Chapter 131 Entrusted

In the Imperial Academy, rivalries and competitions among the various dormitories over courtesans were by no means uncommon.

According to historical records of Wulin, the famous courtesans of the capital generally did not entertain guests easily, often keeping themselves secluded in high chambers. Wealthy merchants who believed they could win access simply by throwing money at them were invariably disappointed; in fact, the more they spent, the more the courtesans would avoid them. The top courtesans of the capital favored the Imperial Academy students above all, and would only reveal themselves when the scholars arrived.

Consequently, the students frequently bickered, and disputes over courtesans often led to open rivalry.

While the academy administration turned a blind eye to its students consorting with courtesans, it strictly prohibited fighting and brawling.

Yet young students were proud and hot-blooded, and none could afford to lose face. What was to be done?

At times like these, both factions would rally large crowds and agree to meet at a designated teahouse. They would assemble with all the pomp and circumstance of rival gangs holding a formal negotiation to settle accounts.

Whether they matched the influence of their fathers, their family backgrounds, the sheer number of supporters, or their prowess in prose and scholarship, remained a matter of speculation.

Such scenes were frequently recorded in the personal notes and journals of Song dynasty scholars.

To Zhang Yue, however, it looked remarkably like a schoolyard brawl where students fought tooth and nail over a girlfriend.

Before long, Liu Ji calmly led a few dorm members forward to begin negotiations.

Shortly thereafter, Liu Ji returned to the table accompanied by several men from the opposing faction. One of them declared, "Let us dispense with standard drinking games; we shall settle the victor through bamboo tally sticks."

An attendant immediately stepped forward with a large bamboo cylinder filled with tally sticks.

Liu Ji turned to his dorm mates and asked, "Who among you will step up to match the wine tolerance of the opposing side?"

The group exchanged glances, and a few individuals known for their high capacity for liquor immediately stood up.

When only one spot remained, Zhang Yue thought to himself that his own tolerance was fairly decent. Moreover, today's banquet was held to welcome him, so he could not afford to shrink from the challenge. He volunteered himself, saying, "Count me in."

Liu Ji gave Zhang Yue a deep, lingering look and smiled, "Very well!"

The group gathered closely. Liu Ji first shook the bamboo cylinder of tally sticks, then handed it to a courtesan nearby, saying, "Mistress Wei, do us the honor of drawing one!"

The courtesan smiled charmingly, extended her slender, delicate hand, and drew a single tally stick from the tube.

Upon inspection, the tally read: "The tallest person present shall drink."

Everyone understood that this meant the two tallest individuals from the opposing factions must drink. Someone immediately poured a full horn of wine for each of them.

The wine was served in a drinking horn, filled to the brim.

In the Song dynasty, a "horn" of wine was roughly equivalent to a modern pitcher of beer. A full drinking horn constituted a single horn of wine.

There was also a traditional saying: "For vessels, one sheng is called a jue, two sheng a gu, three sheng a zhi, four sheng a jiao, and five sheng a san."

Zhang Yue estimated that this single horn of wine held close to six or seven hundred milliliters, which was equivalent to three bowls of liquor.

Zhang Yue could not help thinking that it would be wonderful if Tang Jiu were here; drinking fifty or sixty bowls would be nothing for him. As for himself, Zhang Yue had to gauge his condition—he could handle the equivalent of a generous crate of beer, though he generally avoided clear spirits, and he had no idea how his tolerance might rank in the Great Song.

The two men each downed their horn of wine. Both remained steady on their feet, proving their liquor tolerance was indeed commendable.

Next, another tally was drawn. It read: "He who rides the finest steed, wears the lightest fur, and sports the most flamboyant attire shall drink."

Everyone burst into laughter. Immediately, a young man raised his cup and laughed, "That would be me. My clothes are the most flamboyant! Many thanks to Mistress Wei for bestowing this wine!"

Zhang Yue looked over and saw that the speaker was a twenty-year-old Imperial Academy student, evidently pursuing Mistress Wei. Though his attire was indeed somewhat flashy, his capacity for liquor was impressive, and he drained the cup in a single gulp.

After a dozen horns of wine had been consumed, the scene truly lived up to the phrase "cups and tallies crisscrossed."

Even Zhang Yue could not escape and was obliged to finish a pot of wine.

Feeling that tally-drawing was no longer sufficiently exciting, the company switched to playing the five-elements finger-guessing game.

In this game, the thumb represented metal, the index finger wood, the middle finger water, the ring finger fire, and the little finger earth, with the rounds decided by the mutual conquest cycle of the five elements.

Zhang Yue thought to himself: *I excel at this!*

Ever since kindergarten, his win-loss record at rock-paper-scissors had been overwhelmingly positive; this was practically his specialized field of study!

After a series of rounds, the opposing side finally knew when to yield and withdrew. Before leaving, they threw down a challenge, declaring that on another day they would settle supremacy through archery and pitch-pot.

Only then did Zhang Yue fully grasp the meaning of what Liu Ji had told him earlier.

Still, competing for women with such dramatic flair was a game he could certainly enjoy!

Yet, seeing the fair maiden leaning close to Liu Ji's side, Zhang Yue felt a slight pang of bittersweet sentiment, much like the feeling of thinking, *I'll work hard this year, and next year I'll find you a sister-in-law.*

After the departure of the rival faction's members, Zhang Yue began to converse with Liu Zuo.

Liu Zuo introduced him to the students of their dormitory one by one. The Yangzheng Dormitory had twenty-three members; excluding Cheng Yi and one person who had fallen ill, twenty-one were present today.

When Liu Zuo pointed to a certain individual and told Zhang Yue that this was Wu Anchi, Zhang Yue's eyes lit up.

He marveled at the coincidence: he happened to be in the same dormitory as Wu Anchi, the second young master of the Wu family and son-in-law of Wang Anshi. Heaven itself must be paving his way; his glory and prosperity for the next twenty or thirty years might well depend on cultivating this connection.

Zhang Yue immediately stepped forward to exchange pleasantries with Wu Anchi.

Wu Anchi was of modest height and appeared somewhat slender, but his manners were impeccably courteous—even more so than his older brother, entirely lacking the arrogant demeanor typical of high officials' scions.

Zhang Yue introduced himself, saying, "Brother Wu, I am a native of Pucheng."

Hearing this, Wu Anchi replied, "So Brother Qiu is from Pucheng. I grew up in the capital since childhood, so I am not very familiar with Pucheng."

Zhang Yue's expression stiffened slightly. True, Wu Anchi had grown up in the capital and had registered his household in Kaifeng early on to facilitate his examination studies. Yet, if he mentioned being from Pucheng, one would expect Wu Anchi to show a bit more warmth or attempt to forge a connection.

Could Wu Anshi not have mentioned him at all to his younger brother? Or had he mentioned him, but Wu Anchi preferred not to acknowledge it?

Unwilling to press the matter of his relationship with Wu Anshi any further, Zhang Yue kept the conversation brief and let it drop.

Walking back to Liu Zuo's side, Zhang Yue asked, "Where is Brother Wu's ancestral home? His accent doesn't sound entirely like that of Bianjing."

Liu Zuo replied, "He was admitted to the Imperial Academy half a year ago. As for his ancestral home, I do not know."

"Admitted?" Zhang Yue asked in surprise. "Aren't the sons of officials exempt from examinations to enter the Imperial Academy?"

Liu Zuo explained, "That is true, but in recent years, both commoner scholars from the provinces and the sons of officials take the examinations. For commoners, the exams determine stay or departure; for officials' sons, they determine dormitory assignment. Therefore, unless he mentions it, we have no way of knowing whether someone comes from an official family or a humble background."

Zhang Yue thought to himself that Wu Anchi and his older brother possessed entirely different temperaments.

"However, his daily attire is no different from that of the other students, he shares our meals in the dormitory, and he treats everyone with great kindness and consideration. Most people in the dorm are quite fond of him. Yet he never speaks a single word about his background. You can tell from the way the dormitory head treats him with greater respect and courtesy than others that whispers circulate claiming he must be of noble official stock, and that his elders hold quite elevated positions."

Hearing this, Zhang Yue thought to himself that of course that was the case. While half the Imperial Academy consisted of low-ranking officials' sons, Wu Anchi's uncle happened to be the current Vice-Chancellor.

Liu Zuo sighed with emotion, "Scions of official families like him are born with a certain pride; coming to the Imperial Academy is little more than a diversion for them. Even if they fail to pass the imperial examinations, their hereditary privileges will secure them official posts superior to ordinary graduates. Thus, all they need to do here is study diligently and live harmoniously with their dorm mates, and a bright future is guaranteed."

Xiang Qi, standing nearby, interjected with a cold laugh, "In my view, this Second Young Master Wu is not being modest or understated. He treats everyone with polite, flawless courtesy precisely to keep them at a distance. In his heart, he disdains associating with the likes of us and has no desire whatsoever to make friends in the Imperial Academy."

Upon hearing this, Zhang Yue felt that Xiang Qi had hit the nail squarely on the head.

For commoner scholars like themselves, entering the Imperial Academy was stepping into an elite circle where they could befriend the sons of ordinary officials and future jinshi scholars. But for Wu Anchi, this circle was simply beneath his notice.

Among his brothers-in-law, the least prominent was Ouyang Fa, the son of Ouyang Xiu. The others included Lü Xiji, grandson of Lü Jianyi and son of Lü Gongzhu; Xia Boqing, grandson of Lü's contemporary and son of Xia Anqi; and another soon-to-be brother-in-law, Wen Jifu, son of Wen Yanbo.

Not to mention his brilliantly clever yet wildly eccentric brother-in-law, Wang Pang.

With a social circle like that, he would hardly bother to integrate into ordinary ones.

Realizing this, Zhang Yue felt a sense of release.

When Zhang Yue returned to his dormitory that day, he found the room deserted. Cheng Yi had already packed his bags and was preparing to leave the Imperial Academy altogether.

Seeing this, Zhang Yue was utterly bewildered. He had only been at the academy for two days; why was Cheng Yi leaving?

"Brother Zhengyu, have I done something wrong? If so, I am more than willing to apologize to you first!" Zhang Yue thought he must have said something inappropriate to offend Cheng Yi.

Cheng Yi replied, "It has nothing to do with Third Brother. If any mistake was made, it actually arose from the thoughts you stirred in me. Our conversation through the night has given me a slight awakening."

"Therefore, I intend to return to my hometown to delve deeply into the learning of the sages. If I can leave behind even a few words for future generations, this life will be complete. The bond of our meeting shall remain forever in my heart, and if fate allows, we shall meet again in the future."

Cheng Yi's words left Zhang Yue completely baffled—just a few remarks had prompted Cheng Yi to drop out of the academy?

What kind of reasoning was this?

As Cheng Yi walked toward the doorway with Zhang Yue accompanying him all the way, Cheng Yi turned back and said, "Third Brother, since the time of our Confucian Sage Confucius, and following the flourishing of Han dynasty classical scholarship, our tradition has truly languished for a millennium. During the Tang dynasty, Han Tuizhi raised his arms in a call to arms and pioneered the movement; in our current dynasty, Masters Zhou and Cheng have taken the revitalization of Confucian learning as their bounden duty."

"The concepts of rectifying the mind and making one's intentions sincere originate from the Great Learning, seeming somewhat akin to the Buddhist notion of 'illuminating the mind and seeing one's true nature,' yet they possess both similarities and differences. The discourse on elucidating the fundamental principle is something we Confucians must fully encompass. If we Confucians fail to speak of it now and surrender the field entirely to Buddhist and Daoist teachings—though Buddhism and Daoism may comfort worldly mortals and show compassion to all living beings—who then will remain to speak of practical application and worldly achievements?"

Zhang Yue sighed, "Brother Cheng's character is resolute and upright, his insights meticulous and profound. With the demeanor of a sheer, solitary cliff as your foundation, you will surely achieve great things in the future."

Cheng Yi smiled, "I thank Third Brother for your kind words."

With that, Cheng Yi looked up at the bright moon hanging in the evening sky and said, "When I first entered the Imperial Academy, I made a grand vow: having become a disciple of Master Lianxi, I would devote myself daily to studying the Great Dao, and all thought of fame and profit in the examination halls would leave me forever. Yet the examinations must still be taken; otherwise, how am I to transform and guide the hundreds of officials and the Emperor himself?"

"Everyone mocked me, yet only today do I realize that I had underestimated the heroes of this world!"

Having finished, Cheng Yi bowed to Zhang Yue, then strode out of the Imperial Academy amidst the clear breeze and bright moonlight.

Zhang Yue watched Cheng Yi depart, his mind echoing with those final words. Why did it feel as though Cheng Yi was placing the heavy burden of "guiding the officials and the Emperor" squarely onto his shoulders?

Just because you made a grand vow back then didn't mean he shared the same confidence to pull it off for you!