Chapter 160 Lucheng City Confucian Academy

Qin Shuang stands in the yard and looks around in satisfaction. There are two peach trees in the courtyard, and the four rooms are fairly new.

“Yuan Ye, tomorrow you will send a letter home, write the address here down.”

“Yes, Miss!”

“Let’s clean up!”

Qin Shuang did not immediately go to Lucheng Confucian Academy, she first stayed in Lucheng for three days and wandered around. She gained a more intuitive understanding of Lucheng City. After three days of sightseeing, Qin Shuang has a wry smile. She didn’t think that there was such a place on the Martial Continent, where people rejected martial arts very much, and made no secret of their dislike, calling martial artist vulgar. Such a group of people gather in Lucheng City, forming a completely different atmosphere from the rest of the Martial Continent.

Yuan Ye’s face was very ugly, because when he was accompanying Qin Shuang around in Lucheng City, everyone’s eyes have a kind of contempt when looking at him. But they are very cordial to Qin Shuang, because Qin Shuang is wearing a Confucian robe.

On the fourth day.

Qin Shuang is ready to go to Lucheng Confucian Academy, and in her heart she has firmly decided to not expose her identity as a martial artist. It’s not so easy to do this, because in daily life, small things will reveal that a person is a martial artist, such as walking posture. A martial artist will inadvertently reveal more power than ordinary people. So, Qin Shuang carefully converges her powerful walking posture, and restrains her heroic and straightforward look, trying to become elegant and graceful.

This time she didn’t let Yuan Ye accompany her to Lucheng Confucian Academy, she let him stay in the courtyard. She is taking Qin Yunxia with her to Lucheng Confucian Academy, because in the Confucian Academy you can bring a personal assistant, and Qin Yunxia plays the role of an assistant. Of course, Qin Shuang also reminds Qin Yunxia, to not reveal her identity as a martial artist.

“It’s a weird place!” Qin Shuang walks on the streets of Lucheng City, saying: “Don’t they know that if they want to achieve something, they have to go out there, and face the world of martial artist? With their contempt for martial arts, how will they ever get along with the martial artist?”

She shakes her head, having previously been in the world of martial arts, she had not held any position in the empire or kingdom. So she really didn’t understand how these Confucians and Martial artist got along in court. But from the attitude of these people in Lucheng City today, they are probably not very harmonious with each other.

“Perhaps this is exactly what the rulers want to see! What they want is a kind of balance.”

Standing in front of the gate of the Confucian Academy, she looks up. She sees a huge gate in front of a building, hanging above the gate and building is a huge plaque, written with four large characters:

Lucheng City Confucian Academy.

At this moment the gate is closed. Qin Shuang is not surprised at all, because she has already been informed by Zhou Haoran. The Lucheng Confucian Academy gate is closed by the administers. Only at the end of each month, for three days, will the gate be opened, and the scholars inside will come out and have a break for three days, and then the gate will be closed again.

But now Qin Shuang’s mind is not here. Her eyes are tightly locked on the four characters of the “Lucheng City Confucian Academy” on the upper building, which attracts her mind.

“Is this the great vital energy?”

Qin Shuang feels an overwhelming momentum from those four words, oppressing her, she mobilizes the spiritual power in her body, painstakingly suppressing it. Her spirit power is getting restless.

But then, her restless spirit power calms down, but her soul begins to surge forth, moving. In front of her eyes, the gates and building fade away, she seems to appear in a huge palace. In the palace there are Confucian figures everywhere, everyone’s mouth is moving, making sounds. The voices echo in her ears like a huge, deafening flood.

At this moment, Qin Shuang feels as if her soul has never been so clear. She didn’t know how many times she had read the book “Confucianism” and it had too many puzzles, but at this moment, she feels that the mysteries are being cracked right before her very eyes. A layer of the veil is being lifted…

If her original understanding of “Confucian” is only the fur, now she is seeing a first-hand account. And the intoxicated Qin Shuang isn’t aware that her soul is condensing at a very fast speed…

Lucheng City Confucian Academy.

A three-storey building.

At this time, an old man with a white head of hair is reading through a thick book, and suddenly he raises his head and looks towards the door. He feels that the whole Confucian Academy’s thousands of years of warmly nurtured great vital energy is converging towards the front gateway building entrance.

“Who has comprehended the meaning on the gateway plaque?”

There is shock on his face. Almost the entire Crescent Moon Kingdom Confucians know a legend, in the history of Crescent Moon Kingdom, about three thousand years ago, it is said that the first generation king had two ministers by his side. One Scholar and one Martial artist.

This Lucheng Confucian Academy was founded by the literary court officials, and the four big characters on the plaque of the gateway are the ones left by the literary court officials. It is said that among those four characters, there is a hidden meaning of Confucianism within.

But……

For more than three thousand years, no one has been able to stir up that plaque, so naturally no one is capable of understanding it. However, today he feels a change in the flow of great vital energy in the Confucian Academy. This change is exactly the same as whats written in the records regarding the plaque.

This doesn’t prevent him from getting excited.

Confucians are not without the strength to truss a chicken, they also have the ability to resist martial artist. Martial artist specialize in spirit force, and cultivate their soul power as an assist. Confucians, on the other hand, are the opposite. They specialize in the power of the soul, and they nurture and warm their soul by using the great vital energy.

Although this cultivation method makes their soul stronger, but the body cannot keep up with the soul’s advancement, therefore they cannot prolong their life. And this is why martial artist have always overpowered the Confucians.

However, the legendary founder of Lucheng Confucian Academy lived for a very long time, nearly three hundred years old, but suddenly he disappeared. No one knows where he went, if he’s alive or dead.

But he left countless books, in one of the books he says, by warming and nurturing the great vital energy you can refine the body, and achieve the goal of extending life.

And this theory is indeed supported by countless Confucians later on. They feel the great vital energy refining their bodies, although their lifespan is still not comparable with martial artists, but people can live over 100 years old, and these people can go further on the path of Confucianism.

The old man on the third floor is Lu Shenghui, the President of Lucheng Confucian Academy. His face is flushed red and his eyes are full of excitement. In a few steps he goes to the window, pushing the window open, he gazes at the distant entrance building.

So, I learned quite a bit translating this chapter.

The author is heavily influenced by Mencius, a Chinese Confucian philosopher. When referring to the great vital energy aka qi, she is referencing Mencius.

Mencius offers a quasi-physiological theory involving qi (vital energy) – “a hard thing to speak about”, part vapor, part fluid, found in the atmosphere and in the human body, that regulates affective-cognitive processes as well as one’s general well-being. It is especially abundant outdoors at night and in the early morning, which is why taking fresh air at these times can act as a physical and spiritual tonic. When Mencius is asked about his personal strengths, he says:

“I know how to speak, and I am good at nourishing my flood-like qi.”

You can read more about it in Section 8. Moral Psychology in the link below.

I won’t put the whole thing down, but its quite interesting, and I believe we’ll get more philosophical in future chapters.