CH 44
Upon hearing Chen Miao Ping say this, the Emperor realized that there must be an interesting trick to this, yet he could not pinpoint the exact meaning of this exercise. His expression was skeptical, but he did not interrupt. To the side, Xie Su Zhi was also deep in thought, and she had quite a vested interest in this story.
Chen Miao Ping continued,
“Your Majesty’s explanation is correct in how the relative wanted it to be interpreted, ‘A raining day keeps guest, heavens keep I do not’. The student scholar could also understand that meaning, but he instead used the original words to create a different meaning as, ‘A raining day, keeps guest day; keep me not? Keep.’”
Everyone laughed in response and thought that this was quite an interesting tale. The Emperor said as he chuckled,
“That is quite ingenious.”
Chen Miao Ping continued,
“A stopping point used at different points of a sentence, or with a different inflicted tone, they can all create a different meaning. This poetry line can actually have many more interpretations. For example, ‘A raining day, keep guest day; keep me or not keep?’ or ‘A raining day, keep guest day. Keep? I do not keep!’ These are exemplary examples that can only be interpreted differently by the person reading and understanding it. With each lesson by a different teacher, it would naturally be taught to produce different levels of students with different levels of understanding.”1
Based on his explanation, a feeling of delight and admiration emerged in the Emperor for this kind of reasoning. He repeated Chen Miao Ping’s explanations once more to himself and this time, he couldn’t help but release a long sigh of appreciation and understanding. With some feelings of lament and gratitude in his voice, he said,
“Zhen also hopes that all the talents under this sky could be used as they are talented, but the core, the basis of this country rests on those families with weighted backgrounds. How could we just shake the foundations? Zhen, however, does understand your meaning……”
Chen Miao Ping lowered his eyes. The whole point to his long speech was to tell the Emperor that the sons of high status families have too many things in their favor. Whether it was from the strength of their teachers or their networking, it all exceeded far beyond those who come from poor families and no backgrounds.
Hence, it was a completely normal result for this examination to have more than 70% of the examinees who passed be from high status families. But if the Emperor wanted to solve the root of the problem, he must focus all his energy on shrinking that gap between the rich and the poor, letting everyone walking on this earth have a chance to study and read…….
But the possibility of this was slim to none. Even with the focus and power of a few generations tackling this problem, it was not enough to bring this change to completion, as that’s what had happened in the history of his original world.
The palace was completely surrounded in silence where one could have heard a pin drop to the ground. In the midst of this silence, outraged yells could be heard echoing faintly throughout the entire Imperial Palace, so much so that it could be heard from as deep as Zhi Feng Palace. Those who heard these calls of rage and anguish from the poor scholars could feel those cries of protest sincerely from the bottom of their hearts.
Those scholars had been gathered around the entrance to the Imperial Palace since this morning.
The Emperor gritted his teeth tightly, and holding onto the chair’s armrest, he solemnly said the next few words,
“Those officials that are involved in this law breaking case must be punished without question! The names of all examinees who have cheated will have their rank removed, flogged a hundred times and jailed for three months. For the rest of their life, they will be barred from being an official of this country!”
Those officials involved in this case would be punished by death and as for those students involved in this cheating scandal, being flogged a hundred times would probably take away most of their lives. Even if they would be lucky enough to survive that beating, they will never be able to participate in the examinations again, letting all those years that they spent studying waste away, never again to have a chance to stand above anyone else.
There were no walls under this all encompassing sky that does not let wind in or out. To hide one thing means a million more lies are needed to cover it up. Chen Miao Ping furrowed his eyebrows and hesitated for a while before seemingly cementing his decision. He suddenly looked at Xie Yu Zhi deeply……
Bro, when the Emperor decides to chop my head off, you must, MUST, try and stop him. Please.
That look was too complicated and Xie Yu Zhi was unable to understand his meaning. He only saw Chen Miao Ping suddenly lift up the bottom of his robe and fall onto his knees, kneeling before the Emperor. What he said next in his calm voice was like dropping a bomb in the palace, making everyone’s brains blow up into pieces and replace it with a ringing silence,
“Miao Ping deserves death. I humbly request for Your Majesty’s punishment, to take away my rank nomination.”
They had just finished talking about the cheating scandal and right after that, for Chen Miao Ping to say such a thing was, without a doubt, akin to something like throwing a bucket of poop onto his head. The Emperor’s face immediately blackened to the point where it was as black as the bottom of a pan. Xie Su Zhi was also shocked out of her mind, almost unable to react.
“I beg for Your Majesty’s mercy! He is talking about things he has no idea about. Please do not take it as truth!”
“You have quite some courage, to dare to do the same as those cheating scoundrels. And you even have the backbone to say it out loud now. Are you not afraid that Zhen will chop your head off or send you to become fodder!”
The military was under the rule of the Xie family, so to become fodder for the army or to be placed under grueling work there, he should not suffer too much. At most, maybe a tattoo carving on his face2 would be the most he would suffer…… maybe.
Click here to bypass all the footnotes!
This is especially so when the exams are biased in the Emperor’s and his ministers’ viewpoint, and the exams are less structured and more theory/thought based (kind of like an English class where you write an essay debating a point), which an example of this will come up soon!
*2 Tattoo carved on his face: Not quite the modern tattoo practice. This is literally taking a knife and carving a word or words onto the face of the “criminal”, sometimes as deep as into the bone (which there is a story of where a guy wandering through some village found a pile of bones and he picked up a skull to look at it. What he found was a carving etched into the skull of a word that signified this was a maid who ran away from her master).
Crimes can range from stealing, running away from the estate as a servant/escaping your responsibility, betrayal of the state, etc. This is a very painful punishment, so much so that sometimes the person can die while the word(s) are carved into them. It also depends on the dynasty on what the crime/word being carved on is, where and how.
TL’s tidbit corner:
(´；ω；`) To those who have left me and Plum your kind comments last chapter, I can’t really describe the feelings you have all evoked in me! ｡ﾟ･（>﹏<）･ﾟ｡ I may or may not have had a particularly bad day that day, and some of your comments just… You might be tired of this, but I can never be: I’m so very grateful for everyone who left a supporting comment for Plum and me and please know I treasure each comment very dearly! And even those silent readers and those that keep liking almost or every single chapter, seriously, please know I am very grateful for all of you. I kind of have no words for what I’ve been feeling these past couple of days, but for something that I started on a whim, I just have to say thank you. I had never expected so many people to have read this and enjoyed it for what it is (and I’m pretty happy that people like this story that I really like and wanted to share).
Chen Miao Ping continued,
“Your Majesty’s explanation is correct in how the relative wanted it to be interpreted, ‘A raining day keeps guest, heavens keep I do not’. The student scholar could also understand that meaning, but he instead used the original words to create a different meaning as, ‘A raining day, keeps guest day; keep me not? Keep.’”
Everyone laughed in response and thought that this was quite an interesting tale. The Emperor said as he chuckled,
“That is quite ingenious.”
Chen Miao Ping continued,
“A stopping point used at different points of a sentence, or with a different inflicted tone, they can all create a different meaning. This poetry line can actually have many more interpretations. For example, ‘A raining day, keep guest day; keep me or not keep?’ or ‘A raining day, keep guest day. Keep? I do not keep!’ These are exemplary examples that can only be interpreted differently by the person reading and understanding it. With each lesson by a different teacher, it would naturally be taught to produce different levels of students with different levels of understanding.”1
Based on his explanation, a feeling of delight and admiration emerged in the Emperor for this kind of reasoning. He repeated Chen Miao Ping’s explanations once more to himself and this time, he couldn’t help but release a long sigh of appreciation and understanding. With some feelings of lament and gratitude in his voice, he said,
“Zhen also hopes that all the talents under this sky could be used as they are talented, but the core, the basis of this country rests on those families with weighted backgrounds. How could we just shake the foundations? Zhen, however, does understand your meaning……”
Chen Miao Ping lowered his eyes. The whole point to his long speech was to tell the Emperor that the sons of high status families have too many things in their favor. Whether it was from the strength of their teachers or their networking, it all exceeded far beyond those who come from poor families and no backgrounds.
Hence, it was a completely normal result for this examination to have more than 70% of the examinees who passed be from high status families. But if the Emperor wanted to solve the root of the problem, he must focus all his energy on shrinking that gap between the rich and the poor, letting everyone walking on this earth have a chance to study and read…….
But the possibility of this was slim to none. Even with the focus and power of a few generations tackling this problem, it was not enough to bring this change to completion, as that’s what had happened in the history of his original world.
The palace was completely surrounded in silence where one could have heard a pin drop to the ground. In the midst of this silence, outraged yells could be heard echoing faintly throughout the entire Imperial Palace, so much so that it could be heard from as deep as Zhi Feng Palace. Those who heard these calls of rage and anguish from the poor scholars could feel those cries of protest sincerely from the bottom of their hearts.
Those scholars had been gathered around the entrance to the Imperial Palace since this morning.
The Emperor gritted his teeth tightly, and holding onto the chair’s armrest, he solemnly said the next few words,
“Those officials that are involved in this law breaking case must be punished without question! The names of all examinees who have cheated will have their rank removed, flogged a hundred times and jailed for three months. For the rest of their life, they will be barred from being an official of this country!”
Those officials involved in this case would be punished by death and as for those students involved in this cheating scandal, being flogged a hundred times would probably take away most of their lives. Even if they would be lucky enough to survive that beating, they will never be able to participate in the examinations again, letting all those years that they spent studying waste away, never again to have a chance to stand above anyone else.
There were no walls under this all encompassing sky that does not let wind in or out. To hide one thing means a million more lies are needed to cover it up. Chen Miao Ping furrowed his eyebrows and hesitated for a while before seemingly cementing his decision. He suddenly looked at Xie Yu Zhi deeply……
Bro, when the Emperor decides to chop my head off, you must, MUST, try and stop him. Please.
That look was too complicated and Xie Yu Zhi was unable to understand his meaning. He only saw Chen Miao Ping suddenly lift up the bottom of his robe and fall onto his knees, kneeling before the Emperor. What he said next in his calm voice was like dropping a bomb in the palace, making everyone’s brains blow up into pieces and replace it with a ringing silence,
“Miao Ping deserves death. I humbly request for Your Majesty’s punishment, to take away my rank nomination.”
They had just finished talking about the cheating scandal and right after that, for Chen Miao Ping to say such a thing was, without a doubt, akin to something like throwing a bucket of poop onto his head. The Emperor’s face immediately blackened to the point where it was as black as the bottom of a pan. Xie Su Zhi was also shocked out of her mind, almost unable to react.
“I beg for Your Majesty’s mercy! He is talking about things he has no idea about. Please do not take it as truth!”
“You have quite some courage, to dare to do the same as those cheating scoundrels. And you even have the backbone to say it out loud now. Are you not afraid that Zhen will chop your head off or send you to become fodder!”
The military was under the rule of the Xie family, so to become fodder for the army or to be placed under grueling work there, he should not suffer too much. At most, maybe a tattoo carving on his face2 would be the most he would suffer…… maybe.
Click here to bypass all the footnotes!
This is especially so when the exams are biased in the Emperor’s and his ministers’ viewpoint, and the exams are less structured and more theory/thought based (kind of like an English class where you write an essay debating a point), which an example of this will come up soon!
*2 Tattoo carved on his face: Not quite the modern tattoo practice. This is literally taking a knife and carving a word or words onto the face of the “criminal”, sometimes as deep as into the bone (which there is a story of where a guy wandering through some village found a pile of bones and he picked up a skull to look at it. What he found was a carving etched into the skull of a word that signified this was a maid who ran away from her master).
Crimes can range from stealing, running away from the estate as a servant/escaping your responsibility, betrayal of the state, etc. This is a very painful punishment, so much so that sometimes the person can die while the word(s) are carved into them. It also depends on the dynasty on what the crime/word being carved on is, where and how.
TL’s tidbit corner:
(´；ω；`) To those who have left me and Plum your kind comments last chapter, I can’t really describe the feelings you have all evoked in me! ｡ﾟ･（>﹏<）･ﾟ｡ I may or may not have had a particularly bad day that day, and some of your comments just… You might be tired of this, but I can never be: I’m so very grateful for everyone who left a supporting comment for Plum and me and please know I treasure each comment very dearly! And even those silent readers and those that keep liking almost or every single chapter, seriously, please know I am very grateful for all of you. I kind of have no words for what I’ve been feeling these past couple of days, but for something that I started on a whim, I just have to say thank you. I had never expected so many people to have read this and enjoyed it for what it is (and I’m pretty happy that people like this story that I really like and wanted to share).
RECENTLY UPDATES
Action
Adventure
Adventure
Psychological
Action
Eastern
Eastern
Eastern