Chapter 71: The Rules of the Competition
After hearing Gu Yu’s words, everyone felt a sigh of relief in their hearts.
They thought, Gu Yu finally stopped refusing!
If Gu Yu refused again, the onlookers would have wanted to step forward and teach him a lesson themselves… because Gu Yu was truly unappreciative of his good fortune!
After all, that was Director Qingshan!
He was once a high-ranking official in the imperial court, with disciples spread far and wide. Even Magistrate Bai, the current magistrate, dared not be too arrogant after meeting Director Qingshan.
Such a powerful Director Qingshan, yet Gu Yu had repeatedly rejected his invitations!
It felt like a waste of talent, and the onlookers’ hearts were bleeding, wishing that if Gu Yu didn’t want the admission spot, they could have it!
They had dreamt of entering Qingshan Academy!
But unfortunately, even if Gu Yu didn’t want it, it wouldn’t be their turn…
“Your younger brother-in-law?”
“Oh! I forgot to mention, I’m already married. This is my wife’s younger brother – Gu Qingheng. I presume Director Qingshan knows him?”
“Is this Gu Qingheng? He looks alright.”
After hearing Director Qingshan’s feigned surprise, Gu Yu suppressed the urge to roll his eyes, thinking how good the Director was at acting. He was good at everything he played.
Even his current pretense of not knowing Gu Qingheng was incredibly convincing.
If Gu Qingheng’s name hadn’t been clearly written on the invitation, Gu Yu might have been fooled by Director Qingshan’s acting.
However, Gu Yu didn’t expose him directly at this moment. Instead, he didn’t want to be continuously fooled by Director Qingshan. After speaking, he immediately reached out and grabbed Gu Qingheng, who was about to slip away, and brought him into the public’s view.
Gu Qingheng had a distressed expression on his face, but when he stood before everyone, the expression on his small face immediately changed.
This made Gu Yu chuckle, thinking his younger brother-in-law’s acting talent was no less than the Director’s!
Just a moment ago, he looked miserable, and the next moment, he was all smiles.
In the next second, after Gu Qingheng appeared before everyone with a confident smile, people couldn’t help but nod in admiration, thinking that this child’s composure under pressure was truly excellent!
Setting aside how capable Gu Qingheng could be at his young age, just seeing him calmly standing before everyone without the fear of children his age was already a great performance.
As for Gu Yu’s condition that a student from Qingshan Academy must pose a difficult question to stump this eight or nine-year-old child… the crowd simply took it as Gu Yu’s excuse to back out of the deal and renege on his promise!
After all, no one would willingly give up a spot at Qingshan Academy.
However, Director Qingshan didn’t think the same way as the crowd. He had already inquired from the lantern vendor earlier. Besides Gu Yu, the young man who had consecutively solved two lantern riddles, there was also a young child of eight years old who had also solved the riddles.
Although Gu Yu was young, he was already twelve years old. Even if he was exceptionally talented, he was immediately outshone by the eight-year-old Gu Qingheng.
Here, “outshone” simply referred to age.
The younger the child, the more they could accumulate after starting their studies.
Older people who wanted to study had to work much harder and couldn’t understand the meaning of the books immediately… This led to increasingly longer time spent and repeated failures in the imperial examinations.
People like Gu Yu, who were self-taught, took an unconventional path. Director Qingshan was confident that if Gu Qingheng studied under him, he would eventually surpass Gu Yu’s scholarly talent.
Gu Qingheng’s talent was extremely high, and coupled with his young age, he was definitely material for academic pursuits.
However, it was still necessary to assess him further to ensure that the lantern riddles were solved by Gu Qingheng himself, not with Gu Yu’s help.
Upon seeing Gu Qingheng and witnessing his composure under pressure, Director Qingshan couldn’t help but praise… He wondered what great fortune the Gu family had to produce two geniuses like Gu Yu and Gu Qingheng.
“Hmph! Are you looking down on us?”
“Exactly. Such a young child, he probably doesn’t even know how to write a few characters, and you want us to test such a small child?”
“You’re truly looking down on people!”
“If it were you, we might have had some desire to compete with you. But with this little child, I won’t play house with a child.”
After Gu Yu placed Gu Qingheng before everyone, regardless of what others thought of Gu Qingheng, the students from Qingshan Academy were all incensed.
They felt that Gu Yu was humiliating them by using this child, implying that Qingshan Academy was mediocre.
It was too arrogant!
“I’ve already spoken my mind, and that’s my intention! Are you afraid to compete with my brother-in-law?”
“Let’s compete, who’s afraid of whom!”
“Exactly, such a young child… Gu Yu, just wait for you to be admitted to the academy!”
“You really underestimate Qingshan Academy. I can defeat ten children like this!”
In the face of the impassioned students from Qingshan Academy, Gu Yu was not deterred. Instead, he impatiently scratched his ear with his hand, his casual attitude further enraging the students from the opposing academy.
Being admitted to Qingshan Academy, weren’t these students all prodigies and geniuses from the town!
Having been accustomed to praise, they were all extremely annoyed encountering someone as boastful as Gu Yu. They thought they must find a way to curb his arrogance.
Even though Gu Yu was favored by Director Qingshan, he was not an indispensable figure to the academy students.
Especially if Gu Yu were admitted to the academy, he would become even more conceited with the Director’s favor and care.
Therefore, even if they could make Gu Yu admit defeat now, the students of Qingshan Academy did not hesitate. One by one, they went from being unyielding to rubbing their fists and wiping their palms, eager to severely punish Gu Yu.
Gu Qingheng, who was being stared at by the students of Qingshan Academy, maintained a smile on his face, but he was panicking inwardly, thinking how his brother-in-law was really causing trouble for him!
Was this the usual time for playing house?
These people in white robes before him were all students from Qingshan Academy, completely different from the enlightenment class he attended at the town’s school before.
Did his brother-in-law think that after reading books during this period, he had become a self-taught prodigy who surpassed everyone else?
In fact, it wasn’t like that at all!!!
Gu Qingheng, who was shouting inwardly at this moment, was unable to tell Gu Yu what he was thinking due to the crowd. He could only express his dissatisfaction with an aggrieved look.
“I am very happy to see your fighting spirit. However, since it is my brother-in-law’s first time competing with others, I am worried that he might not perform well, so the competition rules will be set by me!”
“Whatever, let the competition begin quickly!”
Seeing the students from Qingshan Academy getting excited, Gu Yu smiled slightly. After he finished speaking, he deliberately waited for the reply from the academy students.
Naturally, he received an unanimous agreement.
Since Gu Yu dared to let his brother-in-law compete with the students of Qingshan Academy, he naturally had a suitable plan in mind.
After this period of accumulation, Gu Qingheng had read a vast amount. Although he couldn’t compose poems and write essays, memorizing them wouldn’t be difficult for him.
Therefore, Gu Yu planned to use some tricks beforehand to limit the scope of difficult questions to memorizing books, in case composing poems and essays would truly stump Gu Qingheng.
Gu Yu didn’t want to study at Qingshan Academy… Even if these students had read extensively, they hadn’t read as much as Gu Qingheng!
His brother-in-law had a natural photographic memory, and memorizing books felt like using a cheat code.
“Without any restrictions, you can propose any book, and ask my brother-in-law to complete the next line. To prevent the time from dragging on, you can ask three questions. If Qingheng cannot answer them, he will be considered to have lost.”
“Heh heh, your brother-in-law is bound to lose.”
“Such a young child, he probably just finished reading enlightenment books. Does he really think he’s a super genius who can memorize various books?”
“Truly overestimating himself, let the competition begin quickly!”
After Gu Yu stated the competition content, the students of Qingshan Academy immediately urged him to start, wanting to settle the matter quickly.
Even if they could defeat Gu Qingheng today, the news of them competing with an eight-year-old child would still be embarrassing.
If they were to compete with academies in the prefecture city, the students of Qingshan Academy could still accept it, as both sides were evenly matched and neither would yield.
However, making them trouble an eight-year-old child now was truly too embarrassing.
“Compete properly, don’t be careless.”
Seeing the disdain on the faces of the academy students, Director Qingshan suddenly spoke. What he said was for the students to compete properly and not lose to Gu Qingheng.
Upon hearing the Director’s words, the students immediately regained their spirits, thinking that even if it was to defend the honor of the academy, they must make Gu Yu admit defeat wholeheartedly.
While the academy students were getting serious, Gu Yu grumpily gave Director Qingshan a sly glance. He had originally planned to let his brother-in-law have an easier start while the students were careless.
But he didn’t expect Director Qingshan to be so vigilant.
Damn it!
“Since the competition has already begun, I will ask the first question. Please tell me, what is the next line after ‘Nothing in the world is softer than water, yet it can overcome the strong and firm, and nothing can replace it’?”
Then, after Gu Yu explained the competition rules clearly, one person from the Qingshan Academy side immediately stepped forward. Without any nonsense, he directly asked Gu Qingheng a question, seeming to want a quick victory.
After this question was posed, because the poetry gathering invited scholars, the surrounding crowd also wondered what the next line was.
Some remembered, some did not.
Afterward, all of them turned their gaze to Gu Qingheng, wanting to see if this child could answer correctly.
He probably couldn’t!
After all, he was only an eight-year-old child. He should be playing with mud at home, not learning such knowledge!
“The weak overcome the strong, the soft overcome the hard. Everyone in the world knows this, but no one can practice it.”
However, it was a pity that Gu Qingheng happened to know the second half of the line.
