Yan Qingzhi, the instructor at Siye Academy, repeated coldly, “Because you’re poor.”
After a moment he added, “Any other questions?”
Li Diudiu felt something choke in his chest, but he shook his head. “No, that’s reasonable.”
Yan Qingzhi’s brow furrowed slightly—the way Li Diudiu said “reasonable” sounded almost like mockery.
“I can make it even more reasonable.”
Yan Qingzhi stepped forward, standing over Li Diudiu, looking down at him. “You’ll clean it twice a day.”
Li Diudiu said, “Does that pay?”
Yan Qingzhi’s frown deepened. “Do you understand that everyone’s uniform and books have to be paid for out of pocket? Your cleaning the classroom counts as paying off that debt. If you clean it twice a day, I’ll credit you as paying it off nearly twice as fast.”
The other three children were all watching Li Diudiu, thinking he was quite unlucky to be humiliated by the instructor on his very first day. All three of them came from good families, and naturally they had no idea how difficult three taels of silver could be for a poor family.
So the three of them, watching Li Diudiu, felt no sympathy at all—if anything, they found it entertaining.
Hearing Yan Qingzhi’s words, Li Diudiu actually laughed, without a trace of embarrassment.
He said, “Sir, that makes it even more reasonable.”
Something shifted in Yan Qingzhi’s eyes—he seemed to find Li Diudiu even more distasteful now. He turned and walked off, saying as he went, “Regular classes begin tomorrow. Be late once, and you’ll stand outside for two hours as punishment. Be late three times, and you’re expelled. The same goes for breaking any other rule of the academy.”
Zhang Xiaolin had been beaten by Li Diudiu, and his nose was still swollen. Naturally he was delighted to see Li Diudiu humiliated by the instructor, so he walked over smiling and said, “So what if you can fight? You couldn’t even scrape together three taels of silver. Want me to lend it to you? Call me ‘master’ once, and I’ll give you three taels.”
Li Diudiu shrugged and ignored him.
Standing nearby, Zhou Huaili couldn’t bear to watch anymore. He came over and pulled at Li Diudiu. “Let’s go.”
Li Diudiu nodded. “Yes.”
Zhou Huaili said, “There’s a wooden tag on the uniform I gave you—it’s your housing number. Most students don’t actually live at the academy. Even with meals and lodging provided, they still go home, since home is more comfortable after all…”
He glanced at Li Diudiu, paused, then continued, “Don’t feel like you’ve been wronged. In the future…”
Before he could finish, Li Diudiu suddenly stopped him. “Mr. Zhou.”
“Hm?”
“Here, take this.”
Li Diudiu pulled out the money pouch and handed it back to Zhou Huaili. “The academy is having me clean the classroom to pay off the uniform and book fees, so this works out fine—I won’t need this silver after all. Take it back.”
Zhou Huaili froze, looking down at the boy. There was still a bit of a roguish look on Li Diudiu’s clean little face, but looking into his eyes, Zhou Huaili suddenly felt a wave of soreness and ache in his chest. This child—his neck was so dark, but his face was scrubbed clean, and his eyes were cleaner still.
“Keep it. It’s a gift, no need to pay it back. In case you ever need money for something, at least you won’t be completely empty-handed.”
“No need.”
Li Diudiu held the pouch out with both hands. “Meals and lodging are provided—I won’t need to spend money. And I can earn my own anyway.”
Zhou Huaili really didn’t want to take the pouch back, but in this eleven-year-old boy’s eyes he saw two words.
Self-respect.
“All right, then I’ll take it back.”
Zhou Huaili took the pouch. He reached to pat Li Diudiu’s shoulder, but the boy had already stepped forward. “Mr. Zhou, I’d guess you gave the Dengque Terrace piece to Headmaster Gao, didn’t you?”
Something stirred in Zhou Huaili’s chest again. This child…
“Thank you, Mr. Zhou. I’m sorry, Mr. Zhou.”
Li Diudiu stopped, turned, and bowed to Zhou Huaili.
Zhou Huaili asked, “Why are you apologizing?”
Li Diudiu smiled apologetically. “Because at first I thought you weren’t a good…” He hesitated slightly on the word “good.”
Zhou Huaili noticed the pause—as if the boy had swapped “thing” for “person” at the last moment.
“Child, in this world there aren’t so many good people or bad people. Most people are just ordinary.”
“Aren’t ordinary people good or bad either?”
“No.”
Zhou Huaili was quiet for a moment, shaking his head as if a little lost. “Ordinary people are all somewhere between good and bad—sometimes leaning one way, sometimes the other.”
Li Diudiu was silent for a moment, then broke into a smile. “Mr. Zhou is a good person.”
“I thought you’d say I was a good thing.”
Zhou Huaili patted Li Diudiu’s shoulder again. “That’s enough for today—I need to head home. Find your own place; I’ve already asked around for you, and your bedding and books will be waiting there. Don’t be late for morning class tomorrow.”
“Understood.”
Li Diudiu bowed once more. “Safe travels, sir.”
Zhou Huaili walked a few steps, then turned back with a smile. “Back when I gave away that Dengque Terrace piece, it hurt to part with it. Do you know why people feel a pang of loss when they give something away?”
Li Diudiu thought about it but didn’t dare answer—wasn’t it only natural to feel a pang when giving something to someone else?
Seeing the confusion on his face, Zhou Huaili smiled and explained. “At first it hurt because I felt you weren’t worth being compared to a piece by Master Songming—trading a genuine work of Songming’s for your admission into the academy felt like a terrible loss. But now it doesn’t hurt anymore. Li Chi… your worth will one day exceed that Dengque Terrace piece by far. Understand?”
Li Diudiu thought it over carefully, then bowed. “I understand.”
Zhou Huaili turned to leave, but Li Diudiu suddenly thought of something and couldn’t help asking, “Mr. Zhou, what would you say a person’s worth is measured by? Silver?”
For such a young child to ask a question like that, Zhou Huaili was momentarily stunned. It was a big question indeed—not that he couldn’t answer it, but the answer really wasn’t fit for a child’s ears, because it wasn’t a pretty one.
Children needed fairy tales to tell them what was true, good, and beautiful, right and wrong—good and evil clearly divided, black and white clearly drawn. Fairy tales had no room for gray.
“How should I put it…”
Zhou Huaili turned back to face Li Diudiu and said seriously, “The worth you’re talking about is relative. Take you and me, for instance—right now, your worth to me far exceeds that Dengque Terrace piece. If we’re really going to talk about worth in terms of silver, since that’s the most direct way—in this life a person meets many, many people, and the worth of each one to you can be measured, crudely, by how much you’d be willing to lend them.”
“Say you have three taels of silver, and a friend asks to borrow one tael. If you hesitate and don’t want to lend it, that person’s worth to you is less than one tael. If someone asks to borrow one tael and you ask if that’s enough and give them two, that’s someone who matters a great deal to you. If someone asks to borrow one tael and you give them all three, that’s a true friend.”
Zhou Huaili paused, watching Li Diudiu, and went on. “And if someone asks to borrow money and you don’t have a single tael to your name, but you rack your brains trying every way to help them anyway—that’s a brother, true kin. Li Diudiu, this answer isn’t really meant for someone your age, but I believe you can understand it, because you have a good master. You should know his worth.”
He walked over to Li Diudiu, crouched down, and said with a smile, “Don’t waste your energy on people who don’t matter to you. In life you’ll meet many people worth nothing at all, and you’ll meet people beyond price. You already have one person beyond price in your life—you’re already richer than most people.”
Li Diudiu nodded. “There used to be one. Now there’s one and a half.”
Zhou Huaili laughed, curious. “Am I the half?”
Li Diudiu nodded again. “Yes—we’re still… not that close yet, after all.”
Zhou Huaili laughed heartily and rubbed Li Diudiu’s head, suddenly understanding why Changmei Daoren liked rubbing this little head so much. It really was satisfying to rub—it felt wonderful.
“Thank you.”
Zhou Huaili patted Li Diudiu’s shoulder once more and turned to go. He walked a few steps, then came back and rubbed Li Diudiu’s head again, and again—it felt so good, truly wonderful.
Li Diudiu stood there watching Zhou Huaili leave, shaking his hair and thinking—was it because his hair was nice? Master liked to rub it, and now Mr. Zhou liked to rub it too…
Zhou Huaili, already far off, turned around and, from a distance, mimed the motion of rubbing a head, calling out to Li Diudiu, “That means I like you!”
Li Diudiu nodded, thinking, so that’s what it meant.
So he raised his own hand and rubbed his own head. I like myself too.
He didn’t bother asking anyone where he was supposed to live. Holding his uniform and the wooden tag, he searched row after row of houses for the matching number, and it didn’t take him long to find his place.
The moment he stepped through the door, he had the faint, prickling sense that someone was watching him from behind. He spun around quickly, but there was no one there.
In the distance, Gao Xining ducked behind a large tree, not entirely sure why her heart was suddenly racing, as if she’d been caught doing something wrong.
She really was curious about this boy named Li Chi—shorter than her, so poor he couldn’t even afford his own uniform and books, and yet he still wanted to study at Siye Academy. What interested her most was that she’d overheard the conversation between Li Diudiu and Zhou Huaili, which only made her more curious.
When the instructor Yan Qingzhi had said those things to Li Diudiu, Gao Xining had almost rushed out to argue with him. Just as she was about to burst out, someone had grabbed her—and that was when she discovered her grandfather had been watching in secret too.
Li Diudiu never noticed anyone following him. He pushed the door open and stepped inside; the room was simply furnished—a table, a chair, a bed, a bookshelf, a washstand, a flower stand, a small wooden basin, a small wooden bucket, a large wooden tub, and nothing else.
But Li Diudiu had never lived in such a nice place before. The moment he stepped inside, he couldn’t help but take a deep breath—the scent of the wooden table, the scent of the books, the scent of the brand-new bedding.
He really wanted to just fling himself onto that wonderful-looking bed, but he was afraid his dirty clothes would soil the bedding, so he set his uniform down and took the wooden basin to fetch water instead.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a proper bath. He hauled bucket after bucket of water, filling the large wooden tub half full, closed the door, and eagerly climbed in, splashing water everywhere.
It was cold water, but he found it wonderful.
Master hadn’t had a proper bath in a long, long time either. Though Master had said he was headed to Wuwei Temple, a very famous, very large temple in Jizhou city, where the abbot was an old friend of his—surely he’d be having a bath right about now too.
Wuwei Temple.
Changmei Daoren bowed to the Daoist who opened the door and said, “My Daoist name is Changmei. I once had ties with your abbot and have come specially to seek refuge—might I ask whether I may be admitted to the temple to see him?”
The middle-aged Daoist looked him up and down, frowning at his ragged, tattered robes.
“Where’d some wild Daoist like you come from? You want to register your name here?”
“Yes, yes, yes,” Changmei Daoren said quickly. “If you could just announce me to your fellow Daoist brother, I’d be grateful.”
The middle-aged Daoist held out his hand. “Hand it over.”
“What?”
Changmei asked.
The middle-aged Daoist’s eyes went round. “Money, of course! No money, how do you expect to register at Wuwei Temple? No money, you think you’re getting through the door?”
Changmei: “I… I have no money. I only wish to see the abbot.”
“Get lost!”
The middle-aged Daoist turned and shut the door. “Get far away from here.”
…
…