Nightfall

Because of a bitter childhood, Ning Que was very good at controlling his state of mind – or perhaps very good at pitifully controlling his own inner heart, transforming the dark night into sunlight on his face, and very rarely would the sadness of the changing seasons flash on the scenery of that world. However, today in the examination hall of the Academy entrance exam, looking at those peaches and apricots outside the window and listening to the rising sounds of various integrated fields of math and the like, with difficulty he thought of those hot and cold periods of a career of incessant study of both arts and sciences.

But it was exactly fortunate for that bitter forced career of studying, that the question on the scroll was not difficult to him in any way. After his mind quickly flashed with an answer, he couldn’t help but to whisper in a low voice, “This question is too d.a.m.n stupid* right?”

*二 ‘èr’ means two, but is also Beijing slang for stupid.

Indeed it was quite stupid, because the answer was exactly two.

Ning Que moved his wrist and dipped the brush into the inkstone, and very carefully wrote down his answer. “Master drank two jugs of wine, and cut all the peach blossoms of the mountain.”
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At a distant path away from a pavilion, that Daoist looked at the black and white of a chessboard. His right hand outstretched in the air, incessantly plucking, as though he was playing with an instrument or playing with the spring wind. Suddenly his index finger slightly paused; then with this motion, a black piece jumped from the piece holder beside the chessboard in a streak of light, and with a snap it fell onto the chessboard, exactly in a spot where the horizontal and vertical lines intersected.

As the Leader of the Southern Gate of the Clear Sky Way, and the Tang Empire’s State Master, Li QingShan freely and calmly played like this naturally and unsurprisingly. Strange at the moment was, his brows were knitted extremely aggressively, as though he was a bit afraid of the monk on the other side.

That monk called himself Huang Yang. Lately he was stationed in ChangAn’s South City’s Ten Thousand Wild Geese PaG.o.da Temple. Rumor had it that this person once visited a wasteland of some unknowable place, and was able to use unsurpa.s.sed cultivating Buddhist arts. Many years ago, he met the current Tang Empire’s Emperor by a chance coincidence, and they became bound as brothers – since then he became known as the Tang Imperial Prince. The monks pursue ascetic practice, and ordinarily he would be sitting in Ten Thousand Wild Geese PaG.o.da chanting sutras and translating books, and very rarely would he come into contact with outsiders of the Temple.

The monk Huang Yang calmly looked at the pieces on the chessboard. His eyes slowly blinked, and a white chess piece slowly rose from the piece holder, slowly arriving above the chessboard, and slowly fell down without creating the slightest sound, extremely softly. The white piece sealed some air hole, and without seeing him doing any kind of motion, with only his gaze gently moving a black piece that had been taken to the side of the board – that place already had 7 or 8 pieces.

The Tang Empire’s State Master and the Imperial Younger Brother playing chess – naturally no one dared to go forward and bother them. Those little monks and little Daoists all left by themselves extremely far away from the path on the bank with no chance of them seeing the two experts play, or else if they were allowed to see such a marvelous scene, they definitely would give big praise.    

Li QingShan watched the black and white pieces on the chessboard, and shook his head. Turning he said, “When His Majesty is in the Palace, he leaves one person. When His Majesty leaves the Palace, then two have to await Him, since when did this become a rule? In a time like this, who would dare to do a mishap towards the Tang Emperor? Not to mention today when His Majesty went to the Academy, could there still be someone that dares to make trouble at the Academy?”

Huang Yang faintly smiled, and looking at him he said, “I don’t know.”

Li QingShan said with frustration, “You’ve already heard about the incident with Chao XiaoShu right? Truly a pity, if back then he could’ve entered the Fate-seeker realm, then as for us two fellows, we’d still be bodyguards following His Majesty every day.”

Huang Yang shook his head and replied, “Without these years of correspondence with the JiangHu, and acquiring this change in comprehension by observing the lake in the Palace, even for a talented person, who would dare say that they would enter the Fate-seeker realm?”

Li QingShan shook his head and said, “Back then you should’ve still been at that place watching over the firewood and fires of the temple, so I don’t know the specific circ.u.mstances. Chao XiaoShu at first had a chance to test into the Academy, just that he couldn’t get into the second floor. If he could enter the second floor, he would have the fortune of speaking with Master personally – how could needing to enter Fate-seeker be something hard?”

Huang Yang was silent for a long time, and then softly answered, “If he could enter the Academy and get Master’s enlightenment, that would indeed be a blessing.”

Li QingShan looked at his clean face, and suddenly with a self-mocking smile said, “The Court and people all say that we QingShan and Huang Yang don’t see each other, how would they know that because of the Academy we truly can’t meet?”

Of the two people, the Daoist and the Monk in the pavilion, one was the guardian of the Buddhist Sect’s orthodox monastery, and the other was the leader of the Clear Sky Way’s South Gate. No matter what they thought inside, their status and position destined them to be unable to take half a step into the Academy. Just like how today the Tang Emperor led a flock of ministers to partic.i.p.ate in the great opening ceremony of the Academy – these were the most powerful people beyond the Tang Empire that were most honored, and yet they could only quietly and calmly play chess far away.

“When did Master leave?”

“After school starts he will leave ChangAn.”

“Master has it hard.”

Huang Yang the Monk calmly said to State Master Li QingShan, “I really want to know just how high Master has gone.”

After a long silence Li QingShan said, “My first teacher once said, Master is as many as several floors high.”

Huang Yang the Monk hesitated slightly, and slowly a sincere smile arose on his face, then immediately after his lips parted with a sigh – a sigh like the spring breeze pa.s.sing a willow, with an indefinite meaning. “The second floor is already very high. For Master to actually be several floors high…….that is truly high.”
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The afternoon was the literary exam. When the math section ended, it was closely followed with the literature section and the rites section. Previously still leaning on the feeling of pride from extreme self-satisfaction, Ning Que instantly was blindsided – Sang Sang’s worries were reasonable. All day long busily eating hot and sour noodles with a fried egg, and going to the Red Sleeves to accompany girls and chat, braving the rain and going to Spring Wind Pavilion to kill; a pitiful youth worried about earning a few silvers today to carry on a few pockets truly didn’t have time for those several entrance exam topic scrolls and carry them back – and even if he carried them back it was no use. A fellow who spent the whole year on making a living in the Gra.s.slands, where would he get what things? If he was to write a response from memory about the Daoists it was no problem, but about anything else was unthinkable.

Ning Que didn’t think about becoming a blank test hero – that was too pretentious, as pretentious as the State Master and the Imperial Brother in the pavilion outside of the Academy. So he honestly swapped two brushes, extremely honestly cramming two exam scrolls from head to tail. As for the contents of his response, in the end it didn’t have half a relations.h.i.+p with the topic – that wasn’t within the scope of what he had considered, he was just absurdly hoping that the beautiful and tidy scroll appearance would make the Academy instructors score him with compa.s.sion and mercy.

While responding to topics, he also touched upon a small idea – because he knew that within these two sections, his sole advantage was that his handwriting was better than the people beside him by much more, so since the math section, he put all of his attention on writing. Also…….he meticulously used his own very smallest Hairpin Flower Small Script.

Using Hairpin Flower Small Script wasn’t to hide anything – alright, indeed it was to hide his gender, wanting to have instructors think the owner of this exam paper was a beautiful, stupid little Miss of an official’s family and skilled at letters, thus giving a little more unspeakable of a score.

The bell once again rung, and the literary text had concluded. Ning Que walked from the examination hall with a shortage of enthusiasm. To Sang Sang with a face full of expectancy he opened his hands, showing an innocent expression, and he prepared to accompany Chu YouXian on a special trip to hastily find a place to eat at the Academy, then to begin preparing for the martial test in the afternoon.

Regarding the three examinations of music, shooting and Imperial examination sections, Ning Que was extremely confident. So facing the Academy’s instructors and officials with an earnest gaze, to that room full of musical instruments, he didn’t hesitate to choose…..to give up.

It’s not like I’m the musician for the Red Sleeves – how would I have the skills to play these? He was annoyed thinking these d.a.m.n words, following the flow of examinees to the great gra.s.sfield outside of the Academy. Unknowingly when, tens of pairs of army steeds had been led to the gra.s.sfield, and a military officer in charge had come from the army and stood to a side, indifferently looking at the eager or perhaps pale faces of the students.

The shooting section was shooting arrows, and the Imperial section was a free choice for riding a horse or driving a horse. Of course Ning Que chose to ride a horse – in the Gra.s.slands for these few years, he always dealt with horses and arrows, and believed he wouldn’t be lacking more than anyone else.

Beside the gra.s.sfield at a distance, Sang Sang holding up the big black umbrella with her small fists cheered him on.

He smiled, and with an encouraged mindset he turned to the field and went over. 
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While the examinees who were partic.i.p.ating in the entrance exam took the last three martial tests, within a clear and bright open room in the Academy, instructors were surrounding the place reading and scoring examinations from the morning’s three sections. The vast majority of instructors were already white haired, who had gone through this scene an unknowable amount of times, and were naturally not nervous, grasping teapots and sucking on smoking pipes leisurely and relaxedly – and occasionally writing down a score in ink and occasionally lifting their heads and chatting with their colleagues. An instructor commented on the difficult of today’s exam papers saying,

“This year’s entrance exam was from Senior Brother. His temperament is gentle and naturally it wouldn’t be too hard. If it was like the last topics from Second Senior Brother, who knows if there would’ve been a bunch of crying and weeping in the exam hall today?”

“The rites section and the literary section were still fine. This math section’s question was simply giving away points – anyone would know that Master that old man is fond of wine. Half of one jug and continuously halving it into one drop, would Master still need to use his sword to chop that drop of wine into halves? Such a simple math section and there’s actually this many examinees that got it wrong. I truly don’t know how their brains work!”

An instructor curiously asked, “Even if it seems simple it’s not simple, but what I’m more worried about is, back then when Master was traveling abroad and first went to XiLing Divine Mountain, how many jugs of wine did he drink? How many catties of peach blossoms did he cut?”

Someone answered with a laugh, “That year Master drank seven big jugs of wine, and plucked all of the peach blossoms bare on XiLing Divine Mountain.”

“But it’s said that, that year the one who drank wine was Master, and the one who plucked bare the peach blossoms on XiLing was someone else, Senior Uncle who followed Master traveling. I also think that Master has a refined temperament, rather Senior Uncle’s violent temper seems more fitting.”

Mentioning the words ‘Senior Uncle’, the Instructors were a bit taciturn, and then returned to normal. Someone said smiling, “But on our Academy lawn, those peach trees were personally planted by Master. Every time those old Daoists come from XiLing’s Clear Sky Temple, the unsightlyness of their faces are even more miserable than when their mothers died – I really think Master is very bad!”

The instructors within the scoring room all had a big laugh. Making fun of the world’s most sacred XiLing shrine, for them it was a daily form of routine entertainment and the laughing seemed to be especially arrogant.

It must be said that the Academy south of ChangAn City was truly a very wondrous place.

The instructor’s laughter gradually subsided, and began to turn to scoring. “Master drank two jugs of wine, and cut the whole mountain’s peach blossoms…..is the correct answer. Before in the exam hall I noticed that an examinee called Ning Que answered the quickest, and could be regarded as top cla.s.s.”

“Top cla.s.s without objection, just that I have one question – why did that examinee answer with two (er) jugs and not two jugs of wine?”

“Perhaps that is a personal habit? Or perhaps this “two” word has something particular to it? It truly is puzzling.”

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