Chapter 4 Chapter 1 The White Head Was Sentenced for Confucianism

Fire flows in July, and clothes are granted in September. This sentence means that around July and the beginning of autumn, the weather turns cold, and you need to add clothes before September.Although there are many people who take the literal meaning out of their words, the times do not change.Seeing the seventh month of the lunar calendar, the weather turned colder. It was the time when many universities in the world started school, and Huaxia University was no exception.The students who had spent several months of hot summer returned to school one after another, and the ivory tower was filled with the cool air of early autumn, together with the ink-scented scrolls, it was very elegant.

It's just that some people are not blessed. "Destiny is nature; willfulness is Tao; cultivating Tao is teaching." Mr. Ju read while holding a scroll in his hand, shaking his head. Luo Zhongxia echoed sleepily from the audience, and at the same time felt his stomach growling.He looked back at the other dozen or so audience members in the classroom. Except for Zheng He, everyone showed the same expression. Mr. Ju did not notice the resentment of the students at all. He immersed himself in it and enjoyed himself. "The one who is the way, you can't leave it for a while; if you can leave, it is not the way." Every time he said the word "Tao", he dragged his voice. It was so long that all the air in the lungs was exhausted and refused to stop.

Luo Zhongxia's patience was almost at its limit, he secretly slapped himself countless times, scolding himself for being so stupid to choose such a course. At the beginning of the new semester of Huaxia University, in order to respond to the recent popularity of Chinese studies, the school leaders specially opened a new elective course called "Introduction to Chinese Studies", and invited Mr. Ju Shigeng, a famous Su Confucian in the city, to give the lecture.Luo Zhongxia felt that it was a mess, so he signed up.Unexpectedly, Luo Zhongxia realized that the actual situation was completely different from what he had expected after the formal class started: not only was it extremely boring, but the teacher was also very serious about what he said.

And Luo Zhongxia hated this class for another personal reason, which was Zheng He. Zheng He was not the Three Treasures eunuch Zheng He of the Ming Dynasty, but a boy of the same level as Luo Zhongxia and a different department.Zheng He was tall and straight, with a loyal face, and was quite popular with girls, so naturally he aroused hostility from boys.He also signed up for this elective course, and his performance in class can be said to be "disgusting to the point of vomiting" (Luo Zhongxia's language).Zheng He was very familiar with the Four Books and Five Classics, and he often sang and sang with Mr. Ju, which was very popular with the latter, and he even became the monitor of this class.It is said that Zheng He's family has a long history, and his ancestors have raised people, so he can be regarded as a scholarly family, with a little foundation in Chinese studies.

"Hmph, smelly eunuch." When Luo Zhongxia heard the news, he could only hum bitterly. On the podium, Mr. Ju just finished the first chapter of "The Doctrine of the Mean". Looking around the audience, he found that Zheng He was the only one listening attentively. "Student Luo Zhongxia, after listening to the first chapter, do you know what is meant by 'Shendu'?" Mr. Ju picked up the chalk, turned around and wrote two block letters on the blackboard. Luo Zhongxia was startled, thinking that he couldn't answer anyway, so he simply made up his mind to talk nonsense, and he would die if he died, and he had to die with a sense of humor, "It means that we must treat celibates with caution."

The students roared with laughter, Mr. Ju was so angry that his beard trembled, and he pointed at Luo Zhongxia speechlessly.Seeing that the situation was not good, Zheng He quickly stood up and said loudly, "Teacher, I know that Shendu means that a gentleman should be strict with himself when he is alone." Old Mr. Ju nodded silently. Seeing that the teacher had already stepped down the steps, Zheng He turned to Luo Zhongxia and said, "Student, respecting teachers and teaching is a traditional virtue. You are doing this to Teacher Ju by intentionally making trouble in class." Disrespect, you know?"

When Luo Zhongxia heard this, he immediately became angry.He flicked his arm back and said, "Why do you say I'm making trouble on purpose?" "Isn't it? All the students here have seen it." "Yeah, I was answering a question." "Does that count as an answer to the question?" "It doesn't count, it's just a wrong answer." As soon as Luo Zhongxia said that, the students in the audience burst into laughter again. Zheng He was furious. He felt that this guy's words were unreasonable and his attitude was arrogant, so he left his seat and went to pull Luo Zhongxia's arm, forcing him to apologize to Mr. Ju.Luo Zhongxia coldly pushed his hand away, Zheng He pulled it again, Luo Zhongxia hid again, and the two of them were about to wrestle.

Seeing that the situation was not good, Mr. Ju quickly patted the table and ordered them to stop.Zheng He stopped first and stepped aside. Luo Zhongxia couldn't hold back all of a sudden, staggered forward, and bumped into the podium with a bang. This hit was not too serious, Luo Zhongxia's shoulders were only slightly numb, but he felt that he had lost face when he heard the students around him laughing.Frustrated in his heart, he gave the podium a little support, and took a step back. Suddenly, there was a rattling sound under his feet, which was quite clear.He quickly lowered his head and saw that it was a broken writing brush, and he couldn't help being shocked.

Ju Shigeng is very old-fashioned. He does not use fountain pens or ballpoint pens for the roll call, but draws the roster with a brush that he carries with him.This brush is Mr. Ju's favorite thing. The head and tip of the brush are golden yellow, round and smooth.Although Luo Zhongxia didn't know anything about brushes, he could tell that this brush was of extraordinary character.Now this pen was knocked to the ground by myself, trampled into two parts. Disaster is imminent. That afternoon, Luo Zhongxia was called to the department head's office.As soon as he entered the door, he saw Ju Shigeng sitting in the middle with his eyes closed, resting his mind, leaning on a cane with both hands, while the dean of the department stood beside him, rubbing his fingers nervously.He sneaked a look at Yanju Shigeng's expression, and relaxed a little bit, at least the old man was not pissed to death, so that no one would die.

"You! Stand still and don't move!" The head of the department shouted angrily when he saw Luo Zhongxia, and then said to Ju Shigeng in trepidation: "Mr. Ju, how do you think the punishment should be?" Ju Shigeng opened his eyes abruptly, looked at Luo Zhongxia carefully, and asked, "Student Luo, do you know what kind of pen you broke when you stepped on it?" "Writing brush?" Luo Zhongxia felt that this question was a bit puzzling. "The brush is real, can you name it?" Ju Shigeng stroked his snow-white long beard, "I remember I said it in the first class."

When Luo Zhongxia heard this sentence, he felt relieved.Since I said it in class, I must not remember it, so I replied straightforwardly: "Mr. Ju, I don't know. Anyway, the pen is broken, and it's all my fault. Just tell me how you deal with it." The head of the department rolled his eyes and told him to shut up.Ju Shigeng, however, signaled that it was all right, and slowly took out the two cut-off pens from his arms, stroked them lovingly, and said softly: "This pen is called the Pineapple Lacquer Diaoguan Langhao Pen. It uses white ox horn as the tip and tip. It's the color of a pineapple, and it's made of Liaowei wolf hair, but it's not an ordinary thing." "What's the use of telling me these things, why don't you ask me to buy you a branch?" Luo Zhongxia thought disapprovingly. Ju Shigeng glanced at the young man, and sighed slowly: "If you are talking about losing money, you, a poor student, definitely cannot afford it; if you let the hospital handle it, I can't bear to ruin your future for a mere brush." Luo Zhongxia was overjoyed when he heard this, this old man... no, this old gentleman really has a great Confucian demeanor and is tolerant; suddenly there was a "but" in his ear, like a thunderbolt from the blue sky, and his heart sank again. "However, classmate Luo, you are cynical and stubborn. You should examine yourself carefully and learn the principles of a gentleman's self-cultivation." At this point, Ju Shigeng pondered for a while, and smiled: "This time is also an opportunity. I don't think it's better than this. You go and buy a brush that looks like it, and give it to the old man." Luo Zhongxia was taken aback, he almost thought he could predict.He stammered and asked back: "Old Mr. Ju, if you get a demerit, expulsion or other punishment, I will admit it. If you tell me to buy a brush like that, you might as well kill me. Where can I get it?" Ju Shigeng laughed loudly, raised his hand, and asked the head of the department to hand over the broken pen bag and a mobile phone number to Luo Zhongxia with a piece of paper. "It's not buying, but shopping for me. You don't have to pay anything, just put in some effort." He looked at the cut-off pen regretfully again, "This pen is expensive, but it's not a rare thing. It's old. There are traces in the goods market from time to time. I am old and my legs and feet are inconvenient, so you just go to the second-hand goods market for me to buy pens every Saturday and Sunday. Naturally understands the truth. When the time comes, I will have a pen, and you will cultivate your temperament, and you will have the best of both worlds." The dean of the department echoed from the sidelines: "Mr. Ju is really ancient, he is very good at teaching, and he is good at teaching." Luo Zhongxia almost fainted after hearing this request.Punishments like demerits are nothing more than writing a few more strokes on the file; even losing money is just a temporary pain; but this punishment of buying pens on behalf of him is tantamount to wasting all his precious rest days.There is no more vicious punishment than this, which means that I can no longer taste the fragrance of the sun at eleven or twelve in the morning in bed-because flea markets always open early and close early. But right now, Mr. Ju's offer is already very generous, and he has no choice but to agree.Luo Zhongxia could only reluctantly nod his head, took the bag of broken pens, and put them in his pocket. Ju Shigeng warned again: "You have to watch carefully, don't be fooled by fakes." "How do I know which one is fake..." "Find a few related books and calm down and study them. Even if you can't find a pen, it will help you to some extent." Ju Shigeng patted the armrest, Luo Zhongxia said something, but he didn't think so.When I thought that my weekends were gone, I felt a heartache again. This Saturday, Luo Zhongxia got up early, looked enviously at his dorm roommate who was still sleeping soundly, washed his face, and then rode a borrowed bicycle to the flea market in this city, looking for that Laoshizi pineapple lacquer carved tube Langhao pen. At this time, it was just dawn, the sky was half blue and half gray, and the whole city was still immersed in a quiet and peaceful mist. There were only a few pedestrians on the road, most of them were sanitation workers.Luo Zhongxia was riding a bicycle on the main road alone, and the morning breeze was blowing, which made him feel refreshed.After riding for about half an hour, the sky was getting brighter, and there were more and more people and taxis on the road. There were also people riding a tricycle pulling a lot of bottles and accessories. It seemed that they were all heading for the flea market. This flea market can be regarded as a well-known place. This place was originally a temple, covering an area of ​​more than ten acres.Every Saturday and Sunday, there are countless antique dealers, second-hand collectors, collectors, farmers who occasionally dig pots and pots, and leisurely citizens who dream of getting rich overnight, and it is noisy from four o'clock in the morning.Ceramics, jade, gold and silver wares, jewelry, furniture, antiques, cultural revolution collections, relics from the Republic of China, old books and newspapers are all here, but the real and fake are mixed, it all depends on the eyes of the shoppers.Some people once bought Song edition books here at a very low price, and they changed hands for hundreds of thousands; there were also people who invested huge sums of money here to buy gold-plated celadon vases from the Yuan Dynasty, only to find out that they were imitations, and they lost their fortunes—but None of this had anything to do with Luo Zhongxia.After he entered the market, he turned a blind eye to the shouting hawkers on both sides, and only asked where there was a stall selling old brushes along the way, so that he could find it as soon as possible. In fact, in flea market stalls, the Four Treasures of the Study are rarely sold individually, and are mostly scattered among other antiques.There is a saying in the field of second-hand shopping that "ink is like treasure, and brush is like grass".Brush pens are very easy to be eaten by insects, and those that can survive from the Ming and Qing Dynasties are considered rare, and even those made by famous masters in the Republic of China are also rare.Generally, collectors put ancient brushes in brocade lacquer boxes and then put them in camphor to prevent them from getting damp before they can be preserved.For example, the dealers in the second-hand goods market are mostly collected from the people, and they go away with a full load, without paying attention to any protection. If there is an occasional good pen, it will be ruined. So when Luo Zhongxia asked where old writing brushes were sold, the peddlers heard that it was a "stick", and hurriedly dug out a few old-looking brushes, talking nonsense: "Look at this brush, a high-quality Xuan brush, seven purple and three sheep, made by the authentic Qing Palace." "This is a good, authentic rat whisker pen made by Wang Yijingzhai's first generation Wang family. Look at this pen, it has all four virtues." These peddlers originally planned to use some technical terms to fool this hairless little mallet.Unexpectedly, Luo Zhongxia was extremely ignorant about brushes, except that one side had hair and the other had no hair.So he only kept in mind that Mr. Ju's brush was the color of pineapple, and he didn't recognize anything else.The hawkers' tongues can be said to be eye-catching to the blind. Luo Zhongxia looked all the way down, played and strolled, and saw many bergamots, clock towers, pipes, chairman badges and even Mr. Jiao... The miscellaneous things are also very interesting.The antique dealers looked at him fiercely, and soon saw that he was not like a master who was rich and good at entertaining, and he was not very enthusiastic in greeting him, but he was very happy. Walking around, Luo Zhongxia unconsciously came to a corner of an alley, and saw an old man wearing a worn-out navy blue cadre uniform sitting on a saddle, leaning against the wall and taking a nap, with a piece of dirty dirt in front of him On the rags, there are eight characters written on the cloth, "Fortune-telling and fortune-telling, and fortune-telling and fortune-telling". Hearing footsteps, the old man quickly opened his eyes, wiped the corners of his eyes with his frayed sleeves, and said to Luo Zhongxia courteously, "Sir, do you want to tell your fate?" "Well, help me figure out what is the password of our neighbor's peony card?" Luo Zhongxia opened his mouth and owed. The old man squinted his eyes and looked at Luo Zhongxia carefully, and suddenly raised his eyebrows: "Sir, I see from your face, there will be a catastrophe in the near future." Luo Zhongxia snorted coldly, thinking that this kind of trick is also coming to lie to me, it's too childish.He ignored the old man and continued walking forward.The old man got up and grabbed his arm: "Sir, what I said is true. If you don't pay attention, I'm afraid there will be a strange change." "If you continue to entangle like this, there will be a sudden change in you." Luo Zhongxia was a little annoyed. The old man was not afraid at all, and shook his head, "My hexagrams are for good luck and not bad luck. If someone calculates the big bad luck, I will not charge you." Seeing that Luo Zhongxia didn't believe him, he pointed at the ground, "Well, sir, you might as well write This word, let the old man test it out. If it is right, you will listen to me; if it is not right, sir, you can go about your own business, and I will never pester you again.” Luo Zhongxia didn't want to talk too much with him, so he said casually: "Just test the word I rely on." The old man nodded, stretched out his index finger, spit on it, and wrote "rely on" on the ground. "Is that the word?" "right." "What to test?" "If you have the ability, you can test it out, why am I here today?" The old man tilted his head to examine the word, looked up at Luo Zhongxia, and suddenly smiled.Luo Zhongxia was terrified by this kind of smile, and urged him, "Say it quickly, I'll leave if I don't have the ability." The old man pointed at the letter, shaking his finger and said slowly: "Let's take it apart, take it apart. It’s all about talk, nonsense. Mister came to the second-hand goods market, I believe it was not the intention, but the result of talking too much, right?” "Damn..." Luo Zhongxia was shocked, the old man's words were really accurate.But he was still arguing: "It's ridiculous, I'm just here for a casual stroll, there's nothing wrong with it." The old man smiled and patted him on the shoulder, "I'm sure, I know by myself." "Correct and erroneous." "If you don't believe me, how about we test another word?" the old man said leisurely. Luo Zhongxia rubbed his palms with some trepidation, and suddenly a clever plan came to his mind.He immediately knelt down and wrote the English word "Person" with his finger on the ground. "Just give me a test of my future." He was triumphant. The old man glanced at the word lightly, and said casually: "Going to Per is not an adult, but the pronunciation of this son is like a death. You are facing a catastrophe, what kind of future is there?" Luo Zhongxia didn't expect that this little English didn't scare him, so he sneered awkwardly.The old man stretched out his legs and wiped off the three letters r, s, and o with the toe of his shoe, and said: "s is a word for death, and ro is two wings. If you want to survive disaster, you should stay away from r and o, but you should be in a pen superior." "Bah bah..." Luo Zhongxia was flustered by what he said, so he hurried forward and left quickly, for fear that the old man would see through something again.The old man shouted from behind: "Sir, don't you want the method of disaster relief?" Luo Zhongxia walked faster, without looking back, and almost trotted away from the alleyway. Luo Zhongxia didn't stop until he turned out of the alley and couldn't hear the old man shouting, and comforted himself: "It's okay, it's okay, fortune-telling is never true, let's hurry up and get down to business." After that, he headed towards the flea market Go to the liveliest area. The second-hand goods market occupies a large area and there are many stalls. Luo Zhongxia glanced around, and it was almost noon.He rubbed his sore thighs, found a shaded concrete platform under a big cypress tree and sat down to rest his breath, thinking that he could go back today.Searching for antiques is not something that happens overnight. If you can’t find it today, there will be tomorrow, and if you can’t find it tomorrow, it will be next week. Anyway, old man Ju didn’t say a deadline. Suddenly, Luo Zhongxia's gaze narrowed, and he saw a familiar figure flash past in the crowd.On closer inspection, it turned out to be Zheng He.He was wearing an orange jumper, tall and straight, and he could be easily recognized among a group of old men and uncles. "Strange, what is this kid doing at the flea market..." Luo Zhongxia became suspicious, stood up quickly, patted the dirt on his butt, and followed quietly.