The world of film and television begins with Hikaru no Go

Before dawn, Youzhou City was shrouded in a thin layer of morning mist.

The long, gray street stretched out from the governor's mansion, with the shops on both sides still boarded up. Only the smoke from early morning cooking wafted out from the cracks in the tiles, mingling with the mist.

Di Chun harnessed the horses to the carriage. The manes of the two lead horses were neatly combed, and they snorted in the mist, their hooves occasionally pawing the ground and splashing up a few bits of mud.

The imperial envoy's guards had been fully equipped the night before and were now lined up in two rows outside the mansion gate, their torchlight casting blurry orange-yellow glows in the fog.

Li Yuanfang reined in his horse and stood at the head of the group, his sword hanging on the side of the saddle and his riding whip wrapped around his wrist. Occasionally, he would glance back in the direction of the mansion gate before turning back again.

Di Jinghui rode a chestnut horse, following on the right side of the carriage.

He wore a slightly worn dark gray robe, carried no sword, and had only a water bag and a rolled-up blanket hanging on his saddle.

Judge Di walked out of the mansion gate, wearing a casual robe and a soft turban, the hem of his robe fluttering gently in the morning breeze.

He paused at the threshold and glanced back at the plaque above the main hall of the governor's mansion.

Having only spent half a month in Youzhou, it feels like I've exhausted a whole year's worth of energy here before leaving.

He mentally reviewed the remaining matters: Jili Khan had already gone north with Wang Huaizhen's army, the relics of the mission had been cataloged and sealed, the aftermath of the mines had been handed over to the Chief Secretary, and the funds for the resettlement of displaced people had been allocated. Everything that needed to be done had been done.

"Master." Di Chun lifted the carriage curtain.

Di Renjie got into the carriage and sat down in the innermost seat.

Thick mattresses were laid out in the carriage, and a small charcoal stove sat in the corner with a copper kettle on it, from which thin white steam was rising. The whole carriage was warm and cozy.

Zhang Rui floated in and landed on the opposite side.

"Has the memorial been submitted?"

"Yes, we're using the 600-li express courier service." Di Renjie straightened his robe, leaned against the carriage wall, and relaxed his shoulders slightly. "That way, we don't need to rush on the return trip; we can take our time on the road."

The carriage rumbled out of the mansion gate, rolled over the bluestone pavement, passed through the morning mist, and headed towards the city gate.

Once outside the city, the wheat stubble fields on both sides of the official road shone faintly white in the morning light, with dew still clinging to the stubble from the previous night, glistening in the sunlight.

In the distance, the mountain ridges were a grayish-blue, and wisps of smoke rose from the villages at the foot of the mountains, only to be scattered by the wind in mid-air and melt into the morning mist.

There were no telephone poles, no asphalt roads, only rammed earth official roads with ruts left by wheels, where dew accumulated and horses' hooves splashed up tiny droplets of water when they stepped on them.

Farmers carrying hoes walked to their fields by the roadside. When they saw the group of people, they stopped at a distance and waited for the carriages to pass before continuing on their way.

The carriage curtain was half-rolled up, and the morning light shone through the gaps, dappling Di Gong's lap.

He pulled a roll of paper from a bamboo book box on the side of the carriage and unfolded it.

It was a map of Youzhou, the paper was quite old, and the edges were worn rough at the creases.

Di Renjie traced his finger along the official road southward, passing Zhuozhou and Dingzhou, and finally landing in Taiyuan.

"Taiyuan, the ancient capital of Jinyang, is the place where our dynasty rose to power." He pushed the map towards Zhang Rui. "Can you recognize any of the characters on it?"

Zhang Rui moved closer. The markings on the map were in regular script, with dense strokes, quite different from simplified characters.

Looking at each character one by one, I could identify "幽" correctly, guessed "涿" after some thought, and recognized "定" but I had no idea what "晋" (晋) meant.

I stared at the character with a frown for a while, but I still couldn't guess it. I tried tilting my head to look at it from the side, and then straightened it again. Only then did I realize what it meant.

"I can understand some of them: Zhuozhou, Dingzhou, Taiyuan. I didn't recognize the character 'Jin' at first, but I recognized it after turning it right. As for the others... Daliushu Village, I guessed the character 'Liu' (桺), but I don't recognize the character 'Shu' (树).

"Not bad, read this passage again."

Di Renjie pulled out another scroll from the book box. The pages were yellowed and the edges were bound with fine hemp thread.

The Thousand Character Classic is a primer for beginners.

What is this? Is it a test for myself?

Is Judge Di treating himself like a child just entering school?

Or are you just bored on the road and looking for something to do?

Zhang Rui stopped thinking about it and began reading the book. The words at the beginning were almost identical to those in later versions.

"Heaven and earth were dark and yellow, the universe was vast and boundless. The sun and moon waxed and waned, the stars and constellations were arrayed in the sky. Cold came and heat went, autumn brought harvest and winter brought storage."

It was pronounced smoothly, except for the word "昃".

"I don't recognize this one."

"The sun sets in the west," Di Renjie pointed to the character, his fingertip lightly touching the top of the paper. "The waxing and waning of the sun and moon refers to the sun's peak and its waning, and the moon's waxing and waning. The sun reaches its zenith and then sets in the west, and the moon waxes and wanes. This is the meaning of the cycle of nature."

Zhang Rui nodded and flipped through the pages.

As time went on, traditional and variant characters became more and more common.

The character “剑” is written as “剑”, the character “号” is written as “号”, and the character “阙” is written as “阙”.

They gradually slowed down, stopping from time to time to identify the objects, pointing out those they couldn't recognize to Di Renjie.

Judge Di was not in a hurry and spoke one word at a time.

After speaking for a while, Judge Di put away his scroll and leaned against the carriage wall.

"Have you been to school before?"

"I think I've read it..."

"What are you reading?"

Zhang Rui thought about it and realized he definitely couldn't tell the truth.

He claimed to have studied mathematics, physics, chemistry, history, geography, politics, and biology; that he had read Lu Xun and Zhu Ziqing; that he could solve quadratic equations; that he could recite the periodic table; and that he knew the chemical formula for photosynthesis…

The old man in front of me probably wouldn't understand a word of what I was saying.

"I can't remember exactly... but they were probably all miscellaneous books, not systematic at all."

Judge Di nodded and asked no further questions.

The carriage curtain was gently lifted a crack by the wind, and a slender ray of morning light fell on the scroll on Di Renjie's lap before moving away.

The carriage swayed and wobbled for about an hour before stopping to rest beside a grove of old locust trees.

Di Renjie got off the carriage and stood in the shade of a tree for a while to stretch his muscles.

A shallow stream flows down from the foot of the mountain, its water splashing and making a series of clear sounds as it hits the rocks, making the official road exceptionally quiet in the afternoon.

Taking advantage of this moment, Zhang Rui asked the question he had been wanting to ask: "Sir... which way are we going?"

"We're heading south now. Ahead is Yizhou. Further ahead are Dingzhou and Hengzhou. After crossing the Taihang Mountains, we'll reach Bingzhou, which is Taiyuan." Di Renjie sat down on a rock by the stream, pointed in a direction, and said, "Further south from Bingzhou, past Luzhou and Zezhou, across the river is Luoyang, the capital."

"Then 'Hebei Circuit' and 'Hedong Circuit'..." Zhang Rui listened to these place names, trying to piece together their locations in his mind, but he couldn't quite distinguish them. "Is a circuit bigger than a prefecture?"

"Yes, a 'dao' is larger than a 'zhou'. During the Zhenguan era, the empire was divided into ten dao, and now it has expanded to fifteen." Seeing that he was listening attentively, Di Gong picked up a dry twig from the ground and casually drew a few lines on the wet mud by the stream. "A dao is a supervisory region, while a zhou is an administrative region. The inspectors of each dao patrol on behalf of the emperor, but this position is not permanent. The real administration of the people is in the zhou and county. Youzhou is in Hebei Dao, Taiyuan is in Hedong Dao, and Luoyang is in the capital region. We are now heading southwest from Hebei Dao, entering the territory of Hedong Dao."

Zhang Rui nodded, looking down at the simple lines on the muddy ground. They vaguely matched the framework he had learned in textbooks in his later years, yet they were different in every way.