Poor but talented scholar

Chapter 20 Dining Hall

When the noon bell rang, the once lifeless and dusty school building instantly came to life.

The students, whose heads were spinning from reading, felt as if they had been granted a pardon and urged each other to run to the backyard.

Lu Chuan put away the old pen with the forked nib that his seventh uncle had given him, and gently smoothed the stack of yellowed straw paper with his fingertips.

The dining hall was spacious, with a few pillars and screens dividing the room into three sections.

At the innermost tables, Zhang Fugui, Li Ji, and a few other young masters from the town had already taken their seats. In front of them was a small plate of meat, a serving of vegetables, and a bowl of rice.

That was a "superior feast" costing 800 coins, and the aroma of meat wafted straight into people's nostrils, making many children swallow hard.

In the middle lies a territory worth six hundred coins.

In front of them was a bowl of rice with a few slices of meat and some green vegetables. It wasn't a large meal, but there was still some oil on it.

Lu Chuan and several other students who had also chosen the lowest standards walked to the most remote and secluded corner.

In front of them was a bowl of brown rice, next to a plate of dark, dried pickled vegetables, and a bowl of clear vegetable soup so thin you could see your reflection in it.

This is the "poor man's meal" that costs four hundred coins. They only get to eat meat once every three days, and today happens to be a vegetarian day without meat.

Lu Chuan took the wooden tray and sat down on the crooked, broken stool.

"Hey, Lu Chuan, is that rice hard to chew?" Zhang Fugui called out from a distance, holding a large white steamed bun in his hand, deliberately raising his voice, "I have a piece of leftover fatty pork skin here, want to treat yourself to an extra meal?"

Lu Chuan didn't look up, not even blinking.

He first drank the bowl of vegetable soup in one gulp. The steaming soup slid into his empty stomach, and he felt a little more alive.

Then, he picked up a piece of hard pickled vegetable and put it in his mouth with the brown rice.

"What a silent gourd." Li Ji, who had originally wanted to see Lu Chuan make a fool of himself, found it boring when he saw that Lu Chuan had no reaction at all.

"Hey, Lu Chuan." Liu Zhe, holding a bowl, couldn't bear to watch any longer and came over. "I have an extra boiled egg here, and I can't eat anymore. Can you help me share?"

Lu Chuan looked up at the clean white egg, then at Zhao Jiaye's face, which was full of sympathy.

"Thank you, Brother Zhao. I have some pickled vegetables to eat with my rice, that's enough. You still have to practice calligraphy this afternoon, so eat more so you won't be too weak to take the teacher's ruler."

Lu Chuan washed the bowl and ate all the rice with the remaining broth from the pickled vegetables.

He returned to the school dormitory, but instead of taking a nap, he sat back down at his desk and continued reading.

Zhang Fugui, Li Ji, and the others returned with bulging bellies. When they saw Lu Chuan already quietly studying, their initial sense of superiority after a full stomach vanished instantly.

"This poor wretch is probably obsessed with studying," Li Ji muttered, but subconsciously picked up a book as well.

Master Zhao had been standing at the back door for some time now.

He didn't go in and break the silence. He looked at Lu Chuan's hands, which were red from the cold, and at his eyes, which seemed to be in the clouds even though the room was humble.

"Without a focused mind, one can achieve nothing in learning; but where the mind is set, even metal and stone can be moved." Master Li murmured softly, his eyes filled with astonishment.

He had seen gifted children and diligent students, but he had never seen an eight-year-old child like Lu Chuan.

Lu Chuan turned page after page.

At 2 PM, the afternoon classes officially begin.

In the afternoon, instead of reciting scriptures, I practice calligraphy.

The room was soon filled with the scent of ink. Zhang Fugui, Li Ji, and the others were using the finest Huizhou ink, which was black and glossy with a faint sheen, and smelled of pine resin and borneol.

Lu Chuan pulled out pieces of cheap soot ink he had bought for thirty coins from his pocket. This ink contained too many impurities, and the ink produced was not only grayish but also had a fishy smell of wood ash and soil.

But he did not immediately dip his brush in ink, nor did he spread out the half-reamed, yellowed bamboo paper.

Paper was too expensive; it cost sixty coins for a hundred sheets. He couldn't be like those rich young masters who would crumple up a sheet after writing something and throw it away.

Lu Chuan took out a broken porcelain dish and poured some water into it. He held the old sheep hair brush with forked bristles, dipped it in the water, and began to write stroke by stroke on the back of the inkstone.

In the winter, water freezes instantly. Although there were two charcoal braziers in the main room, Lu Chuan, sitting at the very back by the door, couldn't feel a shred of warmth.

The water was written on the cold stone slab. Before the second character was even finished, the water stains on the first character had already condensed into a thin layer of white frost.

Lu Chuan already had chilblains on the back of his hands, and now, holding the cold pen for so long with his wrist suspended, the edges of the chilblains were stretched taut. When he wrote the fifth character, there was a soft "snap" as a chilblain on the web of his hand cracked open.

Crimson blood seeped out, trickling down the back of his hand and dripping onto the bluestone inkstone, where it mingled with the icy water and spread out.

Zhao Jiaye, who was sitting in the front row, happened to turn around and saw this scene. He was so shocked that he almost cried out. His pen trembled, and a drop of ink fell heavily onto the Xuan paper.

Lu Chuan didn't even frown.

He calmly put down his pen, casually pressed the hem of his coarse cloth coat against the wound, and wiped away the blood.

Then, I changed to a slightly awkward grip on the pen, avoiding the cracked area between my thumb and forefinger, dipped the pen in water again, and continued to write on the stone slab with my wrist suspended in the air.

Master Zhao had stepped down from the podium at some point, holding a ruler in his hand, and slowly paced among the students' desks.

He walked over to Zhang Fugui, looked at the smudged, limp, and lifeless handwriting, frowned, and slammed the ruler heavily on the edge of the table: "Impulsive and agitated! Rewrite it!"

Zhang Fugui was so frightened that he shuddered and quickly changed the paper.

Master Zhao continued walking and eventually stopped behind Lu Chuan.

He didn't say anything, just stood there quietly, watching the thin child practice writing with water on the frozen stone slab.

The water stains disappeared quickly, but Master Li's eyesight was exceptionally sharp. He could tell that the child's handwriting was extremely poor, completely disorganized, clearly indicating that he had never properly held a brush before.

But what startled him was that although the hand holding the pen was trembling with cold, each stroke was surprisingly steady.

There was not a trace of pretense.

"Lu Chuan." Master Zhao suddenly spoke, his voice causing the surrounding students to prick up their ears.

"The student is here." Lu Chuan put down his pen, turned around, and bowed respectfully.

"Dip in ink, put it on the paper, and write a few words for me to see," Master Li said, pointing to the stack of yellowed bamboo paper on his desk.

"Yes."

Lu Chuan carefully pulled out a piece of bamboo paper, spread it out, dipped his forked, inferior pen in the muddy ink, hesitated for a moment, and wrote the three characters "忍、定、稳" on the paper.

The handwriting was still crooked, and the ink had slightly bleed on the poor-quality bamboo paper, making the edges somewhat blurry.

Master Zhao stared at those three characters for a long time.

The handwriting is ugly.

"Without structure, the writing lacks spirit. Your pen is broken, your ink is inferior, and your characters are crooked." Master Zhao looked at Lu Chuan, his tone stern, but deep in his eyes lay a profound admiration. "But your hand did not tremble. Remember the force you used when you put pen to paper today, and copy the Great Learning twice a day without slacking off."

"I will remember this." Lu Chuan bowed and acknowledged.

Master Zhao didn't say anything more and walked back to the podium with his hands behind his back.