Seventh Decade: Servants, Moving House and Opening a Shop (Part 1)
"Always keep a self-disciplined heart, and carefully abide by the law." Clearly telling Mr. Shen that Shen Chao Sheng is a law-abiding good man.
If Shen Mo was a young genius, then Shen Lian was an old prodigy. He naturally understood his meaning and coldly laughed: "Dark room loses heart, divine eyes are like electricity." This means that although I don't have evidence, the despicable thoughts in your mind, Shen Mo, are known to heaven and earth.
He fell silent, thinking back to the time before they became master and disciple. They had only met once before, and that old man seemed to have been driven away in a huff. Why was he driven away? It seemed to be because of disagreements over the rescue of his eldest son. The old man wanted Shen Mo to avoid the trial and instead use his connections to put pressure on the county magistrate to release him, which would be safer for his son.
At that time, County Magistrate Li had carefully designed a contest, and Master Shen also had high hopes for him to bring honor to the Shen family. After some deliberation, Shen Mo rejected Shen Lian's proposal... On the basis of ensuring the safety of his eldest son, he wanted to win something for himself and his father, change that fate of being penniless, dependent on others, without dignity, and extremely embarrassed.
In moral terms, he indeed cannot justify himself, but he still has a clear conscience, because in Shen's view, survival and dignity must come before morality... He couldn't help but sigh: "As long as one can make a living by reason, why deceive oneself into being a bad person."
"A gentleman makes decisions based on righteousness, a petty person makes decisions based on personal gain." Shen Lian said in a deep voice.
Silence finally understood the root of the contradiction, that is, the difference in values! For a scholar with spiritual cleanliness, morality is above everything, and cannot tolerate any contamination! Upon realizing this, he felt somewhat melancholy, knowing that the two were fundamentally not on the same path, and would never have a common language on this point.
Forget it, I have no way to make everyone like me, nor can I be friends with everyone. Once I understand this, the knot in my heart for the past few days has been untied. He also stopped pursuing reconciliation and instead hoped to put aside the conflict, coexist peacefully, and at least get through these three months safely.
"It's easy to watch but hard to do."
"It's too late to rein in the horse when it's already at the edge of the cliff; and it's also too late to repair the leak when the boat is already in the middle of the river." Shen Lian said with a pained expression.
A gentleman can be deceived with a square, and it's not difficult to fool Shen Lian. In his heart, Shen Mo is thinking 'When under the eaves, how dare one not bow their head.' But what comes out of his mouth is 'To preserve the way of the gentleman, one must have the ambition of a hero.'
Shen Lian heard this and thought it was a sign of repentance, so he spoke in a gentle tone: "Don't take advantage of good fortune, and natural disasters won't come to invade."
Chen Mo nodded and said in a low voice, "A distant journey tests the strength of a horse, and time reveals a person's heart." After finishing speaking, he bowed deeply and thought to himself, 'I won't compete with you.'
He pinched his chin and finally turned over this page, saying in a low voice: "Recite the 'Divine Child Poem' tomorrow."
Under even more admiring eyes than yesterday, Shen Mo walked slowly off the stage.
The students never thought that someone could use the sentences from "Ming Xian Ji" to complete a conversation with their teacher from start to finish. Although they couldn't understand what they were saying, it still felt very enjoyable. Their admiration for him was like a surging river that would never stop...
He sat quietly in his seat, without the relaxation that came after solving a problem. This matter had a great impact on him, and he began to understand what it meant to be a clear stream and a straight minister, and started thinking seriously about how to get along with these people...
The next day, he recited the 960-character poem "Divine Child" backwards with ease. This is a motivational poem that encourages people to make progress: 'The emperor values heroes and scholars, teaching you the way; all things are inferior, only reading books is superior. From a young age, one must study diligently, writing can establish oneself; the entire court of high-ranking officials are all bookworms.' These are all true words, yet they make people's blood boil with enthusiasm every time they hear them, making them want to stab their thighs with an awl and hang their heads in shame to work harder.
It's already over, because the following "Five-character Miscellaneous Characters" and "Seven-character Miscellaneous Characters" are more like two books. Although the sentences rhyme with each other, they are basically nonsense, just to let students recognize characters and were forced together, and they smell bad and are too long.
"But Shen Lian said: 'If you can recite it from memory, I'll consider your superficial learning qualified, and then begin teaching you the classics.'"
What he meant was that it didn't matter if he couldn't recite it. But Shen Mo was a stubborn kind, and once he had made up his mind to convince him, he would not easily give in. So he agreed to recite the "Five Words" on another day.
It's not as easy as the previous few days, although he has a good foundation and a deep impression, but to recite 3,300 words of text without missing a single word is absolutely a high-difficulty task. Even though he seems to have combined the intelligence of two smart people in this life, remembering firmly and reciting quickly also took him an entire night to feel at ease.
Several hours later, in the Shen's Academy, Shen Chao Sheng, with two black eye circles, began to recite the long "Five Miscellaneous Characters" with great effort... Needless to say, he was exhausted from reciting, and even the students listening beside him felt a bit dizzy from holding their breath for too long.
When Shěn Mò finished reciting the last ten words of "Today's collection is one book, later learning should be encouraged", Shěn Jīng couldn't help but burst into applause, frantically pounding on the table and smashing chairs to cheer him on. The students snuck a glance at their teacher, seeing that he had no displeased expression, and also joined in the cheering.
Shen Lian ultimately did not make Shen Mo recite "Seven-character Miscellaneous Characters", which had twice as many characters as "Five-character Miscellaneous Characters" and was something he himself had feared to attempt in the past. He would not test others on things he could not do himself.
After this, the younger schoolmates respectfully called Shen Mo 'Tide Sheng Ge', and the older schoolmates also addressed him as 'Tide Sheng Xiong'. With his performance over the past few days, he finally won over everyone.
Shen Lian also gradually came to understand that some people in this world were not intentionally showing off, but they were born to attract attention and could not help but become the focus of everyone's attention.
He was originally worried that this guy would affect others' confidence, but in fact, since Shen Mo came to this school, the students' ability to recite poems has improved more or less... Since then, Mr. Shen also let him go.
