Chapter 134: Top Scholar

"Brother Linfeng is here!"

As soon as these words were spoken, the noise in the lobby of Tianyue Building stopped instantly.

Shen Su, who was sitting in the corner, also looked along with the crowd and saw a young man in a wide-sleeved white robe coming in from outside.

"This is the one who won the title of the best poet for two days in a row. He really looks like a famous scholar."

"Yes, I heard that he was fighting against ten people yesterday, and he wrote poems about buildings. He was one against ten, and he won in the end. Someone even copied his poems yesterday, and said they wanted to compile them into a book."

Shen Su heard the conversation between two students at the next table and asked, "Where can I watch it?"

"What?"

"Where can I find the poem he wrote yesterday?"

A scholar in a blue shirt replied, "You can buy it at the front counter, ten cents a copy. The shopkeeper asked someone to copy it yesterday."

The shopkeeper of Tianyuelou is also a good businessman. The poetry competition that has been going on for two days has become very popular. Yesterday, he thought of a way to have people copy the poems written by students into a book and sell it in the store. If someone has a poem selected for the collection, he can also go to the shopkeeper and ask for "dividends".

Today's shopkeeper has come up with a new trick. He made several large wooden frames overnight and pasted large sheets of rice paper on them, just like the notices posted in the yamen on the streets, but the words "Poetry List" are written on the top.

If someone has written a good poem, they can write it down by themselves. After finishing, the store will put the poem list inside and outside the building for everyone to appreciate.

With such an opportunity to become famous, all students were eager to try, but on the other hand, they were worried that their poems were not good enough and would be laughed at if they were put on the list, so they began to hesitate.

Only Li Linfeng stepped forward, picked up the pen and started writing, and he finished it in one go without any hesitation.

“What a nice handwriting!”

Without even reading the content in detail, this one stroke of the word alone is enough to make me exclaim in admiration. It is not an exaggeration to say that "dragons soar and phoenixes dance". It turns out that I have never heard of this person before.

"Brother Linfeng, does this poem have a title?" Li Linfeng only wrote four sentences and twenty-eight words, but did not write a title for the poem.

"Of course I'm famous." Li Linfeng walked to the counter slowly, asked for a pot of wine, took a sip, and left directly. He didn't care that there were many people pointing and talking about his poems. He turned a deaf ear to the compliments and walked away with the pot of wine in his hand, shaking his sleeves.

Shen Su, Lu Ne and two of his classmates also walked up to the list to look at the poems left by Li Linfeng.

At this time, many people were crowded together in front of the poetry list. Fortunately, Shen Su was tall and could see them even from outside.

"Wonderful! This poem of his is named after the two words 'Shi Bang'. It seems nameless, but it is actually famous."

Shen Su asked himself, he could not write natural and elegant poems. Both his father and grandfather said that his poems were full of artificiality. In short, his parallelism and rhythm were good, but his choice of words and sentences were too rigid and tasteless.

"Minsi, please come home when you have time. I'm going back now. Brother Wu, Brother Chen, let's meet again some other day."

After saying that, Shen Su went to the counter and bought three poetry collections. He couldn't wait to sit down and read Li Linfeng's poems carefully.

Wu Wengong suddenly remembered something and asked Lu Ne, "Minsi, I seem to remember that the family you are related to is the Shen family, so who is Brother Shen..."

Lu Ne had not intended to take the initiative to talk about his relationship with the Shen family, but when the relationship was pointed out, he had no choice but to explain, "Brother Shen is my fiancée's cousin."

"Then he is the grandson-in-law of Mr. He, the great scholar?"

Although He Jianzhi had already retired, his reputation in the minds of scholars was much more famous than that of the Dali Temple Chief Justice. So when several people thought of Shen Su's identity, their first reaction was that he was the grandson-in-law of He Jianzhi, not the son of the Dali Temple Chief Justice.

Lune nodded and said nothing more.

Seeing that Lu Ne was unwilling to say more, the two of them were very tactful and did not ask any more questions. They only said, "Brother Shen is so low-key. I heard that he has been studying with Master He since he was a child. I think he must be confident about this examination."

At first, when they heard that Shen Su's surname was Shen, they did not think much about it. Shen is a common surname, and today Wu Wengong suddenly remembered that his classmate was engaged to the Shen family, which is why he asked this question.

After Shen Xu returned home, he immediately took the collection of poems into his study and read for two hours without even having time to eat lunch.

When he returned to the room, he naturally received complaints from his wife.

"Didn't you say you were going out to see a poetry competition? Why did you hide in your study when you came back and didn't even come out for lunch? I've told you so many times that you can't neglect your health while studying."

Shen Su quickly begged for mercy, "I understand, Yingniang, I'll eat it now."

On the table was the food that Yingchun had just brought. Shen Su handed the collection of poems to his wife and said, "Yingniang, take a look at this poem too."

He Ying sat at the table and also flipped through the collection of poems. As a result, Shen Su finished two bowls of rice and the food on the table was cleared away, but He Ying didn't react at all.

"Is this Li Linfeng also a candidate this year? Where is he from?"

"Yes, I heard that he was a candidate from Shuzhou. I heard from students in several prefectures near Shuzhou that Li Linfeng had a talent since he was young, but he was not interested in studying. Instead, he liked business. When he was 18 years old, he was forced by his family to take the imperial examination. As a result, he won two prizes in a row. Some people have already placed bets, saying that this year's top scholar will definitely be him. Maybe Dazhao will have another top scholar."

Shuzhou is far away from the capital, and it may be because of this that Li Linfeng's reputation has not spread here.

"I just read it. This poem is indeed very well written. However, you can also see from the poem that this person is aloof and arrogant. He also faintly reveals that he doesn't like the imperial examination. It's amazing that such a person can write a good imperial examination essay.

The essays for the imperial examinations have a fixed format and cannot be written randomly. But if we look at Li Linfeng's poems alone, we can see that he used words and rhythm in a very unconventional way, which is extremely bold and strange. It is hard to imagine what his essays are like just by looking at his poems.

"Dad is right. There are always people better than you. Li Linfeng is a well-deserved genius. He started taking the imperial examination at the age of 18, but he was able to achieve such success. If I were asked to write a poem like him, I'm afraid I would never be able to write one in my lifetime."

Shen Su felt a little envious and a little frustrated. It wasn't that he was frustrated that he couldn't match Li Linfeng's talent, but that he was frustrated that he might never be able to write such elegant poems.

"A person's poems are like his characters. His poetic style reflects his character. It would be bad if you tried to imitate his style."

Shen Su was only frustrated for a moment, but he soon figured it out. Geniuses are rare, and most people are ordinary people.

"Speaking of poetry, Yingniang, do you remember when we were little, our grandfather gave us a topic and asked us to write poetry. I was always worse than you. I cried secretly when I went home, thinking I was useless. Later, Manman grew up a little and joined in the fun. She was about ten years old at that time. Grandfather said that Manman's poems were more spiritual than mine, and that I would only write poems within a frame."

Recalling the past, He Ying also laughed, "Yes, you are not as good as me in writing poems, and I am not as good as you in writing essays. At that time, my grandfather said every day that your poems were like a donkey that only knew how to walk around the millstone. They were full of poems, like little birds flying in the sky, carefree and smart, but they always ignored the rhythm."

"Isn't that just like her personality? If she's not held back, she'll fly up to the sky."

He Ying was stunned when she heard this. It was true. Their little bird flew to the Princess's Mansion today. Well... she'd better not tell her husband for now.