Steam trains in ancient times (4): Even the title of the poem can be pronounced wrong

“Hey, what’s wrong with you guys?”

The scholar who handed them the poem asked in confusion, “How come your reaction to this poem, made by the Princess, is so mediocre?”

Young Master Li looked at him with complicated eyes, not knowing how to answer.

The young master of the Qi family, who had once admired Zhao Er very much and regarded her as his perfect love, said angrily, “I don’t believe it!”

Several confused scholars nearby couldn’t help but look over, thinking, why not believe this? The princess’s talent was amazing and everyone knew it. The young master of the Qi family also highly praised her in the past. Why did he suddenly have this attitude now?

This sentence of “I don’t believe it” was trying to imply that the princess was incapable of writing such an article?

The young master of the Qi family did not care about the reactions of the people around him. His mind was full of how Zhao’er could have plagiarized the poems in that collection of poems, and how she could recite aloud in front of everyone the ancient poems that Si Qi had already completed as her own creation!

He threw away the few new poems that had just been copied down, and said directly: “This must not be what the princess wrote just now, it must not be! She wrote other poems, right?” She wrote poems that were not in those poetry collections, right!

Someone complained, “Why wasn’t it written by the princess? I was sitting here the whole time, listening to it with my own ears and writing it down with my own hands. Not a single word is wrong!”

Just at this moment, a new bamboo stick was drawn, and the theme was wine.

After hearing this, the princess smiled as usual and said loudly: “[Jiang jinjiu1¹]!”

As soon as the words fell, they struck his mind like a thunderbolt. The young master of the Qi family was shocked and his face was extremely ugly. He simply couldn’t raise his head to face the frank and loud woman above him.

The people who had left with him below had different expressions, some were sarcastic, some were ashamed, some were disillusioned, and so on.

But the girl from that world had no idea of ​​the feelings of the people below. She waved her hand and laughed wantonly:

“Have you not seen that the water of the Yellow River comes from the sky, rushes to the sea and never returns?”

“Don’t you see, the white hair in the mirror of the hall, black in the morning, turned into snow in the evening!”

When these two majestic lines of poetry came out, the people in the audience who didn’t know the truth were suddenly shocked and their hearts surged, and they were so excited that they almost cried out!

It was so enjoyable and uninhibited!

Such a heroic emotion, such a passionate tone, and such a powerful appeal made people’s bodies tremble with excitement!

Zhao Er drank a glass of wine happily, her face slightly flushed, her beautiful appearance made the men below stare at her. She laughed carefreely, raised her chin more confidently, raised her glass and stood up, saying to everyone: “When you are happy in life, you should enjoy it to the fullest, don’t let the golden cup face the moon empty!”

“I was born with a talent that will be useful. Even if I lose all my money, I will get it back!”

A group of people watched Zhao Er walk into the crowd. The charming and seductive look of the drunken woman, coupled with the majestic and bold poetry, was indescribably charming.

Because of what they saw, many people wanted to drown in the wine glass between Zhao Er’s lips. They would even be willing to die for this fairy-like woman in front of them!

At this moment when everyone’s heart was pounding, Zhao Er felt so comfortable that every cell in her body was trembling!

The young master of the Qi family finally couldn’t stand the torture in his heart anymore, so he kicked the low square table in front of him away, panting and angrily saying with a flushed face: “Enough! Do you still want to say that cooking cattle and slaughtering sheep for fun requires drinking three hundred cups?!”

Zhao Er, who pretended to be drunk, suddenly regained consciousness and looked at the young master of the Qi family with eyes of disbelief and shock.

The young master of the Li Mansion nearby was even more numb. He sat quietly, looking at the unruly woman in front of them, and said with a half-smile: “Yes, and then it is: Bells, drums, delicacies and jade are not expensive, but I wish to stay awake forever.”

Another person continued indifferently: “All the saints and wise men in ancient times were lonely, only the drinkers left their names.”

“Ha, haha…”

The more the group of people looked at Zhao Er’s gradually crumbling expression, the more ridiculous they found it. It was ridiculous that the other party was a little clown who was seeking favor from the crowd. It was ridiculous that they and others had been deceived by such a person for so many years.

The young master of the Qi family truly loved Zhao Er, and even now he still loved her. He looked at Zhao Er with a pleading look on his face and said to her, “Go on, and continue reciting the poem! As long as you tell me a poem that I don’t know, I will believe that you are innocent! Go on!!”

A roaring sound echoed in the pavilion. The confused scholars standing by looked at the sudden scene in shock, not understanding what was going on.

Zhao Er’s face turned pale. It was the indescribable embarrassment of being exposed for pretending, and the bone-chilling chill of realizing that something was wrong.

What happened? Who released these poems early?

No, that was not the point. The point was, were there other travelers in this world?!

Zhao Er stood there stiffly, her mind in a mess, and for a moment she didn’t know how to save herself.

When the young master of the Qi family saw the expression on the face of the goddess in his heart, he knew what the other party’s answer would be. He was overwhelmed with grief for a moment and squatted on the spot, covering his face and crying.

Others looked at each other and came over to ask him what was going on.

He looked confused and didn’t even know how to explain for a moment. He could only point to the poetry collection in the hands of Mr. Li and others.

The face of the young master of the Li family next to them was livid. He hated the woman who had played them around so much that he wanted to skin her alive!

He took out the poetry collection, placed it in front of everyone, turned to the pages of [Ink Plum2²] and [Bring the wine], and sneered, “Look, this is the ancient poem that your princess composed on the spot’. It actually appeared word for word in the poetry collection from who knows how many years ago.”

Someone came forward to take a look and said in astonishment: “How, how could this happen?!”

Some people didn’t believe it and said, “You just wrote this, didn’t you? Oh, in recent years, many people are not used to the princess’s style of doing things, so they find ways to frame her. I didn’t expect that even you would do the same…”

The young master of the Li family retorted: “We framed her, could we have written the poem before she recited “Bring the wine” ?”

The man was speechless.

“If we frame her, can she write hundreds of masterpieces and put them in this collection? Is she worthy of it?”

As people flipped through the poetry collection and read about the masterpieces recorded on every page, their brains were suddenly buzzing with shock at the contents.

“Can we frame her so that she would pronounce the word ‘qiang’ in the poem about drinking as ‘jiang’?”

Everyone carefully recalled the content of the ancient poem “jiang jinjiu” just now, and it was indeed about persuading people to drink. Thinking back to the three words Zhao Er said at the beginning just now, it was indeed that she pronounced the title of the poem as jiang. But what did jiang jinjiu mean? About to drink? It didn’t make sense at all?

Suddenly, the look in his eyes when he looked at Zhao Er became more and more strange.

“Whether it’s true or false, we just need to test it.” Si Qi sat below and said slowly.

Everyone turned around and saw that the person who was speaking was Si Qi. Everyone highly praised his ability and talent, and immediately said, “That’s great.”

Si Qi then said to Zhao Er, “I don’t want to ask anything difficult. What does the ‘bells, drums, and jade dishes’ mentioned in the poem just now mean?”

Everyone frowned slightly, not understanding why Si Qi asked such a question that even a child in the academy could answer. Then they looked at Zhao Er silently, waiting for her to give the obvious answer.

Zhao Er’s expression was blank. She was panicking. How could she understand these things? She took a few deep breaths and said hesitantly in a dry voice: “Here, bells and drums are musical instruments, and jade dishes are a jade accessory.”

“…………”

The scene was silent.

Zhao Er immediately realized that she might have said something wrong, and quickly covered it up, “Of course this is just the surface meaning, actually, actually…”

“Not really.” Si Qi said expressionlessly, “You didn’t even get the surface meaning right. You are indeed a ‘talented woman’.”

Zhao Er’s legs went weak, and she was a little scared by the disappointed and even angry eyes of the people around her. She was afraid of losing all the good reputation she had now, losing the envious eyes of everyone, and she was even more afraid that everyone would look at her with strange and rejecting eyes in the future.

She didn’t want to accept this!

Si Qi was playing with the cups and bowls in front of him in a bored manner, and said in a casual tone: “Jade dishes means ringing bells and drums, eating delicacies, and describing a rich and luxurious life. You don’t even understand what this word means, and your explanation is irrelevant. How can you write those poems and say it is ‘not valuable’?”

Zhao Er was so anxious that her face turned red, and her eyes were filled with tears of frustration and unwillingness: “You, you…!”

This abominable fellow who should have died long ago! Why was he still alive and showing up here, and even embarrassing her like this!!

Si Qi: “Do you feel that you have been wronged? Do you feel that you are wronged? It doesn’t matter. You can just read this collection of poems and then recite any ancient poem that is not in the book to prove yourself.”

After hearing this, Zhao Er took a few deep breaths. Looking at the not-too-exaggeratedly thick collection of poems, she thought that although she didn’t know who the time traveler was, if there was only one collection of poems, there must be ancient poems that she knew about but were not in the book.

She would surely be proven innocent by then.

She snatched the poetry collection, quickly flipped through a few pages, and then froze in a daze.

Wait, except for a few poems in this collection that she brought from the future to this era, she had never seen any of the other poems!!

This, this was not a collection of poems written by a time traveler to expose her lies, this was simply a fabrication and a frame-up!!

Someone wrote a collection of hundreds of poems that were so amazing and brilliant that they would be passed down through the ages, and then added a few of her poems that had already been passed down, and attached some inexplicable author’s name to frame her for plagiarism!!

Zhao Er was so angry that his face turned blue. She threw the collection of poems to the ground and angrily said, “Read it if you want! Those poems were all written by me. How can I not write new poems?”

She instantly became confident again. So what if someone framed her? These ancient monkeys didn’t know she was a time traveler. Couldn’t she just recite a few poems from the future as her own?

Recalling what she had learned in school, Zhao Er quickly remembered a catchy poem and sang it aloud: “The grass on the plain withers and grows green every year.”

“Wildfire—”

Si Qi raised his head and looked at her with a mocking look in his eyes: “Wildfires can never be extinguished, they will spring up again with the spring breeze.”

“…………” Zhao Er’s expression was blank and he was completely stunned at that moment.

When the people around heard the first line of the poem, they subconsciously wanted to applaud again, but when they heard Si Qi’s follow-up words, they were stunned again and suddenly became furious.

This despicable woman even misappropriated other people’s poems to cover up her lies! She still had no intention of changing her ways until now!

Si Qi smiled and said, “Didn’t you say you were wronged? Then you don’t need to recite the poem I just read. Just continue to tell me what happened after the wildfire.”

Seeing Zhao Er frozen in place and unable to utter a single word, Si Qi said, “It can’t be such a coincidence that the content of the poem has collided with that of the collection of poems again, right?”

——It was really not a coincidence.

Through the original owner’s memory, Si Qi learned about many ancient poems that the girl would recite in the future, and deliberately did not write them in the poetry collection.

Neither he nor the original owner knew the future history of this world, and of course they had no idea what ancient poem this world would be famous for.

But the Daughter of the World knew.

So in order to scare the Daughter of the World, he made up a fake time traveler enemy in her mind, so that she would never dare to use other people’s poems to deceive people again. Si Qi memorized all the ancient poems that the Daughter of the World would “write” next in the original owner’s memory, and saved them for this time to slap her in the face, and sure enough, she fell into the trap when she was careless.

At this point, Zhao Er finally realized that the so-called “proving her innocence” was just a trick on her, and she was so angry that her eyes turned red.

She pointed at Si Qi’s head and said in a shrill voice: “It’s you!! It’s you who wrote this collection of poems!! It’s you!!!”

The onlookers were completely bewildered. They felt that the princess’s angry and frustrated look was completely ungraceful, just like a street shrew.

They were also a little surprised that this collection of poems was written by Si Qi.

But when they thought about it carefully, they didn’t think it was that strange.

Rather than a concubine’s daughter who had never been to school and had only learned calligraphy in recent years, people would rather believe that these poems were written by Si Qi, a gifted young man who became famous at a young age.

Si Qi denied it with a cold face: “I am not as shameless as you, taking ancient poems written by others and treating them as my own. This is a collection of poems given by gods. How can I write so many works?”

Zhao Er’s face turned pale, and he looked at him fiercely: “That’s what you wrote! Who told you that you are Si Qi! So you are a time traveler? You have always been one?!”

Zhao Er was filled with doubts. If Si Qi in history was a time traveler, why didn’t Si Qi expose her when she became famous a few years ago, and let her cheat and gain a great reputation?

Could it be that Si Qi realized that what she did behind the scenes had threatened his life, so he took revenge…

Zhao Er’s body went cold, and regret flooded her mind. Si Qi sneered: “You’re just shooting yourself in the foot.”

Zhao Er sat down on the ground, holding her head with her hands, her eyes flickering.

No, Si Qi couldn’t be a time traveler. There was too much evidence to refute this argument.

First of all, although he was a gifted and resourceful man in history, he never came up with any advanced inventions or concepts. Therefore, the possibility of reincarnation from birth could be directly eliminated.

Secondly, his appearance at this moment was exactly the same as the one Zhao Er had seen when she secretly observed him. A modern person living in the modern world simply could not imitate that kind of temperament that could not be completely different. Zhao Er herself was a time traveler, so she was deeply aware of this.

Finally, if Si Qi was really a time traveler, and he traveled earlier than the time she observed, then he couldn’t be living in a run-down bungalow and living in such a difficult situation. He could have a thousand ways to make money and gain fame and fortune.

Not like that, not at all… The more Zhao Er thought about it, the more she felt that Si Qi couldn’t be a time traveler.

Could it be… Could it be that someone else had traveled through time?

In order to curry favor with this great man, the time traveler told him many things about the future, including that Si Qi in history would have been the top scholar this year, but now he missed the imperial examination because of an “accidental fall into the water”!

Not long ago, Si Qi encountered a frame-up against him and his sister. If there was a time traveler who could give them guidance on the conspiracy behind it, Zhao Er didn’t believe that Si Qi, with his intelligence, would not be able to see through the truth!

Who was Si Qi? He was an important figure who will assist the crown prince Chu to ascend the throne and create a prosperous era for the Chu Kingdom with him!

Who was Prince Chu’s current enemy? It was the Fourth Prince, whose reputation was growing.

Who was the one who tampered with history? It was the fourth princess who became famous by plagiarizing ancient poems from the future.

So, as the fourth prince’s princess, who did Zhao Er need to target right now?

It was Si Qi.

The answer was so obvious, so obvious that Zhao Er wanted to cover her face and sigh, then punch the table!

No wonder Si Qi said that she was “shooting herself in the foot”, he was so right.

At this point, the evidence that she plagiarized ancient poems and used them for her own purposes was solid, and she had no room for excuses.

If she had Si Qi’s ability, and studied hard like Si Qi, she could use her own skills to write an ancient poem on the spot that is no worse than “Bring the Wine”, then there would still be room for maneuver.

But she was just an ordinary person, she couldn’t write!

There were more and more voices around her questioning and criticizing her. If she stayed here and accepted everyone’s questioning, it would only make her more embarrassed.

Zhao Er left the poetry meeting with a cold face, waving her sleeves, no longer wanting to stay and be criticized by others. The scholars became angrier and angrier, and wanted to stop her, but were stopped by a group of palace guards.

Everyone suddenly remembered that the other party was still a princess, and her status and position were not something they could afford to offend. They gritted their teeth in anger and watched the woman walk away in a panic.

The beautiful back figure that had made them feel so fascinated now looked so hateful. A group of people cursed her viciously, “You are a fraud who has taken advantage of the world and taken advantage of your reputation!”

“Despicable villain!”

“If it weren’t for Brother Sii’s poetry collection, I don’t know how long we would have been fooled by that woman!”

“Fortunately, I have now discovered the true identity of that woman and obtained such a precious collection of poems…”

“Yes, this is so precious, I wish I could hold it in my hands day and night and study it sentence by sentence!”

Everyone looked at the poetry collection at the same time. Si Qi said directly: “I have no intention of keeping this thing to myself. You can take it and extract it.”

As soon as these words came out, everyone looked at Si Qi with more friendly eyes. “As expected of Brother Si, you are different from that selfish Zhao girl!”

“Yes, you are worthy of being Brother Si. You are open-minded and honest. I admire you!”

“After I finish copying this collection of poems, I will go out and tell everyone about it! Tell everyone the true face of that Zhao girl!”

“As it should be! We must never let anyone else be deceived by this woman again!”

Si Qi looked at the angry crowd and took a sip of wine slowly.

After Zhao’er came to this world, in order to get rid of her troubles and to deal with her stepmother, she used poetry to package herself and make her life better. This was nothing. She just acted in an emergency and could correct her mistakes later.

But she should never, ever, take other people’s things to flatter herself as she did just now, without any sense of shame. She should not have ruined the reputation of another girl and the future of a great man for her own selfish interests. She should not have only considered her own ideas, framed others, acted recklessly, and used all means possible.

Si Qi felt sick just looking at such a selfish and despicable person.

The people around were discussing the poetry collection. Si Qi put down his cup, stood up and left.

When he got home, his sister had already prepared dinner and was waiting for him to come back so they could eat together.

Si Qi washed his hands, sat at the table, took a look at the beautiful woman, and said, “Sister, do you have a crush on someone?”

Si Peihuan was so startled that the chopsticks in her hand shook and the vegetables fell into the bowl.

After she recovered from the shock, she said unhappily, “You…”

Si Qi smiled and said, “My parents died young, and as a younger brother, I have to worry about my sister.”

Si Peihuan blushed and said angrily, “You don’t need to worry about me. you´re just a smart kid…”

Si Qi: “What do you think of His Royal Highness the Crown Prince?”

Si Peihuan was frightened and turned pale. She lowered her voice and said, “What nonsense! Is that someone we can criticize?!”

Si Qi: “I’m just saying.”

Si Peihuan shook her head: “I know you have the ability, and one day you will become someone that others can only dream of. But I am not like that.”

She felt pressured just thinking about being with such an unpredictable and powerful person. It was for her brother’s safety that she would risk her life to protect him. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have had the courage to talk with so many big shots. It was too traumatic for her soul.

Si Qi smiled and said, “That’s right, I know my sister has a peaceful personality and doesn’t like to argue or quarrel.”

The smoky and foul-smelling place of the palace was not suitable for her at all.

In the historical world line, Prince Chu took Si Peihuan as his concubine, creating a story that will be passed down through the ages.

But reality is not a TV drama, there are not so many grudges, love and romance. It was not certain whether Si Peihuan in history liked the King of Chu.

At least at this moment, Si Qi had no intention of marrying his sister off just to get closer to the King of Chu.

Unless his sister wanted to.

…But now it seemed that the possibility was still quite small.

Si Qi smiled and said, “I respect your choice. If you meet your ideal man, no matter if he is a noble or a merchant, as long as you like him, I will do my best to support you.”

He was not a self-proclaimed modern progressive like the Daughter of the World, who talked about pursuing one-on-one equal love, acted carefree and uninhibitedly without caring about the difference between men and women, but at the same time, used the public opinion concepts of feudal society to harm and kill people.

If you really think that ancient concepts are outdated and worthy of criticism, then don’t ruin a talented scholar’s career by disfiguring him, and don’t destroy a woman’s innocence by making her unable to be her husband’s white moonlight. Isn’t this a good adaptation to ancient feudal concepts, and even using them as weapons?

Since Si Qi inherited the original owner’s identity and enjoyed the original owner’s life, he thought he should be like the original owner, take everything around him seriously, and do everything he could.

Now let’s start with the things that were in front of him, such as respecting Si Peihuan’s ideas and preventing her from becoming a tool for political marriage because of her beauty and status.

“…………” Si Peihuan lowered her head, her ears blushing with shame. But in fact, her heart was warmed by her brother’s words, as if she had embraced the sun.

After a while, she said shyly, he didn’t know if it was a threat or a caring word: “Good brother, I will boil some medicine for you later, and I will make you get better soon.”

Si Qi: “…………”

His sister was probably a natural black.

Notes

1. Here, She says the title of a poem, but Zhao Er aparently pronuonces the word wrong, the poem’s name is 將進酒(bring the wine), but it is written by the author as “将（jiang）進酒”, Jiang jinjiu.
   Bring the wine, is a seven-character song composed by Li Bai , a famous romantic poet in the Tang Dynasty more info ↩︎
2. “Ink Plum” is a seven-character quatrain written by Wang Mian , a poet of the Yuan Dynasty. The author uses the plum to describe himself, expressing his attitude towards life and his noble sentiment of not flattering the world. More info ↩︎