Jitu Academy has 72 studios, 24 lecturers, and 360 disciples. It was destroyed by war a hundred years ago. After the first disciple of the Confucian saint returned from traveling, he "removed the old academy and built a new one." He carried out renovations, renovated the library, added 10,000 volumes of books, put up the door plaque himself, used blue granite as the base of the stele, integrated Chinese calligraphy, cursive, official script and seal script, and rebuilt the stele gallery.
There is a couplet in the academy that says: "Without the noise of the market, there is the beauty of springs and rocks."
Different from the Imperial Academy in the capital, which emphasizes "for the benefit of the world and the country", Jiitu Academy is as airy as a reclusive immortal. It does not talk about "managing the world and applying it", and its pursuit of the great road is only the four words "clear the mind and see the nature". Therefore, The more the Confucian scholars who studied in Jitu Academy learned about principles, the more they despised worldliness. Many of them had the arrogance of being "arrogant and unworldly".
At the beginning of the Chen hour, the morning bell rang. There was a lecturer with a strong local accent who preached and solved the doubts. There was a Confucian scholar holding a scroll in his hands and pacing and reading lightly. The sound of jade sounded from his waist.
At the same time, there was an old man with a hunchback and white hair standing in front of a single door with double eaves, squinting his eyes and looking into the distance.
The dean traveled all over the world and had no news for decades. Many matters of Jitu Academy were taken care of by this old man. He was both the vice dean and the most senior gentleman besides the dean. In the past, he was a Confucian scholar. One of the seventy-two direct disciples of Saint Zhang Jilin, he has extensive knowledge and is rare in the world.
At the end of the old man's sight, two figures suddenly appeared, one man and one woman. Judging from their clothing, they looked simple, natural and stylish, especially the man, with his long, snow-white hair, which was so obvious that only a few people in the world didn't know about it.
On Guiliu's side, he also saw the hunchbacked old man standing at the gate of the academy. Sensitively aware of the aura of solemnity in the old man, he said warily: "Si Zhi, if I hold a knife, hide behind me. Jitu Academy We have no relationship with the imperial court, so we should deal with it carefully, and be polite first, and then fight if it is no longer possible."
Wang Sizhi, who was wearing a curtain hat, hummed, and the thin silk hanging down covered her neck to hide her appearance so that no one could see her bright red glazed eyes.
Guiliu faced the old man directly, gradually climbed the steps from far to near, bowed and saluted, "Junior Guiliu, I have met Mr. Pu."
Wang Si's generous donation brought great blessings.
The old man said nothing and slowly spread out his withered old hands forward.
Without hesitation, Gui Liu took off his blunt knife to drink water and put it gently into the old man's palm.
"You can go." The old man said.
Guiliu was stunned and seemed a little unresponsive, "Can we leave now?"
The old man carefully hid Lu Shui in his clothes, glanced at Gui Liu, and asked, "What else?"
Just as Guiliu was about to speak, the old man said first, "Does His Highness the Prince want to say that he is tired from riding and riding, and wants to go into the hospital to rest? Or does His Highness the Prince travel here far away, and besides delivering the sword, he also wants to see the appearance of Jitu Academy? If it's the former , His Highness the Prince is a rich man, so he will not be unable to afford an inn if he has no money. If it is the latter, then I am afraid I have to say sorry to His Highness the Prince. Jitu Academy is not a place of incense, but a quiet place for teaching, and no one is allowed to do so. Entering without permission, let alone His Highness the Crown Prince, even if Emperor Dafeng and Emperor Dajing come together. This is my teacher's rule, and it is also the rule that my senior brother always emphasizes. Since it is a rule, it must not be broken. "
"This junior will naturally understand what Mr. Pu said. You cannot force this matter. I only have one thing to ask for, and I hope Mr. Pu will fulfill it."
The old man nodded, his expression softening, "But it doesn't matter."
"I sincerely ask Mr. Pu to put the Lushui water in front of Zhang Shengren's tomb, and then say a word to him for me." Guiliu paused and continued: "Just say that there is no shortage of great romance in the world. You If so, I will always remember it.”
The old man surnamed Pu waved his hands and said impatiently: "I know, I know."
Guiliu smiled bitterly, shook his head, took Wang Sizhi's hand, and turned to leave.
"stop!"
Guiliu looked back in confusion and saw the old man taking out the water from his clothes and saying, "Send the knife yourself. If you have anything to say, tell the teacher yourself."
"Does this... allow me to enter the hospital?" Guiliu was a little confused, and blurted out by mistake, "Didn't you say you can't break the rules?"
"You brat, you can't even go down the stairs!" The old man twitched the corner of his mouth and sneered: "You think I want you to go in? Seeing that you have a relationship with the teacher, I will let you into the hospital on my own initiative, for up to half an hour. You have to come out, otherwise don’t blame me for driving people away.”
"That's enough." Guiliu nodded, pulling Wang Sizhi towards the courtyard.
"etc."
The old man stopped at the door again, narrowed his eyes, and looked at Wang Sizhi, whose face was covered by a curtain.
"What's the matter, sir?" Wang Sizhi's cold voice sounded from behind the thin silk.
"It just rained last night and the courtyard is muddy. It's best for the girl to take off her curtain hat to avoid tripping."
The old man stared at Wang Sizhi with burning eyes.
"Old sir, you are worrying too much."
Wang Sizhi leaned closer to Gui Liu, grabbed Gui Liu's arm with both hands, and said with a soft smile: "This way you won't be afraid of tripping."
The old man said angrily: "How can you not show your true face when entering the hospital? When the emperor of the Dajing Dynasty came here, he took off his robe and changed clothes before going to worship the teacher. The emperor was like this, but you, a royal relative, don't know etiquette! I’ll give you two options, either take off your hat and enter the hospital, or don’t go in!”
Facing this grumpy old gentleman, Gui Liu was really tired of dealing with it. He sighed helplessly in his heart, but on the outside he humbly apologized and said with a smile: "Mr. Pu misunderstood. My female companion is born extremely ugly, and everyone is afraid of her. That’s why she specially wore a hat to cover her face when she visited the academy this time. She thought carefully that this is out of respect for you and the academy."
Wang Sizhi was slightly unhappy and lightly stepped on Gui Liu.
The old man smiled and said, "His Royal Highness is easy to talk to. But His Royal Highness, who always likes to travel with beautiful women, are you sure that the girl next to you is not a beauty of national beauty?"
Guiliu said seriously: "Mr. Pu, please don't take advantage of others. Although my female companion has a voice as clear as an oriole and skin as smooth as gelatin, her face is ugly. She is the kind of person who can be attacked in the dark."
At this time, the woman under the curtain held her face in her hands and cried softly.
The old man was a little surprised and pointed out: "What is this?"
Guiliu sighed heavily, shook his head helplessly and said: "Maybe what Mr. Pu just said hurt her. My female companion has low self-esteem because of her ugly appearance. She is extremely sensitive to such topics and does not want to hear a word. Just now Pu The old gentleman said that she was a beautiful woman, maybe she mistook it as a sarcastic comment."
The old man was a little anxious, "Here, if you don't hurry up and coax her, you must explain the truth to her clearly!"
Guiliu nodded and pretended to speak in Wang Sizhi's ear. Of course the old man couldn't hear it, but after burning the incense, he saw that the woman stopped crying, and he breathed out a sigh of relief.
Gui Liupidianpidian came to the old man and said cautiously: "Mr. Pu, shall we go in?"
The old man lost his previous arrogance and said "half an hour" before leading the two of them into the courtyard.
Giliu has been to the Imperial College many times, but this is the first time he has been to such an orthodox Confucian academy. There is nothing extraordinary about the studio. The chairs and podium, the Confucian students and lecturers are not much different from ordinary rural schools. But when walking through the stele corridor on the east side, Guiliu felt more and more the strong atmosphere of Jitu Academy. On the dark and thick stele, there are timeless inscriptions, mostly Confucian works and poems, but there are also subtleties of the three religions. After walking through the corridor, we boarded the bridge and found ourselves in a body of water. Futons were scattered along both sides of the water. The flow of flowers slowed down, as if we had imagined the scene of Confucian scholars sitting on futons and drinking wine from a meandering stream.
"Except Mr. Pu, no one else knows that I'm here, right?"
"Do you think I would make my crimes public?"
Gui Liu laughed dumbly.
The tomb of the Confucian sage Zhang Jilin is located in the back hill of Jitu Academy. It is not accessible except on days of worship. It rained heavily last night and the road was muddy and difficult to walk. As expected, Wang Sizhi almost fell down several times, and finally managed to stabilize himself by holding on to Guiliu. .
On the way, the old man asked Wang Sizhi if he had a cat.
When Gui Liu asked about the reason, it turned out that when he was first admitted to the hospital, Wang Sizhi saw several cats in the hospital and became unable to walk.
As for the reason for keeping cats in the courtyard, the old man also explained that there are many birds and rats in the cave fields, and food theft is rampant. In addition, keeping cats can be regarded as a practical implementation of the saying of the most holy master, "I know more about birds, beasts and plants."
Halfway up the back hill, there is a small earthen mound without even a monument. It is the tomb of the Confucian sage Zhang Jilin. It is hard to imagine that the great master who has been famous throughout the ages is buried in such an inconspicuous place.
The old man patted the dust on his robe to show great respect, bowed and said in salute, "Teacher, someone is looking for you."
Gui Liu stopped in front of the earth bag, took off his blunt knife to drink water, and placed it gently on the stone slab where he was worshiping. Then he bowed in salute and said in a deep voice: "Junior Gui Liu, I have met Zhang Shengren."
On the tall bell tower of the academy, a middle-aged Confucian scholar with slightly frosty temples appeared without any warning. He looked towards the back mountain with a warm smile and said softly: "There are thousands of families in this small town, and the rice is dripping with fat." Corn white.”
The breeze blew and the big bell suddenly rang.
After the bell rang, the entire Jitu Academy could hear a needle drop.
The old man looked back suddenly, tears filling his eyes for a moment.
The middle-aged Confucian scholar's mellow voice echoed throughout the academy, seeming to be asking someone, "What did you hear?"
Guiliu closed his eyes. He didn't answer the echoing bells, the noise of the stone spring, and the sound of the wind blowing through the woods. He didn't seem to hear any sound.
There was a sound rolling down from the sky, "Is it the silence in the world that the teacher said?"
Guiliu shook his head, "Two hundred years from now, it should be called Moisturizing Things Silently."
There was silence for a moment.
The overwhelming awe-inspiring pressure was directed at the man with snow-white hair, and Wang Sizhi was ready to draw his sword at any time.
Suddenly, the old man surnamed Pu standing next to her became angry, turned around and strode away.
The middle-aged Confucian scholar on the high bell tower came to Gui Liu in one step, stretched out his hand and patted Gui Liu on the shoulder, and said with a smile: "As expected of the teacher's favorite. I didn't expect that I have seventy-two Confucian academies. Thousands of Confucian scholars who are full of knowledge are no better than an outsider who is a mixture of hundreds of schools of thought."
"Since the teacher has chosen you, how can I, the disciple, not obey?"
The middle-aged Confucian scholar with slightly frosty temples waved his sleeves and robe, and the mellow and upright aura filled the entire back mountain, and wisps of it seemed to be the essence, like hundreds of rivers flowing into the sea, flowing into the middle of the eyebrows.
Why did Pu Lin, the vice president, make things difficult for Gui Liu and refuse to let him enter the hospital?
And why after hearing Guiliu's answer, he turned around and left in anger.
Just because after the teacher's last soul appeared, he briefly returned to the hospital and made a request.
This is the final test of Gei Liu.
Two hundred years ago, the world was awash with wars, wars, famines and catastrophes. Confucianism established a destiny for the people and pursued the path of peace, and the world was silent.
Two hundred years later, the world now has four seasons of singing and singing, six bridges of flowers and willows, and peace has spread all over the world. However, there are still poor people who mourn the moon at night, and there are still clear fields to plant mulberry and hemp. Not everything is beautiful, so the key to education is to moisturize everything. silent.
Guiliu gave the answer, which was the answer that the Confucian sage Zhang Jilin wanted, and it is also the answer that everyone in the world does not know.
So at this moment, the dean of Jitu Academy, the first disciple of the Confucian Zhang family's sage lineage, personally gave Confucian luck.
At dusk, burning clouds dyed half of the sky.
When Guiliu and Wang Sizhi walked out of the double-story single door with cornices, they were greeted by the dean and vice-dean of Jitu Academy.
Even if the deputy dean is somewhat reluctant.
Gui Liu bowed and said goodbye.
The middle-aged Confucian scholar smiled and nodded, and said, "Teacher has something to say and wants me to give it to me."
"Sir, please speak." Geiliu said respectfully.
The middle-aged Confucian scholar cleared his voice and said in a serious voice: "Heaven moves vigorously, and a gentleman strives to constantly strive for self-improvement."
Pu Lin, the vice-president, said coldly: "Teacher asked me to warn you that the terrain is poor, and a gentleman should be virtuous."
"Junior will keep it in mind."
Gui Liu bowed to the direct disciples of the two Confucian saints in front of him.
At the end of the separation, the middle-aged Confucian scholar said to Guiliu: "The truth is all in the book, but the life is outside the book. The old man sits down and discusses the Tao, and the young man should get up and practice it. After reading the book a hundred times, you will see that its meaning is true. But if you don’t do it yourself, it will become a matter of studying and studying. On the way back, you might as well pay more attention to the local customs and customs, and if possible, write a travel diary. I really like reading travel diaries.”
Under the setting sun, two figures receded into the distance, their shadows stretching long and diagonally.
south to north,
On the way back home, the wild geese filled the pond.
