In his mind, Zhao Rong recalled once again the moment when Qingjun tiptoed to kiss him in the depths of Nuanxi Bamboo Garden yesterday, and her clumsiness when she lowered her head.

There were also countless nights on the way to Duyou City when Xiaoxiao slept in his arms, either dreaming or awake, confused or happy, shouting the sweet and naive words "Zhao Lang, Zhao Lang, I have Zhao Lang".

Zhao Rong pursed his lips.

The love between Qingjun and Xiaoxiao is enough to last him a lifetime.

Oh, and there's Qian'er. Actually, Zhao Rong didn't have too many thoughts about Qian'er before, but Qingjun brought it up suddenly - presumably she had considered letting him marry Qian'er a long time ago - and Zhao Rong was a little dazed then. Oh, strictly speaking, Qian'er could also be considered a maid, although he was a son-in-law, but Qingjun took the initiative to arrange it, so Zhao Rong could just go with the flow and take her into the room.

only.

Although Qingjun is not as feudal and rigid as the women of some dynasties down the mountain, she is also limited by this world and has conservative ideas.

Although Zhao Rong admitted that he was a bit overbearing and greedy like a male chauvinist, he could not accept treating maids and slaves like commodities.

He exhaled lightly and shook his head. He decided to wait for Qian'er to come back. The most important thing was to respect her wishes.

Apart from Qingjun, Xiaoxiao, and Qianer, as for the other "give other women a home"...

Zhao Rong laughed and cursed him as a scumbag in his heart.

In this case, then keep some distance from other women, and be polite when interacting with them, so as not to get too deeply entangled in the end and fall into it, and not be able to bear to "have it all" again...

beside.

Yan Jidao glanced at Zhao Rong, and saw that he was holding tightly on the sleeve into which the paper had just been stuffed with one hand, with his eyes lowered and slightly absent-minded, shaking his head from time to time.

"Tzuyu, is there something wrong with this pair?"

"Ah, no, Mr. Yan, no problem. The first line of this couplet was left by a student before. Mr. Zhu probably saw it and filled it in for his disciple when he was in a good mood. It's very neat. Mr. Zhu is a wonderful person."

Yan Jidao nodded slightly when he heard this. Seeing that Zhao Rong's expression just now was not what he was worried about, he stopped thinking about it and said in a deep voice, "There is one more thing."

Yan Jidao took out a small stack of manuscripts and several Confucian classics annotations that Zhao Rong had never seen before, and handed them to Zhao Rong.

"Jinshu has previously corrected your homework for you. The corrections are generally good. I have taken a close look at them."

He stared at Zhao Rong.

"Ziyu, you do write better than some of your senior brothers. It seems that you have listened carefully to my lessons at Taiqing Mansion and have learned a lot. You even made novel interpretations of some saints' words, but..."

At first, Zhao Rong listened to Yan Jidao's praise and nodded, but the more he listened, the more Zhao Rong guessed that there was a turning point. At this moment, seeing Mr. Yan staring at him and pausing his words, Zhao Rong shook his sleeves and bowed.

"I am an ignorant student. Please teach me, sir."

Yan Jidao stroked his beard with a serious expression, and did not help Zhao Rong. "But it's not enough. For you, this is far from enough!"

He pointed at the manuscript in Zhao Rong's hand.

"It must be because you have an outstanding talent in poetry and prose. You can write boring articles on the classics in a smooth and flowing manner, and they are easy to read. But these are just icing on the cake. Your understanding of some Confucian classics is still too shallow.

The two major arts of Confucian scholars are poetry and classics. We will not discuss the former for now.

When studying and learning classics, one should calm down and be meticulous and careful. Ziyu, your articles on the meaning of classics have a lot of quotations from classics, and I expected that you should like to read a wide range of books, and even study the knowledge of many philosophers, but these are empty and not sophisticated. This is your current problem, Ziyu."

"Tzuyu, although you are still young, it is precisely because of this that you must correct your superficial knowledge and not repeat the mistakes of your predecessors."

Zhao Rong listened solemnly and remained silent.

In fact, he was vaguely aware of this problem.

Before Zhao Rong awakened his memories of his past life, he had an outstanding memory, but unfortunately his comprehension was not good enough. In the words of Mr. Fang at the time, he was just a dull person who studied rigidly and did not know how to think flexibly.

Later, Zhao Rong awakened his past life memories, his personality merged, and he began to be quick-witted and his thinking was unconventional, which made up for his shortcomings. In addition, his habit of reading and his outstanding memory made him extremely talented in reading.

This is exactly the opposite of Zhao Rong's talent in cultivation.

When he discussed academic matters with Lin Wenruo in Zhongnan Kingdom before, Lin Wenruo had praised him more than once as a rare bookworm.

However, a genius is just a genius after all, and it is impossible to become a saint in an instant without any accumulation of experience.

Among the hundreds of schools of thought in the world, no matter how good your talent is, you must accumulate knowledge, delve into studies, and lay a solid foundation honestly before you have the opportunity to achieve something.

Besides, Zhao Rong was not an old scholar in his previous life. He was just a young graduate of the humanities department who studied ancient literature. Therefore, even with the fusion of memories of two lives, he could not compare with Yan Jidao in many aspects of Confucian scholarship.

The latter is a great scholar at the Jindan realm who is well versed in the classics of Confucianism and Taoism. He has been deeply engaged in the subject he is good at for countless years, which is probably longer than the age of Zhao Rong in two lifetimes combined.

However, according to Zhao Rong's understanding of the current Confucian system in the Xuanhuang Realm, Mr. Yan is still just a scholar, or this is the case for most of the scholars in the 72 Confucian academies, including Linlu Academy.

This does not mean that they are too weak or lack solid knowledge - almost all of them are great and pure Confucian scholars. If they were placed in a country under the mountain, they would at least be the masters of the literary world, not to mention their Confucian and Taoist cultivation - but because the title of gentleman is too difficult to obtain, and the Zhongzhou Confucian Temple has extremely strict conditions for granting it.

It is not about your Confucian and Taoist cultivation, nor is it about your profound understanding of Confucianism.

Rather, it depends on whether your knowledge expands and innovates on the path of your predecessors, or... whether you take a new path, create a new discipline within the school, and open up a brand new path for future generations.

However, the latter situation is almost impossible. There is still some chance of digging a "small road", but forget about the "big road". This is the way of saints.

Whoever does it is sanctified.

However, among the various schools of thought in the Xuanhuang Realm, this situation has disappeared for tens of thousands of years. In each of the hundreds of schools, there are almost no saints. This is the case for the big schools like Confucianism, Taoism, and Mohism. As for some small schools, except for the founders who founded the school, no one has set up their own school and become a saint.

Of course, obtaining the title of gentleman does not require such exaggerated learning.

For Confucian scholars, they only need to accumulate a certain amount of new knowledge in one of the six arts of a gentleman.

In this way, the Zhongzhou Confucian Temple can grant titles at its discretion.

And if we can expand it a step further, and a new doctrine is born in the three principles of heaven, earth and man among which hundreds of schools of thought are competing, then we can get our hands on the title of "sage" which is even rarer than "gentleman".

The "theory of the unity of substance and function" proposed by Zhao Rong in the debate between Confucianism and Taoism in Zhongnan Kingdom can be roughly classified into this category. Although it has not yet reached the standard for obtaining the Confucian titles of "gentleman" or "sage", it is enough to make Yan Jidao sigh when he learned about it.

Zhao Rong also discovered that the system of the various schools of thought in the Xuanhuang Realm was somewhat similar to the academic circle in his previous life.

Professors in the academy such as Yan Jidao are like those professors in the university where Zhao Rong studied in his previous life, who have profound knowledge but have not yet published in top journals.

Zhao Rong also saw from this his own prophetic advantage from his previous life.

At the same time, there are also shortcomings.

In his previous life, Zhao Rong was fond of ancient Chinese literature. He read both official and unofficial history, and also liked to read miscellaneous books. He even dabbled in obscure knowledge such as ancient business firms, banknote houses, and ancient herbal prescriptions, but he knew more about his major.

Zhao Rong's memory of his previous life was interrupted when he stayed up all night to write his graduation thesis. He still remembered that he had painstakingly prepared this article for more than half a year, and it was called "A Brief Discussion on the Contentions of Hundreds of Schools of Thought in the Pre-Qin Period".

To this end, Zhao Rong read all the materials he could find on the pre-Qin schools of thought and gained some understanding of many of the ideas they advocated.

Now, thanks to his good memory, Zhao Rong still remembers quite a lot of the theories of these hundreds of schools of thought.

After regaining his memory, Zhao Rong often read miscellaneous books, including some books by various schools of thought in the Xuanhuang Realm, and he also tried to understand the differences between this world and the history of his previous life.

It did allow him to discover many "forgotten treasures".

However, as Yan Jidao said, because Zhao Rong had a vague understanding of this knowledge but not a deep one, he was unable to dig up these treasure chests.

It's like having inspiration but not being able to realize it, or like having a treasure chest without the key to open it.

The situation is exactly the opposite of Yan Jidao and other scholars in the academy who are very knowledgeable but lack a ray of inspiration.

This is also one of the reasons why Zhao Rong entered Linlu Academy.

Here, he felt he could get the growth he needed…

With this thought in mind, Zhao Rong turned serious, bowed again to Mr. Yan who had been staring at him, and said, "Teacher, teach me."

Yan Jidao remained silent. Suddenly he turned around and walked towards the maple tree with lush branches and leaves with his pruning knife. "Come here and give me a hand."

Zhao Rong was stunned for a moment, walked forward, picked up a scissors from the stone table, and went under the tree.

However, Zhao Rong was unfamiliar with such farming activities and was afraid of damaging the maple tree, so he stood aside and observed Yan Jidao for a while.

I saw that he moved skillfully and orderly, and the originally lush leaves were cut into uneven and scattered ones by him.

Yan Jidao turned his back to Zhao Rong and suddenly asked, "Ziyu, do you know why the maple leaves on this tree are not red even though it is autumn?"

Zhao Rong took a look and found that the maple tree was indeed a little strange. He said casually, "Is it lacking fertilizer?"

Yan Jidao shook his head. "The place where the four Taiqing Prefectures are located is a blessed place for immortals. The land is fertile. How can there be a lack of fertilizer here?"

Zhao Rong thought about it. He wanted to say it was because there was not enough sunlight, but then he looked at the maple tree with non-red leaves and found that the courtyard was open and there were no buildings blocking the sunlight.

Zhao Rong pondered, "Is it because of the lack of water? I heard that red maple trees have a high demand for clean water."

Yan Jidao shook his head again, stretched out his hand, and pointed to the well in the corner of the courtyard, "There is a water source underground. The red maple trees have very deep roots, so how can there be a shortage of water?"

Zhao Rong frowned slightly and looked up at the red maple tree, whose leaves were not red despite the excellent environment.

Yan Jidao also looked up with him.

The two were silent for a while.

Zhao Rong frowned and remained speechless.

Yan Jidao's face was calm.

At some point.

Yan Jidao said softly: "This red maple tree has good fertility and is not lacking in water and sunlight. Therefore, it grows without restraint and has become as lush and leafy as it is now."

He withdrew his gaze and looked at Zhao Rong.

"It looks healthy and strong, but because the branches and leaves grow in disorder, most of the leaves cannot get sunlight, and the ventilation inside is poor. How can this maple leaf be red?"

Yan Jidao said solemnly: "Maple trees should be most beautiful in autumn, but now they are not red, and they are getting worse every year. Even autumn has been forgotten."

Yan Jidao waved his hand and said, "Look around at this huge Taiqing Four Prefectures. Whether it's trees or people, there are so many of them. Isn't it the same for all of them?"

He stood with his hands behind his back, looking up at the red maple leaves in the autumn, and whispered to himself.

"If it was planted in our Linlu Academy, it would never be like this, never."

Zhao Rong remained silent, turned around and saluted.

"Student Zhao Ziyu, I am here to receive instruction from you, sir."