Chapter 179: To Look At Mountains And Not See Mountains. To Look At Water And Not See Water!
Translator: Translation Nation Editor: Translation Nation
A young female student walked in with a flask of tea, intending to fill their cups with more tea.
Everyone was still deep in thought, and didn’t pay much attention to the girl.
Tang Liu Feng happened to look across as his gaze lingered on the young female’s body.
In that instant, his eyes opened wide in sudden realization.
“Pu!”
The mouthful of tea which was in his mouth was immediately sprayed out.
Tang Liu Feng’s face and neck turned a deep shade of red. He was trying his best to hold his laughter in, covering his mouth and exerting all his energy into controlling his laughter. His entire body was trembling and twitching.
The rest of the students looked at him strangely and wondered why he was behaving so weird.
However, there were many intelligent students among them who realized that Tang Liu Feng only reacted this way after seeing the female student. As soon as they realized this, it was as if they had been woken from a dream and understood the meaning of the poem.
Soon after…
An explosion of laughter echoed across the entire hall!
“Hahahahahaha!!!”
“Sor… Sorry, I… I couldn’t hold it in…”
“Young master Mo, hahaha! I really couldn’t hold it in! It’s too funny!”
Someone was laughing while trying to apologize to young master Mo. Nobody expected such a scene to come over the entire hall. It was extremely comical and their laughter was impossible to suppress.
“Puhahahahaha! Brother Li. You… You…” Tang Liu Feng couldn’t hold his laughter in as well. He was laughing so hard, tears were streaming down his face. He then pointed at Xu Que and kept saying ‘you’, unable to complete his sentence.
He had been overwhelmed by laughter. Such a poem was unrivalled!
“Outrageous!”
Mo Yun Shan had already uncovered the meaning of the poem and lashed out in anger. He stood up and shouted at Xu Que, his eyes were wide open in fury as he pointed straight at Xu Que, “You disrespectful lecher! How dare you recite such a despicable poem right here!”
Xu Que stood up and feigned ignorance once again as he shook his head, “Young master Mo. My poem was obviously innocent and pure. I was saying that you are extremely free and hence you spent most of your time washing your head. How is that despicable at all?”
“You still dare to argue with me! Madam Ya, I suggest you expel this lecherous student from your compounds in case he contaminates the rest of the students with his ideals!” Mo Yun Shan was shaking in anger as he spoke to Madam Ya.
Madam Ya had understood the meaning of Xu Que’s poems and was trying to stifle her laughter as well. When she saw that Mo Yun Shan was speaking to her, she hurriedly stopped smiling and pretended to look calm, but didn’t utter a single word.
Xu Que then stood up, “You look at mountains, but don’t see mountains. You look at water, but you don’t see water. As long as your heart is pure, this poem is pure. If your heart is lecherous and despicable, the poem would naturally become lecherous and despicable.”
“Young master Mo, I actually wanted to test the hearts of all our friends in this hall. Look at Madam Ya, she hasn’t even smiled once the entire time. That proves how pure and clean her heart and thoughts are. But you… Sigh!” As he finished speaking, he sighed out and shook his head, visibly disappointed.
“You….” Mo Yun Shan had nothing to say in reply to that. His eyes were opened wide in hot rage.
Everyone around paused as they tried to suppress their own laughter. After seeing Madam Ya in all her composure, everyone held their own laughter in.
Even Tang Liu Feng held a hand to his mouth to prevent himself from bursting out in laughter once more!
At the next moment, the entire hall was silent.
To look at mountains, and not see mountains. To look at water, and not see water.
When Xu Que first said this, nobody understood what he meant. They felt like he was just being paradoxical and contradictory without making much sense. Only after he had explained it did they comprehend his meaning.
They all thought that Xu Que had written a poem which had two sides. If a person’s heart was dirty and lecherous, they would look at this poem as a dirty poem.
Seeing that everyone was trying to suppress their own laughter, Xu Que smiled and asked, “Young master Mo, why don’t you ask the intelligent students here if anyone found this poem despicable and dirty?”
When the students heard this, they all looked down and avoided his eyes as they cursed at Xu Que under their breaths!
Damn it. Unscrupulous methods once again!
While we were outside, you asked a riddle which made us think that you were referring to penises and then blamed us for being dirty minded.
Now you’re using the same trick once again. You said that anyone who thinks that the poem was dirty is actually dirty minded too? Pui! We won’t fall for it.
Having been in this situation before, along with Madam Ya’s indifferent expression, all the students pretended not to hear anything and pretended that they didn’t hear Xu Que’s poem.
“Li Bai, you…”
Mo Yun Shang was in utter disbelief as he pointed at Xu Que for a long time. At last, he cleared his throat and placed his hand down before returning to his seat.
Yet young master Zhao was still glaring at Xu Que. The dissatisfied expression on his face became more obvious.
Xu Que looked back at the leader of the four greats, young master Zhao and sighed out. For someone to be able to act tough to this extent, he’s probably at the same level of acting tough as Xu Que! Looks like this young master Mo was just an appetizer. The truly worthy opponent was this young master Zhao.
Right at this point, Madam Ya who had finally resisted the urge to laugh, opened her mouth to break the silence.
“Everyone, since we’re all gathered here today, I wish for us to discuss poems. We can use poems to become friends with one another and drop all previous grudges. How about that?”
She looked around and noticed that the atmosphere was rather tense. She then looked at Xu Que and smiled before speaking, “To look at mountains, but not see mountains. To look at water, but not see water. Young mister Li’s talents weren’t expressed in his poem, but was expressed in this line. Just this line alone is enough to cover the rationale of life, and would leave a lasting legacy for thousands of generations.”
Even Madam Ya had showed her support for Xu Que. All the students hurriedly clasped their hands in salute, “Madam Ya is right. Today, we shall discuss poems and art!”
“That’s right. Students should be forgiving, and do away with grudges. We shan’t have any conflicts here in front of Madam Ya!”
Besides, Xu Que’s line about “To look at mountains, and not see mountains. To look at water, and not see water”, started to make more sense to everyone. They seemed to all reach a particular realization that they had learnt something from that line as well.
The logic behind such a phrase was so immense that it was enough for a person to sit and reflect on the essence of such a phrase for an entire lifetime. Hence, just because of this line alone, most of the students found it hard to look down on him.
Although it was true that Mo Shan Yun was widely respected by everyone, when he was compared with Madam Ya, he was far behind. Or at least before he became a high ranking official, his status would never be as grand as Madam Ya’s.
That was why after Madam Ya said that, nobody else dared to have a disagreement about Xu Que!
As for Mo Yun Shang, this mute student, he had no choice but to bite the bullet and swallow the humiliation.
And yet why should he give in to him? He was one of the four great students, with the reputation of Poem King.
After being humiliated this way, he wasn’t going to let this matter rest. It was impossible for him to forgive and forget. However, he knew that he was going to lose his dignity by resorting to revenge in front of everyone here.
At this point, he stood up and pretended not to be affected by the previous spade of events. He clasped his hands in a salute and spoke out, “Since Madam Ya said that, then I shan’t hold a grudge against a despicable pervert. Today, we shall discuss poems. I wonder if Madam Ya could give us a topic to express our talents freely?”
