Chapter 7
Although it was called online class, Xue Jin'an only watched for about fifteen minutes. His attention was not on the course content taught by Teacher Cen. His eyes were on the Fourth Prince, who was being shut out and looked frustrated.
Master Cen was an old man in his sixties, with long eyebrows and a beard, dressed like a Taoist priest rather than a scholar. In fact, he was not only a Confucian scholar but also a great Confucian scholar of his time, with students all over the world. His students were everywhere in the court, and even the least successful one was the Chancellor of the Imperial Academy.
Perhaps it was because Master Cen had no desire for power, or perhaps he was able to let go and take things easy, that he resigned from his official post early and started running a Taoist temple. The emperor also honored him by appointing him as Grand Tutor and keeping him in the Imperial Study to teach.
Since Master Cen returned to his original profession and no longer had to work that dreadful job, he could no longer suppress his Taoist temperament. Taoism emphasizes following one's heart, and he was not bound by rules and etiquette. Once you entered his classroom, you were his student. He didn't care about princes or princesses. Whoever made a mistake would be punished. However, there was no such despicable custom as punishing a prince's study companion for making an example of him.
The fourth prince was late, and Master Cen simply closed the door and ignored him completely.
The fourth prince was both angry and anxious, but he dared not lash out or leave. He could only stand outside the door as punishment, holding his anger in his hands, while carrying his book box.
It was only because Master Cen casually said as he closed the door, "Your Highness can't even lift your book box, so you should have breakfast before coming back. Don't hide here to cool off."
Although he hadn't had breakfast, did the Fourth Prince dare say he was too weak to lift it? Not only did he not dare, he had to take a few steps back and stand in the sunlight.
Last night's autumn rain came in torrents, but today it's sunny and bright. Even though there's no longer any heat, being directly exposed to the sun is still unbearable. Before long, the Fourth Prince felt his face burning and his inner clothes were soaked with sweat.
Xue Jin'an had no human intention to kick a man when he's down. The reason he'd been staring at the Fourth Prince for so long was simply to collect data on him in order to build a character model.
As a magical artifact, Xue Jin'an, being a fragile mobile phone, was unable to fight enemies head-on. So, the otaku developed a new use for it: data analysis.
Code life is something that, once fed and debugged, can provide answers faster than the human brain, given a few clues.
Xue Jin'an is already a seasoned coder, very adept at these areas, and he is accustomed to constantly collecting information from his surroundings to build an information database.
The Fourth Prince is now his main focus, so naturally he needs to observe him more closely and correct any errors in the character data.
For example, the Fourth Prince was more patient than he thought. Based on the original plot and the data analysis built from their two brief meetings over the past two days, the Fourth Prince should have been furious and thrown a tantrum or turned and left. But now, the Fourth Prince was still standing there obediently being punished, and although his expression was not good, he wisely did not say a word.
So, a quarter of an hour later, he successfully met Master Cen.
Master Cen posed a classical question for the students to ponder and discuss. He then slowly strolled out of the classroom and asked the Fourth Prince, who was standing under the sun, "Do you have anything to say?"
The fourth prince bowed deeply, showing no trace of his previous irritability, and said only, "This student knows his mistake."
Master Cen asked, "Do you truly know you're wrong, or did you have no choice but to bow your head after being punished by me?"
The fourth prince was stunned and speechless. The expression he was trying to maintain on his face could not be concealed. He opened his mouth to say something, but was refused by Master Cen's wave of his hand. He lowered his head in annoyance.
Master Cen smiled, said nothing more, and returned to the school. This time he did not close the door, and soon the voices of teachers and students asking and answering questions came from inside. The Fourth Prince, however, just stood in the sun, staring at the wide-open school door.
He listened to the lecture quietly, occasionally offering a few words of quiet self-talk, but never really engaged in the conversation. Xue Jin'an noticed that his negative emotions were slowly dissipating, and his expression gradually became calm and focused.
Master Cen, a master of moral correction. Xue Jin'an labels the new character.
In the original story, the princes who were involved in the struggle for the throne had already attended court and had established their own factions and influence. They had long since graduated from the Imperial Study, so there was no storyline involving the tutor. Moreover, even if there were, the tutor, Cen, would have been an elderly man in his seventies by then, and no one knew where he had retired to.
Xue Jin'an did try to listen attentively to the lecture, but the core of the topic was the Four Books and Five Classics. After introducing the translation and detailed explanation of the original question and then introducing the problem-solving techniques, he could directly generate one hundred different answers.
Xue Jin'an saw that there was an option to submit assignments in the software, so she spent some time carefully selecting the most complete one and clicked submit.
"Although submitting an electronic document is pointless, participation is what matters." Xue Jin'an considered himself to be a pitiful little spirit who had lost his original body and was barely surviving in a broken body. His meager magical power was unlikely to have a significant impact on the real world.
For example, he is unable to make payments by scanning QR codes, and the bank cards linked to his wallet have become souvenirs for those who miss being a shut-in.
Wait, I suddenly remembered that the otaku broke through the void and ascended to heaven. His human bank card wouldn't be usable in other worlds, right?
"Hehe~ I'm in a better mood for no reason. Do I miss being a shut-in?" Xue Jin'an was completely puzzled by his sudden improvement in mood.
Unbeknownst to him, at the moment he submitted his electronic assignment, a large number of black characters suddenly appeared on several blank yellow papers on the messy table in Master Cen's small Taoist temple. The characters were neat and rigid, as if they had been carved with a knife.
Xue Jin'an was fully charged, but Master Cen was still reviewing each student's answer, interspersing his comments with his previous students' problem-solving approaches, as if he wanted to break down the knowledge point and knead it into their brains.
He, as the mechanical part of the lesson, felt no problem with the constantly repetitive content, but his human brain was screaming, "What kind of torture is this?"
Xue Jin'an, who no longer wanted to attend classes, learned to slack off on his own.
He mutes and shrinks the current screen, then happily starts browsing live streaming apps.
Xiao Luzi took a lot of food from the imperial kitchen, including several plates of pastries. This was equivalent to having several extra power banks, so for the next week, Xue Jin'an wouldn't have to constantly watch the battery level and use it sparingly.
Xue Jin'an scrolled through the live streams for a while and realized that something was wrong. The atmosphere in each live stream was strange, very tense, and like a storm was brewing.
He could understand if it were just the Imperial Kitchen, since the Grand Eunuch Wang Deming had been beaten half to death. Naturally, the other staff in the Imperial Kitchen would be on their guard, afraid of following in Wang Deming's footsteps.
But it was clearly abnormal for the entire palace to be like this, especially the area closer to Qian Yuan Palace, where the atmosphere was extremely tense. The eunuchs and palace maids were all focused on their work and tried their best to keep quiet.
Xue Jin'an looked around at several government offices, but there were hardly any people there, especially not a single person wearing a scarlet official robe (of the third rank or above).
Xue Jin'an glanced at the sun, which was approaching noon, and with a sense of unease, opened the live stream of "Daqi Morning Court Early News". Sure enough, it showed "Live Streaming", which meant that the morning court, which started at 5 a.m., had not yet ended.
When Xue Jin'an clicked in, he saw officials kneeling on the ground. The young man kneeling at the front was wearing a crimson official robe in the style of a pheasant, befitting a second-rank official. His shoulders and back were straight, like a pine or bamboo that would never bend.
The person's other features were not particularly outstanding, but his eyes, which combined the characteristics of fox eyes and peach blossom eyes, were bright and lively. Xue Jin'an felt that they were somewhat familiar, so he took a closer look.
There was a bruise on his forehead, and burn marks on the surrounding skin. His clothes were wrinkled, and there was a white gel-like substance on his collar... He had been hit by a candlestick.
Isn't this the official from the Three Departments who interrogated the palace maids at night? How come he's changed so much after just one night? Xue Jin'an was unusually curious.
However, the emperor sat on the dragon throne, looking at the memorial in his hand with a gloomy face, his fingers turning white from gripping it so tightly, but he remained silent.
Xue Jin'an was eager to know what was written in the memorial, but the camera wouldn't move. Before he could react, a comment appeared on the screen: [What's written on it? rwkk]
It was impossible to let him see it. In the shot, the emperor's brooding eyebrows twitched, he closed the memorial, and finally looked at the ministers kneeling on the ground. He swept his gaze over the senior ministers in the front row wearing first-rank scarlet robes, his gaze cold and icy, which even the crown could not hide.
With an expression that said, "I'm about to chop off your heads," he actually said, "This matter need not be mentioned again."
"His Majesty!"
"Chu Wenjing, using private torture to interrogate someone is already a dereliction of duty. I will not punish you because I think you are focused on solving the case, although you are a bit impatient for quick results but have no selfish motives. Do not push your luck." The emperor looked at Chu Wenjing coldly and warned, "If you insist on being stubborn, there are plenty of people who can take the position of Minister of Justice!"
Then, amidst Li Hechun's shrill and drawn-out cry of "Dismiss the court!", the emperor turned and left.
Chu Wenjing swayed slightly, his once straight back finally bending slowly. "Your subject knows his mistake."
Xue Jin'an, who had watched the entire show but hadn't heard a thing, was speechless.
[What a waste of time! Can't you be a little more open-minded? Can't you speak more bluntly? Is there anything a VIP like me can't hear? Come back and tell me!]
Xue Jin'an's heartfelt words were displayed as a barrage of comments in the live stream, making him a one-man army of comments.
After venting his anger, he left the live stream without looking back and instead opened an online community platform to browse trending topics.
The Great Qi Dynasty was a feudal imperial system, and the content of its court meetings was current affairs, so there's no reason why it shouldn't be trending on social media.
As Xue Jin'an had predicted, the trending political news section was now dominated by content from today's morning court session.
#The Great Qi Dynasty's xxxxth Morning Assembly was a complete success!#
#If you don't want to be the Minister of Justice, there are plenty of others who will. (Explosive)#
#TheCaseOfConsortZhenReopens#
#Lord Chu is attacked#
#Consort Zhen of Chu Wenjing#
#Chu Wenjing, how could you do this to your sister?#
#Important witness in the Consort Zhen case dies in the Ministry of Justice dungeon#
#The Seventh Prince's Background#
...
Xue Jin'an, who was just watching the drama unfold, suddenly found himself caught in the crossfire: "..."
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