Chapter 132: Student Cui Chan
At dawn, a horse-drawn carriage stopped outside the Yuan family's old residence. The tall young man Yu Lu and the dark-skinned girl Xie Xie each carried bundles and waited by the carriage. Young Cui Chan walked out of the house yawning, wearing an ivory-white robe of fine quality and exquisite craftsmanship. Behind him followed a boy with delicate features like porcelain, reluctant to part.
Yu Lu couldn't help asking, "Young master, where are we going?"
Cui Chan said lazily, "Taking you on a long journey to study. We'll go visit the Great Sui. The two of you were originally students of Shanya Academy."
Yu Lu and Xie Xie, remnants and convicts of the Lu Dynasty, looked at each other in bewilderment.
The coachman was a major spy from Great Li stationed in Longquan County. He sat motionless on the driver's seat, eyes looking at his nose and nose at his heart. Cui Chan climbed into the carriage, bent over to lift the curtain, then suddenly turned his head and said, "Go call Wang Yifu to be the coachman. You stay in the county and keep watch on the activities in both Qilong Alley and Xinghua Alley."
The spy nodded, got off the carriage without a word, and left.
About the time it takes to finish a cup of tea, a tall man strode over. The tall young man looked straight ahead with a calm expression, while the girl's eyes were cold, as if she didn't like this man named Wang Yifu.
Wang Yifu was the man ordered to personally twist off Song Yuzhang's head. In the past, he was a fierce general on the battlefield of the Lu Dynasty. He neither became a prisoner of Great Li nor a guest of honor in the new dynasty, nor did he regain military power. Instead, he became a lackey of that Empress. After she was "banished" to Changchun Palace to build a thatched hut and cultivate the Dao, Wang Yifu's master changed from the Great Li Empress to the young National Teacher before him.
Because they were traveling on the post road official highway, the carriage was large enough to accommodate three people. Yet Cui Chan still made the young man and girl sit outside, while he monopolized the spacious carriage alone. Soon, the sound of reading aloud came from inside the carriage. The dignified National Teacher of Great Li, a Go master renowned across the continent, recited these elementary texts every day—truly laughable.
The carriage drove out of the small town from the east gate. Cui Chan lifted the curtain and glanced at the newly built county government office near the east gate. It was not yet fully completed, only a rough framework. Under the supervision of government clerks, the town's able-bodied men were already busy, raising dust all around the east gate. Cui Chan's eyes darkened as he let the curtain fall.
After leaving the town and traveling along the post road for about an hour, Cui Chan told Wang Yifu to stop. He walked alone to a small hillside, where the "gentleman" of Guanhu Academy, Cui Minghuang, had been waiting for a long time. Seeing this ancestor who had been driven out of the family, he bowed respectfully with clasped hands.
Cui Chan stood at the top of the hill, looking back at the town. Unfortunately, his realm had fallen greatly and his cultivation was low. Even with all his visual power, he could not see the scenery over there. "Regarding the enshrinement of Piyun Mountain as the Northern Sacred Mountain of Great Li, we still need to build consensus. It will be difficult to succeed anytime soon. But building a new academy on Piyun Mountain is imperative, and within half a year at most, there will be results. Rest assured, you took such a great risk this time, almost losing your life. I will not burn the bridge after crossing it. A position as vice head of the academy is guaranteed. After that, Great Li will certainly pour all its national strength into making this new academy more worthy of being one of the seventy-two Confucian academies than Shanya Academy."
Cui Minghuang breathed a sigh of relief, his eyes firm, and promised, "I will never disappoint the old ancestor!"
Cui Chan did not comment on this, continuing his own words. "I will leave that porcelain boy to you. When the time comes, place him in the new academy. Barring unforeseen circumstances, his cultivation will go very smoothly. He might enter the Middle Five Realms at an alarming speed. Be mentally prepared, but it's best to keep him hidden and not let him surface too early. I carefully selected those broken porcelain pieces from the Porcelain Mountain and painstakingly pieced together this porcelain person with a complete soul and spirit. For this boy to go from a pile of broken shards to his current vivid, human-like state—this is both the condensation of my lifelong efforts and largely a matter of luck. So you must pay close attention. To put it inauspiciously, this is already akin to entrusting an orphan to you."
Cui Minghuang's heart surged, and he bowed with fists, saying, "Old ancestor, rest assured. I, Cui Minghuang, will treat him as my own!"
Cui Chan looked somewhat weary. "In this town, besides the vassal king Song Changjing, you can command the other two groups of spies and death warriors as you wish. I've already informed them for you. Also, when you have time, talk more with Old Man Yang at Yang's Shop. That undying old codger is the fairest in his dealings, never discussing good or bad, righteous or evil, enemy or friend. Try to get him to agree to do business with you."
"As for Ruan Qiong, I advise you not to seek him out and bring trouble upon yourself. The four great surnames and ten major clans of Fulu Street and Taoye Alley are now scattered and disheartened. Pay more attention to the Li family—specifically, the Li family where Li Xisheng resides. As for that second young master Li Baozhen, whose ambition soared higher than the heavens, now that his backing has collapsed, although he hasn't been reduced to his original state overnight, he has indeed tasted the treacherous clouds and strange currents of our Great Li capital. Between these two brothers, you can choose either one, but you can only pick one."
"As for Wu Yuan, handle it as you see fit. Stick to the matter at hand, but don't open your heart to him."
As Cui Chan spoke in the end, despite his youthful, handsome appearance like a green onion, he gave Cui Minghuang the illusion of a decrepit old man for whom all matters had ended.
Cui Minghuang tentatively asked, "Could it be that the student Wu Yuan is...?"
Cui Chan shrugged his shoulders and walked down the hill, nodding weakly. "He is the Empress's man. She likes to pick this type of person—poor background, but intelligent, ambitious, able to endure, yet each has a fatal flaw that makes them easy for her to control."
Cui Minghuang suddenly understood. "No wonder. That time you revealed heavenly secrets in the Yuan ancestral house, I always felt something was off. I only figured it out later—it was because Wu Yuan was present."
Cui Chan sighed, not hiding the truth, and spoke openly. "At that time in the Yuan ancestral house, I gave him a chance. Before that, for trivial matters as small as sesame seeds and mung beans, he passed on all the information. I didn't bother to argue. But if after leaving the house he had chosen to leak that matter to the Empress, then he would have died. A disciple betraying his master—a teacher beating a student to death is perfectly justified, isn't it?"
Cui Minghuang was silent.
Cui Chan patted this younger generation member on the shoulder. "I have high hopes for you. Otherwise, I wouldn't have told you all this."
Cui Minghuang smiled bitterly. "I am filled with awe and trepidation."
"Alright, you don't need to see me off any further."
Cui Chan quickened his pace down the hill. After taking a dozen steps, he turned and smiled. "You and I are both smart people. You must be thinking that since I could set such a trap for Wu Yuan, I certainly won't let you off. In fact... you guessed right. That's exactly the case. But where the trap is, and on which day you need to make a life-or-death choice, you have to figure out yourself."
Cui Minghuang was not panicked, nor did he feel wronged or innocent. Instead, he was full of fighting spirit. "I've more or less finished reading the books I need to read. From now on, the joy of life lies in this."
Cui Chan turned around, looking at the carriage at the foot of the mountain, hands tucked in his sleeves. He clicked his tongue in admiration. "Indeed, one must have all three kinds of disciples. You Cui Minghuang, Wu Yuan, the porcelain boy—complete. From now on, it depends on the respective fortunes of our four masters and disciples."
As he walked, Cui Chan shuddered and murmured, "If he ever learns the truth one day, given that kid from Niping Alley's temperament, he will definitely beat me to death. Probably without even blinking."
The boy with the cinnabar mole on his brow was full of anxiety and sorrow. "The key point is, a master beating a disciple to death is also damn well justified! No, no, I, Cui Chan, can't end up so miserably. I need to think of a way..."
The boy suddenly squinted and smiled, then started swaggering as he walked, laughing heartily. "I can just dump all the dirty water on the Great Li National Teacher. I am Cui Dongshan, not Cui Chan!"
The physical body he currently inhabited could be considered an extremely rare treasure. It was naturally pure and unstained, but congenitally mentally deficient. Before the age of six, its soul had scattered and dissipated. After years of secret refinement, Cui Chan had turned it into an inn or lodging convenient for a soul to inhabit. Back then, because Lizhu Cave Heaven was too important and involved his own Dao path opportunity, he had to come here in person. So he moved out this body, split off a portion of his soul, and entered it. In this way, two Cui Chans appeared in the world: one old, one young. The old Cui Chan stayed in the Great Li capital as the National Teacher, planning strategies thousands of miles away; the young Cui Chan arrived in the town, hiding in the Yuan family's old residence to prevent any accidents. Of course, deep down, Cui Chan might have also wanted to personally see Qi Jingchun complete his final journey.
He wanted to defeat Qi Jingchun fair and square once.
But Cui Chan could never have predicted that he would first lose to Qi Jingchun, lose completely, and then even worse—that old man who had clearly died in the Merit Forest of the Academy would come knocking, casually cut off his connection to his original body Cui Chan, and also punish him by making him read those tattered books every day. The laughable part was that not a single one of those books was a sage classic compiled by the old man. Finally, the old man made an utterly absurd decision, ordering him, Cui Chan, to become that surnamed Chen boy's student!
What could I, Cui Chan, learn from Chen Ping'an? Learning to make porcelain or learning to burn charcoal?
And what was that old man thinking?
Heaven knows!
Literally, that heaven knows.
That old man, although the highest worldly title he ever achieved was just a cultivated talent.
But back then, in the Confucian Temple, he had ranked fourth—at that time, the old scholar was truly at his zenith. Otherwise, before the old man even died, how could a statue of him have been forcibly moved in and erected? The old scholar himself couldn't stop it.
However, Cui Chan always felt that the old man was secretly delighted and never really intended to stop it.
In any case, this case will inevitably disappear from both official and unofficial histories, and over time, the few remaining traces will vanish bit by bit.
---
On the only road leading to Yefu Pass, the southern border checkpoint of Great Li.
A carriage was parked by the roadside outside a relay station. The white-robed boy with the cinnabar mole on his brow stood on top of the carriage, facing north, craning his neck in eager expectation.
Wang Yifu sat on the driver's seat, silent as usual.
The tall young man Yu Lu was counting the items in his luggage, while the graceful yet coarse-featured girl was the most relaxed and carefree. She sat beside Wang Yifu, back-to-back with the young man, swinging her legs and eating melon seeds one by one.
Young Cui Chan stamped his foot. "Finally here!"
Wang Yifu did not turn around but said softly, "Your Highness, take care from now on."
The tall young man, who had been renamed Yu Lu, nodded and smiled. "General Wang, you as well."
Wang Yifu hummed in acknowledgment and was about to speak.
The girl, having finished a large handful of melon seeds, clapped her hands and said casually, "General Wang doesn't need to exchange pleasantries with a convict and lowly person like me."
Wang Yifu smiled bitterly. "It is our fault toward your master."
The girl placed her hands folded on her knees, looked up at the blue sky, and laughed. "Then go tell that to those dead people whose souls have scattered. I neither participated in that great battle nor committed suicide afterward. On the contrary, I'm living quite well. Soon I'll be a student of the new Shanya Academy. So, General Wang, saying this to me is quite pointless."
Yu Lu suddenly said, "Wang Yifu, don't mind her. She's just a child who hasn't grown up, with anger in her heart and no one to take it out on. When someone is easygoing, she'll lash out at them."
The girl laughed. "Oh, still thinking you're the noble Crown Prince of the Lu Dynasty, qualified to teach me how to behave?"
Yu Lu smiled without speaking and continued packing his luggage.
Wang Yifu had a headache.
If not for worrying about the safety of these two children, how could Wang Yifu have agreed to serve the Great Li Empress?
---
Chen Ping'an and his group traveled south along the edge of the post road.
Then they saw a familiar white-robed boy running toward them. His enthusiasm was even more exaggerated than that of a lovestruck maiden facing her beloved.
The white-robed boy with the cinnabar mole on his brow smiled brightly. "Chen Ping'an, although it sounds like a joke, I am telling you very seriously and solemnly: from today on, I am your student! If you don't accept me as your student, I will kill myself in front of you! After I die, remember to erect a tombstone for me, inscribe it with 'Tomb of Chen Ping'an's Disciple'!"
Chen Ping'an was stunned for a long time before recovering. He asked, "What is your real name?"
The boy laughed heartily. "Cui Dongshan!"
Chen Ping'an nodded. "Then I'll add three more words on the tombstone for you."
(End of this chapter)
(Sanqi Chinese)