Yan Qingzhi sat in a rattan chair watching Li Diudiu practice with his saber. This slight young boy had grown noticeably taller since the first time they’d met — though only a month had passed, the nourishment from eating full, proper meals had made an immediate and visible difference on Li Diudiu’s body.

The more Yan Qingzhi watched this child, the more he liked him.

In Jizhou, May was already somewhat hot. Li Diudiu’s right arm still had a splint on it, yet it didn’t affect his practice of the blade techniques in the slightest — or perhaps it did affect him, but he bore it by gritting his teeth.

Having stayed at Yan Qingzhi’s place for three or four days now, Li Diudiu spent each morning helping Yan Qingzhi tend the vegetable garden, and each afternoon would practice his saber at the appointed time without fail.

Since the boxing techniques couldn’t be practiced with just one hand, he hadn’t yet begun studying the Formation-Breaking Fist.

The more Li Diudiu practiced this set of blade techniques, the more he liked it — the more he practiced, the more he felt it suited him. The style was fierce and overbearing, each strike like a thunderclap and lightning bolt.

“Rest a while.”

Yan Qingzhi passed the water flask to Li Diudiu. Li Diudiu said “Thank you, sir,” planted his carrying pole into the ground, took the flask, and drank from it in long, gurgling gulps.

“Don’t over-train.”

Yan Qingzhi said: “Diligence in martial practice is naturally important, but you’re still young. If you overwork yourself in training you’ll injure your own body. Haste makes waste, and what is too forceful easily breaks.”

Li Diudiu made a sound of acknowledgment and said: “Understood, sir.”

Yan Qingzhi said: “If there’s anything you’re unclear about, just ask.”

Li Diudiu said: “The thing I’m most unclear about right now is what we’re eating for dinner.”

Yan Qingzhi felt a wave of dizziness rush straight to his head. The Four-Page Academy had given its farming holiday, and the large dining hall where the students ate had closed along with it — but the small dining hall for the instructors was still open.

Now every time Yan Qingzhi went to the dining hall to collect food, the people there looked at him with strange expressions.

When he ate, a normal bowl of rice was plenty. When Li Diudiu ate, he needed a normal basin — a full basin of rice — and on top of that he could still eat so many side dishes. It was a mystery what his stomach was made of.

Even Yan Qingzhi, sitting across from him at meals, had begun to wonder whether he himself should be the child — he ate from a bowl while Li Diudiu ate from a basin, and the sheer quantity of white rice alone was no small amount.

Perhaps it was precisely because Li Diudiu ate so much that he had grown noticeably taller and considerably stronger in just one month.

“What to eat…”

Yan Qingzhi said: “When I go to the dining hall now and tell them you’re recuperating here at my place, none of them believe me. They all think I must be secretly raising a pig.”

Li Diudiu said: “Let them think what they want… Besides, even if sir had raised one pig, it couldn’t eat as much as you bring back.”

Yan Qingzhi said: “That’s why they suspect I’m raising a whole litter.”

Li Diudiu: “…”

Yan Qingzhi smiled and said: “Tell me — when your master was raising you, how did you survive?”

Li Diudiu said: “I’m starting to find that a bit strange myself…”

The mention of his master prompted Li Diudiu to ask: “Sir went to see my master again yesterday — has he found himself a house yet?”

Yan Qingzhi said: “Not yet. I had him move to a different inn before — the conditions are slightly better than where he was staying before, but he refuses to stay anywhere that costs more money, so what he spends each day is still the same. It’s just that because it’s a bit more out of the way, the conditions are somewhat better. He says there’s no rushing finding a house — you can’t just want to buy one and immediately find one.”

Li Diudiu nodded and said: “As long as master is alright, the house can wait.”

Yan Qingzhi said: “Your master asked why you haven’t gone to visit him at all. I told him a small lie — that you scored very well on the monthly examinations, the dean was pleased, and so arranged for you to be responsible for cleaning the Book Forest Tower every day. You have to clean it daily, but you can read freely, so you haven’t had the time.”

Li Diudiu asked: “What did my master say?”

Yan Qingzhi said: “Your master told me to make sure you weren’t going hungry. He was worried you’d eat all the books.”

Li Diudiu: “The ancients say there are golden houses in books, and beautiful maidens in books — but they never said there were chickens, ducks, fish, and braised pork knuckles in books.”

Yan Qingzhi laughed and said: “Rest a bit, then wash your face — come with me to the Book Forest Tower in a while. I can see that besides your fondness for martial arts, you also have a great interest in military strategy and battle formations. But those books are restricted — the court doesn’t permit commoners to study them freely, and even within the academy there are only one or two volumes.”

Li Diudiu’s eyes lit up immediately: “Thank you, sir.”

“Why are you interested in those things?”

“Because Xiahou Zuo says he wants to enlist in the northern frontier army next year. He also said the border troops are the real soldiers. My master won’t let me enlist, but I’ve been wanting to go… If I learn more now, it’ll be useful if I ever do go to the northern frontier.”

Yan Qingzhi shook his head: “You think too much. Even if your master agreed to let you enlist in the northern frontier army, do you really think someone of your background could accomplish anything? Even if you had a belly full of military strategy, you’d only ever be a foot soldier.”

Yan Qingzhi had long since lost all faith in Dachu.

He continued: “Someone like you — even if you went to the northern frontier and distinguished yourself in battle, that merit would never fall to your name in the end. Countless people would be thinking of ways to claim it for themselves.”

Li Diudiu was startled. These were things he had never even considered.

Yan Qingzhi said: “If it weren’t for the countless fine men in this world willing to guard this heartland of ours, to protect the common people, to be the backbone of our people — given how thoroughly rotten the court has become, our borders would have been thrown wide open long ago.”

He shook his head: “Let’s not talk about this anymore.”

He rose and said: “I’ll go get some water for you.”

Li Diudiu sat there in a daze after hearing these words, his mind churning through many, many things. In particular, Yan Qingzhi’s words about how if it weren’t for the countless fine men willing to guard this heartland had struck him deeply.

Those soldiers — what they were guarding was their home. Their dignity.

Lost in thought, he didn’t even hear Yan Qingzhi say he was going to fetch water — if he had, he would have immediately stood up to say he’d go himself.

He remained lost in thought for quite a while, and only came back to himself when Yan Qingzhi returned with water and called his name. Looking at Yan Qingzhi, he couldn’t help but ask:

“Sir — those soldiers… yet they are called commoner rabble by certain people.”

He was naturally referring to those great figures who sat in positions of power in the Dachu court. When had any of them ever looked upon the border troops with any respect? In their eyes, those border soldiers were coarse and crude — people beneath people.

Yan Qingzhi said: “They are no rabble. They are great men — true men of greatness.”

Li Diudiu nodded hard: “Yes!”

Without them standing guard at the frontier, how would those great lords have their fine silks and flowing wine?

Half an hour later, at the Book Forest Tower.

Yan Qingzhi was chatting with the instructor on duty in the Book Forest Tower while Li Diudiu sat in a window seat, poring over the two volumes of military texts. To call them military texts was generous — they were really just collections of historical anecdotes, with some battle examples mentioned only briefly.

Even so, the court strictly censored such books, and the fact that the academy had two volumes at all was already quite remarkable.

Li Diudiu read with complete absorption. To others, the characters were merely characters — at most they told a story. To Li Diudiu, those characters coalesced into images, moving ones, not static.

As he read the words, scenes of iron-clad cavalry clashing in battle would appear in his mind. He had never truly witnessed actual battle, so the images in his mind weren’t bloody — yet the battle examples were vivid and clear to him.

He didn’t just look at the people involved. He looked at the terrain, the weather, everything else. What the text left unstated between the lines, he would construct for himself.

And so, examples that others found unbelievable — victories of the few against the many — became comprehensible to him after being run through his mind again and again.

He read until he lost track of time, even forgetting to eat.

If Yan Qingzhi hadn’t come over and called his name, he wouldn’t have noticed that the sky had grown completely dark and the Book Forest Tower instructors were heading off to rest.

Yan Qingzhi smiled: “You’ve missed dinner. Let’s see what you do now.”

Li Diudiu grinned and pointed to his own head: “This kept eating the whole time — and it ate well.”

The moment he finished saying this, his stomach let out a loud rumble. He scratched his head sheepishly: “But it doesn’t fill the stomach.”

Yan Qingzhi said: “The dining hall is empty by now. I suppose we’ll go hungry together tonight. Next time your stomach growls, just endure it — what’s so hard about that?”

He had noticed how exceptionally absorbed Li Diudiu was in his reading — completely in another world, impervious to outside disturbance — so he hadn’t bothered interrupting him, leaving him to be immersed in it.

Li Diudiu said: “How about we just pull all the seedlings from the garden and boil them for dinner?”

Yan Qingzhi said: “The vegetables and I stand as one. The vegetables are destroyed, you perish.”

Li Diudiu: “…”

Yan Qingzhi glanced at him and lowered his voice: “I’m going to take you to pay our respects to Instructor Xue now. Be sincere — don’t be perfunctory. The man let you read until now; it was already going beyond the rules for him to do so.”

Li Diudiu nodded: “Your student understands.”

Yan Qingzhi said: “You’re not a child who doesn’t know gratitude, but there are some things I still need to say to you… All the kindness that others show you — you must never respond with perfunctory thanks, let alone take it for granted and not thank them at all, even for the smallest kindness.”

“If someone helps you and you respond with a dismissive attitude, that person will eventually not even bother with the dismissive treatment — what’s left is only contempt.”

Li Diudiu said: “Your student will remember this.”

Yan Qingzhi took him to pay respects to the Book Forest Tower instructor. Li Diudiu bowed solemnly, and after exchanging a few words, teacher and student left the Book Forest Tower side by side. Yan Qingzhi had walked a few steps when his own stomach let out a rumble — which was somewhat embarrassing.

Li Diudiu lowered his voice: “Sir, the dining hall is sure to have some dried and preserved soup noodles stored away. How about…”

Yan Qingzhi said: “Nonsense! Wouldn’t that be stealing?”

He glared at Li Diudiu: “I am an instructor of this academy. How could I engage in theft… However, you’re still young — occasional youthful transgressions are not unforgivable. If you go and steal something, I’ll give you a good scolding, you’ll come to your senses and repent, and all will be well.”

Li Diudiu: “…”

Half an hour later, in Yan Qingzhi’s small courtyard, Li Diudiu looked at the soup noodles boiling in the washbasin and smiled — and with that smile, despite himself, a bit of drool escaped.

Yan Qingzhi gave him a withering look: “Disgraceful.”

He pointed to the braised meats arranged on the table: “I only sent you to fetch some noodles. How did you come back with so much meat as well?”

Li Diudiu said earnestly: “Sir, I was afraid my repentance wouldn’t be vigorous enough, so…”

Yan Qingzhi said: “Never again.”

Li Diudiu said with a sound of acknowledgment: “Definitely never again.”

Yan Qingzhi sighed, looked at the braised meats, and said with an expression of some distress: “My half-lifetime of clean reputation… ruined because you didn’t even think to bring back some garlic.”

Li Diudiu: “…”

The next morning, Yan Qingzhi brought Li Diudiu and waited at the dining hall entrance. The night before had been full of jokes, but right and wrong must be made clear — this was what Changmei Daoren had taught Li Diudiu, and what Yan Qingzhi had taught him as well.

Teacher and student explained everything to the dining hall staff and apologized sincerely.

The dining hall workers didn’t think it was any great matter — but they found it genuinely pleasant that Yan Qingzhi and Li Diudiu had come to say something about it.

—