Helping Cheng Chumo sit down and lifting his trouser leg for a look, Yun Ye gasped. The trouser leg had a large tear, and inside, the flesh was rolled back. The wound gaped open like a baby’s small mouth. Yun Ye grew anxious and slapped Cheng Chumo on the back with one palm. Bastard! Couldn’t take any provocation at all—someone said a few words and he took them seriously. By the looks of it, he failed to climb over the wall and was pierced by the iron spikes above. If just anyone could climb over walls built by the Gongshu clan, Master Luban’s reputation would have been completely ruined long ago.
Having no medicine on hand, Yun Ye asked Uncle Jiang for his wine gourd and used the alcohol to clean the wound. One patient who nearly got tetanus was already lying at home—if another one lay down, Yun Ye would go mad with rage.
He kicked the guard’s backside: “Still not opening the door? Waiting for me to open it myself?”
The guard quickly walked inside along the maze’s correct path. The old soldiers supported Cheng Chumo. This bastard’s leg kept bleeding, yet his eyes were still darting around memorizing the route, thinking next time he could find his way in.
“Stop memorizing—it’s useless. Several walls can move. The path you take this time will change next time. Pressing down on your wound is what matters.”
Because Yun Ye had easily broken through the formation last time, the Gongshu clan felt they’d lost face. Old Gongshu became determined and paid out of his own pocket to build several more walls that could actually move. This greatly astonished Yun Ye. Primitive civil engineering could actually achieve this level—truly surprising. Yun Ye asked Old Gongshu for the blueprints, preparing to study them. Who knew Old Gongshu would point at Master Luban’s memorial tablet, wanting Yun Ye to take the ancestor as his teacher, after which the Gongshu family’s blueprints could be viewed by Yun Ye to his heart’s content.
Without even thinking, Yun Ye refused. He already had a fabricated teacher—how could he be willing to take someone else as master? Even Master Luban wouldn’t do. People would point at his spine. Could a bastard who betrayed his teacher and ancestors still expect to get by in Chang’an?
Old Gongshu wouldn’t let Yun Ye see the blueprints, so Yun Ye changed the Academy’s entry password. The original side-by-side poetry arrangement was changed by him into a nine-square grid, installed on the spirit wall under the name of the River Chart and Luo Book. Actually, it was just the principle of his home’s anti-theft door lock—one main shaft controlling nine bolts. As long as you aligned one correct number, one door bolt would loosen. Until all nine were aligned correctly, all the door bolts would drop down and the door would open.
To prevent one through nine from being too straightforward, Yun Ye made changes. Each number from one to nine was increased threefold, becoming three, six, nine, twelve up to the maximum of twenty-seven. The sum value also changed from fifteen to forty-five.
Only when horizontal, vertical, and diagonal lines all added up to forty-five could the spirit wall open. Different soup but same medicine, but the reputation of the River Chart and Luo Book was too great. Legend had it that during Fuxi’s time, a dragon-turtle crawled out of the river and presented it to Fuxi—extremely mystical and profound, considered the essence of River-Luo culture. In ancient times, it was even more mythologized. Yun Ye believed legends were unreliable. Especially after witnessing so many legends, he completely disbelieved things could be so magical. He’d rather believe this was Fuxi, with nothing better to do, filling numbers into the squares on a turtle’s back as a game, accidentally discovering a mathematical pattern.
Now it was perfect. The Academy’s main gate became a place where Yun Ye and the Gongshu clan competed. Yun Ye had no way to solve the Gongshu clan’s maze—this thing simply couldn’t be solved. Who could find the correct path in a place that could randomly move? The Gongshu clan drooled over the strange numbers Yun Ye set without any clue. Li Gang, fed up, led all the Academy’s teachers and students to make a judgment—the two fought to a draw. However, the Academy’s walls couldn’t be moved without Li Gang’s order, and the spirit wall also didn’t need to be closed. Once closed, no one could open it. The Academy’s teachers and students couldn’t always use the side door, could they?
To make things difficult for Cheng Chumo, Li Tai specifically closed the door, only hanging one bolt—the central number fifteen that he knew, deliberately watching Cheng Chumo’s joke. Reaching the spirit wall, the guards consciously turned their heads away. Only Cheng Chumo stared with ignorant eyes carefully watching Yun Ye’s movements. Yun Ye moved quickly. Discovering only one scrambled code was fifteen, he slid the number fifteen along the groove to the middle. Hearing a sound, the spirit wall’s door loosened. He had the Academy guards use all their strength to push the door open. He wasn’t willing to find trouble for himself by pushing the door too. Sure enough, the door-pushing movement pulled on ox tendons. The door had just opened when a white object whistled toward the guards.
The guards had seen this before. Ducking down, the white object flew over their heads with a thud, hitting the outer wall. Smoke filled the air—slaked lime. Li Tai never had anything good. Fortunately it wasn’t quicklime. If it were that thing, there would be trouble.
The old soldiers broke out in cold sweat. Today’s events were something they’d never encountered in years of warfare. Thinking of those winding small alleys densely covered with shooting holes above—if someone wanted to attack the Academy, who knew how many people would die in these small alleys? Thinking again of what the Marquis said about walls moving, their scalps tingled. If what came out when opening the door wasn’t lime packets but dense arrows, how could the door-opener have any life left?
Seeing the old soldiers’ unease, Yun Ye said: “Making this thing is actually useless—it’s just a contest of learning. If attacking the Academy, only fools would attack from the main gate. Randomly choosing any place, it would be very easy to break through. Unless the Academy was rich enough to build all walls like this.”
Only then did the old soldiers understand. Right—no matter how solid your defense line, there’s always somewhere you can’t protect. Just attack from a different place. Being old men yet still making mistakes only greenhorns would make.
Yun Ye forcefully hung all nine door bolts and said to the Academy guards: “When the Prince returns later, tell him his assignment today is to solve the River Chart and Luo Book. Otherwise, I’ll give him a zero egg for his midterm exam.”
Cheng Chumo laughed out loud with a snort. His great revenge avenged naturally made his mood soar. The Academy guards wore sympathetic faces as they circled from the side door back to the main gate, waiting for Li Tai to return so they could tell him this nightmare.
Just after finishing sewing up Cheng Chumo’s wound, he couldn’t wait to go to the Academy entrance to watch Li Tai make a fool of himself. He couldn’t be stopped.
Standing on the second-floor balcony, at this time the Academy had no idle people wandering about. Several gardeners were pruning the elm saplings Gongshu Mu had planted. Spring had arrived, and these small trees that couldn’t produce elm seeds showed green color. Brown buds emerged one by one. To make them develop horizontally rather than grow tall, gardeners would remove their crowns. This way, the maze formed in the future could trap people. Who knew what Gongshu Mu meant? Could it be he planned to transform the Academy into a city of mechanisms? This possibility was very high. The old fellow had been obsessed with this for quite some time.
The Academy had a bronze bell—Huang Shu had somehow obtained it from somewhere. Full of ancient charm, covered in green patina, when struck it produced melodious sounds. The sound waves carried extremely far, and Li Gang used it for timekeeping at the Academy. Every half hour, a servant specifically designated for timekeeping would strike the bronze bell. Zhao Yanling, who loved music, even composed a short tune—quite beautiful.
Old Li Gang emerged from the classroom, grasping his teapot in hand. Old Li never let go of this thing now—it was his beloved object. Fire Zhu followed closely behind, holding the old gentleman’s teaching aids, walking toward the office building.
Yun Ye stood before the building to greet Li Gang. Before Li Gang approached, he stepped forward to pay respects: “Teacher Li, you’ve worked hard. This junior greets you, sir.”
Old Li looked Yun Ye up and down several times and said with a smile: “Not hard work. Rather, you’ve suffered. Good that you’re back, good that you’re back.”
Meeting with just a smile, all suffering turned to dust and smoke in this one smile.
“Was it worth flying into a rage for a courtesan?” Master Yushan had somehow already appeared behind Yun Ye asking this question.
“I didn’t do it for one woman. I only did it for justice in this world. With virtuous predecessors who sacrificed their lives for righteousness as jewels and jade before me, I couldn’t shrink back.”
“Do you regret it? I’ve heard about your family’s affairs. Facing the enemy’s revenge, do you regret it?” Master Yushan pressed on.
“Regret? How could I not regret? If anything happened to anyone in my family, I would regret it bitterly.”
Li Gang, who had already been on the edge of being moved, nearly tore off his beard hearing Yun Ye say this.
“If you encounter this kind of situation again, will you still act?”
“This kind of thing is very hard for me to tolerate. I estimate I’ll still act—just regret it afterward.”
“Boy, Confucius spoke of benevolence, Mencius spoke of righteousness. How can you, as a teacher and role model, be so indecisive?”
In the time of these few sentences, a whole crowd of teachers gathered around him. Some were filled with righteous indignation, some were angry at his failure to meet expectations, some wept that conscience was no more. The most exaggerated was Master Jin Zhu, beating his chest and stamping his feet saying: “I had taken your actions as an exemplar of redressing grievances for the people, not fearing the powerful. Who knew such a righteously awe-inspiring deed, which you performed so perfectly, you now actually regret? How can I explain this to those students?”
Yun Ye was pushed and shoved by them like a leaf in autumn wind. If not for them being a group of refined scholars, Yun Ye thought that getting through today unscathed would probably be somewhat difficult.
He shouted loudly: “Quiet! What does doing things have to do with regret? Next time there’s this kind of situation, I’ll still do it, then still regret it. These are two different things. Regretting is regretting, doing things is doing things—they can’t be confused as one.”
Among the gentlemen, only Master Yuanzhang nodded, saying to everyone: “Courage needs to be accumulated. Sometimes courage is also the incarnation of anger. We can’t demand that every person possesses fearless courage. I only hope the disciples we teach aren’t cowardly folk—that’s enough. All of you are overdoing it.”
Seeing that this matter couldn’t be sorted out in a short time, everyone agreed on a time to discuss it again. At that time, all teachers and students would participate, letting the truth about courage and integrity be revealed to the world.
Gongshu Mu came looking for Yun Ye in exasperation. His foolish disciple Li Tai was still trapped in the maze, unable to solve the River Chart and Luo Book. He sent guards to ask his teacher for help, but who knew Old Gongshu also couldn’t solve it? Master and disciple tried all the possibilities they knew, yet the spirit wall remained motionless.
Old Gongshu’s protective temper flared up. He hurried over to settle accounts with Yun Ye, wanting to properly discuss with him the issue of the big bullying the small. His foolish disciple was still wailing and crying by the spirit wall.
Li Tai feared nothing except Yun Ye giving him a zero egg. He’d seen that thing—it weighed a full jin. Getting that thing meant wearing it until the next exam. Only when new results came out would that thing be passed to someone else who got a zero egg.
Always being heaven’s favored son, how could Li Tai endure such humiliation? Yet he couldn’t solve the problem Yun Ye posed. This kind of thing was useless even seeking Father Emperor for mercy—it might even bring more severe punishment.