The 22nd Retribution of Bootleggers

  "House Qing, you've arrived so early!" Li Shimin walked into the Two Yi Temple and saw a purple official uniformed Fang Xuanling.

  Fang Xuanling made his obeisance: "Xuanling has seen the Emperor."

  After bowing, he said: "I've just arrived too." His eyes saw Li Shimin holding a letter in his hand, which he had been carefully reading when he came in, and couldn't help but ask curiously: "Which prince or princess's homework has pleased the emperor again?"

  Li Shimin smiled and handed the paper in his hand to Fang Xuanling, saying: "Xuanling, take a look. I couldn't guess what this character was written with."

  The words on his hand were the homework handed over by Li Chengqian. Li Shimin went to the Lijing Hall early this morning because he felt a little guilty about what happened last night. The empress gave him his son's homework, and after reading it, he wondered what kind of thing was used to write it. He asked the empress but she didn't know either. As he walked along the way, he thought for half a day and couldn't figure out what clever thing his son had used to write this homework.

  Fang Xuanling took a look and said, "This character is indeed similar to the one written by Princess He Pusa with the Zhen Guan brush yesterday. The brushwork of this character uses varying line thicknesses to create the shape and rhythm of the character, whereas the Zhen Guan brush and this character use changes in stroke direction as a means to achieve a similar effect, but with less complexity than the brushwork."

  He also sniffed with his nose and said in doubt: "This thing has a smell of fire, it seems to have seen it somewhere, but can't think of it for the time being!"

  Li Shimin also took it and smelled it.

  Unfortunately, one is the country's number one person and the other is the prime minister. They usually care about national affairs and have little contact with charcoal. Now it's summer, not like winter when they need to burn charcoal for warmth, so even if they smell a strong charcoal scent, they can't think of charcoal.

  Just as the emperor and his minister were both perplexed, a guard walked in and said: "Your Majesty, the King of Jin requests an audience."

  "Qin Nu?" Li Shimin was surprised, "He didn't go to Hongwen Academy to study, what is he doing here?"

  "Let him in." Li Shimin ordered.

  Zhengtao Li walked in from outside with the gait of a little adult, took eight steps and bowed to the two elders: "I have seen Father Huang, I have seen Uncle Fang."

  "Xu Nu didn't go to Hongwen Hall, what brings you here?" Li Shimin asked.

  Li Zhi: "I have made a discovery and I've come especially to present it to Your Majesty."

  He handed a piece of paper with charcoal writing to Li Shimin, and Fang Xuanling glanced at it beside him, his eyes lit up, and asked: "Is this written by the King of Jin?"

  "Yes." Li Zhi said shamelessly, "This was accidentally discovered by me and Xiao Er while we were playing around."

  "What is it that Your Highness has written with?" asked Fang Xuanling.

  Li Zhi was overjoyed and hastily took out two pieces of charcoal from his sleeve, presenting them to the emperor. "Your Majesty," he said, "when I was scribbling on the wall with charcoal with my son, I discovered that this material can be used for writing, and it's quick too!"

  House Xuanling saw the charcoal, and suddenly realized that this simple thing was overlooked! "Charcoal, if made into a pen, would have the same contribution as the Zhen Guan pen presented by Hehe Princess!"

  Li Zhi was taken aback: "Zhen Guan pen?" Then he saw a goose feather pen on Li Shimin's desk, wasn't this the one his elder brother was holding to write with the other day? He then thought of Li Yu holding the golden incense ball with the bird singing and flowers blooming yesterday, oh I get it!

  "The King of Jin can have one style in two copies, it's indeed thoughtful." said Fang Xuanling again.

  Li Zhi was stunned again, two copies of one style?

  He looked at his father and only then did he notice that his father's face was somewhat strange, with a piece of paper on his desk, the words on it were very familiar, wasn't it the hard pen calligraphy he had just taken out? But that didn't seem right either, his own was still on the edge of the bed!

  Li Zhi knew that the hard pen calligraphy he brought was taken from the small hall of the empress yesterday. Last night, he tried to write with charcoal, but the result was terrible, so when he came to Li Shimin's place today, he had no choice but to bring the letter written by Li Chengqian. As a result, unexpectedly, Li Chengqian later added another one, and they collided together today.

  His face turned pale at this thought.

  Li Shimin gazed at Li Zhi for a while, then said in a calm tone: "Zhi Nu invented this thing, it can be provided to the poor scholars, Father Emperor rewards you with a Hundred Bird Jade Pendant, Cheng Qian taught him well, rewards a Night Pearl."

  Li Zhi understood in his heart.

  Li Shimin changed the subject, "Although you discovered the wooden charcoal pen, calligraphy cannot be neglected. Therefore, your father ordered you to copy the 'Tao Te Ching' twice. Similarly, when you return, tell your 17th sister Xier to also copy it twice."

  Li Zhi has nothing good to say, and his old man didn't scold him in front of Fang Xuanling, so it's not bad that he didn't get a tongue-lashing. Let's just run away quickly.

  House Xuanling saw the emperor reward Li Zhi and then punish him, which was very strange. Thinking again that he had inexplicably rewarded the crown prince, he somewhat understood, but he knew he had to pretend not to understand.

  ………

  "Grandfather, what are you drawing?" Su Hong asked in surprise.

  Li Chengqian didn't raise his head and continued drawing circles: "Dots!"

  "Punctuation?" Su He looked at him drawing circles one by one on the "Thousand Character Classic", and said with some difficulty: "If Master finds out that you're doodling on the Thousand Character Classic, I'm afraid..."

  "Is the publisher so unscrupulous as not to add punctuation?" Li Chengqian raised his head with a black line, "This is not called scribbling, it's just to separate sentences. Look at this 'Thousand Character Classic', although there are four characters per line, on the first page it's still recognizable, but by the second page, the first character of each line is from the previous page, and by the third page, three characters are from the previous page, and by the fourth page, who knows? Do you have to flip back to the first page to read it, and calculate 482626?"

  "This can't be helped, you have to read it repeatedly and remember it by heart, then when you see it at a glance, you'll naturally know how to read it." Su Hong said.

  After hearing her say this, Li Chengqian looked at her with a different gaze. Her meaning seemed to be that she was extremely familiar with the Thousand Character Classic and had memorized it thoroughly!

  "How is the 20th sentence read?"

  "The Lord of Birds created characters and wore clothes..."

  Li Chengqian took a deep breath and hastily stopped her, otherwise it would be too devastating.

  "How many thousand-character texts did you read back then to have such skills?"

  Su He's face turned slightly red, seemingly a bit shy to speak: "When I first entered school, it took me three months to read and recite the whole thing, and only then did I become familiar with it, often reading and reciting it afterwards."

  This makes sense psychologically! Li Chengqian asked: "At that time, pointing to this page, can you accurately punctuate?"

  Su Hong thought for a moment and finally shook his head.

  "So my punctuation is working now, you can tell where to pause when you flip to that page, and I, a beginner, can read as accurately as you, an old hand. Isn't this very convenient?"

  Su He's eyes lit up and he nodded.

  "Are you still saying I'm doodling?" Li Chengqian hummed, "Just now framing me, are you looking for a family law lesson?"

  "Grandfather, I was wrong..." Su Hong saw Li Chengqian's Buddha-like palm and hastily said: "Don't..."

  Just as Li Chengqian was about to unleash his mighty divine palm, a voice came from outside - "Your Highness, what is this 'Biao Dian' you speak of?" - Kong Longwang.

  "Ah, so this Kunlong Wang was eavesdropping outside just now!"

  Su He saw Kong Longwang coming in and hastily dodged to one side, fearing that her husband would give her a scolding regardless of the occasion. Fortunately, Li Chengqian gritted his teeth at this time and said to Kong Longwang: "Master, I have some difficulty reading 'Qianziwen', so I use punctuation to make it easier to read and remember."

  Kong Longwang walked up to Li Chengqian and picked up the book with circles drawn on it, looked at it for a while, and said: "These punctuation marks look irregular, what is the usage?"

  "Qianziwen" uses two punctuation marks: commas and full stops.

  Li Chengqian pointed to them and explained, then said: "Students think that when sentences want to express emotions, they can use question marks, exclamation marks, ellipses; in order to distinguish between speaking, they can use colons, double quotation marks; other various functions of semicolons, pauses, book title marks, parentheses..." He wrote them down on paper as he spoke.

  From Su He and Kong Longwang's reactions, Li Chengqian knew that the Tang Dynasty didn't have these punctuation marks yet. He was afraid that later on, when they saw him using punctuation marks, they would be shocked and ask questions nonstop, so he explained it to them once and for all.

  Su He was beside him, listening with increasing surprise, his gaze at Li Chengqian filled with sparks of admiration and love!

  Kong Longwang's eyes grew brighter and brighter, until Li Chengqian finished speaking. He picked up the punctuation marks written by Li Chengqian and looked at them for a long time. Li Chengqian heard his increasingly urgent breathing and knew he was very excited. After a while, he slowly calmed down.

  "Some scholars have the habit of leaving a small space after finishing a sentence; others are accustomed to adding a dot at the end of the sentence. This set of punctuation marks is similar in spirit, but more detailed and easier to remember than theirs." Old Master Kong said affirmatively about Li Chengqian's punctuation marks.

  Li Chengqian was hearing Kong Longwang say something pleasant for the first time, and a smile appeared on his face.

  Kong Longwang continued: "However, this is after all a shortcut. The Thousand Character Classic and the Four Books and Five Classics require Your Highness to study hard and memorize them in your heart, which is the way of the king."

  Judging from his tone, he seems to be quite disdainful of punctuation marks.

  But even Su Xiao had read the Thousand Character Classic fluently, let alone Kong Longwang who specialized in education. It's likely that Li Chengqian could casually say a word and he could immediately tell which line it was in the Thousand Character Classic, or which page and line it was in the Four Books and Five Classics, or other ancient works.

  Such a pervert, punctuation marks are superfluous to him, and it's lenient to show disdain. He also knows that he has the responsibility of educating the royal children, and he can think of sending punctuation marks to the Imperial Academy for teaching, which shows that this old guy has a good ability to accept new things and a strong sense of responsibility.

  After school in the afternoon, Li Chengqian happily came out of Chongwendian with his wife.

  He has no reason not to be happy, this royal college is great, only half a day of classes, free in the afternoon, too beautiful!

  Is there anything more beautiful than this?

  Thinking back to my previous life, from elementary school to high school, I had classes all day from Monday to Friday, supplementary lessons on Saturday, and homework on Sunday. It was like living in hell!

  "Grandfather, what are you taking away the 'Preface to the Orchid Pavilion' for?" Su Hong stared at the 'Preface to the Orchid Pavilion' in Li Chengqian's chest and asked curiously.

  Li Chengqian made a thief-like gesture, "Shh!"