Transmigrated as a Stepmother: Time to Bring the Family to Prosper!-Chapter 312 - 311: Conceptual Misdirection

Qin Yao held a book, sat by the table, and asked, "For those who delight in the people’s joy, the people will share their joy; what is the next line?"

Liu Ji sat upright at the table, his eyes watching the raindrops falling from the eaves outside the window. After being dazed for a moment, he answered, "For those who worry about the people’s worries, the people will share their worries."

Qin Yao asked, "What does it mean?"

Liu Ji swallowed, "It means if a king takes the people’s happiness as his own, then the people will also take the king’s happiness as their own. If the king takes the people’s worries as his own, then the people will also take the king’s worries as their own."

The original phrase did not mean this, but since he referenced Landlord Ding’s commentary, he directly identified the pronoun in the text as the king.

This is also a way of answering, aimed at pleasing authority.

Qin Yao considered his answer correct and continued to the next question.

"The heart loves and does not speak! It hides in the middle, when will it be forgotten!" Qin Yao asked, "Where is this line from?"

Liu Ji’s tense nerves suddenly relaxed, as he knew this question; it was the simplest one.

"From the ’Classic of Poetry’," he answered with great confidence.

Because he found that the content in the Four Books and Five Classics each had a distinct format, the Classic of Poetry was the easiest to identify among them.

Qin Yao smiled lightly, put down the book, and asked Liu Ji to choose a sentence from the ’University’ as a theme and write a passage discussing it.

He himself had claimed to have memorized and comprehended all the Four Books, so today she was testing to see if his understanding was deep enough.

The previously confident Liu Ji suddenly stopped in his tracks, and in the chilly autumn rain, two bean-sized drops of sweat rolled down his temples.

"Gulp!" Liu Ji swallowed hard, his throat feeling dry and itchy when a cup of tea was placed in front of him.

"Take your time, have some water and think carefully, you still have forty-five minutes," Qin Yao smiled.

Writing a 700-word essay in forty-five minutes, very simple.

Raising an eyebrow at Liu Ji, Qin Yao moved her chair towards the door, holding a cup of hot tea as she watched the rain outside, finding it quite interesting.

But the inverted hourglass on the table made Liu Ji’s scalp tingle.

He quickly laid out the paper, grinding the ink as he thought about the theme he wanted to write.

The first step was the hardest, and after finally coming up with a relatively easy one, he looked at the hourglass and lamented, heavens, a third of the sand had already flowed through.

Subconsciously he looked at the person by the door, and Liu Ji instantly felt like he had returned to the examination hall.

But at this time, his time wasn’t a day but less than thirty minutes.

During the last examination in the Prefecture, he had mimicked the content left by predecessors, writing randomly without coherence, purely to fill in the blank paper.

But today it was clearly unavoidable, Qin Yao was not the Chief Examiner, and he dared not imagine the consequences of writing randomly.

Yet the teacher at the academy had not taught this!

Liu Ji inwardly cried for help, dipped his brush in ink, and started writing—taking what he could, and his attitude had to be correct.

The rain gradually subsided, and with the gentle sound of the rain, Qin Yao became sleepy and took a nap.

Liu Ji was happy, thinking it was no harm if he flipped through the book for a glance.

But the next second, he showed a frustrated expression because he had no book to reference.

For the first time, Liu Ji felt a strong desire to obtain more books.

Unfortunately, he did not finish the 700 words, and the time was up. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Qin Yao, as if pressing a timer alarm by his ear, opened her squinting eyes on time and walked towards the table.

Liu Ji quickly wrote a few more words, completing a whole sentence structure.

Qin Yao tapped on the desk, and Liu Ji put down his pen and stood up to stand behind her, waiting for her to review his work.

He chose ’What good people despise, and wicked people like, is called violating human nature, and calamity will definitely befall him’ this line.

Its original meaning is saying, enjoying what good people dislike and disliking what good people enjoy, this is what is called going against human nature, and calamity will definitely befall him.

Qin Yao clicked her tongue: "The topic selection is okay, and it’s closely related to your experience."

With some expectations, she continued to read.

The essay said: [Human nature prefers enjoyment, arrogance, not diligence, or hard work.

But in a certain county and village, there was a person who, from a young age, acted against human nature, working hard in the rain and washing in the river in cold weather.

This person got up before dawn every day to help his parents grind tofu, and stayed up until the third watch reading and not sleeping. Hence, before reaching adulthood, he suffered from leg chills, back pain, fatigue, his black hair turning white, balding, and ugly face, earning him the nickname Ugly Bald Donkey.

Therefore, this person was self-abased, hunchbacked, didn’t speak with others for years, and after his parents and relatives passed away, he died silently at home, and his rotted body was only discovered much later.]

By this point, Qin Yao already felt that something was wrong with the development of the story, and her eyebrows furrowed deeply.

As she continued reading, it was contrasted with another reference group.

The essay said: [Another person in a certain county from a young age acted according to human nature, sleeping when he should sleep, waking when he should wake, enjoying leisure, not diligent or hard-working, and did only what should be done when his parents and relatives asked him to work, and when tired, he would stop to rest; such a long-standing approach made him physically and mentally healthy, and his parents and relatives were pleased.

One day, an enlightened monk visited and told his parents and relatives that this person had a face of wealth and nobility, and that this appearance was because the person followed human nature, finding joy in what people liked, and detesting what people detested...]

Here, the content stopped because time was up, and Liu Ji couldn’t finish writing.

Qin Yao looked at the essay in her hand and was silent for three whole minutes—she almost got misled by this guy, even feeling that he wrote well, with reasons and a comparison of pros and cons.

Fortunately, her mind was still clear and not brought into it.

The topic selection might have been correct, but from the beginning of the discussion, the respondent had swapped concepts.

The phrase’s good and evil in the theme does not refer to diligence, hard work, and enjoyment and arrogance.

It’s broader, representing the standards of moral principles for the common people.

In the ’University,’ this was Zengzi’s analysis of human nature, concluding the experience great rulers must adhere to in discerning, recognizing people, commanding, and complying with the people.

This good is the good of all under heaven; this evil is the evil of all under heaven.

The people love benevolence and hate treachery; if the great ruler cannot ’love what people despise, despise what people love,’ violating human nature, disaster will surely turn against him.

Liu Ji’s discussion answered on a different level entirely, utterly mistaken.

Seeing no reaction from Qin Yao for a long time, Liu Ji, waiting behind to accept judgment, felt his heart pound anxiously and couldn’t help but weakly ask:

"Mistress, what do you think of this discussion?"

"Bang!" Qin Yao slammed the answer sheet on the table, startling Liu Ji so much that he almost knelt down out of instinct.

"Isn’t it... not good?" Liu Ji said awkwardly with a stiff smile: "If unsatisfied, I can write another one, but mistress, please don’t let this minor matter upset you..."

Qin Yao turned around, her eyes cold, "Is this what you said you had thoroughly understood?"

Liu Ji still knelt, "Dare not hide from mistress, I admit, there was indeed a bit of exaggeration, but!"

He had a legitimate reason to explain why he made such a low-level mistake.

Qin Yao frowned, wanting to see how he would argue.