Chapter 48: My Foolish Little Brother

When they left the Yan residence, Jing was still in a daze, looking back again and again.

"Still thinking about that Yan family jade-like beauty?" Heifu had seen it all and teased his younger brother.

"No way!"

Jing's face instantly flushed red, just like a monkey's rear, but then he said dreamily, "Second Brother, tell me, why is it that the girls in our neighborhood all have dark, rough skin, dirty, messy hair, and grime packed under their fingernails, while that Yan family jade-like beauty is so, so…"

For a moment he could find no words to describe her.

"Hands like lotus roots, skin like congealed cream, teeth like gourd seeds, a cicada's head and moth's brows, one alluring smile and she steals your soul away?"

"Yes, yes, yes! Second Brother put it perfectly!"

Jing looked at Heifu, his eyes full of "you get me." At last he turned back again and sighed, "To take a wife, one must take a daughter of the Yan clan."

"Little brother, you're not even older than me yet, and your head's already full of thoughts of taking a wife."

Heifu laughed and shook his head. Earlier, when he had been copying out the laws and ordinances, Yan Zheng's granddaughter, curious about who they were, had peeked in from outside the door, only to be spotted by Jing. From that moment on, Jing's soul had wandered beyond the heavens.

Clearly, this young man nearing sixteen, just like the pimples blooming all over his face, had a feeling called love burst forth in his heart, utterly captivated by that fourteen-year-old girl.

Although, by Heifu's standards, that little girl, placed in a later era, would just be an utterly ordinary, nothing-special female high schooler.

But then again, he was different from Heifu, who was widely experienced and had a hard drive full of countless beauties. In these ten-plus years, Jing had rarely left the bounds of Xiyang Village, and all he had ever seen were farm girls. Suddenly catching sight of a well-cared-for, clean-scrubbed, neat-toothed young lady in a pretty dress—how could he not be stunned as if seeing a celestial being?

"They're all women, yet why is the difference so vast, just like…"

Jing was at a loss for words again. He pointed at the filthy mud on the ground, then at the pure white clouds in the sky. "Just like comparing this clod of mud to those clouds!"

"I'll tell you why."

Heifu clapped Jing on the shoulder, shattering his dream with a single slap.

"It's only because from childhood she never had to deliver meals to her father and brothers in the fields under the blazing sun; only because she reached out for clothes and opened her mouth for food, never having to hull grain or stoke the stove herself; only because she could eat fine grain at every meal, never having to chew coarse rice bran like our sisters and aunts; only because she was born into a surname-bearing family, the daughter of an official, naturally different from paupers like us who have been poor farmers for generations."

As he listened to these words, Jing at first nodded repeatedly, but slowly he froze, until he said not a single word.

In an instant he felt the gap in status between himself and that Yan maiden. Take a wife, one must take a daughter of the Yan clan? Heh, the faint hope that had just kindled in his heart was doused, just like that.

"Second Brother, you're really no fun."

Jing muttered, took the bamboo basket from Heifu's hands and slung it over his shoulders, and silently walked on ahead.

Heifu said nothing more either. The two of them, one in front and one behind, left Bian Hamlet and followed the hillside toward Xiyang Village. As he walked, Jing kept looking back to gaze at Bian Hamlet. The sun was setting in the west, and above the Yan residence stretched sheet after sheet of evening glow—looking near, but in truth far away, just like that girl he could never reach.

In the eyes of this half-grown kid, who under his elder brother's shelter seemed as if he would never grow up, appeared sorrow for the very first time.

"Jing."

Seeing no one else nearby, Heifu called to his younger brother, "Have you figured out yet the thing I wanted you to remember earlier?"

Jing turned back blankly. "What thing?"

"That servant's arrogance before and deference after toward us, and Elder Yan's coldness at first and warmth later toward me—why was that?"

"Why…" Jing pondered a moment, then blurted out, "It's because they knew you were going to become a Village Chief!"

"Exactly!" Heifu clapped the suddenly enlightened Jing on the shoulder and had him sit down by the roadside.

"Let me tell you another story, a story about Su Qin, called 'Arrogance Before, Deference After'!"

…

"After experiencing all these things, Su Qin sighed and said: I am still the same person, yet when I am rich and honored, my relatives revere me; when I am poor and lowly, they scorn me. How much more so for ordinary people…"

A quarter-hour later, having finished the story of Su Qin, Heifu said to Jing, "Now you understand, don't you? A person's standing in others' eyes is completely different depending on whether he is rich and honored or poor and lowly. How similar our experience today was to Su Qin's! Had they not learned that I was about to become a Village Chief, let alone accepting me as a disciple, we would probably still be standing outside Elder Yan's study!"

Jing nodded heavily, but then said somewhat dejectedly, "Second Brother, you have skills, you earned merit and were granted rank, and you have the chance to be a Village Chief—naturally you'll be like Su Qin, looked upon highly by others. But me… I can only go on being a nobody junior soldier, with no outstanding skills, forever looked down upon by everyone."

The more he spoke, the more inferior he felt.

"Who says so?"

Heifu, however, encouraged him, "Little brother, though you seem mischievous on the surface, I know you're clever and smart! Right now, there's an opportunity that can let you become a clerk, step onto an official career path just like me, and be looked up to by others!"

Jing's eyes lit up at once. "What opportunity?"

Heifu said, "If I can pass the assessment and become Village Chief of Huyang Village, the first year is only probationary. By the second year, I'll be a formally appointed clerk. When I was in the county seat, I asked a Clerk I know, and he said that when the time comes, I can recommend one son or younger brother from my family to study law at the academy! Once you enter the academy, you'll be a disciple!"

As it turned out, although Qin had banned the Odes and Documents, it had its own Legalist system of education. Commanderies and counties generally had official schools—the academies. The students in the academies were called "disciples," and the source of disciples had certain restrictions, stipulating that they must at least be sons of "scribes." The so-called "scribes" referred to low-level civil servants such as clerks, secretaries, and archivists in various levels of government. Although a Village Chief was a martial official, he still fell within this category.

In the academy, disciples had to learn writing, chariot-driving, swordsmanship, archery, and the like—essentially variants of the Confucian "Six Arts of the Gentleman." But because the purpose of learning was to enter government and become an official, and Qin revered rule by law, the most important subject of study was still understanding the laws and ordinances. Disciples had to hold the very legal statutes Heifu had been copying, reciting and reciting until they knew them by heart, until they became a part of their very being.

After disciples from the academy graduated smoothly, they were generally assigned jobs by the state, appointed as low-level civil servants and stepping onto the official career path. They wouldn't have to rely on sheer luck like Heifu, or like others who traded severed heads on the battlefield for merit ranks to become clerks.

"That Elder Yan is renowned and highly respected, his family well-off, but do you know, back in the day he was just a little disciple in an academy, accumulating merit step by step to reach where he is today."

After explaining the benefits of entering the academy and becoming a disciple, Heifu asked seriously, "Jing, are you willing to enter the academy as a disciple, to endure two or three years there, and seek a future better than now? A higher status?"

"Your little brother is willing!" Jing was already so stirred that his eyes brimmed with hot tears, yet he still hesitated.

He lowered his head and said quietly, "But I barely even recognize characters—how can I be a disciple?"

"Isn't there still a year?"

Heifu encouraged him, "The reason I had you come with me to Bian Hamlet today was to entrust you to Elder Yan. I've heard that Elder Yan's second son has opened a private school in the township that teaches people to read and understand the law. By paying some money and silk as tuition, you can enroll. You might as well go and listen in…"

Qin not only had state-run academies, but also temporary classrooms in the townships that taught the sons of wealthy, ranked families to read. Living in Qin, if a family had no one who could read or do sums, who knew when they might muddle-headedly break the law and be collectively punished.

"But…" Jing's face twisted in conflict. Taking the first step toward unfamiliar things is always the hardest. With his monkey-like nature, could he really sit still and study? Even Heifu himself was a little unsure.

So Heifu drawled, "I've heard that Elder Yan's second son is the father of that young lady you saw today! If you can study reading well, enter the academy as a disciple, and later go into government as a minor clerk, then your family status will be a decent match. Who knows, Elder Yan might just marry his granddaughter to you!"

"Is that true?"

The naive Jing was instantly overjoyed. The flame of love that had just been extinguished blazed up again. He bowed to Heifu and said, "I understand Second Brother's profound intention! I'll follow all of Second Brother's arrangements!"

On the rest of the journey home, that carefree Jing was back. His steps were light the whole way, thinking about his suddenly bright future, thinking about that girl who had made him fall in love at first sight, and he couldn't help giggling to himself.

Little did he know, Heifu behind him was secretly shaking his head.

"My foolish little brother, how could you ever understand your elder brother's painstaking efforts?"

The reason Heifu had sweet-talked Jing into entering the academy—all that talk about changing his future, making him a match for the Yan family so he could marry that beautiful girl… it was all empty words!

The most important thing was something Heifu had found out:

The very first thing a disciple entering the academy had to do was change his household registration, from an ordinary registration to a "disciple registration."

Moreover, the Qin statutes also stipulate that those whose names are on the disciple register are exempt from corvée service during their period of study!

Not only the rotational corvée, but even military conscription and frontier garrison duty can be waived!

This was one of the few legal loopholes within the strict and harsh Qin legal code.

Entering the academy to become a disciple was also the only method Heifu could think of, after racking his brains, to let his younger brother Jing escape the war that would come three years later.

If history remained unchanged, in the war where Wang Jian led a six-hundred-thousand-strong army to conquer Chu, the two brothers would all die in battle, their bones lost, their souls never returning home, leaving behind only a single letter for their family to remember them by.

Now, Heifu was already confident he could survive that great battle himself, but he dared not guarantee that he could keep his younger brother safe on a chaotic and complex battlefield.

Therefore, he could only resort to this last-ditch plan.

Before Zhong, Heifu was the younger brother; an elder brother is like a father, and Zhong would meticulously consider many things for him.

But before Jing, Heifu became the elder brother, and it was his turn to think about his younger brother's future.

Of course, the true purpose of all this did not need to be spoken aloud; he would simply make arrangements in silence and ensure his safety.

The cherry tree blossoms so bright, how splendid is their calyx sheen; of all the men now living, none can compare to brothers.

In dread of death and burial, brothers yearn for one another; across the plains and marshes they search, brothers seek each other out.

Brothers, is that not how it should be?

"I will not only let myself survive alone."

Watching his younger brother humming a tune ahead, Heifu silently thought: "I want Jing to live too. I want our whole family, in this world of shifting fortunes and upheaval, to all live, not a single one missing, and to live better and better!"

PS: Seeing the wildly reimagined "Seventh Month" by the Mo Family's Shi Shuji from the neighboring novel Warring States Ambitionist was truly a delightful surprise. I can't help but want to initiate some author-to-author ex-chan-ge. Could one of you go knock on the door of that tsundere author who never reads the review section and tell them to add me on a contact method so I can conveniently pester them for updates? Also, tell them that god-awful, overused cover of theirs needs to be changed!

(End of Chapter)