A powerful minister of the Song Dynasty

Chapter 3 He used all my words!
Yan Shu poured himself some wine and asked Song Xuan if he wanted to drink.

Song Xuan shook his head to indicate that he didn't want to drink it, and waved to a vagrant to ask him to go to his drink shop to buy some cold drink.

"I still can't believe that such delicious cooking skills come from a beggar."

Yan Shu shook his head slightly after drinking.

He always felt that the young man in front of him was very unusual, so he took the initiative to ask:

"I still don't know the name of the twelfth brother."

"I'm Song Xuan, and I live in Lema Town. This is my good friend and classmate Zhang Fangping, also a local. We're both students at the Song family private school, and we're planning to take the entrance exam to study at Yingtianfu Academy in a month."

Song Shou looked at the two of them with a look of surprise. He had been an official here earlier and knew Zhang Fangping's name.

This boy has a photographic memory and is extremely intelligent. He is truly a genius.

A year ago, he wrote a letter to invite Zhang Fangping to study at Yingtianfu College, but Zhang Fangping refused and replied that he would assist Song Xuan in his studies.

Zhang Fangping, such a promising student, actually gave up on admission to school. Song Shou certainly wanted to understand what kind of person Song Xuan was, who was willing to let such a genius tutor him.

Then Song Shou learned that Song Xuan was also a child prodigy.

Unfortunately, I was delayed by my family.

As a result, he indulged in depravity, spending all day riding horses and running animals, and had no interest in studying at all.

I wish I hadn’t seen him fishing and using a knife so skillfully just now.

"This Song Xuan is truly unmotivated and self-indulgent."

Song Shou secretly commented in his heart, but did not say it out loud to avoid ruining his friend's fun.

Yan Shu nodded repeatedly. He was quite ambitious, but it was not easy to get into Yingtianfu College.

But he had just arrived and didn't think about giving any advice to the younger generation, he just drank silently.

Yan Shu knew that the revenge against him was not over yet, and if he was involved with it at this time, he would inevitably be implicated.

Empress Dowager Liu doesn't seem like a short-lived person.

In addition, Yan Shu was born in the prince's mansion and understood the temperament of the current emperor better. It was impossible for him to resist Empress Dowager Liu.

After a while, the idle man came back with some cold soup.

Song Xuan took out nine copper coins as a reward.

The idle man thanked him repeatedly, took the money and his own cup of cold drink and went to wait on the side.

Song Shierlang is not stingy at all. If you serve him well, there will be more work for you.

As the hot wind blew, Yan Shu unbuttoned his clothes, held up his wine glass, and was inspired to write poetry:
"A new song with a glass of wine. Last year's weather was old. When will the sun set?"

Song Shou looked delighted, Yan Shu was writing new lyrics again.

Zhang Fangping also listened with great excitement.

Although he is intelligent and has a photographic memory, he is not good at poetry.

Song Xuan also nodded. It sounded a little familiar. He must have memorized it in the exam before.

"The flowers fall helplessly."

Yan Shu burped, held up his wine glass, pointed at Song Xuan and laughed.

Song Xuan tilted his head and pointed at Yan Shu in tacit understanding. His mind flashed like lightning, and he immediately remembered the next sentence. He immediately echoed:
"It seems like a familiar swallow has returned, right?"

Yan Shu was stunned on the spot.

He had just finished speaking this sentence when he interrupted it with a burp.

Song Xuan said it out?
Yan Shu looked at the stunned Song Shou and muttered to himself:
"He used all my words!"

Song Shou also stood there in a daze.

He was sure that this was a new word by Yan Shu.

Why did Song Xuan interrupt me so randomly and disrupt my train of thought?

However, Song Shou also had a similar experience as a child prodigy. He was summoned by Emperor Zhenzong of Song at the age of fifteen, and passed the examination at the age of seventeen and was granted the title of Jinshi.

After hearing Song Xuan's response to Yan Shu, "The swallows are returning, it seems familiar," he analyzed it carefully.

“It’s really wonderful!”

Yan Shu's face was a little embarrassed, but Song Shou still spoke slowly:
"The beauty lies in the neat parallelism and the natural odd-even sentences.

It is ingenious and complete, fluent and implicit, with harmonious rhyme and profound meaning.

The poet's ingenuity and deep feelings are demonstrated in the use of empty words to form neat parallelism and express the poet's vividness.

After Song Shou finished speaking, he stood there in a daze for a while, pulling his beard.

Could it be that the rumor that Song Xuan was a child prodigy who fell into depravity is false, and he has learned to hide his shortcomings over the years?
Who among ordinary people can figure it out in an instant?
Zhang Fangping had initially thought he was witnessing a new poem, but unexpectedly, it was an old poem by a previous poet. His excitement subsided. Indeed, there weren't many people like Li Bai.

Once he drinks a little, he can't stop pouring out his talent, and it's impossible for anyone to catch up.

"Twelfth brother, what's next?"

Hearing Zhang Fangping's question, Song Xuan spread his hands:
“I forgot what happened next.”

"Hahaha."

Zhang Fangping burst into laughter.

He knew that Song Xuan's memory was sometimes good and sometimes bad, and he was too lazy to remember many things.

But as the creator, Yan Shu felt uncomfortable.

He was very sure of the speech he had just come up with.

Absolutely no one knows!
How did Song Xuan know this?

Could it be that he relied on what I just said to come up with the next sentence without any hesitation in a short time?

Isn't he a genius then?
Especially since this kind of poetry is not about mathematics or strategy, how could two people come up with the same sentence!

Yan Shu put down the wine glass in his hand, looked at Song Xuan and said:
"Twelfth brother, where did you hear this poem?"

When Song Xuan heard the middle-aged scholar in front of him ask this question, doubt appeared in his eyes.

He had long forgotten who wrote this poem.

However, after so many years of student life, he could unconsciously recite the second line of poetry from other people's mouths, which is a unique romance of the Chinese.

After all, there are still many ancient poems.

Because it is not outstanding enough, it cannot be included in the Chinese textbook.

If you ask me to recite many poems in their entirety, that would be a bit difficult!

But there's absolutely no problem in saying a few words.

"It just popped into my head."

Song Xuan put down the cold paste in his hand and asked with a puzzled look on his face:
"Could it be that my husband doesn't remember the next sentence?"

Yan Shu held his breath back.

Is what you heard human language?

I hadn't even thought of the ending for the next sentence when you interrupted me.

"Boy, are you good at writing poetry?"

Hearing Yan Shu's question, Song Xuan waved his hand gently:

"I can't write poetry."

"I don't believe it."

Zhang Fangping spat out a fish bone to ruin the show.

He felt that his twelfth brother was always too modest.

Song Shou looked at the former prodigy Yan Shu being humiliated, and was sure that no matter how much he thought of the next sentence, it would not be more appropriate than Song Xuan's sentence "Flowers fall helplessly."

Then he calmly threw away the few strands of whiskers he was holding:
"Uncle Tong, you may not know this, but I have heard of Song Xuan. He was once a child prodigy. When he was eight years old, he wrote a poem about frogs that became widely circulated. It is still fresh in my memory."

"Oh?"

Yan Shu pretended to listen attentively.

Song Shou had been a local official for several years and understood local affairs better than Yan Shu, so he pondered and said:

"Sitting alone in a pond is like a tiger crouching, nourishing one's spirit under the shade of a tree."

Yan Shu nodded slightly, which was quite meaningful.

"If I don't speak first when spring comes, which insect will dare to make a sound?"

"hiss."

After hearing this, Yan Shu really took a deep breath.

He was a poet of the graceful and elegant school and had never written any poems of the bold and unrestrained school.

Su Shi was not born yet.

Therefore, Yan Shu was stunned by the poems that Song Xuan wrote when he was young.

Is this a seven-character quatrain that an eight-year-old can write?

(End of this chapter)