Outside the capital, at the Cotton Sheep Pavilion!
A cluster of fine carriages drew up beside the pavilion. The winter wind raked the open country and the rolling hills lay brown and bare. A tepid sun hung overhead, lending the early-winter day a mild warmth.
Ziyang the Hermit of the White Deer Academy was about to enter official service. To that academy, whose influence in government had waned by the year, it was rare good news. The masters tapped out a beat and sang; the disciples cheered, sure their hour had come at last.
Within the pavilion, three old men sat drinking tea. One wore a violet robe, his temples streaked with white—the guest of honor. That was Yang Gong, styled Ziqian, known by his sobriquet Ziyang the Hermit: the top scholar of Yuanjing's fourteenth year, who had retired the year after and spent twenty-two years teaching at the White Deer Academy, his graduates spreading like blossom across the land until he became a great scholar famed worldwide. He might have gone further—a seat in the Chancellery was within reach—yet at his peak he quietly left office. Rumor said he had offended the Emperor, or else crossed the Grand Secretary and been outplayed. Either way, he was coming back at last, bound for Qingzhou as Provincial Governor. A true lord of a border province.
The other two were no less eminent. The gray-robed man with the goatee was Li Mubai, grand master of Go, once the realm's foremost player—until, five years ago, he lost three games to Wei Yuan, hurled down his board in fury, and swore off the stones for good. The blue-robed man was Zhang Shen, grand master of strategy, whose early work *Six Treatises on Military Strategy* was still required reading for every officer of Great Feng. He was the only strategist to stand comparison with Wei Yuan.
A crowd of the academy's most promising students had come to see the master off. Xu Xinnian was among them.
"At last Master Ziyang is out again," murmured a familiar classmate. "Win his regard and our fortunes are made. Cijiu, have you prepared a poem?"
My brother gave me one... half a regulated verse, no less... Xu Xinnian gazed toward the pavilion. "I've dashed off half a verse. You're too mercenary, Yongshu."
The seven-character regulated verse held strict prosody: eight lines of seven characters, two to a couplet, four couplets in all. Xu Qi'an had given him only two couplets, and no amount of pressing would pry loose the rest.
"This isn't mercenary. The sea of learning is like the sea of office—hardship's the boat, scheming the oars," replied his friend, who let the matter drop.
"Yongshu's right," put in another. "Officialdom is rotten; clerks and corrupt gentry feed on the people, and disaster comes year after year. To fix that, a man's mind must stay nimble."
Yongshu turned to Xu Xinnian. "You call poetry a trifling craft. But your fine essays—who will remember them in a few decades? Poetry outlives a man. Poetry passes down the ages."
Poetry is a trifle, it can neither govern a state nor benefit the people... Xu Xinnian was about to say it, then remembered he himself meant to court an elder's favor with that very trifle, and swallowed the words.
Yongshu stared in wonder. He hadn't risen to the bait!
Li Mubai sighed. "Brother Yang, had you been half as quick as they are, you'd not have wasted those years."
Ziyang the Hermit smiled. "I was crowded out of office, in the end."
"That's no fault of yours. The crew the Imperial Academy turns out won't watch the White Deer Academy rise again."
"Ha. Petty schemers who kowtow upward and bully downward—in two hundred years they've wrecked the realm into this state."
Behind this lay a curious history. Confucianism began with the Sage, and the White Deer Academy, founded by the Sage's foremost disciple, was its rightful orthodox line. But two hundred years ago, over the question of the legitimate heir, the academy fell out of favor with the Emperor. Just then a traitor appeared within its walls: a former teacher who set up his own school, curried favor on the slogan "Preserve the Heavenly Principle and extinguish human desire," and, with imperial backing, founded the Imperial Academy. From then on it displaced the White Deer Academy as the chief source of court officials, and the quarrel over orthodoxy had run on for two centuries.
Ziyang spoke gravely. "I go to open new ground for the academy, to lay a foundation in office. But one man cannot restore its glory. We must pull together—and we need young men of talent."
Li Mubai and Zhang Shen exchanged a smile. The latter turned to the scholars outside. "Would any of you compose a farewell poem for Ziyang the Hermit?"
"Poetry needs a prize worth the effort," said Ziyang, unfastening a purple jade pendant from his sash. "First place takes the pendant."
The jade shimmered with eerie violet light. Eager eyes lit up at once. A grand scholar's keepsake, steeped in cultivated aura, brimmed with power. And there lay a deeper meaning: an elder's keepsake goes only to a junior or a disciple. Take the pendant, and you were his—his disciple.
"This student offers a verse to see Ziyang the Hermit on his way." A tall, upright scholar in a blue-gray gown stepped out and clasped his hands toward the pavilion.
Li Mubai smiled. "My disciple, Zhu Tuizhi—he has some gift for verse."
Ziyang nodded, smiling. When Zhu Tuizhi finished his farewell poem, the smile deepened; he was plainly satisfied.
"Not bad," praised Zhang Shen, adding nothing, for both colleagues outdid him in poetry.
But a good beginning did not always make a good end, and what followed could be called a dog's tail tacked onto a mink's coat. The rest were middling at best.
Li Mubai lamented. "Since the Imperial Academy re-annotated the Sage's classics with its 'preserve the Heavenly Principle' refrain, scholars have been bound to the canon and buried in phrasing. They fell into 'shackled wording and fragmented verbosity' and never climbed out. Essays and verse have lost all spirit."
He grew bitter. This was why Confucianism had waned. Two hundred years ago, the Confucian motto ran: *The Buddhist gate is splendid, the Daoist gate superb, and oho, the sorcerers are no slouch either; the crooked gu-sorcerers and shamans have spirit, credit where it's due... Ah, you ruffian warriors, kindly step out—this is a gathering of the cultivated. Take the demon-kind with you. And all the rest of you seated—saving your presence—garbage.*
That was how arrogant they had been. And now? Every cultivation system blinks at them: *What's gotten into you, little brother?* And the Confucians huddle, quaking, not daring a peep.
Ziyang gave a sigh. "Enough of that. Scholars, is there any other verse?"
Silence. Zhu Tuizhi eyed the purple jade, sure the prize was his.
"Master, I have a poem," said Xu Xinnian, stepping to the pavilion's edge.
He had held his silence on purpose, being modest and disinclined to embarrass his classmates with a fine poem too early. It had nothing whatever to do with having once traded insults with Zhu Tuizhi.