Top Scholar

Chapter 351 Peerless Divine Weapon
Meanwhile, Su Lu and the King of Shu had lunch together.

During the banquet, he finally learned that the King of Shu's illness was called "malaria mother," or, in the King of Shu's words, "malaria mother."

"Persistent malaria, alternating chills and fever, emaciation, and a mass in the abdomen."

Su Lu had initially thought it was a lung problem, but it turned out to be just a weak cough. Being in the southwest, he was naturally quite knowledgeable about malaria and knew that the so-called 'malaria mother' was a type of chronic malaria.

In these times, there's no specific cure, so it's indeed a long and difficult-to-cure illness. After much thought, Su Lu still said softly:

"I once saw a prescription in an old book that uses a handful of Artemisia annua, soaked in cold water, juiced and drunk cold, to cure malaria. If Your Highness really has no other choice, you can give it a try, since it won't kill anyone."

"Very well, I've got it." The King of Shu nodded politely, clearly not taking it to heart.

Su Lu couldn't persuade him any further, and with a sigh, he could only give up for now.

However, after lunch, the two became quite close. The King of Shu was learned and knowledgeable, and treated people with sincerity and gentleness, while Su Lu was a second-generation succubus with excellent emotional and intellectual intelligence. Moreover, they weren't too far apart in age, so they naturally became friends as they chatted.

After the meal, the Prince of Shu asked Su Lu, "Hongzhi, will you return to Mingli Hall to write your essay?"

Before Su Lu could answer, he said to himself, "Forget it, with your level, it's a complete waste of time. Why don't you go and take a look at my family's library?"

"That would be wonderful!" Su Lu was immediately excited and readily agreed.

The renowned Shu Prince's Library was not only the cradle of cultural heritage in Southwest China, but its quantity and quality of books were probably second only to the Imperial Palace in the entire Ming Dynasty.

This was because Zhu Chun, the Prince of Shu, was a voracious reader and sent people throughout the land to seek out ancient and modern books. His library housed tens of thousands of rare and ancient books, acquired at great expense or donated by scholars. Later generations followed in their ancestors' footsteps, relentlessly pursuing knowledge, and over a century, the collection expanded several times over. Although it lacked the imperial collection of the Yongle Encyclopedia, it represented the pinnacle of a local princely collection.

In short, the Shu Kingdom's library was far more attractive to true scholars than brothels.

~~
The library of the Shu Kingdom was named "Zunjing Pavilion" and was located deep in the bamboo forest in the southeast corner of the Shu King's Palace.

The southeast (巽) position is the proper position for Wenchang (文昌), and the Wenyuan Pavilion in the Forbidden City is also located in this position. In fact, the Zunjing Pavilion was built in imitation of the Wenyuan Pavilion in Nanjing. The pavilion has three floors, is tall, spacious and transparent, and the ground floor is paved with white marble to prevent dampness.

The King of Shu led Su Lu to the pavilion. The eunuch guarding the pavilion silently pushed open the door, and Su Lu was deeply shocked by the sight before him—

Rows of bookshelves, all made of Phoebe zhennan wood, stood along the walls, reaching to the ceiling, with books arranged according to the categories of "Classics, History, Philosophy, and Literature." All the books were contained in blue cloth cases, with the title and number clearly labeled on the outside.
Looking at the overwhelming, densely packed books, Su Lu couldn't help but feel like a tiger trying to eat the sky, not knowing where to even begin.

"Take a look at these first." The King of Shu ordered the eunuchs of the Zunjing Pavilion to bring Su Lu a thick stack of books.

"This is..." Su Lu picked up a book and quickly flipped through it, finding rows and rows of titles and numbers. "A catalog of books?"

“That’s right.” The King of Shu nodded proudly, “These books are the catalog of my family’s collection, totaling more than 100,000 titles. Take your time to look through them, write down the titles you want to read, and let Eunuch Liang help you find them and take them back to read at your leisure.”

"Thank you, Your Highness!" Su Lu was overjoyed. The second-best library in the Ming Dynasty allowed him to get a library card. What a fortunate thing this was!
"Then you can take your time reading. I need to go back for my afternoon rest." The King of Shu smiled bitterly and said, "Since contracting this disease, my energy has been too low."

"Your Highness, that prescription is truly effective..." Su Lu saw the Prince of Shu to the door and couldn't help but recommend it again:

"It has cured many people in our area."

"Is that so?" The King of Shu finally took it to heart and nodded, "Then I will try it another day."

After the King of Shu left in his palanquin, Su Lu sat back down at his desk and began to peruse the books in the midday sunlight.

The yellowed pages rustled between his fingers, and the air was filled with the scent of paper, ink, and nanmu wood, but it did nothing to calm the excitement in his heart!
Su Lu's gaze lingered on the table of contents for the "Classics" section, specifically the "Book of Rites" category...

Since proposing the hypothetical-deductive method, Su Luzhi's approach to the study of the Book of Rites has diverged significantly from that of his contemporaries.

Contemporary scholars studying the Book of Rites often merely parroted the sayings of Cheng Yi and Zhu Xi, engaging in empty talk about principles while neglecting empirical evidence.

Su Lu advocated that "rites must be based on facts, not on conjecture"—using historical records as the foundation and employing textual exegesis and collation to clarify errors. He completely abandoned the bad academic practices of Song and Ming scholars who "interpreted the meaning from the text" or even "arbitrarily altered ancient books."

Contemporary scholars relied heavily on Chen Hao's "Collected Explanations of the Book of Rites" when studying the Book of Rites. However, this book is riddled with errors and the texts are scattered and disorganized. Its quality is questionable, and scholars throughout the land have long suffered from it, yet no one has been able to produce anything better.

While in Longchang, Master Yangming encouraged Su Lu to thoroughly re-examine the *Book of Rites* using his "hypothetical-deductive method," and to write a *Commentary on the Book of Rites*, thus ending the era of chaotic versions and distorted interpretations of ritual studies in the current dynasty! He was seizing this currently unclaimed niche!

However, the hypothetical-deductive method places the most emphasis on empirical evidence. Whether it is textual research or exegesis, it requires original texts as irrefutable evidence in order to thoroughly investigate and definitively prove the origin of each character and the original meaning of each ritual!
This requires Su Lu to have enough classics, not only in terms of variety, but also in terms of age, preferably from before the Han and Tang dynasties!
However, the two places he had access to with the largest collections of books before—Heshan Academy and the Zhu family—only contained classics from the Song and Yuan dynasties and the present dynasty, lacking texts from the Han and Tang dynasties. Even Jia Gongyan's memorial could not be assembled into a complete volume.

Without sufficient supporting textual evidence, his research would be like water without a source; reconstructing the Three Rites system would be impossible, let alone clarifying a few key ambiguities in the *Book of Rites*. But in the Zunjing Pavilion of the Shu Prince's Mansion, everything was no longer a problem!
The catalog alone contained thousands of books, including those related to the *Book of Rites*.

Cai Yong's *Commentary on the Monthly Ordinances*; Ma Rong's *Annotations on the Book of Rites*; Wang Su's *Wang's Annotations on the Book of Rites*; Lu Deming's *Explanations of Classical Texts and Pronunciation of the Book of Rites*; He Chang's *New Interpretations of the Book of Rites*; Huang Kan's *Interpretations of the Book of Rites*...

There are so many that it's dizzying.

Moreover, there are several different editions of each book available for verification!

There's even a copy of the *Da Dai Li Ji* (Record of Rites by Dai the Elder) that contains 70% of its content!
Su Lu felt a chill run down his spine; he was so happy he almost fainted!

These precious ancient texts are the rarest materials, allowing him to forge divine weapons and help him command the world.

Su Lu never wanted to be a pedantic scholar who spent his life studying classical texts, but he was willing to devote all his energy to exhausting these documents and completing the textual criticism and collation of the entire Book of Rites—clarifying every variant reading, verifying the origin of every ritual, and distinguishing the original meaning of every sentence in the classics, so that he could compile a completely new Book of Rites!
Once this book is published, it will completely overturn the rigid and inflexible tradition of interpreting the classics since the Song Dynasty! It will help him wrest the power of interpretation from the hands of those pedantic scholars who cling to the Cheng-Zhu school of Neo-Confucianism and firmly grasp it in his own hands!
At that time, he said that the "Great Harmony" in the Book of Rites is the foundation of equality for all people, and scholars throughout the world will follow his interpretation and thinking!
He said that the "respect for all" principle in the Book of Rites is a respect for individual dignity, and the secular etiquette will then loosen!
At that time, his words will become law—his words will be the scriptures, the rules, and the power to move the hearts of the people!

By then, he will become the invisible ruler who holds the power of the world!

This is the true driving force behind his tireless pursuit of etiquette...

~~
Inside the Mingli Hall.

Yang Shen displayed his best skills and wrote a beautifully written article.

He read it again with satisfaction, secretly admiring himself: 'Yongxiu, you're a genius!'

But when he looked up and saw the spot to his left, his smile gradually froze.

The sun had already set in the west, and Su Lu's seat was still empty. There wasn't a single word on the manuscript paper, and not even any ink had been ground.

Yang Shen immediately felt bored and didn't even bother to give those old men any feedback on the article.

"Brother, aren't you going to show it to Mr. Fan?" Yang Dun asked in a low voice as he casually tucked the article into his sleeve.

“I’ve shown it to him before, it’s just clichés.” Yang Shen said calmly, “It’s not scary to get old, what’s scary is getting old without realizing it, and still thinking that you are great.”

"If you don't want to show it to him, fine, but you don't have to be so sarcastic," Yang Dun said helplessly. He thought the talkative older brother from this morning was much more adorable.

"By the way, why hasn't Su Hongzhi come to write his essay?" He then realized that Su Lu was not there: "Did he feel unwell and leave first?"

"No need to make excuses for him!" Yang Shen snorted. "He's cowardly..."

"Hmm, he must be scared off!" Yang Shen said smugly. "He knows that once he writes an article, it will be compared to mine. When compared to others, he pales in comparison; when compared to goods, they are discarded!"

"It can't be that bad. I've read Su Hongzhi's articles. Can you write the latest one, 'If You Use It, It Will Work'?" Yang Dun was a good younger brother and never let his older brother be too proud.

“Uh…” Yang Shen was speechless. He had read all of Su Lu’s articles, just like the little princess. He could clearly feel how terrifying Su Lu’s progress was and how he had never stopped.

But in fact, including the highly praised "The Difficulty of Finding Beauty in the Book of Calligraphy", he felt that he could win the battle.

He finally couldn't hold back when he saw Su Lu's article, "If You Use It, You Can Do It".

The writing style was secondary; the key was the level of artistry, which forced him to look up to the author...

If this had been written by a great scholar or senior scholar, it would have been fine, but the author was two years younger than him and was also his imagined rival, which was quite disappointing.

That's why he couldn't stay calm after seeing Su Lu and acted very abnormally...

"I understand! That article must perfectly align with Master Yangming's thoughts; he was merely parroting others' ideas." Yang Shen finally reaffirmed his point:

"But if the topic changes, he'll show his true colors. That's why he's refusing to fight in order to maintain his psychological advantage over me!"

"Think what you want." Yang Dun was speechless. His older brother only had eyes for Su Lu now and couldn't tolerate anyone else.

P.S.: I'll revise it later. Can I vote for my monthly ticket today?
(End of this chapter)