True Knowledge
"Senior sister! The new book has arrived!"
The little girl almost ran into the house and shouted loudly. The woman who was writing and drawing at the desk raised her head and frowned, saying, "Be quiet, don't disturb the master!"
The girl shrank back after being scolded, and quickly walked forward, placing a box on the table. She said with some excitement, still unable to suppress it, "It was just delivered. I heard it's a geometry book!"
This remark made the senior sister's eyes light up, and she quickly opened the wooden box. Inside was a large book, which looked extremely thick and heavy, with a hard cover. It was undoubtedly made of parchment. This kind of book was collected by noble families in the West for generations, so it must have been there for many years.
I couldn't wait to open the book. After just a few glances, the senior sister sighed, "There are so many drawings in it. It's really rare."
The gang leader ordered that in recent years, the fleets that had sailed to the West had gradually brought back books on various subjects. They had even hired translators and sent them to the academy for people to read. Zhenzhizhai was a major collector of these Western books, and many people had begun learning foreign languages and scripts simply to better understand the content. After all, mathematics was universal knowledge, and seeing what others had studied was extremely beneficial.
But after only a few greedy glances, she stood up and said, "We have to hand it over to Master first and let him deal with it."
The master didn't understand the foreign language, but he was extremely perceptive about these graphics and symbols, and might even come up with some new ideas from seeing them. Furthermore, the translation had to be handled by her fellow disciples, so even though she now had some understanding of the usage of the foreign language, it wasn't appropriate for her to interfere.
The little girl sighed regretfully: "Senior Brother Kongfa is so slow in translating. When will we be able to see the content?"
The senior sister glared at her and said, "Brother, that's being rigorous. Are you done with what you have on hand? You're just being too ambitious!"
When the girl heard about the things at hand, she didn't dare to say anything and could only watch her senior sister walk out the door with the book in her hands.
Standing in front of his master's door, Jingyun took a deep breath before knocking respectfully. Soon, the door opened, revealing a tall, thin young man with short hair. He frowned and asked, "Junior Sister Jingyun, is there something wrong?"
Knowing that his master hated being disturbed when calculating, Jingyun quickly held up the large book and said, "Brother Kongnian, this is a new Western book. It's about geometry and it has illustrations..."
Before she finished speaking, the young man took the book, flipped through it briefly, and nodded solemnly: "Yes, you go down and do your work, I'll leave it to the master."
Before she could answer, the door slammed shut again.
Being locked outside the door, Jingyun opened his mouth but said nothing and turned back to his room.
"Senior sister, why are you back so soon?" The little girl had already sat down at the desk and seemed to be about to start working. She didn't expect her senior sister to come back so soon.
Jingyun shook his head: "Master is busy."
The little girl sensed something was wrong and frowned, "Didn't you see him? Have the brothers been stopping us lately and not letting us see Master?!"
"It's not that I don't want Master to see us, it's just..." Jingyun paused and sighed softly, "He doesn't really want us to learn new things."
This inevitably made the little girl angry: "We all entered Zhenzhizhai based on our own abilities, why are you stopping us from learning?"
Why? In the past two years, Zhenzhizhai's reputation has grown, and some people are beginning to think about future benefits.
When Zhenzhizhai was first established, Yichi was reluctant to accept lay disciples. Furthermore, he saw no real point in studying mathematics, and those who excelled might as well become accountants or managers. Consequently, not many people joined his school, and most of them were women. After all, women are good at calculations and have a natural sensitivity to numbers, making them ideal candidates for studying this tedious subject.
She was an excellent math student in elementary school, but she didn't want to teach, so she became a disciple and was given the Buddhist name Jingyun. In her early years, she diligently studied under her master, and because she was quick-witted and rarely made mistakes, she was highly valued.
Unfortunately, the good times didn't last long. Ever since the imperial examinations began including math, more men began to delve into mathematics. Coupled with the surge in translation, seeing Zhenzhizhai gaining increasing respect from the gang leader, more men sought to become his disciples. The crucial tasks, like translation, were now dominated by the younger brothers and sisters, who, taking advantage of their privileged position in the service of their master, deliberately marginalized them.
Unable to see Western books early, nor able to get close to the teacher and learn more knowledge, they were like abacus on the table, responsible only for counting.
Seeing the indignant little girl, Jingyun whispered, "We are women after all, and we are better at counting. It's normal for them to be on guard. Because of this conflict, we have actually ruined the friendship between fellow disciples. We must not be reckless. As a disciple of our master, we can't just count these things for the rest of our lives, right?!"
Seeing her angry, Jingyun smiled instead: "Why do you think these are crap? These are all assigned by our teacher. If you look carefully, it's not difficult to guess what he is studying. Besides, books will eventually be translated. Instead of longing to learn something new all day, it's better to think carefully about the gaps in what you have learned and fill them one by one. Who says Western books are the best? Aren't they also the learning and thinking of our predecessors? What are we lacking?"
Her voice was soft, but her tone was surprisingly firm, which calmed the little girl's anger a bit. Glancing at the pile of papers on the desk, she gritted her teeth and said, "That's right. We can also find other things to study. Like Senior Sister Jinghui, didn't she go to improve the looms for the weaving mill? Putting knowledge into practice is also a way out!"
In Zhenzhizhai, the most important learning is pure mathematics, which leads directly to the great truth and requires first-class talent. The second-best is summarizing and generalizing, studying the knowledge of predecessors and extracting more straightforward principles. And the lowest level is interacting with craftsmen, studying how to apply mathematics to improve tools, euphemistically called "learning for practical use."
None of these female disciples were as gifted as their master, so most chose the latter option. Only Jingyun was more ambitious, wanting to pursue the path of induction. She secretly studied foreign literature, hoping to learn from others. However, countless other brothers and sisters in the academy shared this sentiment, which made her even more ostracized.
But these things were not to be shared with outsiders. Jingyun simply remembered the words of her teacher back then: women were naturally better at math, which was why they performed better on exams and learned faster than boys. This was her strength as a woman, so why would she admit defeat?
Without further ado, Jingyun spread out the paper in front of her, recalling the diagrams she had just looked at, and quickly sketched them out. She didn't quite understand what the geometry book was about, but she understood the patterns and could guess their true meaning through them.
After that, she would have to think of some ways to learn more foreign languages. Although men were better at literary work such as translation, she was not stupid and could always learn it well.
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