In Yong'an, lanterns and colorful banners decorated a spacious compound where firecrackers sounded in unison. At the entrance to the courtyard stood an enormous object draped in silk. Nearby residents swarmed over in droves, quickly crowding the surrounding streets until not a drop of water could trickle through.
Inside the courtyard stood numerous scholars, who curiously sized up the residents outside, while the city folk stared curiously back at them.
At that moment, a signal cannon boomed; the auspicious hour had arrived.
Accompanying a middle-aged scholar, Wei Yuan strode through the air and touched down at the courtyard gate. In the crowd, Li Zhi smiled and said to Zhang Sheng beside him, "Master Cai is here."
The man Wei Yuan accompanied was none other than Cai Shizhi. He had refined, delicate features and appeared to be in his thirties. His gaze was clear, and his every gesture carried an innate, unhurried poise.
Wei Yuan said, "The auspicious hour has arrived. Master, please unveil the monument."
Cai Shizhi stepped aside so that he and Wei Yuan stood on either side of the drape. Together, they pulled down the silk, revealing a massive stone slab inscribed with four large characters: *Qingming Academy*.
The four characters were vigorous, forceful, and steeped in ancient grace. Looking at them evoked the feeling of surging ages rushing past—calligraphy rarely matched anywhere under heaven. Seeing it stirred Wei Yuan's desire to study calligraphy once again, but alas, calligraphy offered no shortcuts, so he could only let the thought go.
As the stone stele was revealed, thunderous applause instantly broke out.
For a major event such as the founding of Qingming Academy, the cultivators of the Palace of Grand Beginning had naturally all arrived, and Li Zhi stood among them as well. Tall and handsome, he possessed a gentle, refined demeanor, yet his eyes flashed like lightning, harboring a commanding aura that drew everyone's gaze wherever he stood.
At the moment, Li Zhi was recounting some deeds from Cai Shizhi's life to the Palace of Grand Beginning cultivators and answering their questions. Compared to the others, Li Zhi showed particular respect to Zhang Sheng, always answering Zhang Sheng's questions before anyone else's.
After the unveiling, Cai Shizhi declared in a clear voice, "The Sage said, 'If you can renew yourself for a day, do so day after day.' I have brought my disciples here to enlighten the populace and ensure that the teachings of the Sage have successors! The Sage also said: investigate things, extend knowledge, rectify the mind, make the will sincere, cultivate oneself, regulate the family, govern the state, and bring peace to all under heaven. Our generation must begin with investigating things and end only with bringing peace to all under heaven. Though the road is long, if we push a pawn forward every day, no effort will be spent in vain!"
With those words spoken, Cai Shizhi entered the academy and began the formal screening of students.
Apart from the academy, three schools had also opened in the city for literacy and basic instruction. The academy itself was meant to teach the ways of the Sage, which required a certain foundational education.
A register had already been laid before Cai Shizhi, listing candidate students screened by other disciples. Meanwhile, more than a dozen disciples were still wrestling with the thick registers.
At that point, one disciple uttered a soft sound of surprise and said, "After flipping through all this, why haven't I seen a single scholar, nor anyone from a prominent clan?"
Standing in the hall, Wei Yuan naturally heard this clearly. He said, "Qingming is newly established, and its people have migrated here from all over. There are essentially no scholars or members of prominent clans."
He spoke tactfully, but Cai Shizhi understood his meaning well. Unless they truly could not survive elsewhere, who would willingly travel ten thousand li to a war-torn frontier?
Another disciple remarked, "There are still some bureaucratic households; that's not bad."
Cai Shizhi frowned slightly and said, "Educate without discrimination! Have you forgotten what I usually teach you?"
Those students, however, were not mere sycophants who could only nod in agreement. They replied, "Scholars from prominent clans and the scions of official households are the quickest to teach. If we pick them out and educate them first, they can then go and instruct others. That does not contradict teaching without discrimination."
Though contradicted by his disciples, Cai Shizhi took no offense. He nodded slightly and said, "That also has merit."
He then turned to Wei Yuan and said, "My disciples are headstrong; Lord Wei must find this amusing."
Wei Yuan smiled and said, "Listening to all sides brings clarity. That you personally put the Sage's ways into practice truly befits the name of a great Confucian scholar."
The two chatted a while longer, and Wei Yuan took the opportunity to explain Qingming's current system and where the candidates came from. With the opening of Qingming Academy and its affiliated schools, Wei Yuan had taken the chance to grant the commoner class an additional privilege: the right to apply for enrollment. Those ranked below commoners were not permitted to enroll.
Cai Shizhi had no objections to this, though several students offered their thoughts, suggesting that the distinctions were not granular enough. They believed that between commoners and registered officials, a tier for 'scholars' should be added, and above registered officials, one for noble and aristocratic families, to make the hierarchy complete.
They merely offered suggestions, and Wei Yuan merely listened.
Cai Shizhi set down the roster in his hand, took to the sky alongside Wei Yuan, and looked down over the entirety of Yong'an. He then said, "Just now, touring the realm with Lord Wei, I saw that it is truly filled with grand vitality, thriving everywhere. What I have studied stems from the Sage, yet diverges from the Sage as well. Enlightening the populace is an essential part of my doctrine. I hope to achieve something here under your stewardship, Lord Wei, so as not to have squandered a lifetime of learning."
He suddenly sighed and said, "Yet this road is arduous, and I do not know if it can truly succeed."
Seeing the despondence in him, Wei Yuan asked the reason.
Cai Shizhi explained briefly, and Wei Yuan came to understand. In the end, the core issue remained what purpose enlightening the populace actually served.
The world beyond the heavens had long reached a verdict on this: policies that kept the people ignorant were the root of all evils.
Yet in this realm, things were not so simple. Enlightening the populace required immense resources, yet the prosperity of the human race did not depend on mortals, but rather on high-level cultivators—or, to put it in extreme terms, on Immortals.
The number of Immortal Monarchs determined how much territory the human race could hold and how large a population it could support. Below Immortals, all were mere ants.
Taking the long view, the overall strength of the human race depended on the number of low- and mid-tier cultivators in Body Casting and Dao Foundation. The descendants of cultivators were visibly stronger than those of mortals, which was another undeniable fact.
Cultivators and mortals could almost be called two distinct species. For this reason, the laws across Great Tang and the Nine Kingdoms explicitly drew the dividing line at the Dao Foundation; the rights possessed on either side were entirely different. To put it simply, if a Dao Foundation cultivator beat a mortal to death without reason, he only had to pay compensation.
Naturally, the ways of the world were ever-shifting, with no rigid rule. If a mere rogue cultivator killed the dimwitted son of a prominent house, he would certainly be hunted to the ends of the earth, and the authorities would apprehend him without mercy. Once caught, he would often be executed on the spot, with no opportunity to invoke the law.
Thus, the strength and prosperity of the human race lay in cultivation. Even if a mass of mortals learned to read and write and had their minds awakened, it was still useless; they could only continue to farm those few mu of meager fields.
Because of this, though Cai Shizhi traveled the world, he had never been able to propagate his ideas. In the eyes of many great scholars at Four Sages Academy, Cai Shizhi was merely an eccentric, stubborn fellow trying to blaze an unorthodox trail. His doctrine of enlightening the populace was a dead end plain to see; it was utterly useless.
This was also why Cai Shizhi was willing to come to a remote, war-torn backwater like Qingming to preside over the academy. In any other place across the Nine Kingdoms, he likely could not have set foot past the provincial governor's front gates.
Li Zhi, however, knew that Cai Shizhi's views resonated with Wei Yuan to some extent, and had recommended him here. Sure enough, Cai Shizhi had gladly accepted.
Cai Shizhi wanted to enlighten the populace, while Wei Yuan wanted mortals' lives to have meaning from birth—and the prerequisite for that was first awakening their minds. In this regard, the two saw entirely eye to eye.
Chapter 469