The Poem Is Complete

"If Yang Ziqian hadn't gone to take up his post in Qingzhou, we could have passed this job on to him," Zhang Shen said.

"Of all of us, he's the most skilled at this sort of thing."

A mountain breeze swept into the room, setting Chen Tai's long beard fluttering. He smiled and said, "Brother Jinyan is better suited than I am to serving as an official at court."

"You old fellow, are you mocking me for passing the buck?" Zhang Shen wasn't angry. Putting on a brazen air, he said, "If you can do it, go ahead. I'm all ears."

Just as another quarrel seemed about to break out, Zhang Shen's study attendant hurried in with his head lowered and bowed. "Sir, your student Xu Cijiu has arrived."

Xu Cijiu? What's he doing here? Has he finished copying the sage's sayings three hundred times? Zhang Shen nodded. "Show him in."

After the attendant left, Zhang Shen glanced at Chen Tai across the chessboard and said with a smile, "Speaking of which, I recently took on a new student. He's Xu Cijiu's older cousin, and his poetic talent is enough to shock the world."

Li Mubai immediately added, "He's my student too."

Chen Tai looked at Zhang, then at Li, and a thought struck him. "The poet who wrote, 'Grieve not that the road ahead holds no kindred spirit; who in all the world does not know your name'?"

Li Mubai and Zhang Shen smiled smugly.

"Hahaha!" Chen Tai burst out laughing and pointed at his two friends.

"What are you laughing at?"

"I'm laughing because fame and profit have blinded you. Oh, and jealousy too." Chen Tai stopped laughing, his tone half warning and half mockery.

"Yang Ziqian's name will surely be passed down to future generations because of that poem. It truly is enviable. But have you two stopped to think? Fine verses are hard to come by. How many scholars produce only a handful of good poems in their entire lives, with none worthy of the historical record?"

"To have written 'Grieve not that the road ahead holds no kindred spirit; who in all the world does not know your name' was already a stroke of divine inspiration, a delight to hear. Yet you're hoping for another poem-no, two more-so that both of you can have your names passed down through the ages?"

"If you care too much about fame and profit, how will the Vast Righteous Qi within you endure as time goes on?"

After that round of ridicule, Li Mubai and Zhang Shen were somewhat embarrassed.

They knew in their hearts that Chen Tai was right. Fine verses that would endure through the ages could hardly be composed on a whim. Besides, the young man wasn't a scholar. That he had chanced upon one such poem was a tremendous stroke of fortune.

Hoping that a petty clerk would produce good poems one after another and secure their places in history was indeed rather too much of a pipe dream.

"What you say is absolutely right, Youping." The two cupped their hands and said solemnly, "A scholar may attain the three immortalities. Even if we seek to leave our names in history, we should take the great road with honor and integrity, not a shortcut. The two of us have gone astray."

"To recognize one's mistakes and correct them-there is no greater good." Chen Tai nodded slightly.

A short while later, the attendant led Xu Qi'an and Xu Xinnian into the private room.

The two cupped their hands at the same time. "Your students greet you, teachers."

Li Mubai and Zhang Shen exchanged a glance, both surprised and delighted by Xu Qi'an's arrival.

"Sit," Zhang Shen said.

"Ningyan, have you come to the academy because you have a fine verse for your teacher to appreciate?" Li Mubai ventured.

Xu Qi'an shook his head. "I came to ask a favor."

"Please, speak freely."

Xu Qi'an told the two teachers why he had come, concealing his intention to take revenge on the vice minister of revenue. He said only that Vice Minister Zhou was most likely the mastermind behind the tax silver case, and that if Zhou survived the Capital Evaluation, he would surely retaliate against the Xu Residence.

"This..." Li Mubai glanced at Zhang Shen, who looked equally troubled, and said helplessly, "The academy forbids outsiders from staying overnight. Those are the rules."

Scholars prized rules above all else.

Xu Qi'an was just about to make his request when he heard Xu Xinnian say, "Doesn't the eldest princess stay at the academy all the time?"

Zhang Shen shook his head. "What is the eldest princess's status?"

Xu Xinnian nodded. "The academy forbids outsiders from staying overnight, unless they're members of the imperial family."

Hey! This reckless kid is as tactless as ever.

The three great scholars present laughed in exasperation.

Xu Qi'an nearly laughed aloud. Erlang's sharp tongue was as cutting as ever.

Li Mubai shook his head. "Brother Jinyan, I rather look forward to seeing your student enter the Establishing Destiny Realm someday."

That would be terrifying. Zhang Shen's mouth twitched.

Only Chen Tai was studying Xu Qi'an with a smile. At that moment, he cut in. "Are you Xu Ningyan?"

"I am." Xu Qi'an, dressed in a scholar's robe and pretending he really was a scholar, cupped his hands.

"I hear you have considerable poetic talent. How about this? If you can compose a poem on the spot that satisfies all three of us, I'll make the decision to let the women of the Xu Household stay at the academy for a while, and I'll ensure their safety."

Allowing the women of the Xu Household to stay at the academy wasn't the important part. The important part was his final promise: he would ensure their safety.

That was precisely why the Xu brothers had come.

Xu Xinnian's face brightened slightly, and he turned to his cousin. "Elder Brother."

He was both delighted and anxious. Composing a poem wasn't difficult; every scholar could produce verse with proper form. The hard part was satisfying the three great scholars.

Was that difficult?

It was far too difficult.

Write a poem? Are you forcing me to freeload off you? Xu Qi'an didn't agree immediately. Instead, he chose his words carefully.

"Am I free to write as I please, or is there a set subject?"

The three great scholars exchanged glances. Zhang Shen said, "Exhorting people to study!"

As I thought, there's no chance they'd let me write whatever I please. Otherwise, I could produce another timeless masterpiece in minutes. Xu Qi'an sighed inwardly.

At the same time, he breathed a sigh of relief. The subject wasn't beyond the syllabus, so his modest literary knowledge could still handle it.

The words "exhorting people to study" first brought to Xu Qi'an's mind "Encouraging Learning," which he had read in high school. But since they wanted a poem, that piece of ancient prose wouldn't do.

Within books are houses of gold; within books are beauties with faces like jade!

That long-circulating verse urging people to study was the next thing to surface in Xu Qi'an's mind.

Among works on the subject of exhorting people to study, few could compare with it in fame.

He was just about to decide to use that poem to freeload off the three great scholars when he suddenly thought of the Cloud Deer Academy's circumstances over the past two hundred years.

If I remember correctly, wasn't this poem written by a Song dynasty emperor? It has a whiff of using fame and profit as bait, and graduates of the Cloud Deer Academy have always had a hard time in their official careers.

When Cijiu passed the provincial examination, he even remarked that he didn't know what impoverished backwater he'd be sent to in the future...

If I copy that poem, wouldn't I be stabbing the Cloud Deer Academy right in the heart? It would backfire...

Seeing him remain silent for so long, Xu Xinnian's brow furrowed more deeply. Of the three great scholars, Zhang Shen and Li Mubai remained expectant, while Chen Tai sipped his tea with a smile.

Xu Qi'an drew his thoughts back and cupped his hands. "Please forgive this student's poor showing. Cijiu, grind the ink for me."

Xu Xinnian found a brush, ink, paper, and an inkstone and arranged them on the table. He personally ground the ink for his older cousin, then held the brush in one hand and drew back his sleeve with the other. He dipped the brush tip in the ink and turned, gesturing for his cousin to take it.

I'd better not embarrass myself with my atrocious calligraphy. No, I can't do calligraphy at all, Xu Qi'an grumbled inwardly. Outwardly, he struck the pose of a scholar holding forth on affairs of state and writing impassioned prose, and said:

"Cijiu, write it down for me."

Xu Xinnian nodded and sat upright at the table, adjusting his robes.

"The lamp burns at the third watch, the rooster crows at the fifth."

"These are the hours when a young man should study."

"With black hair, he knows not to study diligently while young."

"Only when his hair is white does he regret beginning too late!"

When Xu Xinnian finished writing, he put down the brush and gazed at the seven-character lines in their elegant script on the xuan paper. His eyes shone, and he looked somewhat excited.

The room fell briefly silent. As Xu Xinnian savored the lingering resonance of the poem, the three great scholars hurried to the table and stared silently at the xuan paper.

They stared without a word.

Chen Tai, clad in a black robe, his long beard reaching his chest, had a flicker in his eyes.

Posting first and editing later. As usual, I'd like to ask for recommendation votes.