Chapter 425 - Catering to His Preferences
Wu Mingjin paid no attention to the protest. Before long, a servant brought over two porcelain cups. Unable to refuse, Wang Ci accepted his. The chill beneath his touch was immediate, the surface slightly damp. Lifting the lid, he saw the liquid inside was faintly green, with many pearl-like fine bubbles rising in strings from the bottom.
Several pieces of crushed ice floated and sank in the cup, bumping together with crisp sounds.
"Come, drink this to cool off first!" Wu Mingjin said, taking a sip himself with evident satisfaction.
Wang Ci normally adhered strictly to principles of health preservation and had always politely declined anything cold. But when a superior offered something, he couldn't refuse. He took a small sip.
Upon entering his mouth, the taste was sweet and sour with a lingering aftertaste of mint's cool fragrance—but there was also a peculiar tingling sensation, as if many things were exploding in his mouth. The feeling was quite extraordinary.
After swallowing, his whole body felt cool and comfortable. He couldn't help but take a second sip.
"This kvass must be drunk all at once; if the fizz escapes, it loses its flavor." Wu Mingjin had become something of a spokesperson for Lingao high society's fashionable lifestyle.
The weather really was oppressively hot. Wang Ci quickly finished. Suddenly feeling gas rising from his stomach, he hurriedly covered his face with his sleeve and burped several times. Immediately, his body felt much cooler and more refreshed. Indeed, it was an excellent thing for relieving summer heat and quenching thirst! Probably another Australian product, Wang Ci thought.
Wang Ci collected himself and reported on Xiong Buyou's visit, mentioning the Australians' plans to repair the county school and Moli Xuan.
"This subordinate believes this matter is of great importance and requires Your Honor's instruction."
Wu Mingjin had originally harbored some resentment that Wang Ci had taken it upon himself to lease the school lands to some "Tiandihui" for tenancy. He had heard that this Educational Director was always crying poverty outside and soliciting donations everywhere, always talking about how the county had no money or rice to give him—though this was true, it showed too little regard for his superior's face. Besides, the county really had no money.
Wu Mingjin let out a "hmph" and said: "What choice do I have? Since the school lands are already in their hands, their repairing the Confucian temple and county school is only to be expected." As he spoke, he took a cigarette from a lathe-turned wooden cigarette box. The attendant beside him hurriedly brought a paper spill to light it for him.
Wang Ci was greatly embarrassed. His political acumen wasn't high, and he hadn't realized his words while soliciting donations had offended his superior. He thought the county magistrate was blaming him for taking it upon himself to lease the school lands to the Tiandihui. He hastily rose and said: "It's all this subordinate's momentary confusion..."
"The county has no money now. Since they want to repair it, let them repair it." Wu Mingjin had completely given up resisting whatever the Kun chose to do. Whatever they wanted to accomplish, they would accomplish. His making a fuss was nothing more than a mantis trying to stop a chariot.
Wang Ci got not a single piece of advice from Wu Mingjin, though he did witness the county magistrate's various recent "Australian enjoyments." He wanted to find Secretary Wang, but the attendant said the secretary was napping and wasn't receiving guests. He could only slink back to the county school.
As soon as he entered the Lingxing Gate, he saw the doorman in the gatehouse busy at a yellow clay portable stove outside the room, apparently cooking something. He was holding a book, tearing it apart page by page and stuffing it into the stove to start the fire.
Suddenly, a half-burned scrap of paper flew to Wang Ci's chest. He grabbed it with his hand, about to throw it away, when his eyes went wide.
This was a page from the Analects!
He had only instructed the doorman to burn the Kun' books; he hadn't told him to burn the Analects. Confucian classics like the Four Books and Five Classics, though not rare, simply couldn't be purchased in Lingao—you had to travel to the prefectural capital! Using such a book as firewood—
Wang Ci nearly fainted from rage. He was about to rush over and berate him loudly when he suddenly froze.
This Analects was printed horizontally!
Horizontally printed books—in the Great Ming, besides these Kun, absolutely no one else did this!
So the fifty books the Kun had sent were not that strange Literacy Textbook but "proper books" like the Four Books and Five Classics! Realizing this, he shouted with all his might:
"Stop!"
Wang Ci sat in the hall with a rattan-woven chest at his feet. Inside were the books rescued from destruction, snatched from Zhurong's jaws. The doorman had already burned several books while starting the fire for boiling water. As for Wang Ci's behavior—first forcing him to burn books and then rushing over like a madman to stop him—the doorman was utterly confused and could only conclude that the weather was too hot and Master Wang was probably having some sort of episode.
Wang Ci didn't care what the doorman thought. He hurriedly picked up and examined the books one by one.
The box was mostly filled with the "Thirteen Classics"—the thirteen classic works of Confucianism, including the Book of Documents, the Rites of Zhou, the Analects, Mencius, Erya, and so on. This was the foundation of the imperial examinations. Someone who could read through the Thirteen Classics was considered an intellectual in ancient times.
The box had originally contained a complete set of the Thirteen Classics, though the doorman had already burned a few. This set of Thirteen Classics, apart from opening from the right and the horizontal text layout, contained not a single simplified character throughout. The printing was extremely fine. The line grids separating characters found in ordinary books were completely absent, yet the characters were arranged in perfectly neat columns and rows. This effect of black characters on white paper with a pure white background was something even the finest Song dynasty editions Wang Ci had ever seen couldn't match. He couldn't fathom how the Australians had achieved it.
Wang Ci felt the only impropriety was that punctuation had been added. Naturally, this greatly reduced the effort needed to read, but whether these overseas barbarians could genuinely comprehend the sages' meanings when adding punctuation—he simply couldn't rest easy.
He randomly selected one and looked at it, only to discover that the punctuation contained not the slightest error. Wang Ci was surprised: The Australians aren't so uncultured after all!
The more he thought, the more puzzled he became. He examined the other books inside. There was also a set of Thirteen Classics with commentary. In reality, this was Zhou Dongtian's pirated edition of Zhonghua Book Company's Thirteen Classics: Qing Dynasty Annotations Collection. Since ancient times, quite a few people had written annotations for the Thirteen Classics. The Qing dynasty had marked another peak for such annotations, especially in textual explanation and evidential research on names and institutions, surpassing previous generations. When Zhou Dongtian chose what to pirate, he had considered: first, it must have high academic achievement; second, it couldn't be work from previous dynasties—that wouldn't demonstrate the Crossing Group's abilities. So Qing dynasty research results were the first to be appropriated.
Wang Ci had naturally read annotations of the Thirteen Classics before, but this work was entirely new to him. He naturally assumed these annotations were the Australians' own scholarship. After reading a few pages, he couldn't help exclaiming in admiration—the level of these annotations was in no way inferior to the previous annotators from Han, Tang, Song, and Yuan that he had read. Wang Ci couldn't help but become confused.
If one said the Australians were a crude and ignorant group, their level of classical scholarship was clearly not low. If one said they were very learned, they used simplified characters recklessly, and their writing style was unbearably crude.
"Truly a strange group of people." Wang Ci felt increasingly bewildered. Could it be that the truly great Confucian scholars had stayed behind in Australia and not come out? But with such great scholars, how could they tolerate this group making such a mess? Who knew what sort of person was king of the Australians.
As he casually flipped through, he received another shock—he saw the Grand Dictionary. This so-called Grand Dictionary was actually Zhonghua Book Company's punctuated Kangxi Dictionary. Naturally, the name Kangxi didn't exist here.
The Kangxi Dictionary was based on two Ming dynasty character dictionaries, Zihui and Zhengzi Tong, with additions and "corrections of doubts and errors." But at this time, Zhengzi Tong hadn't been completed yet—it wasn't officially published until the end of Chongzhen. The Transmigrators' pirated Zhonghua Book Company Kangxi Dictionary was not only the Daoguang-era collated edition but also included modern collation results. Presenting such a dictionary that combined ancient and modern achievements greatly shocked Wang Ci. After reading a few pages, he felt the Australians were even more unfathomable.
These books were not only finely collated but also printed so beautifully that he couldn't put them down. Scholars loved books by habit. When Wang Ci had come to take up his post, even though it was a thousand li away, he had still had his servant carry a chest of books. Seeing this chest of books, Wang Ci's covetous desire surged. After all, this was a gift sent to him; claiming it as his own was a matter of course.
With these thoughts, his wariness toward Xiong Buyou decreased considerably. His thinking inevitably drifted toward the same position as Wu Mingjin's—since he couldn't stop them anyway, he might as well let them proceed. After all, it was something beneficial for Lingao.
With such thoughts, when Xiong Buyou came again the next day, Wang Ci's attitude had become much more cooperative. Xiong Buyou also brought him a second gift—an allowance.
In the past, when the Crossing Group distributed allowances to county yamen officials, they had unfortunately forgotten Wang Ci. First, he didn't work in the county yamen, and second, most modern people didn't know there was such an official as Educational Director in a county. Fortunately, it wasn't too late to correct this now.
Wang Ci made the customary refusals, but as Xiong Buyou had expected, officials of this space-time obviously didn't view such income as sinful. Besides, given this Educational Director's straitened circumstances, he desperately needed the money.
The next day, the construction team from the Lingao Construction Company moved into Moli Xuan. This famous Song dynasty building had been just a small thatched hut in the early Ming. It wasn't until 1455 that it was renovated into a "Large Tiled Pavilion" and became an academy.
The entire Moli Xuan wasn't large in scale, but it wasn't simple either: stone pillars, glazed tiles, carved beams and painted rafters—clearly, considerable effort had been invested in building it originally.
Though it had been repaired many times over nearly two hundred years, it was after all ancient. Upon inspection, the decay of the wooden structure was very serious. The walls and roof also had many damaged and leaking places—it had deteriorated into a sorry state. Among the Transmigrators, no one specialized in ancient architecture, but fortunately the Lingao Construction Company had already recruited quite a few carpenters from the immigrants of this space-time. Repairing buildings posed no problem.
The timber, bricks, tiles, and lime needed to repair Moli Xuan were readily available for the Crossing Group. With ample materials, workers in place, and modern construction supervisors managing on-site, in less than five days, the entire demolition, replacement, and renovation of Moli Xuan was completed. A week later, the main structure had been restored to its former appearance and painting work had begun.
(End of Chapter)