My Wife Is A Sword Immortal-Chapter 181 - 162 He Must Be a Great Man (Two-in-One
Chapter 181: Chapter 162: He Must Be a Great Man (Two-in-One Long Chapter)
Chapter 181: Chapter 162: He Must Be a Great Man (Two-in-One Long Chapter)
Zhao Rong had to explain thoroughly before the warm-hearted senior disciple who led him through the backdoor believed he did not have such odd quirks.
After discussing the matter, both of them unanimously expressed no interest in the unbalanced little girl.
The two “like-minded” men exchanged smiles.
After such a misunderstanding, they continued walking on the winding, secluded path along the water in the southeast corner of the Academy.
Soon, Li Jinsu stopped in front of a courtyard nestled in a verdant bamboo forest, leading Zhao Rong in with familiarity.
Upon entering,
a black-haired old man in a wide-sleeved robe was kneeling on a bamboo mat, lecturing.
In front of him, a dozen Academy scholars were respectfully listening at their desks.
At that moment,
the bamboo leaves rustled, and the old man’s voice was sonorous.
After Li Jinsu and Zhao Rong arrived, a few scholars turned their heads to glance, some curiously sizing up Zhao Rong, others giving Li Jinsu a gentle smile.
But the majority, including Teacher Yan and everyone else, remained immersed in the lecture and listening.
They were not distracted by Zhao Rong and his companion.
Li Jinsu, used to this, gave Zhao Rong a look.
The latter understood immediately.
Both of them knelt in the vacant seats at the front, sitting upright and intently blending in.
Zhao Rong listened for a while and soon understood that Teacher Yan was lecturing on the Confucian Thirteen Classics; he found it engaging and listened intently.
About an hour later, Teacher Yan slowly stopped speaking, drank some tea handed to him by Li Jinsu, then dismissed everyone. He straightened his robe, stood up, and said softly to Zhao Rong, “Follow me.”
He then turned and went back inside.
Zhao Rong followed, stepping into the house together.
Zhao Rong had thought that Teacher Yan would test his knowledge, perhaps on subjects like the Four Books and Five Classics, poetry, zither timbre, and the like.
Instead, Teacher Yan just carefully inquired about the State Preceptor of Great Chu and also casually asked about his family background, eventually encouraging him with, “Among the Confucian students from the Half Continent’s Zhao family, there are very few; you should strive diligently, make the most of your abilities, and not disappoint your senior fellow’s expectations.”
Then he let Zhao Rong leave and asked him to call Li Jinsu in as he was leaving.
Zhao Rong touched his nose and left the bamboo house.
Li Jinsu asked him to wait outside for a moment and then went inside as well.
Zhao Rong waited outside, feeling utterly bored and somewhat amazed at how easy it was to enter the Academy.
Was this what using the backdoor meant?
The perfectly balanced pressure, the speed of entry, the warm-hearted senior disciple, the amiable teacher, this backdoor entrance was too… comfortable.
However, Zhao Rong learned from the previous lesson where he had rashly written a couplet in ignorance and provoked a petulant girl.
He decided it was better to inquire around.
He saw some senior fellow students chatting nearby and approached them politely to join the conversation.
Seeing that he was a new junior brother, they didn’t mind and continued chatting, occasionally answering some of his slightly odd questions appropriately but not paying much attention.
Zhao Rong thus blended in, sweetly addressing everyone as senior brother or sister, and carefully observed their expressions.
Gradually, he pieced together some… basic knowledge of the Academy.
Zhao Rong’s situation, being recommended by Teacher Yan to join the Academy, was under the guise of a student with a special talent.
Zhao Rong was very pleased with this designation.
Student with special talent? He indeed had a specialty…
This special talent quota was given to the Academy’s teachers every three years, of course, the teachers also had different levels of ranking, with varying number of quotas, which were quite scarce.
But as impressive as “student with special talent” sounded, it was merely a verbal label.
Because the special talent quota was a kind of benefit the Academy provided to the teachers.
Teachers could use it as a favor for friends outside.
Or they could genuinely find promising youths they wanted to nurture and actively recruit them.
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However, usually the former was more common, and the latter very rare, especially since genuinely capable individuals could join the Linlu Academy openly and confidently through the triennial Academy examination.
So, were almost all students with special talent merely relationship-based entrants looking to gild their credentials at the Linlu Academy?
Yet Zhao Rong also discerned another deeper significance in this practice by the Academy.
The reason the Linlu Academy, gathering the cultural essence of the Half Continent, offered this opportunity was probably to create an effect similar to the perching of mandarin fish, adding some mischievous “mandarin fish” to stir the otherwise stagnant “lake water” of the Academy, prompting other “fish” to move around and, at specific times, even serving as an outlet for the negative emotions of other students.
Thus, this was a case of killing several birds with one stone.
Regarding what his senior fellow said about being taken as a Direct Disciple by Teacher Yan after a year, it was not as wonderful as Zhao Rong had imagined.
According to the information Zhao Rong gathered,
the scholars who joined Linlu Academy through the triennial examination, as well as special talent students like Zhao Rong, could initially only be called disciples.
Initially, they had to study together and were grouped into several collectives, similar to the class divisions in Zhao Rong’s previous life.
After a year of Academy courses, those who passed the examination could participate in the Master’s Ceremony to be chosen as Direct Disciples by the Academy’s teachers. Of course, those academically excellent “Reading Seeds” would often be “fought over” by many teachers, and they could also choose the teacher they felt was right for them, although these were only a minority.
