted his teacup and took a sip.
"You deliberately jabbed him with that line about 'polishing the memorial.'"
Zhang Zai rubbed his nose and smiled sheepishly without answering.
"That jab came at precisely the right moment.
It yanked him out of his self-questioning and self-torment, giving that pent-up resentment an outlet,
even if that outlet led straight toward you.
While he was angry with you, he had no room to blame himself.
Once his anger faded, he would naturally be able to think through what needed thinking through."
"That act and its underlying principle accorded perfectly with Neo-Confucianism:
the human heart must remain alive and