Poor but talented scholar

Chapter 41 Subjective Lessons

Lu Chuan lowered his head and carefully stepped over the threshold. He first performed a respectful bow before placing the cloth bundle on his back steadily on the pear wood table beside him.

"During your three-day holiday, did you neglect your studies while you were back home?" Master Zhao put down his book, his eyes sharp, as if afraid that the young man had been tainted by the laziness of the countryside.

"Master, I dare not." Lu Chuan straightened up, carefully took out the neat stack of manuscript paper from the innermost layer of the bundle, and presented it with both hands. "On this trip home, in addition to reviewing my lessons and practicing calligraphy, I will also put the teachings of the Master into practice in farming."

"This was compiled by the student overnight. Please take a look, Master."

Master Zhao was slightly taken aback, somewhat surprised.

He took the manuscript and initially glanced at it casually. But as the words on the paper came into view, his expression gradually changed from relaxed to serious. Finally, he unconsciously sat up straight and began to study it word by word.

A long silence fell over the study.

On the manuscript paper, Lu Chuan meticulously recorded the slope of the hillside, the moisture content of the soil, and the ratio of wood ash in neat regular script. Master Zhao couldn't help but slap the table in admiration.

"Ingenious! Building embankments with stones to retain warmth and keep out the cold; dividing the area into squares, each with its own function."

Lu Chuan lowered his head humbly: "Master, you flatter me. I just feel that farmers often work blindly. If they could follow the laws of nature and cultivate in a quantified and intensive manner, they would surely achieve twice the result with half the effort."

"Excellent." Master Zhao stroked his beard and laughed. "Your record is extremely insightful. If it can be successfully introduced and survived, I will definitely recommend it to the county magistrate as a model for agricultural research in this county."

Lu Chuan's heart stirred slightly; this was exactly what he wanted.

"Master, I have another concern," Lu Chuan said, a hint of worry in his voice. "I've heard in the countryside that several pharmacies in the county town, relying on their exclusive licenses from the county government, intend to monopolize all the medicinal herbs in the county. I'm worried that once the medicinal herb fields in our Lu Family Village are fully grown, they will be forcibly confiscated by those profit-driven merchants because we have no official licenses."

Upon hearing this, Master Zhao's face darkened immediately, and he slammed his hand on the table: "Absurd! This is a sacred place where the students of the academy practice the teachings of the sages. How can we allow those money-grubbing merchants to taint it? The county government's approval may govern profit and gain, but can it govern my teaching and educating people?"

He stood up, paced around the room a few times, then picked up a brush and quickly wrote a few large characters on a piece of Xuan paper, affixing his personal seal.

"Here you go!" Master Zhao handed the paper to Lu Chuan with a solemn expression. "It states on this that the hill behind Lu Family Village is the experimental field I have designated. If anyone dares to covet that land, let him come to this school and debate with me."

After bidding farewell to Master Zhao, Lu Chuan left the inner academy.

After returning to the academy, life became like a still pond.

When the morning bell rang, Lu Chuan was already in his study.

As dawn breaks, he is already reciting "Elementary Learning Classics" under the old locust tree in the backyard; in the afternoon sun, he repeatedly copies the calligraphy of famous calligraphers from previous dynasties in his study.

For the students in Class C who were still struggling with the obscure characters in the Three Character Classic, Lu Chuan's progress was astonishingly fast.

He had already thoroughly mastered those basic elementary education principles, thanks to his keen sense of logic from his previous life and the photographic memory of this body.

Lu Chuan's focus has now quietly shifted to studying the "Da Dai Li Ji" and "Shang Shu".

On Lu Chuan's desk, in addition to the required scriptures, there were several thick stacks of writing paper.

He practiced calligraphy diligently, and the strength of the "Duobao Pagoda Stele" gradually seeped out from his fingertips.

He didn't just blindly copy; he dissected each radical and component.

Master Zhao was lecturing on the platform, talking about the "Twenty-Four Filial Exemplars" and the concepts of "ruler and subject, father and son".

Lu Chuan sat in the audience, his back ramrod straight, the tip of his pen tracing across the paper, meticulously marking every explanation the master gave on the margins of the pages.

He listened intently, absorbing the mainstream ideas of the era like a sponge.

He knew that these classic texts were the only test points to win in this long-distance race of the imperial examination.

Outside the window, cicadas begin to sing, while inside the study, only the sound of turning pages and the occasional cough of the students can be heard.

This monotonous and repetitive academic life, however, was exceptionally wonderful in Lu Chuan's eyes.

On this day, after testing everyone's recitation of "Prodigy Poems," Master Zhao stroked his beard with satisfaction, turned around, and wrote the two characters "Prosody" on the blackboard.

"We have been learning to read and write for some time now." Master Zhao turned around, his gaze sweeping across the room. "From this day forward, we will begin to learn 'parallelism'."

The students, who had been feeling drowsy, suddenly perked up.

To them, matching couplets is much more interesting than rote memorization of scriptures.

"Do not think this is merely a word game." Master Zhao's expression was solemn as he tapped the air with his ruler. "The study of parallelism is the foundation of poetry and prose. It emphasizes the correspondence of parts of speech, the correspondence of structure, and the harmony of sound and rhyme."

He paused for a moment, then walked up to Lu Chuan, clearly intending to set the tone first.

"Lu Chuan, listen carefully. I will give you a one-word reply: 'Cloud'."

Lu Chuan stood up, smoothed out the wrinkles in his clothes, and calmly replied, "Rain."

The two-character couplet is: "Evening Glow".

"Clear Sky".

Master Zhao nodded slightly and quickened his pace: "The three-character couplet is: 'Three-foot sword'."

Without hesitation, Lu Chuan replied, "'Six-Jun Bow'."

His answers were fluent and precise, leaving not only his classmates stunned, but even Master Zhao couldn't help but smile.

"Alright, Lu Chuan, please sit down." Master Zhao walked back to the podium and began to break down the key points in detail.

"Look, you see, 'sword' versus 'bow' is an object versus an object; 'three feet' versus 'six jin' is a number versus a number."

"This is the correspondence of parts of speech. Moreover, 'sword' is an oblique tone, while 'bow' is a level tone, which is the harmony of sound and rhyme."

He picked up the ruler and struck the two characters for "prosody" on the blackboard heavily.

"The key to matching couplets lies first in accumulation. If you don't know the names of plants and trees, or can't distinguish the shapes of mountains and rivers, and have nothing in your mind, you won't be able to come up with well-structured phrases."

"The second point is to perceive tones. Characters have yin and yang, and tones have high and low. Level tones should be level and not low or high, and oblique tones should be short and abrupt."

Lu Chuan listened attentively, his brush moving rapidly as he jotted down the rules of tonal patterns in his notebook. This was a completely new field of study for him.

Then, Master Zhao gave the other students in the class a few more questions to try.

"Who can match the name 'Five Old Peaks'?"

A slightly older student stood up and stammered, "'Three...three doors'?"

The classmates burst into laughter.

Master Zhao shook his head: "'Peak' is a famous mountain, and 'Gate' is also a noun, but the imagery is lacking. Does anyone have a better one?"

Lu Chuan stood up again and said softly, "Master, I will try to respond with: 'Jiuhua Mountain'."

"Five matches nine, both are odd numbers; old matches splendid, both are descriptive; peak matches mountain, a perfect match." Master Zhao exclaimed, "This couplet is wonderful!"