"..."
Changsun Jue smiled. "You must be tired of hearing this, Fellow Student Pei."
"No." Pei Ye had actually been growing more interested. He asked, puzzled, "Then does this debate mean anything?"
When Li Mingqiu wrote that essay, he must already have known how others would refute him and what answers they would offer. In other words, did it really matter so much whether the Book of Documents was right or wrong, or what Confucius had thought back then?
Put plainly, all that mattered was getting people to "cultivate virtue."
Yet, for once, Changsun Jue fell silent.
The two walked quietly along the path, and the figures leaving their classes gradually grew sparse.
After a long while, the young girl sighed softly. "Of course, Fellow Student Pei. Not only does this debate matter enormously... it is drenched in blood."
"..."
Changsun Jue tilted her head and raised her eyes to him. "If you read enough, Fellow Student Pei, you'll understand: read one essay by a great scholar, and you see a lofty mountain to gaze up at, a clear breeze and a radiant moon; read a hundred, and you learn his background and standing, his likes and dislikes."
"You mean they're all fighting to seize weapons for their own positions?"
Changsun Jue nodded, speaking softly and earnestly. "You move in neither the Literati Circles nor the court, Fellow Student Pei, so it's only natural that you're slow to sense these terrifying waves. This is merely one corner of the recent storm. I'm afraid it will soon erupt throughout the Divine Capital."
"...What do you mean?"
"If everyone is straining to settle the rights and wrongs of an ancient affair, it is naturally because those rights and wrongs must also point to the rights and wrongs of the present," Changsun Jue