Chapter 65: No Emotion, All Technique

Although this seal was not an antique, it was a highly valuable artifact, symbolizing the inheritance of the Wuzhong school of literature in Jiangnan, particularly in Suzhou.

After the stakes were agreed upon, Lu Baiyi said to Wang Zhiden, "Propose a procedure for how we should conduct this contest."

Wang Zhiden replied without the slightest hesitation, "No other procedures are necessary. We shall directly compete in poetry! Furthermore, there is no need for any bizarre or obscure topics. Let us simply take the four basic seasons—spring, summer, autumn, and winter—as our subjects, and each present a set of poems!"

Wang Zhiden's proposal was sound; seasonal themes were indeed the ultimate test of a poet's foundational skills.

Lu Baiyi agreed as well, then turned and walked back toward the canopy tents to invite Bai Yujing.

Taking advantage of this interval, Feng Bangning hastily said to the other literati present, "For my sake, my friends, do not allow others to inflate their own arrogance!"

Everyone laughed in unison, "Easily done! Easily done! We are nothing like the ignorant common folk beneath the theatrical stage; naturally, we can tell the high from the low!"

Most of the literati gathered today had come specifically for Wang Zhiden, so naturally, they felt compelled to support him. The literary world was not a lawless realm—ah, no, the literary world was no utopian sanctuary; it was equally pragmatic and placed heavy emphasis on the cultivation of personal networks.

The visible benefits of befriending Wang Zhiden, who represented the Jiangnan literary scene, were obvious. For instance, if you helped Wang Zhiden today, tomorrow Wang Zhiden would return the favor by singing your praises. Or, for another example, when traveling south to Jiangnan in the future, merely dropping Wang Zhiden's name would secure you a reception within the local literati circles.

Conversely, what visible benefits could one possibly reap from befriending a nobody like Bai Yujing at present?

Therefore, Wang Zhiden was no fool. If he had not possessed absolute certainty of victory, how could he have so stubbornly demanded a rematch?

The literary world is not merely about fierce rivalries and battles; it is also governed by human sentiments and worldly sophistication.

Before long, everyone saw Lu Baiyi returning, yet she was still alone.

Wang Zhiden asked in puzzlement, "Why hasn't that friend Bai come over?"

Looking rather helpless, Lu Baiyi replied, "Bai Yujing said he has already won. Therefore, he has returned to the city first to drink and celebrate his victory."

Everyone: "......"

This response was so abstract that it defied description, leaving the crowd in silence for quite a while.

The two sides hadn't even met face-to-face yet, and he was already shouting across the distance, unilaterally declaring his victory. What kind of master-level mental gymnastics was this? Even if one were putting on a facade of wealth they didn't possess, shouldn't they at least go through the motions first?

Wang Zhiden finally understood why Lu Baiyi had advised him not to push the matter and had even predicted with absolute certainty that he would end up utterly disgusted.

Lu Baiyi offered a very forced explanation, "He believes that despite being a mere nobody, he managed to provoke a celebrated scholar like Wang Bangu into initiating a contest, and that Wang Bangu even summoned so many hired claqueurs to bolster his momentum—all of which proves he has already won."

"Hahaha!" Feng Bangning could not help letting out three loud laughs, saying to Lu Baiyi, "Isn't this merely the behavior of a shameless scoundrel? Could it be that you actually agree with such preposterous logic? Do you agree that he has won?"

Lu Baiyi felt as though she had merely been hired today to serve as someone else's mouthpiece, reciting words dictated by Bai Yu without experiencing any genuine thrill of her own. However, she was now inextricably bound to Bai Yu, so she had no choice but to continue acting as his spokesperson.

She drew out a sheet of draft paper and replied, "Before leaving, Bai Yujing anticipated that you would refuse to admit defeat, so he left behind four poems. The themes are precisely the four seasons of spring, summer, autumn, and winter chosen by Wang Bangu!"

Wang Zhiden immediately reached out his hand. "Show them to me first."

Lu Baiyi, however, added, "Bai Yujing left word that after reading his four poems, provided that Wang Bangu can successfully imitate and produce new works before sunset, he will concede defeat!"

Upon hearing this, Wang Zhiden was thoroughly enraged and let out a crude curse, "Audacious wretch! How dare he look down upon me!"

If innovation itself posed a difficulty, what was so hard about imitating an existing work? Whom was this fellow looking down upon? He, Wang Zhiden, was a prodigy who began composing poetry at the age of ten! Moreover, he truly felt that Bai Yujing was like an unruly scoundrel rolling on the ground, spitting on him while incessantly provoking him, arousing a deep, visceral revulsion within his heart.

Right now, he longed for a direct, head-on confrontation to kick Bai Yujing flat and trample him underfoot a few hundred times!

Watching Wang Zhiden being provoked step by step, Lu Baiyi felt a strong sense of guilt as she asked, "If you are so certain of yourself, Wang Bangu, would you care to raise the stakes further?"

Though Lu Baiyi felt she often behaved unscrupulously, compared to Bai Yu, she still considered herself far too kind. Others might not realize it, but she was acutely aware of the enormous pitfall waiting ahead for Wang Zhiden.

Wang Zhiden was like a gambler trying to recoup his losses: "Name it! What further stakes do you want?"

Lu Baiyi replied, "If you win, Bai Yujing will publicly kowtow three resounding times to apologize to you; if you lose, you will owe Bai Yujing a favor. How about that?"

"Accepted!" Wang Zhiden said without the slightest hesitation. A sudden, intense anticipation welled up within him regarding those three kowtows.

Only then did Lu Baiyi raise the manuscript in her hand, displaying it to the crowd.

Everyone lifted their eyes in unison to look, seeing that the paper contained only four lines, with ten characters per line.

The first line read: Oriole cries shore willow stirs spring clear night moon bright.
The second line read: Fragrant lotus clear water stirs wind cool summer days long.
The third line read: Autumn river Chu geese lodge sandbank shallow water flows.
The fourth line read: Red stove pierces charcoal roasts cold wind facing deep winter.

After reading them, the crowd instantly burst into uproarious laughter. What kind of utter nonsense was this? If doggerel or three-and-a-half-line verses at least possessed a certain meter and flow, these four lines were even worse than doggerel!

Someone loudly declared, "Are these four poems? They are clearly nothing more than half-coherent sentences!"

Another chimed in, "And here I thought there'd be some great masterpiece, only to find a few lines like this? Spending another glance on them would be a waste of energy!"

Still another sneered, "Could that friend Bai perhaps not even know what the structure of poetry is?"

Feng Bangning, Lu Baiyi's rival, laughed heartily and spoke up, "Only today do I truly understand what a clown jumping on a stage looks like! Lu Baiyi, oh Lu Baiyi, to actually associate with such a person and champion his cause—you have truly thrown away your reputation! You have utterly disgraced both the Lu family and Grand Secretary Huang!"

Subjected to this blatant ridicule to her face, Lu Baiyi felt her teeth itch with anger, but for now, she had to proceed step by step according to plan.

She asked Wang Zhiden, "Before sunset, can you imitate and produce new works?"

Wang Zhiden said incredulously, "Are you all fools, or do you take me for a fool? You cannot even produce a proper poem, yet you have the gall to ask me to imitate and create?"

Lu Baiyi raised the manuscript in her hand once more and said in a deadpan tone, "Every ten-character line here is actually a seven-character quatrain. With your immense talent, Wang Bangu, could it be that you cannot even discern this much?"

Wang Zhiden asked impatiently, "Then go ahead and tell me, where is the seven-character quatrain?"

Lu Baiyi explained, "Let us take the ten characters of the first line—'Oriole cries shore willow stirs spring clear night moon bright'—as an example to show you how they should be read! Read the first seven characters forward, and you get the first line of the poem: 'Oriole cries shore willow stirs spring clear.' Read the last seven characters forward, and you get the second line: 'Willow stirs spring clear night moon bright.' Then, read the last seven characters backward, and you get the third line: 'Bright moon night clear spring stirs willow.' Finally, read the first seven characters backward, and you get the fourth line: 'Clear spring stirs willow shore cries oriole.' Combine these four lines, and you have a seven-character quatrain depicting spring scenery!"

The crowd instinctively read them in this order, and sure enough, a poem emerged:

"Oriole cries shore willow stirs spring clear,
Willow stirs spring clear night moon bright.
Bright moon night clear spring stirs willow,
Clear spring stirs willow shore cries oriole."

The meter and tonal patterns were flawless, and the technique was meticulously crafted.

Wang Zhiden felt a secret jolt of shock; it turned out there was a profound mystery hidden within these ten characters. Nonetheless, he maintained a look of utter disdain on the surface as he said, "It is merely a word game hiding a quatrain within ten characters. Is that supposed to be difficult? I could imitate it effortlessly."

Lu Baiyi said proudly, "Do you suppose the profound mystery is merely hiding a seven-character quatrain within ten characters? Look at this quatrain again: it can be read forward starting from the first character, or backward starting from the last character! Reading it forward yields the exact same result as reading it backward—this is known as a palindrome poem, and that is the second profound mystery!"

Upon hearing this, the crowd was utterly astonished, having never heard or seen such poetry before!

They read it backward once more, and just as Lu Baiyi had described, a single poem could be read in two ways, with both forward and reverse readings making complete sense!

Wang Zhiden, who had一直自信 (remained confident throughout), finally felt immense pressure at this moment.

Embedding a seven-character quatrain within ten characters was already quite difficult; if the poem itself could also be read as a palindrome both forward and backward, it became infinitely more challenging!

Suddenly, someone pointed at the manuscript and cried out in shock, "There are four lines of characters above—could it be that every single line is a seven-character quatrain of this sort?"

Though she had not written them herself, Lu Baiyi felt a sense of reflected glory as she proudly said, "Indeed, not just one, but four! Every single one follows the exact same format! Corresponding to the four seasons of spring, summer, autumn, and winter, perfectly answering the subject proposed by Wang Bangu!"

The crowd collectively drew in cold breaths. To achieve such a high-difficulty creation even once required immense talent. To produce four consecutive ones meant multiplying the difficulty fourfold—what manner of peerless genius possessed such capability?

At this thought, the crowd turned their gazes toward Wang Zhiden, the premier romantic scholar of Jiangnan, their eyes filled with sympathy.

Although they had previously promised to rally behind Wang Zhiden and ensure his victory in the contest, the current situation far exceeded the norm. They might have been able to use standard tactics to ruthlessly disparage Bai Yujing's works based on theme, artistic conception, emotion, and diction—but what good would that do?

Bai Yujing's four poems paid no attention whatsoever to theme, artistic conception, emotion, or diction; they relied entirely on sheer technique!

Embedding a seven-character quatrain in ten characters, ensuring the entire piece was a palindrome, and perfectly fitting the four seasons—such technique had already reached the realm of perfection!

Devoid of any emotional sentiment, this was pure, unadulterated flexing of skill! Much like objective standards that could be clearly quantified, subjective denial was impossible.

Thus, standing here in a massive crowd was utterly useless; they simply had no way to deny the technical mastery of these four poems.

Lu Baiyi looked at Wang Zhiden's ashen complexion and suddenly felt a twinge of sympathy, sighing, "I told you we should let it go. Had you listened to me earlier, how could you have come to this?"

Sweat poured continuously from Wang Zhiden's forehead, his mind a tangled mess. This kind of imitation and creation was as difficult as ascending to heaven; it was utterly impossible to complete before sunset, let alone within a few months or even years.

With no other options left, Wang Zhiden cast a look of desperate appeal toward Feng Bangning, but Feng Bangning merely let out a cold snort and turned on his heel to leave!

"Today, I have lost!" Wang Zhiden closed his eyes and said.

It wasn't that he hadn't considered reneging, but Lu Baiyi's background was nothing to scoff at. Therefore, even if resentment lingered in his heart, he had no choice but to concede defeat today.

The crowd could not help but gasp in astonishment once more. Never had they imagined that the foremost romantic talent of Jiangnan, upon just arriving in the capital, would suffer such an unceremonious defeat. The capital truly was a place where crouching tigers and hidden dragons resided—just from what obscure corner had this Bai Yujing emerged?