Chapter 8 third quarter

There was a bone spur in Tong Guan's speech that was hard to swallow, but since everyone worked together to push away the disaster, no matter whether he could swallow the bone spur or not, they all left happily the venue.Only Liu Fan felt very heavy instead. It turned out that at the meeting today, Liu Fan originally planned to nominate Ma Kuo, as he later admitted, but his son Ziyu who had not yet had time to nominate.Liu Fan had the courage to overcome all concerns, broke the rules, and proposed his son's name, because there were two reasons to support him: for the Duke, sending envoys to surrender is indeed the most important thing at present, and a competent candidate is needed To act as an envoy.Personally speaking, since Ziyu joined the army, he has only been an insignificant secretary in the staff office, doing some routine work, and has not had the opportunity to show his extraordinary talent.At present, there is no room for him to use his skills on the battlefield, so letting him go on a mission is his only chance to explore the tiger's den, take the tiger's cubs, and stand out from the crowd.Now this opportunity happened to fall at his feet, and he missed it in vain.Isn't it a pity?

But after all, he spoke too lightly, and his courage suddenly disappeared as soon as the words came out.The scene in front of me is really terrifying. Whoever wants to go on a mission may suffer the same fate as Zhao and Zhang.It is true that "Spring and Autumn" is the beauty of not avoiding relatives, but it is also very humane to push the son to death.He wanted to recommend his son to go out and show his talents, but there was only a one-in-ten chance of recommending his son to die.The laws of nature and human nature, and the teachings of sages, are all matters of great hesitation.He is like a "polite" warrior who hears the horn of war and immediately puts on his strength and rushes to the front line without thinking too much about it. The dead in battle, he suddenly became frightened, flinched, trembled, and fell into a dilemma.

Thanks to Zhao Liangsi who suddenly brought up Ma Zichong's name and helped him out of the siege. He admitted that Ma Kuo was better than his son in every aspect of the task.He was so familiar with these two young people and understood them so well that he could make a very fair and correct judgment.He later agreed with Ma Kuo and recommended Ma Kuo. From a business standpoint, he could feel at ease. But what about "conscience"?For him, in addition to business affairs, there is also a question of conscience that he must ask himself. He remembered the teachings of the saints.He obviously wanted to recommend his son, but suddenly he felt scared, and insisted that Ma Kuo was the one he wanted to recommend.First of all, he committed the crime of "deceiving others", and passed on to Ma Kuo the murder that might have been put on his son's head. Forgive me.Also, he and the Ma family have always been acquainted with each other, and they are very friendly to each other. After negotiating with the Qiang people in Jingsai Castle, he jumped from a middle-level official to a prominent position in the Weiyou Pavilion. It is thanks to Ma Zheng.The father of a man is virtuous to himself, but to push misfortune to his son and "return virtue with grievances" is a deep admonition of the sages.Making three mistakes in one fell swoop obviously violated his usual moral standards, which made him very guilty.

A moralist uses morality to confuse others, just like a magician uses magic to confuse the audience. Although he asks others to believe that it is true, he himself knows very well that it is hypocrisy.Morality can be used to restrain the behavior of others, but it can never restrain the behavior of the moralist himself.This is true of amateur moralists, but especially of professional ones. I want to say something fair for Liu Fan.Among professional moralists he is indeed an exceptional figure.What sets him apart is that he uses his morality to deceive others and himself at the same time, without conscious awareness of either.When he puts high demands on others, he is convinced that he can also meet them, and when he makes such high demands on himself, he believes that others should also meet this standard.He has never doubted that he is a real "gentleman", so it is possible for him to feel the pain of guilt and the so-called uneasiness of "conscience" on such purely interest considerations.This makes him a quintessential middleman.

With this guilty heart, he went back to the staff office, found his son, and told him the results of the meeting in detail (only concealing his initial psychological activities of recommending his son), and asked him to immediately tell Ma Kuo , to prepare him mentally.If Ma Kuo has no objection to this mission, then everything is settled, everyone is happy, and no one has to be responsible for the other.If Ma Kuo was unwilling to go on an envoy, then he had informed him in advance, so that he could buy time and excuse the emissary in front of the envoy.And he himself can use this to relieve the guilt in his heart, reduce his mental burden, and repay this moral debt.

But the son who is not a moralist thinks differently from his father. Since this mission is so important and so dangerous, why didn't his father fight for him?The more dangerous the place, the more he has to stand up to show off his bravery and show his fearlessness. "Where Ma Zichong can go, why can't I, Liu Yanxiu, go?" This great opportunity was missed by Lang Ba (he is also from Fujian).Now he can neither make the Xuanfu envoy overturn the agreement and change the envoy, but he is unwilling to submit to Ma Kuo and asks to be his deputy envoy.Neither of these two things could be done, so he had to wait for a later opportunity to talk about it, feeling very annoyed.

He went to the Xuanfu Department to look for Ma Kuo, but he was not found. "What kind of person is this Ma Zichong from the Xuanfu Department?" The staff in the department complained, "If you want to find him, you have to go to his natal family to find him." "Stop mentioning that kid surnamed Ma! He is a wild horse without a bridle. He doesn't deserve to be born, and he doesn't ask for leave. He runs around and hasn't been seen for a few days." "Minister Xuan couldn't find him just now, and he was furious. He has already sent five or seven people to look for him."

Liu Ziyu rushed to the headquarters overnight to look for him, and the people there also said that they hadn't seen Ma Zichong for several days.There was no sign of him in either place. Where did the bridleless wild horse go?