Strife

Li Mubai watched as more and more students gathered around the announcement wall. Even the academy's teachers came hurrying over at the news, slapping their thighs in excitement and praising the poem's artless mastery and the profound truth in its simple words.

The great scholar Li's ears twitched as he caught snatches of conversation carried by the mountain breeze:

"First there was 'Who under heaven does not know you?' and now there's a poem urging study. Could the art of poetry in Great Feng's Confucian circles be rising again?"

"In two hundred years, fine poems have been few and far between. Now that we have these two, we scholars of the past few generations can finally face those who come after us."

"Compared with 'Who under heaven does not know you?', this poem urging study will surely spread even farther. People will bring it out time and again to admonish scholars."

"Why isn't it signed? Which great scholar wrote it?"

It isn't signed. This poem is certain to spread far and wide. A thought stirred in Li Mubai's mind. He glanced at his two friends, who were talking in low voices, then quietly stepped back and left.

Zhang Shen suddenly noticed that Li Mubai was gone. "Where's Brother Chunjing?"

"He was just here." Chen Tai looked around, then raised a hand and pointed toward the low wall. "Over there."

Zhang Shen looked in the direction Chen Tai indicated and saw Li Mubai dismissing the students around him, brush in hand, writing something on the huge sheet of paper.

Zhang Shen and Chen Tai concentrated. Their pupils suddenly grew deep, and every minute detail more than a hundred meters away became clear.

The two saw that beside the words "Poem Urging Study," Li Mubai had written a line in small characters:

"At the end of Gengzi and the beginning of Xinchou, my teacher Mubai urged me to study. Moved by his words, I wrote this poem."

It meant that at the end of Gengzi and the beginning of Xinchou, his teacher Li Mubai had urged him to strive for progress. He had wholeheartedly agreed and thus written the poem.

He could ride on the poem's coattails like that too? The two great scholars instantly lost it.

"Shameless old thief, put down that brush!"

The elegant pavilion behind the academy was built against the mountainside. To the east lay the Sixfold Waterfall, and to the west stood a bamboo grove, green through all four seasons.

Bamboo was a rarity in the north. It was hard to keep alive and hard to propagate; the sight of bamboo shoots springing up after a night of thunderstorms could only be seen in the south.

The academy's teachers had transplanted bamboo from the south and tended it diligently, spending fifty years to cultivate this lush grove.

Scholars had a special fondness for bamboo, admiring its integrity and often using it as a metaphor for others or themselves (emphasis on "admiring").

One day, the head of Cloud Deer Academy came over and saw it. Well, the bamboo grove had grown so dense! Bamboo feared no bitter cold and stood proud through all four seasons-wasn't that a description of him?

Everybody out. From now on, he would live here.

And so the elegant pavilion became the head's place of seclusion.

In a simple, refined tea room, an old man in hemp robes sat across from a woman in splendid attire, drinking tea. A line of armored soldiers stood guard outside the pavilion, clad in armor and bearing sharp weapons.

The old man's graying hair hung loose, giving him a somewhat unkempt and carefree air. The lines beside his mouth and the furrows between his brows were deep, but when he smiled, the crow's-feet at his eyes surpassed them both.

Judging by appearances alone, it was hard to imagine that this old man, dressed like a down-and-out scholar, was the head of Cloud Deer Academy.

The man who held the reins of the Confucian School in the present age.

The woman drinking tea across from him was well past twenty, yet she wore her hair in a simple spiral bun with a gleaming gold hairpin hung with dangling ornaments-clearly the style of an unmarried woman.

She wore a magnificent moon-white gown whose hem trailed across the floor.

Her features were delicate and ethereal, like a water lotus washed clean yet untouched by wantonness. Her clear eyes were like mirrors of ice, their crystalline depths unable to conceal her aloofness and noble bearing.

Her fully matured figure was shapely and full, her curves enticing.

"It's been half a year since we last met, Head, and there are many more silver threads in your hair," the eldest princess said, her voice cool and clear.

"Every one a thread of worry." The head chuckled and drank his tea.

"On my way up the mountain today, I heard the academy's students reciting a poem: 'Do not worry that the road ahead holds no friend who knows you; who under heaven does not know you?'" The eldest princess's eyes flickered, as if a mirror of ice had cracked.

"Such a fine work brought me great joy to hear. Might I ask which great scholar wrote it?"

Hearing this, the head, Zhao Shou, shook his head and laughed.

"Why do you laugh at me, Head?"

"I'm not laughing at you, Your Highness. I'm laughing at how Cloud Deer Academy is full of talent, yet none can match a work someone else wrote on impulse. No, the minds of scholars throughout Great Feng have grown numb and rigid, lacking inspiration. And in poetry, inspiration matters most."

"...Head, your words have left me puzzled." The eldest princess's expression was serene. She held her teacup between her graceful fingers, her manner of drinking noble and elegant.

Zhao Shou sighed. "The one who wrote that poem was no scholar, but a petty clerk from Changle County."

The eldest princess was slightly moved.

This eldest princess of the Great Feng dynasty was unlike other women. For a young lady of a scholarly household, mastery of the zither, chess, calligraphy, and painting was enough to be considered talented.

But this eldest princess had studied chess under Wei Yuan, military strategy under Zhang Shen, and statecraft under Chen Tai. She knew the sages' classics backward and forward, and her essays and policy treatises were no worse than those of the Imperial Academy's students.

She was widely read and possessed a prodigious memory, with enough learning to fill five carts.

At eighteen, she had received the emperor's special permission to take part in compiling books at the Hanlin Academy. The year before last, the eldest princess had attempted to recompile the history of the previous dynasty, provoking protests from the court officials. In the end, the matter had come to nothing.

"Will you truly not consider entering officialdom, Head?" The eldest princess's gaze was earnest, her tone serious. "The Confucian School puts people first, but human lifespans are short. You should not waste your remaining years, Head."

Few knew that the post in Qingzhou's Office of Transmission had originally been granted to Zhao Shou.

But Zhao Shou had declined to take office and submitted a memorial to the court recommending Layman Ziyang instead.

"Waste my years? If I can open a path of learning for future generations, why would I not gladly do so?" Zhao Shou sighed.

"Unfortunately, after more than ten years seeking enlightenment in the bamboo grove, pouring out my heart's blood, I still cannot cross the heavenly chasm Sub-Sage Cheng drew."

"Your obsession runs too deep, Head. Why go so far?" The eldest princess calmly refilled her own cup. "Imperial Father invited you to enter officialdom because he intends to make use of Cloud Deer Academy once more. If you truly had the academy's students at heart, you should not have refused."

Zhao Shou gave a derisive laugh. "Is it that he's finding Wei Yuan harder and harder to control, or that those highborn nobles' dragon-slaying techniques are growing ever sharper?"

"It is for the people of Great Feng, for all living beneath heaven." The eldest princess spoke each word from the heart.

The smile on Zhao Shou's face grew more mocking.

The eldest princess's cool, clear tone changed, and she sighed. "Since the Battle of Shanhai, Great Feng's strength has weakened by the day, and natural disasters have struck year after year. Countless officials occupy their posts and draw salaries without doing their jobs, and the harm wrought by petty clerks has grown ever more apparent.

"The gentlemen at court know only factional strife. Those who stand idle and indulge in empty talk are beyond counting, while those who do practical work to strengthen the nation are few and far between. Head, the empire needs someone to mend it."

Without waiting for Zhao Shou to speak, she continued at length. "Three years ago, the northern barbarians tore up the treaty and repeatedly violated our borders, plundering the people.

"The southern barbarians destroyed the courier roads and launched sneak attacks on military towns, hoping to reclaim their lost lands.

"The nations of the Western Regions watch coldly from the sidelines, while the Buddhist School uses this to pressure us, seeking to spread its teachings in the Central Plains."

Her tone grew increasingly forceful, her voice no longer cool. "Head, as a scholar, should you not fulfill your ambitions and restore our nation's might?"

Zhao Shou studied the eldest princess for a moment. Then he turned his gaze from her delicate, ethereal face and its noble bearing to the deep green bamboo grove outside the window. He shook his head and sighed.

"It is not that I am unwilling. The time has not yet come. Please go back, Your Highness."

Disappointment was plain in the eldest princess's eyes. Just as she was about to take her leave, hurried footsteps sounded outside the pavilion, and one of the academy's teachers rushed in, shouting:

"Head, something terrible has happened! Li Mubai, Zhang Shen, and Chen Tai have started fighting!"

I had something to take care of at noon, so the update was a little late.