In the days that followed, Wei Nisheng lived like a tightly wound clock.
He rose at the hour of the Rabbit, washed, and had Cui Fu drive him to the Hall of Literary Depths.
He stayed there until noon, then came out to gulp down a few mouthfuls of dry provisions.
Then he plunged back inside to pore over archives and copy notes, only emerging when the hall closed at the hour of the Monkey.
Afterward, he rode back to the Feng Residence and spent two hours listening to Feng Yan critique his work in the study.
Then he took a stack of policy essay topics back to his own little courtyard and wrote late into the night.
Back and forth between two points, with a routine not even thunder could shake.
At first, Li Dianji of the Hall of Literary Depths had been rather curious about him.
With Feng Yan's instructions in mind as well, he would occasionally come over to see what Wei Nisheng was reading.
Later, seeing that Wei Nisheng buried himself in books as soon as he arrived each day,
neither looking about nor chattering, he set his mind at ease.
He only came by now and then to refill the tea or replace a candle, leaving Wei Nisheng to make himself at home in the hall.
During this period, Wei Nisheng read through decades of memorials and Memorial Drafting records from the Great Zhou Dynasty, examining every detail of how government affairs were handled.
At the same time, Feng Yan had been right: insight was not something one could acquire merely by reading.
Especially during his Hall of Literary Depths Governance Observation, the more Wei Nisheng learned, the clearer everything became.
He also understood that Feng Yan was deliberately pushing him along.
Ordinarily, Hall of