Xue Tui was a native of Shaoxing, Zhejiang.
From early childhood, his intellect had far outshone his peers: he was recognizing characters at age three, composing poetry at five, producing eloquent essays off the cuff at ten, and at merely twelve years old, he passed the provincial examinations to become a juren.
What kind of achievement was a juren during the Ming dynasty? To draw a modern analogy, it was roughly akin to getting accepted into an elite university… That is to say, at the age when ordinary kids were just entering middle school, he was already matriculated at a top-tier university.
Yet, as the saying goes… life is unpredictable.
Before reaching thirty, Xue Tui traveled to take the spring examinations five separate times. In the end, forget placing first as the top scholar—his name never once appeared even on the secondary rolls of the apricot board.
As the years ticked by and his failures in the metropolitan examinations mounted, the surrounding praise and envy gradually curdled into ridicule and scorn.
Generally speaking, when someone with talent is frustrated by unfulfilled ambition for too long, their temperament is prone to warping. Those capable of adjusting their mindset are, after all, a tiny minority, and Xue Tui was decidedly not among them.
His temperament grew eccentric and perverse, and he drifted apart from all his former friends…
He shuttered his doors day after day, grinding away at his studies day and night. Holding his breath until his thirtieth year, he made up his mind to head to the capital for one final attempt at the metropolitan examinations.
Who could have guessed that this time… he failed once more.
To make matters worse, upon returning home, he discovered that during the few months he had spent traveling to the capital for the examination, both of his parents had succumbed to sudden illnesses one after the other and passed away. His wife, determined not to disrupt his exam, had sent no letters to inform him.
The twin blows of failing the examination and losing his parents left Xue Tui utterly broken, and he collapsed into a severe illness himself. After recovering, he observed the three-year filial mourning period at home… During that time, with only expenses and no income, his family savings were gradually eaten away to nothing.
There was no way around it; a man has to eat, and to eat, he must find a way to earn a living.
Yet Xue Tui possessed no practical skills other than pushing a brush; manual labor was entirely beyond him. And so he thought to himself: *As a dignified juren master, working as an administrative clerk in the county yamen shouldn't be an issue, right?*
It was an issue. A massive issue…
Who was Xue Tui? The hometown's "child prodigy," the very model of "that other family's brilliant kid" whom local parents had harped on about for years. Just imagine how many scholars in the district secretly loathed his guts.
And those scholars mostly hailed from wealthy, influential families. Who could say whose ancestors had served as officials? Even worse, who could say whether some "mediocre students" from Xue Tui's own generation had now become officials themselves? Why would any of those people give Xue Tui the time of day?
After another month or so, having called on countless acquaintances, pulled every connection he could muster, and burned through the last scraps of his silver, Xue Tui—bruised and battered by cold rejections—finally grasped one harsh truth: he could no longer survive in his hometown.
Left with no alternative if he wished to feed his wife and child, Xue Tui sold off his ancestral property and fled far from home with his family in tow. After several moves and wanderings, he eventually arrived in Luoyang.
It was here that he met the benefactor of his life—the proprietor of Bugui Tower. As for what manner of person this owner was… we will get into that later; for now, let us return to Xue Tui.
When he first arrived in Luoyang, Xue Tui made a living selling calligraphy and paintings at the marketplace. Business was dismal, street thugs frequently showed up to stir up trouble and extort him, and there were times when he went several days without earning a single copper coin.
During that year, the household was kept afloat almost entirely by the odd jobs his wife took on doing laundry and mending. Let alone the adults, even the children went from full bellies one meal to starving the next. Back then, Xue Tui often thought to himself: his wife had once been a gently bred young lady from a family of equal standing to his own, yet now she had sunk to such misery alongside him. He truly felt unworthy of her.
And it was precisely during those bitterest days that Xue Tui's character underwent another transformation—he grew slick and pragmatic.
If his wife, a woman who had never washed a single dish before the age of twenty-five, could now labor until her hands were covered in cuts and calluses, why couldn't he, Xue Tui, toss away that expensive pride and self-esteem of his?
From that point onward, he began writing lightweight, frivolous verse and sensual ditties that he once would have deemed intolerably vulgar, and painting depictions of amorous beauties that better suited popular tastes… He abandoned his personal artistic pursuits, placing his family's standard of living above all else and using that as motivation to hawk his literary talent.
That lifestyle finally came to an end on the day the proprietor of Bugui Tower, with a discerning eye, recognized his talent and invited him to become an advisor here at Zhixian Pavilion.
From the course of Xue Tui's life, it was plain to see that he was no pedantic, out-of-touch scholar; though he possessed a haughty streak, he was more than capable of bending and yielding when the occasion called for it.
To sum it up in modern parlance—a master of passive-aggressive maneuvering.
Right now, telling Huang Donglai and Sun Yixie that it would be "as easy as turning a palm" was unquestionably stroking their vanity while subtly laying a trap. That way, even if he sprang a brutally difficult challenge on them in a moment, they wouldn't easily find an excuse to back out.
Naturally, the duo wasn't so easily hoodwinked… When it came to stirring the pot, Xue Tui's little tricks were amateur hour compared to Sun Yixie.
Huang Donglai was egged on by Brother Sun from morning till night; how could he possibly fail to see what Xue Tui was trying to pull?
"Heh… that's hard to say," Huang Donglai replied with a grin after a brief pause. "We'd better see what test Mister Xue has in mind before jumping to conclusions."
"Ha!" Sun Yixie, riding high after just showing off his skills, nudged Huang Donglai's arm with an elbow and chuckled. "Hey, Brother Huang, that doesn't sound like you. Aren't you usually the first to jump to conclusions?"
"Piss off," Huang Donglai shot back without the slightest courtesy. "It's fine when he says it, but what the hell are you stirring the pot for? Did you eat too much fish and stuff your brains?"
"Heh…" Sun Yixie gave an awkward chuckle. "Fine, fine, I'll shut up. The next trial is all yours; I'll just stand by and watch Brother Huang put on a show."
The expletive-laden banter between the two flowed naturally without sounding out of place in the least. Yet upon closer inspection, the undertones of their remarks made it clear that they saw right through Xue Tui's little ploy, even taking a few veiled swipes in his direction.
Listening from the side, Xue Tui felt a secret jolt of surprise…
During his years at Bugui Tower, he had encountered his fair share of so-called "youth heroes." But those young men in their late teens and early twenties were almost always overly brash and blunt, forever prone to boasting and overcommitting… A few words of flattery were usually all it took to send them tumbling straight into a trap.
Yet these two lads before him not only possessed genuine ability, but they were also remarkably seasoned in how they carried themselves—they basically never postured unless they were entirely sure of themselves, and even when flattered, their replies always left them room to retreat.
Young men like this were something Xue Tui had never encountered in his entire life, and it couldn't help but pique his interest.
* * *
A moment later, Xue Tui guided the two into a study on the second floor. Bookcases lined all four walls, displaying not only books but also antique scrolls, paintings, potted plants, and assorted ornaments. On the southern side of the room stood a desk, already furnished with paper, ink, brushes, and an inkstone.
The three of them had just reached the center of the room and hadn't even fully settled into place when Xue Tui abruptly turned around and spoke: "Young sirs, I shall get straight to the point…" He was attempting to catch the pair off guard. "For today's One Glance, please direct your attention over here…"
With that, he swept his wide sleeve, pointing toward an object resting on the third shelf of the bookcase beside him.
Indeed, the so-called One Glance was, in truth, an exercise in "identifying an object."
Of course, anything presented as a test could never be common; it had to be a rare curio—something exceptionally scarce, if not one of a kind across all of Da Ming. Therefore, the One Glance trial tested one's eyesight only secondarily; its primary measure was breadth of knowledge.
What Xue Tui was showing Sun Yixie and Huang Donglai was one of the many curiosities belonging to Bugui Tower's owner.
Yet… before his words had even finished echoing, and before he could strike a challenging pose, Huang Donglai took one look at the contraption and remarked, "Isn't that just a telescope?"
At those words, Xue Tui nearly coughed up a mouthful of old blood…
The One Glance trial could be called the hardest of the three. For One Taste, there was still a chance of guessing your way through, and the judging for One Word carried a certain degree of subjectivity. But for One Glance, the answers were strictly of the sort where "either you know it or you'll never guess it in a million years."
Furthermore, Xue Tui had deliberately selected a rare foreign curio that the owner had acquired from overseas barbarian nations only recently. One could safely say that hardly anyone in all of Da Ming knew what it was. Who could have imagined that the boy standing at a distance would just glance over, without even walking up to inspect it, and rattle off its name right on the spot?
"Young Master Huang… you have seen this before?" Xue Tui blurted out in his shock.
Was Huang Donglai about to let himself be baited into revealing anything? If this line of questioning continued, what was Brother Huang supposed to say? Confess that he was a transmigrator? Or fabricate a tall tale about having visited the Netherlands in this universe?
"Well now… heh…" Huang Donglai let out a dry laugh, cupping his hands. "You'll have to forgive me, but that is rather inconvenient to disclose."
There was nothing wrong with that answer; he had no obligation to respond to an inquiry touching upon personal matters. The jianghu had its own customs as well: if there were things you didn't wish to discuss, rather than spinning nonsense, explicitly stating it was "inconvenient to disclose" right from the start gave no offense.
"Oh… heh, my apologies for being presumptuous." Xue Tui quickly realized he had overstepped. Offering an apologetic smile and a formal bow, he hurried to change the subject. "Very well. Since the One Glance trial presents no obstacle to you two gentlemen, let us proceed directly to the third trial, One Word."
Strictly speaking, passing the One Glance trial required not only stating the object's name, but also describing its general function. However, Xue Tui refrained from making some idiotic demand like asking Young Master Huang to explain the telescope's purpose; after all, for a "look-far-glass," the function was already embedded in the name, making any further explanation pointless.
And so, Sun and Huang passed the second trial without breaking a sweat.
Yet regarding the third trial, One Word, the two of them felt distinctly nervous inside… Because by their estimation, this trial was very likely to demand an honest-to-goodness contest of classical literary talent. The "widely traveled and profoundly knowledgeable" persona they had just spent so much effort establishing was in grave danger of vanishing into thin air during this round, only to be replaced by the harsh reality that they were uncultured illiterates.
Chapter 36