Chapter 51: The Aristocratic Family's Pig-Rearing Strategy

Human beings are creatures endowed with innate inertia—in the vast majority of cases, sitting definitely feels more comfortable than standing, and lying down is certainly more comfortable than sitting... Of course, after lying down for a long time, one has to change posture, or else things will still feel awkward...

Dong Zhuo indulged in the pleasure brought by power, and also enjoyed the pleasure brought to him by beauties. For him, this was no less than a dual satisfaction of both spirit and flesh, the unbridled exhilaration of having achieved his dreams.

The wine was the finest and most mellow of wines, right by his side, inexhaustible...

The meat was the most fragrant and tender of meat, within arm's reach, increasing whenever desired...

The beauties were the most considerate and tenderly charming of beauties, warm jade radiating fragrance, granting every single desire...

To eat something required no movement of his own hands, as beauties naturally delivered it to his lips; to dally with a beauty required no utterance, for they were naturally yielding and at his beck and call...

Although Dong Zhuo was not an emperor, he enjoyed treatment almost equal to that of one.

Li Ru came once, and seeing Dong Zhuo drowning in a nest of tenderness, he left without expression and without a word. In Li Ru's view, everyone who wished to ascend the throne of a successful monarch had to go through such a trial; it was merely that some people were able to sober up, while others sank directly into the abyss...

Li Ru knew very well in his heart that this was a soft dagger wielded by the gentry of Guandong against Dong Zhuo. Yet he also understood that any attempt by him to dissuade Dong Zhuo now would have a negligible effect. Only when the person involved woke up by himself would it be for the best; otherwise, the next time he encountered the same gentle trap, he would fall right into it all over again...

Dong Zhuo, Dong Zhongying, may you not forget your grand ambitions back in Xiliang!

After all, Dong Zhuo, Dong Zhongying, had a rather humble background, and he had truly never experienced this kind of formation. His resistance was somewhat weak, which was understandable, but if he could soberly extricate himself from it, it would be as though his spirit had undergone a great baptism, which would be of immense help to his subsequent development.

Therefore, Li Ru was waiting to see if Dong Zhuo, Dong Zhongying, could wake up on his own.

The gentry played this game with great proficiency, and basically any major aristocratic clan knew how to do it. This was because such a gentle trap was originally not designed to deal with enemies, but was specifically set up to select the next generation's head of the household, having operated for goodness knows how many hundreds of years.

The larger the family, the more collateral branches it possessed, and the fiercer the competition. Although the main branch naturally occupied a certain inherent advantage, the strength of the current family head did not guarantee the strength of the next generation. Many family heads shared this exact worry, and therefore, in selecting candidates for the next head of the household, they had to be exceptionally cautious.

After the family head broadly sowed his seeds, several offspring would naturally grow into adulthood. Although legitimate sons inherently possessed an advantage, they still had to go through this ordeal just like everyone else, and the temptation they faced might even be greater and more intense than that of others.

Under normal circumstances, the family head would find a task with a time limit and assign it to these reserve candidates. During this period, these heirs-apparent would, much like Xu Xian encountering the White Lady or Dongyong meeting the Seventh Fairy, encounter peerless beauties through various twists of fate, falling in love at first sight, becoming captivated at second sight, and surrendering their bodies at third...

Normally, the routine went like this. Although it sounded quite simple, under circumstances where they were unaware of the plot, the vast majority of people—especially young men full of hot blood in the prime of youth—would fall right into it with a thud. As for whether they could crawl back out, it depended entirely on whether they possessed that extraordinary willpower...

Later on, the aristocratic families discovered that this method was also remarkably effective when used against occasional, uniquely fortunate commoner prodigies who emerged from obscurity. Because commoner youths generally lacked the condition to experience many women in their youth, when tasting success, they often felt the vastness of the world was entirely within their grasp. They were frequently bewildered by the humble and deferential posture adopted by the noble families, and consequently took a tumble without even knowing where they had gone wrong...

Later still, the aristocratic families even evolved to use this scheme to entrap the brilliant legitimate heirs of rival gentry clans, and the most audacious ones even applied it to the next generation of sovereigns...

If you cannot take down your opponent now, you can figure out a way to raise your opponent's next generation into pigs...

As for Dong Zhuo's current condition, to these Guandong gentry and aristocratic clans, it was merely the appetizer served to Dong Zhuo; the grand feast was yet to come...

To the aristocratic clans, beauties were not only a form of wealth, but also a bond and a weapon. How skillfully they were utilized depended entirely on the heart...

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Beauties naturally differed from one another.

Cai Yan's beauty was akin to an exquisite and gorgeous book, heavily laden with intellectual grace, exuding gentle wisps of scholarly fragrance, enticing people to involuntarily want to read it, to look at it, and to understand it further...

In a corner of the room, an incense burner drifted with smoke. Cai Yan disliked floral scents or other strong, pungent fragrances, favoring only this faint, elusive trace of aroma resembling green bamboo.

At this moment, Cai Yan had just finished transcribing from memory a scroll of books she had previously read, which her father, Cai Yong, had given away to others.

Having returned from the Wei family to the Cai family, Cai Yan's life was very simple. Generally, she spent her mornings reading and transcribing books. After a brief midday rest, she would usually pluck a few impromptu melodies on the zither. As time passed, everyone in the Cai household became familiar with Cai Yan's habits. Therefore, when Fei Qian went to the Cai residence to wait for Cai Yong, he suddenly sensed the entire Cai household falling silent, and the little maid beside him hastened to stop Fei Qian from speaking.

As the saying goes, music is the voice of the heart. On that day, Cai Yan had simply recalled her own experiences and inadvertently blended her emotions into the zither notes. When the song ended, she never expected that the little maid Xiaocaiyi would later bring her a slip of paper on which Fei Qian had written two lines of verse...

During the Eastern Han dynasty, poetry had not yet undergone significant development. In this era, people appreciated ornate and lavish rhapsodies (Fu), while poetry was just beginning to sprout its first tender shoots. Many Han dynasty poems and songs passed down through later generations actually leaned towards songs, strictly speaking a certain evolution of the Music Bureau (Yuefu) lyrics.

During the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods prior to the Han dynasty, there were already the "Airs," "Odes," and "Hymns" of various regions. Subsequently, Han poetry roughly went through a process from folk ballads to literati creations, and from Music Bureau lyrics to unadorned literati poetry known as "ancient poems" (Gushi). As for four-character, five-character, seven-character, and other various formats, those were matters for a later time...

During the reign of Emperor Wu of Han, Liu Che not only drove out the Xiongnu through military might to establish the prestige of the Great Han, but in literature, besides establishing the Imperial Academy (Taixue), he also formally established the Music Bureau (Yuefu) official agency. He appointed Li Yannian, who was proficient in music, as the Duwei (Commandant) of Harmonizing Rhythms, responsible for formulating musical scores and training musicians, while also massively collecting folk songs to be set to music and performed. The establishment of the Music Bureau allowed a vast amount of Han dynasty folk songs to be preserved and to develop into the embryonic form of poetry.

Just like the "Song of the Great Wind" by Liu Gao (Liu Bang) passed down to later generations, it was actually written by Liu Bang in the format of Chu songs...

Subsequently, this cultural vehicle of poetry slowly developed, until the Eastern Han dynasty when four-character and five-character poems gradually emerged. The famous Han dynasty figure Ban Gu was the pioneer of five-character poetry.

Therefore, the poetry that Fei Qian had clumsily pieced together in a moment of emotional agitation inevitably brought a unique and refreshing novelty to Cai Yan at this time. So poetry could actually be composed this way...

Yet why was this rhyme scheme so peculiar? Was there even such a shifting rhyme?