The rebellious grandson of Emperor Zhenguan of the Tang Dynasty: Please, Your Majesty, be called Cro

"you……"

Li Xiang's kick and question left the eloquent Confucius speechless for a moment.

He never expected that this grandson of the emperor, who had never been particularly noticeable in the Eastern Palace, would be so lazy as to utter such nonsensical and heretical words.

Even with his vast knowledge, including at least four-tenths of his vocabulary for criticizing others, he couldn't find the right words to criticize Li Xiang in his haste.

Yu Zhining, who had been kicked to the ground, struggled to his feet. His robes were dusty, and his back ached terribly. He was still furious, his face ashen, his beard bristling, and he pointed at Li Xiang's nose: "Arrogant! Arrogant! You've turned black into white, and you've lost all sense of morality!"

"The existence of such a crown prince and imperial grandson is truly a great misfortune for the world!"

"I have devoted my utmost loyalty to you and your son, yet I have been subjected to your beatings and humiliation!"

He trembled with rage, his voice suddenly rising: "Alas! Even if we, his subjects, are determined to remonstrate with our kings to the death, we can only lament our helplessness when faced with rulers like you and your son, who are like Jie of Xia, Zhou of Shang, King Huai of Chu, and Emperor Yang of Sui!"

"It's laughable that my unwavering loyalty to the Crown Prince has been wasted... It's also laughable that you and your son, imprisoned, remain so stubbornly unrepentant!"

"Since we have encountered such tyrannical rulers, what is the point of my advice?"

"Why not take a break? Why not take a break!"

As she spoke, she grabbed Kong Yingda's sleeve and was about to leave.

(How could I let you all just leave like this?)

Li Xiang was just worrying about how to continue courting disaster when he heard them threaten Li Chengqian to "present himself to His Majesty." How could he let them leave like that?

He suddenly burst into loud laughter, so loud that the dust on the roof beams began to fall in a flurry.

"By comparing my father and me to Xia Jie, Shang Zhou, King Huai, and Emperor Yang, you are implying that you see yourself as a loyal minister like Guan Longfeng, Bi Gan, Qu Yuan, or Cui Minxiang."

"However, Qu Yuan and Bi Gan, whose loyal remonstrances failed, both died to demonstrate their integrity."

"Since you pride yourself on being a loyal and outspoken minister, why do you only know how to whine and complain here instead of going to your death?"

"You..." Upon hearing this, Yu Zhining turned around abruptly, his eyes widening.

"Oh, kid, you've figured it out." Having watched the two berate Li Chengqian, Li Xiang's most crucial lesson was to speak continuously, like a great river, leaving the opponent no opportunity to speak. Therefore, seeing Yu Zhining about to speak, he used the same tactic to cut him off directly:

"Yu Gong doesn't want to be a loyal minister who remonstrates, but rather to have the reputation of remonstrating... He wants both fame and the glory that fame brings while he's still alive. Isn't that better than being dead?"

"You... talking nonsense!" Yu Zhining's face suddenly turned red, and he shouted.

"Young man, have you perhaps misspoke?" Li Xiang immediately asked, inwardly lamenting that his cultivation was still inferior to those two professional trolls, Lao Deng, who had managed to interrupt him while he was catching his breath.

On one hand, he secretly resolved to hone his cursing skills like Stephen Chow in "Hail the Judge," and on the other hand, he raised his voice, his expression even more righteous and indignant than the two old men:

"I heard that Yu Gong wrote 'Jian Yuan' (The Garden of Admonitions), intending to use this book to teach future generations of admonitors and become a model for them."

"However, in public affairs, one should not emulate the wisdom of Yanzi and Zou Ji in advising their ruler, nor should one use one's own advice to calm the ruler's anger and impulsiveness, so as to prevent the ruler from making wrong decisions;"

"We cannot emulate the heroic deeds of Qu Yuan and Bi Gan, who were willing to sacrifice themselves for righteousness and die for their cause, demonstrating their loyalty with their blood."

"Instead of thinking about how to get the lord to listen to correct advice, and instead of dedicating themselves to assisting the lord in achieving success, they only know how to nitpick and contradict the lord on trivial matters, deliberately provoking the lord's anger!"

"By provoking the lord, they highlight their own loyalty. By tarnishing the lord's reputation, they enhance their own!"

"Can such a person be called an advisor?"

"I really don't know where Yu Gong got the audacity to write that book, 'Jian Yuan,' with such self-satisfaction? Is he trying to teach future generations to be like him, seeking only fame and serving no benefit to the ruler?"

"The lengthy 'Jianyuan' (a collection of admonitions) is tens of thousands of words long, but when I opened it, I only saw four words: 'Selling honesty for fame!'"

"These four words alone are enough to encompass your life's learning! Why need ten thousand words!"

Having learned his lesson, Li Xiang spoke these words in one breath, almost without pausing. Yu Zhining's blood pressure surged, but he couldn't find a chance to interrupt and argue, leaving him speechless and turning purple with frustration.

When Li Xiang uttered the words "selling honesty for fame," his anger surged even more, and he felt dizzy.

Yet, he still subconsciously and somewhat nervously glanced at the junior guards still hesitating at the palace gate.

These four characters were originally meant to appear a hundred years from now, but they have not yet appeared.

When Li Xiang casually uttered these words, Yu Zhining felt that these four words were extremely piercing, yet strangely catchy.

If word gets out...

I fear that Yu Zhining, along with his painstakingly written "Jianyuan," will be bound to these four characters and passed down through the ages!

"This is sophistry!" Seeing that Yu Zhining was temporarily suppressed by Li Xiang, Kong Yingda snorted and stood up to speak in his defense.

"You mere child, how many words of the sages have you read? What do you know about loyalty, righteousness, benevolence, and virtue!"

"Speaking nonsense, utterly ignorant and incompetent!"

Kong Yingda was well-versed in etiquette and was a great Confucian scholar. He was the Chancellor of the Imperial Academy, the highest institution of learning in the Tang Dynasty.

As a descendant of Confucius, he naturally occupies a high position in terms of morality and etiquette. Whenever he speaks out against something, few dare to say anything bad about this descendant of a sage.

His rebuttal of Li Xiang now naturally carried a sense of condescending judgment, as if his words could define the matter.

"Impressive, impressive." Li Xiang chuckled. "At the beginning of the Zhou Dynasty, there was no Confucius. In that case, King Wen, Jiang Shang, and the Duke of Zhou, compared to Confucius, were just ignorant and incompetent people who had never read the words of the sage and did not know loyalty, righteousness, benevolence, and virtue."

"Confucius is over seventy years old. Since his virtue surpasses that of the Duke of Zhou and his learning surpasses that of Jiang Shang, he must be a great sage. But I do not know what merits he has made in this prosperous era of Zhenguan, in order to support the country and save the people from suffering. Why am I so unaware of this?"

"You..." Kong Yingda almost lost his composure, his air of a learned scholar was almost gone.

Confucius is seventy years old this year and will soon retire. He was born in the turbulent era at the end of the Sui Dynasty.

At that time, heroes emerged from chaos, and all the heroes in the world, like the awl in a bag, stood out one after another.

Upon entering the service of the Tang Dynasty, Kong Yingda was selected as one of the eighteen scholars of the Prince of Qin's mansion and was highly valued by Li Shimin. With such favorable circumstances, it should have been an opportunity for a capable person to realize his ambitions, achieve great things, and make a name for himself in history, admired by future generations.

However, Confucius remained only a "scholar" throughout his life and had no notable achievements.

With the Lingyan Pavilion completed in February of this year, the emperor hung portraits of twenty-four meritorious officials in the pavilion to ensure their lasting fame. Those who joined Li Shimin later than Kong Yingda, such as Zhang Gongjin and Wei Zheng, were among the twenty-four meritorious officials.

Even a rogue soldier like Hou Junji and a traitor like Wei Zheng were able to be listed as meritorious officials in the Lingyan Pavilion and receive incense offerings from later generations.

Yet Kong Yingda, a descendant of a sage, was not even allowed into the Lingyan Pavilion!

This matter was clearly a deep-seated ailment within Confucius himself.

Whenever the night was deep and quiet, and he was in a dark room, thinking about this matter, the old master didn't know how many inkstones he had broken or how many bamboo slips he had snapped.

"You... are rude!"

Confucius, whose heart was touched, hesitated for a long time before finally managing to utter these two words.