Lanke Chess Edge
Chapter 87: Overwhelmingly Vast

[T/n: note on chapter title]¹

Despite the fact that he was on Qingshui County’s official road, Ji Yuan had no intention of going to any towns in Qingshui County.

He had already clarified his route in Washan Village. His gray cloth bag bulged with several dry biscuits and a package of braised rabbit legs given to him by Ding Xing. As far as Ji Yuan was concerned, there was no need for him to go to through Qingshui County whatsoever, so he simply continued along the official road.

It had to be said that, although Ji Yuan had intended to save himself the trouble, in truly Ding Xing had been chasing after him in the wrong direction at first. Thus, later, Ding Xing, who did not believe in superstition, ran directly to Qingshui County but still did not find Ji Yuan.

. . .

At Ning’an’s County School, children were reciting articles from books.

“Look at the present, learn from the past, learn what you hear, practice what you learn, and persevere… A gentleman should speak eloquently and conduct himself with integrity…”²

This group was comprised of children of a variety of ages. The youngest was less than ten years old, and the oldest was around fourteen to fifteen years old. They were like little adults, all of them reciting seriously with their heads swaying.

“Stop!”

As he held a book and listened carefully, Yin Zhaoxian paced beside the children, and didn’t speak until he had returned to his teacher’s desk.

The entire class fell silent in an instant. Many children grew nervous, because today was the day the teacher was going to test them on their homework. Not even Yin Qing was calm.

Yin Zhaoxian turned his head to look at the thirty or forty children of all ages, each with a childish and nervous expression.

“Today’s exam is different from previous ones. I will change the topic…”

This examination was not a sudden thought. The first time this idea had come up was with Ji Yuan in Ju’an Pavilion one day. The topic of their discussion had been a book called “The Right Way to Teach”³ that Yin Zhaoxian had brought, which was a must-read book for anyone who wishes to teach others ethics, respect, and the law.⁴

The book’s guidance was correct in and of itself, but in the end, there was far less content about knowing and abiding by the law than there was about respecting the powerful and wealthy. In the end, the central idea seemed to be a bit too explicitly about flattering those in power.

At that time, Ji Yuan was already familiar with Yin Zhaoxian, and understood his character, so he sneered and confidently asked Teacher Yin what he thought of this book. He also asked him why such a book had always been regarded as one of the “Six Articles One Must Read.” Even if it remained unchanged over the years, why had no one adapted it? Did they not want to, or did they not dare to?

Not only did the question stump Yin Zhaoxian at that time, but it also directly c clarified Teacher Yin’s previous discomfort toward the book, allowing Teacher Yin to ponder, for the first time, the subtleties between officialdom and people’s livelihood from the perspective of the common people. He discussed this “treasonous” way of thinking with Ji Yuans for a long time.

Thinking back on these memories, Master Yin smiled again, and looked at these children, who Ji Yuan called “the seedlings of the country.”

“I have heard that there is a phoenix tree⁵ in the North Sea, standing tall at 30,000 feet in the middle of the sea. This is the habitat of the phoenix. There are many mountains and islands throughout the sea where phoenixes and other birds live. In the distance lies the South Mountain, and on the South Mountain is the stork, the leader of the birds there…”

As Yin Zhaoxian’s words unfolded, many children looked at each other in amazement, feeling the excitement of listening to a magical story.

“The phoenix likes to roam, so the stork took its place and guided the flock of birds, eating all kinds of fruit, fish, and shrimp. After some time, the stork began looking down on all the other birds, and began to regard himself as a little phoenix. He began to enjoy trampling on their nests and pecking at their feathers…”

As Yin Zhaoxian portrayed his topic in an interesting and mythical way, the children in the school listened more attentively than ever before.

Once Yin Zhaoxian had finished telling his entire fictional story, he looked at the children with a smile on his face.

“Do you think this stork and his flock have ever existed? If you replace the stork in the story with yourself, what would be your solution?”

One must know that previously, when it had been time for Yin Zhaoxian to ask his questions, he would just have symbolically asked whether anyone wanted to answer. No child would ever volunteer, not even Yin Qing.

But this time, even though not many people dared to directly speak up, this was just their habitual behavior. Yin Zhaoxian already felt the children’s unprecedented eagerness to try from their courage in meeting his gaze and their relaxed demeanor.

“Okay, Yin Qing, you answer first!”

“Yes, Teacher!”

Yin Qing stood up and answered according to his natural judgment, expressing sympathy for the flock of birds and reproach for the stork.

Yin Zhaoxian then called out several other students who he felt had sufficient ability in expressing themselves. Since the students who had previously answered had not been criticized regardless of their opinions, everyone felt more confident when they stood up to answer.

This discussion actually lasted for half a day, and Yin Zhaoxian was very satisfied with the atmosphere of his school.

‘Mr. Ji’s idea of teaching through entertainment is really effective!’

After everyone had answered his questions, Yin Zhaoxian sat back at the teacher’s desk and spoke to the dozens of students in front of him.

“I hope that everyone will write down all of these answers today. If you cannot smoothly find the words, or there are words that you don’t know, you can ask your peers or ask me directly. I will use this as an assessment of your writing.”

When the children in the audience, who were originally very excited, heard the words “assessment of your writing,” they immediately became worried as a conditioned reflex. Yin Zhaoxian smiled and shook his head, but his eyes became more serious and determined.

‘Educating people is truly a great cause, comparable to contributing to the country! ’

He picked up a writing brush and neatly wrote a few opening characters on the rice paper sheet on his desk: “On the Subject of Birds – The Response of an Imperial Exam Candidate.”

. . .

At this moment, in the Ning’an County City God’s underworld.

The City God and the underworld’s civil and martial judges, who oversaw the Division of Rewards and the Division of Punishment, were reviewing their matters in their books. This included an overview of each department, incidents reported by the daytime and nighttime patrol officers, a list of who was about to die in the county, changes in popularity that needed attention, the problems and requirements in the work of each department, and so on. All of these miscellaneous situations needed to be sorted out in detail by the civil and martial judges, with the help of the City God.

After checking the thick stack of papers, Judge Wu erased the text on most of the entries with a stroke of his pen and gathered it all into a smaller stack of books.

“Carry it away, carry it away. Next stack, next stack!”

The list of things to deal with was never finished, and Judge Wu was a rather impatient person. Thus, when he yelled, Judge Wen, who was reviewing his own documents carefully, laughed.

“Yes, yes. Judge, don’t be in a hurry. They are coming, they are bringing it here!”

The couple little errand spirits⁶ nearby were also very busy. It took a lot of time for people to classify the documents into the various departments and send them to the heads of the divisions for review. They spent most of their time in transit.

Moreover, the papers whose words had been erased were fine, but the ones with text on them were quite heavy. The more good or the more evil one represented, the heavier they were. It was difficult to lift them, so it was a tough job.

Two of the little errand spirits hurried to the Hall of Records of the underworld, but before they even stepped inside, they bumped into a few errand spirits of the civil division rushing out in a hurry.

“What’s going on? Why are you so anxious?”

“There is something wrong with this record! Something strange has happened! We can’t lift it! We have to go find the Lord Judge, and we have to find the head of the Fortune department!”⁷

The ghostly bodies of several officials collided with one another, but they quickly readjusted and immediately ran toward the respective position of their various division heads.

A moment later, the chief officials of several divisions gathered at the hall of the Rewards and Punishments Division. On Judge Wu’s desk, there were two books: a book of merits and punishments, and a book of fortune and luck, both of which were faintly emitting light.

Judge Wen frowned, looked at his colleagues, and stretched out his hand to open the two books. He skipped the previous pages, and turned directly to the two pages that were shining with light.

On the book, complex auras flowed. Although they were very faint, they were very mysterious. One could see that some one the words on the page seemed extremely vague, and the fortune, luck, and virtue had all soared.

All the underworld officials turned their gaze to the name of the person to whom these pages belonged.

“Yin Zhaoxian!”

. . .

While walking along the official road a hundred miles south of Qingshui County, Ji Yuan suddenly felt something. He visualized a chess piece and it appeared at his fingertips.

Ji Yuan seemed to faintly be able to see through this illusory chess piece to a pair of slender hands holding a brush and some paper, writing an article on a piece of rice paper.

At this moment, Ji Yuan’s fingertips went numb, and he discovered that the chess piece had become much more solid than before, when it had been in its illusory state.

“Master Yin!”

1. 浩然浩然 (hào rán hào rán) still not sure how I managed to translate this. Could have referenced Hao Ran, a modern (1932-2008) Chinese writer, potentially connecting him with Yin Zhaoxian. 浩然 (hàorán) can also mean vast/expansive/overwhelming, so it could have been “overwhelming and majestic” or “The Overwhelming Hao Ran.” HOWEVER, repetition in Chinese is often used to enphasize something, so I ended up translating it as “Overwhelmingly vast” ↩︎
2. 观今鉴古，多学多闻，学而时习，持之以恒… 君子立身，能言善容… Once again, as you can see, these phrases are grouped together in clumps of 4 characters for ease of memorization and recitation. ↩︎
3. 正 (zhèng): proper/main/correct, 训 (xùn): to teach, 篇 (piān): bound set of bamboo slips uses for record keeping ↩︎
4. Once again, we see here that education was not just content, it was also a symbol of moral character, like how the kids were reciting proper code of conduct earlier. To be a teacher is essentially to be a moral and ethical authority, hence why scholars are so respected ↩︎
5. Firmania simplex, also known as the Chinese Parasol Tree or (–one of the 5-or-so trees with the name–) Phoenix Tree. ↩︎
6. 小鬼 (xiǎoguǐ): little demon (endearment for child)/imp, 差役 (chāiyì): forced labor of feudal tenant (corvée)/bailiff of feudal yamen –> I can’t translate the entire context and everything so I’m going with “little errand spirits” or “ghost officers” depending on context. Also I think it’s adorably hilarious to imagine a grumpy old Judge Wu surrounded by a bunch of tiny gremlin spirits with hardhats shuttling document stacks 3 times their size ↩︎
7. T/n: might come back and change this translation, they’re introducing new underworld judges when I thought there were only 4 of them (the Civil Judge, now the fortune division)… Oh well, I guess there’s a rewards division and a fortune division now ↩︎