It was March 25th, at noon.
The Wu Dynasty Hanling Temple Literary Festival officially opened.
All the students stood quietly under the giant Buddha, and on the stage was Wen Canghai, the Grand Secretary of the Hanlin Academy.
He looked at the group of students and counted his breaths in silence to show his solemnity.
"Today's literary gathering will test you on the most basic couplets. Composing a couplet will take the equivalent of one stick of incense. Don't worry, this incense is of high quality, enough to burn for an hour."
"There are documents on these four sides. If a student gets the second couplet, they can write it on paper and leave their name. When the time comes, all couplets will be sent to the Boxue Building for review."
Then Wen Canghai read out the list of judges for this literary gathering. They were all great scholars of the Wu Dynasty, headed by Wen Xingzhou, and there were a total of nine judges.
After hearing this, the students all whispered to each other and rubbed their hands in anticipation. Couplets are far less complicated than poetry and prose. Fu Xiaoguan is good at poetry and prose, but no one has ever heard of him writing any great couplets.
Therefore, we must try our best to win this first round to make up for the possible defeat in tomorrow's poetry competition.
The six sons of Lanxi stood in the center of the venue, and naturally they were surrounded by students from the Wu Dynasty.
Zhuo Donglai stood with his hands behind his back, a faint smile on his face.
Wu Linger didn't come after all, which made him disappointed but also a little happy - this meant that the fact that Fu Xiaoguan was the emperor's illegitimate son was probably set in stone and had become a fact.
Otherwise, given Wu Linger's admiration for Fu Xiaoguan, there was no reason for her not to come here and watch Fu Xiaoguan compose the poem.
There was no possibility that Wu Ling'er would marry Fu Xiaoguan again. With this knot in his heart untied, Zhuo Donglai regained his former spirit.
"Brother, we must win this round of couplets!"
A young man standing next to Zhuo Donglai said firmly.
Zhuo Donglai nodded slightly, "Not just the couplets, but also tomorrow's poems and even the day after tomorrow's articles, we will take them all!"
These words were spoken calmly and Zhuo Donglai's expression was extremely firm, and his words were full of confidence, which affected everyone around him.
A girl in white stood opposite Zhuo Donglai. Her gaze fell on his handsome face and she said softly, "With Brother Zhuo's words, the scholars of our Wu Dynasty will surely be undefeated!"
Then she glanced at the six Lanxi disciples and said with a smile, "The poems of this literary gathering will be performed first at Liuyuntai on Shili Pinghu Lake. If any of you win first place or the top three, I will host a banquet for you at Liuyuntai. As for whether Yanque'er or Miss Mengxi will perform first, that's up to you to choose."
The crowd erupted in laughter. Zhuo Donglai's face was filled with sunshine. The young man beside him said with a smile, "Since the Third Miss of the Tang family has spoken, how can we fall behind..."
He turned and bowed to all the students of the Wu Dynasty. "You are all pillars of our Wu Dynasty. You have studied sacred learning and poetry since childhood. Since the promotion of Master Wen, our dynasty's literary work has flourished. Although that young official Fu has a great reputation, he is still a human being, not a saint. Therefore, gentlemen, the young men of our Wu Dynasty must defeat the Yu Dynasty in its most proud literary field. Only then can we demonstrate the style of our young men and make the prosperous literary style of the Wu Dynasty famous throughout the world!"
These impassioned words immediately excited the thousands of Wu Dynasty students as if they had been injected with chicken blood:
"Down with Fu Xiaoguan!"
"Make sure to trample Fu Xiaoguan under your feet!"
"Let us use our pens as swords to chop off the halo on Fu Xiaoguan's head!"
"Zhuo Donglai, I love you...!"
"Yun Lige, I want to have a baby with you!"
"Miss Tang San, I'm going to take the top scholar and present it to you!"
“…”
The sound surged across the huge square like a wave and reached the ears of many people. Fu Xiaoguan looked at the group of teenagers in astonishment and thought, what the hell, I'm playing away from home!
The one hundred students of Yu Dynasty were naturally unhappy. Who the hell gave you the courage?
Qin Wenzhe then took the lead in scolding the students of Wu Dynasty: "Just you? You're not even worthy of carrying my mentor's shoes!"
Wu Que followed suit, raising his fist and roaring, "Master, I am undefeated!"
The hundred students immediately became excited and shouted at the students of Wu Dynasty:
"Master Xiaoguan is invincible!"
"Who the hell does Zhuo Donglai think he is? How dare you act so arrogant in front of your mentor?"
"The world's literary achievements all originated from the Yu Dynasty. How dare you, a bunch of scum, shout at me in front of my mentor?"
“…”
A verbal battle immediately broke out between the two sides. The number of students from the Wu Dynasty was more than ten times that of the Yu Dynasty, so the voices of the students from the Yu Dynasty were gradually drowned out.
Shangguan Miao was very upset. You guys are bullying me!
So he rushed forward with his fists clenched, "I'm going to kill you!" He punched a young man from the Wu Dynasty who had been shouting the loudest recently in the face. The young man's head was tilted and a tooth was actually knocked out!
This punch completely ignited the anger of both sides, so the students of Wu Dynasty rushed over, and the students of Yu Dynasty also rushed over stubbornly.
Wen Canghai, who was standing on the stage, was stunned.
No, I haven’t announced the first couplet yet, what are you doing?
The young men of the Wu Dynasty were very excited, and the young men of the Yu Dynasty resisted desperately. So there were wailing, screaming, and cursing, but the only thing missing was crying.
"That bastard hit me in the face... Ouch... Holy shit!"
"My shoes, who stepped on my shoes?"
"Fuck, brother, you called the wrong person. I'm a student of the Wu Dynasty!"
“…”
Just as the two sides were fighting, a team of guards rushed over, and a general immediately shouted loudly: "Stop it! Whoever attacks again will be arrested and imprisoned immediately, no matter who it is!"
This shout had an effect. The two sides separated and saw that everyone had bruised faces and noses.
Fu Xiaoguan waved to Qin Wenzhe and others. The students of Yu Dynasty spat at the students of Wu Dynasty and returned to Fu Xiaoguan unwillingly. They were all very nervous, thinking that they might be punished by their teacher.
"You did well. You knew you couldn't win, yet you still fought together. That's unity. Very good. Dayu has a promising future thanks to young men like you... Shangguan Miao, Shang Liang, Chen Shu, Gongsun Ke, go and bandage the wound. Don't miss the important task ahead."
Among these one hundred young men, they were the most seriously injured, with bruises on their faces and hands, especially Shangguan Miao, whose two eyes were beaten like a panda's.
A group of young people laughed in the sunshine. Instead of scolding them, Fu Xiaoguan praised them, which made them happy and proud.
Fan Tianning laughed and walked towards Fu Xiaoguan, raising his eyebrows, "Brother Fu, they have issued a challenge, how are you going to respond?"
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