Volume 4: Gathering of Sages Chapter 696: The Companion Standing with You
There is a naughty kid in the classroom, and this naughty kid is a prince. What should I do?
For the generous Lu Sanlang, this problem is not a problem at all. His generous heart is not only because he ignores the problems he doesn't understand and ignores the cold eyes of others, but also because he is very brave and dares to challenge the authority that others dare not disobey. Although he only dared to challenge the father's authority in the past, just like Lu Wan is still very angry with his son, but now he is even braver.
With a teacher like Zhang Shou standing in front of him, he dared to act as a senior brother in front of the prince and talked and laughed freely. In comparison, other tutors in the Eastern Palace were much more cautious than him. Even Qi Liang, one of Zhang Shou's founding disciples, could not be as calm as him.
Therefore, when Zhang Shou personally told him to send the Fourth Prince to the intermediate class that he often taught, the little fat boy said that he had no pressure. Although he was not in the public school all the time, he was very busy with his own schoolwork and career every day, but as long as he taught a class, he could call out the names of everyone. So, Zhang Shou said that the Fourth Prince claimed to have this ability, and asked him to experiment if he had time. While he agreed in his heart, he also sneered.
Therefore, when he noticed that the Fourth Prince had obviously already mastered the superficial content he taught today and was looking around absent-mindedly, he did not immediately attack him.
However, when the Fourth Prince gradually became bored and lay on the table, then began to doze off, and Peanut did not remind the boy at all, he waited for a long time, making sure that the man was asleep, and then he came to the man quietly with the agility of a cat, and the ruler in his hand suddenly fell and hit the table heavily.
With a loud bang, the kid jumped up in fear: "Ah!"
"Ah, what? You're sleeping in class. What kind of study attitude is that?" Without a second thought, Lu Sanlang slammed the table with two more rulers. Seeing the dazed look on the Fourth Prince's face, he himself was a tutor in Ciqing Palace. How could he not know that it was the tone of those old teachers' lectures that made people become like this?
Most of the lecturers spoke in a steady and even manner. If they spoke in a good way, it was like a spring breeze. If they spoke in a bad way, it was like making people sleepy. Especially those from the Hanlin Academy, their speeches really made people sleepy. As for the Fourth Prince, he was not the Crown Prince like the Third Prince. No one had too high expectations of him. No one would care whether he was daydreaming or secretly doing his own things.
Therefore, the Fourth Prince was not accompanying the Crown Prince to study in Ciqing Palace, but was completely spoiled. Because the Third Prince was so focused on his own studies that he had no time to care whether the Fourth Prince was listening or not. In addition, there was no assessment, and Lu Sanlang was watching from the sidelines. How could he not know the Fourth Prince's lazy attitude towards study?
But he never said a word in Ciqing Palace. At this moment, in this classroom where only two people besides him knew the identity of the Fourth Prince, he banged the ruler loudly and rudely.
Seeing that the Fourth Prince's face was pale and he was blocked on one side by him and Little Peanut was sitting on the other side, so he had no way to escape. Lu Sanlang took the opportunity scold him harshly.
"Do you know that you are well fed and well clothed now because the country is unified and the times are peaceful and prosperous? But for this peaceful and prosperous time, how many people followed Emperor Taizu to fight in the front, drive out the Tartars, and restore the country? Do you know that your family can have the current situation and you can sit here peacefully because of your grandfather's call and your father's hard work?"
"But ask yourself, what have you done? You've been busy for three days and resting for two days, staring at this and that, but you've never looked at yourself clearly! Do you know how hardworking your brother is? Have you ever thought about how if you were left far behind by him, when you grow up, would you reminisce about the past with him every day because of your brotherhood?"
"When you have accomplished nothing and are nothing, will you still be able to stand by him?"
Lu Sanlang's few words completely stunned the Fourth Prince, and among the students in the classroom, some did not understand what he meant, while others only had a vague understanding - most of those who had a vague understanding thought that this new transfer student was the second son in the family. His grandfather and father had accumulated some family property, while the eldest son worked diligently outside. This little one was naughty and disobedient, so he was sent to public school through connections.
At this time, the Fourth Prince's fairly bright clothes also lived up to their speculation.
After Lu Sanlang had scolded the Fourth Prince completely, he did something that even Zhang Shou had never done before: "Since you think you don't need to listen to these things, then just go outside and stand there!"
Peanut, who had been watching coldly, took another breath. Let the Fourth Prince go outside and stand as a punishment? It seems that Lu Sanlang's teacher, his son Zhang Xueshi, has never done this before? But in this situation, he did not dare to remind him. He could only watch the Fourth Prince stumble out with his head down under Lu Sanlang's stern gaze.
Before he could retract his gaze, he was awakened again by a bang. This time, he found that it was Lu Sanlang's ruler that fell heavily on his desk. He shuddered and stood up quickly.
"As my desk mate, you don't know how to give me advice. You should stand outside too!"
Peanut was glared at by Lu Sanlang, but he didn't dare to say anything because he was the prince, so he didn't dare to remind him casually. He just walked out silently. But he didn't see that Ah Liu, who was sitting at the end of the classroom and was about to follow him out, stopped when he saw him leave.
As soon as he left the classroom, he found the Fourth Prince standing outside wiping his tears. He then realized why Lu Sanlang wanted to chase him out, and without caring about anything else, he pulled the Fourth Prince up and avoided the area near the door.
"If you're wrong, you're wrong. You just need to stand there for a while. Why are you crying?" Little Peanut had never done anything to comfort others. After he said this stiffly, he felt even more headache when he saw the Fourth Prince trying hard to sniff his nose and make an expression that said "I'm not crying".
After racking his brains for a long time, he could only mutter in a low voice: "Mr. Lu San has always been so strict. You haven't seen my classmates crying when he scolds them! Because most of the students in this class are from poor families. We send them to school in the hope that they can recognize a few words and learn a skill, so that they don't have to rely on physical labor to make a living."
The fourth prince immediately forgot the shame and anger he had just felt when he was scolded, and looked at Peanut in surprise. Peanut heaved a sigh of relief when he saw that he had finally recovered, and quickly told the fourth prince about the general situation of the students in the public school.
He had just learned the allusion of "It is better to eat meat porridge" not long ago, and now he thought that the Fourth Prince was no different from Emperor Hui of Jin. However, considering that the Fourth Prince had a decent personality - although he often got into trouble, at least he was not arrogant in dealing with others, he did not play tricks on the First Prince like he did in the past, but instead very earnestly explained the daily life of these classmates.
When the fourth prince heard that there were a total of twenty-one elementary and intermediate classes in the public school, and that they would take turns to study every seven days, although he had heard of it before, he had never paid much attention to it. At this moment, he finally couldn't help but ask, "But why is this? If we study once every seven days, wouldn't it be easy to forget what we have learned?"
"That's true, but their families can't afford the huge cost of their daily classes. School is free, but when they come to class, there's one less person to work at home. Even though most of them are very young, they can chop wood, make fire, fetch water, or even work as apprentices outside to save on food and lodging... They can do a lot of things. Who will help them do this work when they come to study?"
The Fourth Prince finally stopped talking this time. After a long while, he finally recovered from his low mood, and looked at Peanut and asked, "What about you? You and Xiao Cheng, it's impossible that you also come to class once every seven days, right?"
"So he and I are taking classes here and there." Peanut sighed weakly, then said listlessly, "Xiao Cheng and I are at different paces. Even though he is younger than me, he is very good at memorizing things. Sometimes he goes to the advanced class to listen and the typesetting class to learn. The young master said that he is not very determined right now, so it won't be too late to decide on a course once he has really decided what to study."
"Before, the young master said that he could actually go to Banshan Hall, because after all, he is also the sworn brother of the eldest young master Zhu. But I can't do that. It's not because of my low status, but because I can't get along with those people."
"Besides, those rich young men should at least be able to memorize some poems, right? But I...I memorized all the poems by singing them, I don't have any talent for arithmetic, I find typesetting boring, I can't memorize the law, and I'm not very good at other skills either."
The more Peanut spoke, the more discouraged he became. In the end, he could only smile bitterly and said, "If I wasn't sorry for my uncle and Uncle Yunhe, I would actually like to learn to sing opera."
"Huh?" The fourth prince couldn't help but widen his eyes and blurted out, "You can sing opera? Isn't singing opera very good? During the New Year and other festivals, my father would invite an opera troupe to the palace to perform in order to honor the royal grandmother. It was always very lively and the rewards were very generous... Uh, it's just that I heard that being an opera actor seems to be looked down upon by people outside... No, no, that's not what I meant."
Seeing that the Fourth Prince's voice was getting lower and lower, and he avoided her gaze guiltily at the end, Peanut, who had wanted to retort at first, suddenly felt that he was really ridiculous.
Just now I felt that the Fourth Prince was actually a person of the same temperament as Emperor Hui of Jin, who was unwilling to eat meat. If that was the case, why should he be angry about these words?
He laughed nonchalantly, "I just like it. I even secretly went to Tingyu Cottage to sing twice. Of course, I stayed in the back and didn't show my face. It was good to satisfy my craving."
He said this, but in his heart he was thinking, although the Twelve Rains were all beautiful women, he would not be much inferior to them after putting on makeup, not to mention that they were not trained as actors, and their singing skills were far inferior to his. If he had not tricked the eldest prince in the past, put on women's clothes to perform on stage, and then slipped away after singing, no one would have noticed!
The Fourth Prince didn't know that Peanut was already imagining things. Fearing that he would anger his friend standing next to him, he racked his brains to find something to say: "Those people in the class have classes every seven days. How long do they have to go before they can be considered to have graduated? What will they do after they graduate?"
Little Peanut was surprised to hear that the Fourth Prince would ask such a far-reaching question. He then said uncertainly, "Young Master said that there are many scholars in the world, but few can become officials. For the rest, those who come from wealthy families are better off, but those who come from poor families do not work and are obsessed with the imperial examinations all day long. This is actually a waste."
The Fourth Prince, who could scold the students of the Imperial Academy for being worse than the eunuchs of the Imperial Household Department, was certainly not one of those old pedants who only studied books. He just felt that what Peanut said was very much to his liking, and hurriedly asked, "Yes, yes, I think those officials who are good at studying are just like that. The lectures they give are all clichés, and no one wants to listen... Then what do you think scholars can do?"
"My dear Master, you should have a spirit of study, and no longer devote yourself to being an official, but to studying - not the kind of study that involves writing articles, but the kind of study that involves studying how everything works. For example, you can study how to increase the yield per mu of land, how to make a horse-drawn carriage more stable, how to build a large ship with iron, and how to make a car or ship move automatically..."
Peanut tried desperately to recall Zhang Shou's words, but he was finally stuck here. He could only look at the Fourth Prince with some embarrassment and whispered, "I just heard you say something to Third Young Master Lu and the others, but it was too complicated and I didn't quite understand it. I only remember this little bit."
However, the Fourth Prince's eyes became brighter and brighter, with a look of surprise on his face.
He finally remembered some of the experiments Zhang Shou had done in Banshan Hall, in the Imperial Lecture, and even in the public school open class. He finally remembered those novel things that were so fascinating that people couldn't take their eyes off them. At that moment, he had always felt that it would be best for him to be an idle king instead of a wise king in his life, so as not to cause trouble for his third brother. He finally felt that he had seen a way out.
He took a deep breath and suddenly ran out. Peanut was slightly stunned, and was worried that the Fourth Prince would do something messy if he couldn't figure it out, so he hurriedly ran after him. Fortunately, he was used to running errands since he was a child, so he was faster than the Fourth Prince and caught him after a dozen steps.
But before Xiao Huasheng could figure out whether he should give advice or scare people, the Fourth Prince turned his back to him. Not only was he not annoyed by his behavior, but he also hugged his arm.
"Good brother, thank you for reminding me today. From now on, we are a family!"
Peanut was completely confused. Why was the Fourth Prince so attentive and warm all of a sudden? How did they suddenly become a family? He had even pretended to be a woman to deceive the eldest brother, and in order to succeed, he even learned some elegant manners in a building in Cangzhou that still made him feel ashamed. He still remembered that sister taught him not to speak if he couldn't speak...
What if the Fourth Prince knew about this ? He calmly pulled his arm away and then forced a smile, "Fourth Prince, don't joke. I'm just a servant. If it weren't for my Master's kindness..."
"A hero is not judged by his origins!" The fourth prince said with a generous wave of his hand, "We are destined to meet, and let's work together to accomplish great things!"
