Chapter Seven: Yushan Academy

Just as Old Qin was beginning to think that the young man must have some talent, and felt a touch of regret at seeing someone who had married into a merchant family behaving with such short-sightedness, Ning Yi was already stepping into Yushan Academy at dawn, preparing for a whole morning of teaching a group of children the Analects.

Yushan Academy was not actually located on a place called Yushan; it was a private school run by the Su family. While they did accept a few outsiders with connections, the academy was not large, mostly because there weren’t many students. The name Yushan came from a mountain in the Su family’s ancestral home.

The academy was situated a short distance from the Su family estate, on a street not crowded with shops, making for a relatively tranquil environment. Surrounded by white walls and gray tiles, with a small bamboo grove and a plaque inscribed by a renowned scholar hanging outside, it retained a scholarly air.

Currently, the academy had forty-nine students and seven teachers, including the headmaster, Su Chonghua. In terms of ratio, the faculty was quite strong. Su Chonghua himself was a member of the Su family, had passed the county-level imperial examination in his youth, and served as an official for a few years, though he left little mark. Rumors circulated that he had even broken the law. Two other teachers were retired officials hired at high salaries. Besides teachers and students, the staff included cooks and various attendants.

The Su family had invested much effort in this academy, but whether because the teachers were unreliable or the students dull, it had yet to achieve any notable results. Most students who realized they had no hope in the imperial examinations ended up working in Su family businesses, making the academy more of a technical school. Families who truly aspired for their children to become officials would transfer them to better academies before the age of twelve.

Ning Yi had been teaching here for three days. Su Chonghua treated him kindly and did not make things difficult for him due to his status as a son-in-law. After all, men of experience had no need to indulge in such petty behaviors. Since Ning Yi was widely considered to lack academic talent, he was assigned to teach the youngest students—sixteen children, ages six to twelve, including two little girls with braided hair, both relatives of the Su family, who were just beginning to learn their letters. The previous teacher had finished the Classic of Filial Piety and started on the Analects. Ning Yi taught them every morning; afternoons were more relaxed, involving rituals, music, archery, charioteering, and arithmetic—mostly arithmetic. The rest depended on the teacher’s mood and abilities.

In more prestigious schools, the curriculum would have been more structured and thorough, but Yushan Academy was not so fortunate. For Ning Yi, teaching the Analects was simple enough. He could not recite it by heart or pinpoint every passage, but reading and offering basic explanations was easy—any modern high school graduate could do as much, at least in vernacular Chinese.

Of course, in ancient times, true scholars studied the Four Books and Five Classics deeply, and the best could put modern professors to shame. But most students never had the chance for such an advanced education; many would not even find a copy of Mencius after finishing the Analects. The minimum requirement for a teacher was simply to teach literacy. Ning Yi’s predecessor did just that: he had the children read aloud, swaying back and forth, and occasionally explained the simplest meanings, then required them to memorize or write out passages. Those who failed had their palms caned.

It was a simple affair! Ning Yi saw no need to change much. For the first hour, he had the children read the Analects aloud, though the ceaseless reading for two hours was torture for him. The children, however, were used to it. The next two hours, he explained a passage, drawing on anecdotes and real-life examples to liven things up.

These children were easy to teach. In just three days, Ning Yi could sense the classroom’s deference for the teacher. The children were docile, lacking any sense of individuality, which made them all the more adorable—they cherished the chance to learn, never misbehaved, and even saw it as only natural if they were spanked for mistakes. It was a teacher’s paradise. After just three days of simple lessons and stories, the children were already delighted, and Ning Yi needed no lesson plan—he taught as the mood took him.

That day, he began explaining the Analects passage about “Wealth and rank are what men desire...,” discussing ways of acquiring wealth and the ethics of commerce, interspersed with sayings like “A gentleman loves wealth but acquires it by proper means.” In his previous life, Ning Yi had been in this line of work—if he wanted to speak at length, he could have lectured PhD students in a modern university. But before him now were children under twelve, so he kept it light, offering a few playful examples and then moving on to tell the story of the six boats at the Puyuan Poetry Gathering, then the Battle of Red Cliffs.

At this time, stories of the Three Kingdoms were mostly drawn from Chen Shou’s Records of the Three Kingdoms, which Ning Yi hadn’t read. He recounted instead the version from Romance of the Three Kingdoms, as embellished by modern adaptations—colorful and fantastical. From Cao Cao’s eight hundred thousand troops marching south to Zhou Yu’s ruse with Huang Gai, the chained ships, the borrowing of arrows with straw boats—these stories left the children, who rarely heard such tales, flushed with excitement, eagerly asking, “Teacher, teacher, what happens next...?” Only halfway through did they fall silent, for the headmaster Su Chonghua had appeared outside the classroom, hands behind his back and expressionless, though even his presence could not dampen their joy.

Since Ning Yi had already started, he saw no reason to stop, and finished the story of the burning of the chained fleet just before noon. Su Chonghua had stood outside listening the whole time, his expression hard to read. Ning Yi finished with a favorite poem by Du Mu, writing it out on the sand tray:

The shattered spear sinks into the sand, its iron not yet decayed,
Washed and polished, I recognize it as from the former dynasty.

There was no blackboard for teaching, which was inconvenient. Ning Yi, having developed some passion for teaching, made a mental note that he should “invent” a whiteboard—charcoal would be better than a sand tray. After he finished writing, the students rushed to copy it down. Exiting the room, he was greeted by Su Chonghua, who was now smiling.

“My worthy nephew, your knowledge is profound indeed. You must have studied the history of the Three Kingdoms and Wei-Jin periods in depth. That tale you told just now must be from Chen Shou’s Records of the Three Kingdoms?”

Had Old Qin been present, he might have scolded Ning Yi for spouting nonsense and misleading the children. The real Records of the Three Kingdoms was nowhere near as thrilling—for instance, the story of borrowing arrows with straw boats was, in fact, Sun Quan’s fleet being shot at so heavily on one side that it nearly capsized, prompting him to turn the vessel to balance the weight. Ning Yi had only seen TV dramas based on Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Su Chonghua, too, had never read the Records and had listened as if to a storyteller, enjoying it thoroughly and now praising Ning Yi’s learning and storytelling.

After a few words of praise, Su Chonghua subtly reminded Ning Yi not to be so indulgent with the students. If Ning Yi were a man in his fifties or sixties, he probably wouldn’t have said so, but as Ning Yi was a youth barely into his twenties, he needed to be stricter to maintain authority. Clearly, Su Chonghua wasn’t pleased about the Analects class turning into a Three Kingdoms story hour, especially delivered so engagingly. Ning Yi accepted the advice with humility and, once out of sight, promptly dismissed it from his mind.

Su Chonghua then invited him to lunch at the academy. For ordinary households, two meals a day was standard—some could barely afford that—but the wealthy Su family provided a third meal, though it was informal and sometimes just pastries. Ning Yi politely declined, returned home to change clothes, and handed them to Xiao Chan to wash before returning them to Old Qin—without mentioning having fallen into the river, lest she fuss over him with remedies. Now that Ning Yi was teaching, Xiao Chan no longer followed him everywhere and used her mornings for other tasks.

That afternoon, he went back to the banks of the Qinhuai River to play chess. Old Qin was something of a curiosity; Ning Yi had long suspected he’d been an official, and visiting his home that morning only confirmed it—the furnishings and style were not those of a commoner, and his manner and outlook set him apart. Yet there he was, running a chess stall by the river every day.

This time, another old man was already playing chess with Old Qin. His surname was Kang, about the same age, well-off, with the air of a patriarch—dressed in finery, accompanied by two servants and two maids. Stern in manner and sharp-tongued, he was a formidable chess player. Each time he saw Ning Yi criticize his moves as “utterly disgraceful,” “lacking all gentlemanly spirit,” “how can you be so relentless,” “young people are unbearable,” he would turn around and adopt those very tactics, refining them for his next match against Old Qin. In truth, Old Qin was the stronger player, and, once he absorbed a new idea, wielded it with a subtlety beyond any ordinary touch.

Ning Yi had met many people at the chess stall—commoners, uneducated youths, or those with some learning but rigid minds. Whether one called them naïve or sincere, their perspectives and thinking were not as nimble as those of modern people. But at higher levels, there was little difference. For example, Old Qin rarely voiced his thoughts, but he naturally absorbed and reflected on anything he found novel. Old Kang was full of talk about propriety and virtue, but when it came to chess, he played ruthlessly, unbound by convention. Of course, only those like Ning Yi or Old Qin could see this; to others, he was merely a notch below Old Qin, but still far above the ordinary.

Old Qin and his chess friends had lately taken to studying Ning Yi’s moves, fascinated by the novel strategies. Ning Yi felt no need to defer to their age; sometimes he ignored Old Kang’s bluster, sometimes retorted, “You old man, always saying one thing and doing another—hardly a good person.” Or, “If you dare play that move, go on, try it!” Few young people would dare talk back to Old Kang, but their squabbles by the chessboard were amicable, with Old Qin laughing along. If Old Kang was his opponent, Qin would say, “Li Heng makes a good point.” If Ning Yi was playing, Qin would help denounce the “unsportsmanlike” move.

Despite the bickering, there was no malice. At first, Old Kang had treated Ning Yi as an ignorant youth, but soon realized he was a worthy opponent who didn’t see himself as inferior. Whatever the case, Old Kang always brought a pot of fine tea, his servants preparing it on a table nearby. Ning Yi would help himself to a cup, pull up a stool, and sit by the board, sipping tea and saying, “Ah, Old Kang is about to lose.”

The old man, deep in thought, would arch an eyebrow: “You hairless brat, what do you know of winning and losing? Drinking my tea and talking like this... Hmph, I have a brilliant move ready…” He would raise his hand to play, but Ning Yi would clear his throat, and the old man would pause, eyeing him suspiciously before retracting his hand. Ning Yi would take another sip: “This cup of tea is worth just that much… Hmm, what kind of tea is this?”

“Ignorant child, such waste! Have you ever heard of Purple Bamboo Shoot?”

On the other side, Old Qin sipped his tea and smiled, “Gu Zhu Purple Bamboo Shoot, excellent tea. It’s a pity to brew it on the street like this. If we’d known you were bringing this today, we should have played the game at home.”

Old Kang was unconcerned, finally settling on a move: “Tea is meant to be drunk. We’re all in high spirits, kindred spirits, sharing it together—that’s what matters. Tea is but a thing, made to please us. It has value only if we enjoy it. Why be stingy?”

“Old Kang, that’s rather grand—like a true man of stature.”

“What stature? I—”

“My good sir, you’ve lost.”

“Eh…”

Ning Yi patted him on the shoulder and stood up with a smile. The scenery by the Qinhuai River was charming; he strolled away with his cup, while Old Qin made his move, laughing, and Old Kang protested, “How could you…”

“Haha, when I saw you brought such good tea, I meant to let you win a few moves, but those words of yours were so impressive—between gentlemen, it should be thus. I couldn’t be insincere, after all. Hahaha…”

Although Old Kang was clearly displeased at having brought both tea and a loss, he accepted it, calling Ning Yi over to review the game with everyone. Then he and Old Qin resumed their match. During the interlude, Old Qin teased about Ning Yi falling into the river to rescue someone and getting slapped for it, giving Old Kang a chance to gloat. Later, the two old men discussed recent raids by the Liao from the north.

The autumn sun was still bright, but in the afternoon a wind picked up over the Qinhuai. By the time the game ended, it was late, and everyone went home.

Having sat in the wind all afternoon, Ning Yi woke the next morning feeling a bit groggy, uncertain whether he’d caught a cold.