If all troubles were stripped away, leaving only poetry, Chen Family Cove beneath Nine Luminaries Mountain, beside Mingsheng Lake, would truly have been a peach-blossom paradise beyond the world. Roosters crowed, dogs barked, and cooking smoke curled upward; the clear voices reciting books only deepened the stillness of the mountain settlement after the snow.
Chen Caozhi, his nephew, and his niece once again read and practiced calligraphy together as they had before. Zongzhi had recorded the questions accumulated during more than two months of reading in a paper volume, and Chen Caozhi now answered them one by one, while Run'er listened beside them.
On the journey back from Wu Commandery, Ran Sheng had been brimming with confidence. He already recognized every character in the Analects, taught to him by young Master Caozhi, and was eager to show Run'er. For the first two days after their return to Chen Family Cove, however, Run'er was busy playing with the toys Chen Caozhi had bought her-nine linked rings, a white porcelain dog whistle, and little pottery houses. She enjoyed herself immensely and had no time to test him. Ran Sheng grew anxious. On the third day, Run'er remembered and told him to read the Analects from beginning to end-
Ran Sheng's reading voice was so booming that the entire Fortified Manor could hear him, and the longer he read, the louder he grew. This was not reading; he was practically shouting the classics. If old Master Kong had possessed a voice like his, he truly could have roused the deaf and awakened the benighted, and his disciples might well have numbered more than three thousand-
Ran Sheng bellowed, "The Master said, 'You, shall I plum [teach] you what knowledge is? To know what you know, and know what you do not know-that is