Chapter 490: The Pine and Cypress Wither Not

The thirty-first year of the First Emperor of Qin, the first day of the second month.

Their hair disheveled, long stripped of their former proud Confucian scholar bearing, Shen Sheng and Lu Musheng carried heavy wooden cangues in their hands as they left the dark, dank prison. The brilliant spring sunlight outside stung their eyes. Turning back to look at the prison gate closing behind them, they touched the tattooed characters on their faces, still gripped by lingering fear.

Half a month had passed since they were arrested for beating the drum at the village school. During that half month, over ten Confucian scholars had been sent away one after another after paying the thousand-coin fine. For a few whose families were truly impoverished, Fu Qiubo took out a little money he had saved over many years to deliver them from calamity.

Only Shen Sheng and Lu Musheng were judged by the prison clerk to be guilty not only of gathering a crowd to debate, but also of fabricating rumors and slandering the authorities. They were sentenced to "tattooing and hard labor."

Tattooing the face meant pricking characters into the skin and dyeing them with ink as a mark of criminality, never to be scrubbed away again.

For an ordinary person, this was already an enormous humiliation — let alone for Confucian scholars who believed that "the body, hair, and skin are received from one's parents; one dare not injure or harm them."

More ironic still, the two had been imprisoned for resisting the unification of writing, yet the venomous Commandery Governor Heifu, as if toying with them, had deliberately ordered the Qin seal script carved onto their faces!

Now the two seal-script characters for "hard labor convict" on their faces had become an eternal, ineradicable nightmare!

And this was not the end. The throbbing pain on their faces had not yet subsided when the two scholars were hauled out of the prison by a minor platoon chief named Liu Ji, who spoke with a thick Huai-Si accent, to be escorted to their labor service destination: Chengshan, at the easternmost tip of Jiaodong.

Chengshan, also called Chengshan Cape, was the easternmost edge of the world known to the people of the Central Plains — the ends of the earth in this era. With the boundless sea, the wind, and the scorching sun, one could well imagine how miserable the bitter hard labor there as convicts would be.

Lu Musheng had not expected the price to be so heavy. He was already beginning to regret it, but Shen Sheng encouraged him, saying:

"Even Confucius had his time trapped between Chen and Cai, going seven days without food, yet still able to sing to the sound of stringed instruments and strum the zither, never letting the music cease. When the winter cold arrives and the frost and snow descend, it is then that one knows the evergreen vigor of the pine and cypress! Though we suffer cruel punishment, we must not lose heart!"

Shen Sheng had not surrendered. In his heart he remained indignant and furious. Though Qi had fallen, the people of Qi still preserved their memories of that beautiful, peaceful era. Only, if these memories were not passed to the next generation through writing and language, they would sooner or later fade and vanish.

In his view, Qin speech was awkward and grating — how could it compare to the pleasing sound of the Qi tongue? Qin writing was clumsy — how could it match the elegance and enduring ancient spirit of Qi script? They must be kept firmly in the heart and never forgotten.

For a people who had lost their state and become slaves and bondservants, so long as they firmly remembered their language and writing, it was as if they held the key to open the prison gate!

This was how he had spurred himself on during that half month in prison, and how he had endured.

Shen Sheng spoke with earnest gravity to Lu Musheng: "Whether Qi and Lu are extinguished or not no longer depends on court decisions, nor is it decided on the battlefield. It depends on how long we can remember the speech, the writing, and the historical records of Qi!"

"Even if we reach Chengshan, we must not forget! We shall be like Boyi and Shuqi, who refused to eat the grain of Zhou!"

Before Lu Musheng could nod, both of them received a lash of the whip!

"What idle chatter is this? If it weren't for you lot, your father here wouldn't have been assigned this errand by the Commandery Governor, sent to that godforsaken place with nothing but bird droppings."

After Liu Ji and Cao Can had finished handing over the tallies, travel permits, and identity documents, Liu Ji came over cursing and lashed the two a few times, venting all his pent-up frustration from this period on the two Confucian scholars, and hurried them along.

"Your father rides in the cart; you two walk. If you're too slow, I'll tie you to a rope and drag you along!"

Thus they staggered out of the Qin city and entered the outer settlement of Jimo. Outside, people came and went, and when they saw Shen Sheng and Lu Musheng, their eyes all darted toward the tattooed characters on their faces.

Shen Sheng held his head high and puffed out his chest, treating the facial tattoos as his own medal of honor. He raised his head and laughed.

Lu Musheng, long accustomed to dignity, felt utterly ill at ease, wishing he could find a crack in the earth to burrow into. Things having come to this, he only begged to leave Jimo as quickly as possible.

But things went contrary to his wishes. Liu Ji did not lead them directly to the eastern gate; instead he walked south for another stretch, arriving near the most bustling village school, where they heard several drumbeats!

"Dong! Dong!"

Hearing the drumbeats, Shen Sheng and Lu Musheng were greatly startled. They had been locked up too long and knew nothing of outside affairs. Could it be that friends were beating the drum at the village school, rallying the people to protest on their behalf?

But before they could be moved, Liu Ji sneered: "Don't let your imaginations run wild. That's the Commandery Governor and the Libationer beating the drum. Today the public school's first examination results are being posted!"

As it turned out, although the village school had reopened, it had become a place for the authorities to announce official business. At the spot where scholars had once debated politics, a stone wall had been built, over a zhang wide and eight or nine chi tall. Whenever there was a new government decree, it would be hung and posted there, watched over by two Jiaodong clerks who specialized in reading and explaining aloud to the illiterate. The crowd of onlookers was never too large.

But today, the village school was so tightly packed that not a drop of water could seep through. On that stone wall was posted a sheet of paper brushed with red lacquer, extremely eye-catching, visible from a great distance. On it were prominently written several columns of names!

The public school was divided into the clerkship track and the elementary track. Among them, the clerkship students studied Qin speech, Qin writing, and law, and had now been enrolled for over half a month. In the first examination, the top three in the two subjects of "Reading and Writing" and "Listening and Speaking" among the several dozen students could be placed on the red list, exhibited at the village school until the next examination changed the roster.

It was said that the first-place winners would also receive a reward of fifty gold pieces!

Liu Ji no longer hurried them. He sat down in a wineshop across from the village school and began drinking, clearly under orders to deliberately make the two scholars linger here.

Shen Sheng and Lu Musheng looked at the village school, now utterly changed beyond recognition, their expressions complicated. And when they heard the clerks begin to call out the list, their faces changed dramatically!

Why? Because the one who had taken first place in Reading and Writing was actually a disciple of Fu Qiubo, a fellow student named Lai Sheng!

"That brat!"

Shen Sheng nearly ground his steel-like teeth to powder. Lai Sheng's family was poor; he could barely afford the tuition. But as early as half a year ago, he had been discovered secretly studying Qin writing, presumably wanting to become an official and earn a living. At the time, Shen Sheng and the others had rebuked him severely, and Lai Sheng had been forced to admit his error.

But on the day they rallied everyone to go together to the village school and beat the drum, Lai Sheng had excused himself with a stomachache and vanished without a trace. So it turned out he had switched allegiances so quickly, entered the public school, and become a dog of the authorities!

The top three in Reading and Writing were finished being read, followed by Listening and Speaking. The best in Listening and Speaking was a son of the Yan clan of Gaomi County, Yan Hua. And the two after him were also disciples who had audited Fu Qiubo's lectures!

Shen Sheng was so furious he cried out: "Those people are no men of Qi! We should beat the drum and attack them!"

But Shen Sheng's rage was quickly doused by Lu Musheng's somber words.

"The Master, in order to save our lives, had no choice but to become the County Triarch for the authorities. Since even the Master has submitted, what reason do his disciples have not to rely on the powerful?" Lu Musheng's face was full of regret.

Disciples from better-off families, like Bai Sheng and others, shut themselves in their homes after leaving prison. As for disciples from poor families who needed to trade their knowledge for food, what could they do besides throwing themselves at the authorities, scraping together some minor official post, or preparing to teach private school legally in the future?

Shen Sheng was speechless.

Indeed — though Jiaodong was vast, it could no longer accommodate a single free writing desk!

By this time, the townspeople had gathered in ever greater numbers, all buzzing with discussion. Each time a person's name was called out, they echoed with a few shouts of approval.

At first the voices were scattered and sparse — after all, in the eyes of the people of Jiaodong, speaking Qin speech and writing Qin characters was nothing glorious.

But later, when Commandery Governor Heifu and Libationer Xiao He appeared, followed by two clerks carrying wooden trays, the crowd suddenly grew excited, and the cheers grew louder and louder!

Ordinary people did not actually care who had taken first place. They cared more about whether the authorities would truly fulfill the promise made half a month ago and give the two first-place winners fifty taels of gold!

"That's fifty gold pieces! Converted to grain, enough for a family of eight to eat for three or four years! Can you really get gold so easily just by speaking Qin well and writing characters well?"

Everyone harbored doubts. Outsiders could not be trusted — this was the common understanding of the people of Jiaodong.

But the authorities did not disappoint them. After the name-calling ended, Commandery Governor Heifu personally stepped forward and loudly declared that the authorities had made a prior promise half a month ago: the two who placed first in the examination would receive their reward immediately, without fail!

With that, he turned and lifted the cover off the wooden tray held by the clerk. Beneath the red cloth was prominently arrayed a row of gold cakes, glittering brilliantly in the sunlight!

"Tsk, it really is gold!"

"Maybe it's copper..."

Someone muttered quietly. In their view, Qin officials were all harsh and vicious, every year only knowing how to press for land tax and poll tax, forcing them to leave their homes to do all manner of bitter labor — building roads, digging canals, erecting walls. When had they ever let the people of Jiaodong get such a bargain?

"You gentlemen don't believe it? Who is willing to come forward and test it? See whether this is real gold, and whether it's the proper weight?"

The Jiaodong locals looked at one another; for a long while no one stepped forward. Finally, a bold merchant came out, weighed the gold on the "scale" the officials had long prepared, then picked up a gold cake and bit it. His eyes lit up, and he announced to the crowd:

"It truly is gold of the finest quality, a full fifty taels in weight — not a bit more, not a bit less!"

This merchant was also a famous cloth dealer in Jimo who had handled countless pieces of gold. What he said could not be wrong. The crowd buzzed with excitement and only then believed it to be true.

Heifu offered no further explanation. He personally handed the wooden tray to Lai Sheng and Yan Hua, who had taken first place, and even patted them on the shoulder in encouragement.

After the two youths received it — Yan Hua came from a wealthy family and felt that although the gold in his hand was indeed fifty taels, its weight was just that, light and insubstantial, so he merely spoke a few insincere words of thanks.

Lai Sheng, whose family was poorer, was different. He felt only a heavy weight settle into his hand. Choking up, he raised the gold cake and shouted to the surrounding crowd:

"Lai Sheng's family is poor and hard-pressed. My parents scrimped and saved only so I could pursue learning, so that I might acquire some skill and become a retainer or subordinate to a grandee, to supplement the family income. Yet after several years, though I can recite a few lines of the Odes and Documents, I have still accomplished nothing. I am also no good at farming or gardening. Now with my father gravely ill, it was truly about to drive me to my death."

"Fortunately, the authorities opened a public school, and the first cohort of entrants had their tuition fees waived. The Commandery Governor keeps his word — excellence in learning is rewarded. With this sum, I can call a physician and have my elderly father treated!"

With that, he prostrated himself at Heifu's feet, kowtowing without cease!

Lai Sheng's speech moved the onlooking crowd. Many forgot that moments ago they had been cursing him as a "traitor to his ancestors" and actually began cheering for him:

"A fine young man, full of filial devotion!"

"Earning a reward through learning to treat his father — no shame in that!"

Seeing the atmosphere heated up by Lai Sheng's performance, the Libationer Xiao He seized the moment to come out and announce: From now on, public school disciples would attend two semesters of classes each year. In addition to this examination, each semester henceforth would have a midterm and a final examination. As before, the top three would be called by name on the honor roll, and the first-place finisher in the final examination would receive fifty taels of gold!

What stirred even greater envy was that all public school disciples, during their period of study, would be exempted from corvée labor service!

"From this day forward, the authorities' word is bond. One is one, two is two — it shall never be altered!"

The authorities spoke with ringing conviction, vigorously extolling the virtues of attending public school, learning Qin script, and speaking the Qin tongue. This made ordinary folk green with envy.

The benefits of attending public school were plain to see. As a result, the private schools opened by county and village Ru scholars suddenly seemed far less attractive. Quite a few families of ample means were already beginning to consider whether, half a year hence, they should send their sons and younger brothers into the public school...

Watching this scene from afar, Lu Musheng's regret deepened, while Shen Sheng revealed a helpless, bitter smile.

"When the cold season arrives, when frost and snow descend — only then does one know the flourishing of pine and cypress..."

Recalling this line of his own, Shen Sheng found it bitterly ironic. In his imagination, teachers and friends were all upright, yet the reality was that pines and cypresses were, after all, the minority. The greater number were grasses bending with the wind!

The gentleman Ru who held the bottom line was reduced to a penal convict, tattooed on the face and sent into exile.

The petty Ru who abandoned his dignity received gold as a reward, with ten thousand cheering him on...

What has become of this world? Is this the degenerate age of overturned purity and filth, of rites collapsed and music ruined, that the Master spoke of?

"Indeed — just like Qu Yuan, of whom the Master spoke: 'The whole world is foul and I alone am clean; all men are drunk and I alone am sober — therefore I am cast out!'"

Shen Sheng shut his eyes in anguish, two streaks of tears rolling down. At this moment, all he wanted was to vent his grief in a long song!

"Seen enough?"

At that moment, Platoon Chief Liu Ji tactlessly cut short his lament.

Liu Ji, having eaten and drunk his fill, sauntered over picking his teeth. Seeing Shen Sheng's appearance of wishing he were dead, he immediately laughed:

"If you've seen enough, then let's go! The road to Chengshan is still long — spare me your horse piss in front of your old man! Over the next several hundred li, you'll have plenty of chances to cry!"

(End of chapter)