Yue Xingwen looked at everyone and asked, “Do you want to go to Du Fu’s side first, or Meng Haoran’s side first?”
Ke Shaobin suggested, “How about Du Fu? After all, Du Fu’s poems, we memorized a lot of them in high school, so even if we’ve forgotten them, I’m sure Xingwen remembers them!”
In high school, students were required to memotie many poems, and poetry mimeographs were a compulsory topic in the exam. However, after arriving at university, due to the further subdivision of majors, the difficulty and pressure of specialized courses continued to increase and many students no longer had contact with literature, they gradually forgot the poems and ancient texts they had memorized.
It didn’t need to say that the poem didn’t appear in the textbook, even if it was in the mandatory chapter in a high school Literature textbook, after a few years of college, there were very few people who could write it completely.
The so-called ‘art industry has a specialization, and the Chinese Department was dedicated to cultivating talents who study Chinese. This time, when they encountered a Literature course, of course, everyone believed in Yue Xingwen’s ability. Just like when encountering a math maze, everyone would follow Jiang Pingce without hesitation.
Yue Xingwen also preferred to take Du Fu’s path, he looked at Jiang Pingce, and said, “Then let’s take the right road first, explore the area on the right road, and if we don’t find the exit, then we’ll return here. You can memorize the map path, I’m afraid that there will be confusion when there are many forks in the road.”
Jiang Pingce nodded. “Okay. I’ll draw a map while walking.”
Everyone followed Yue Xingwen into the door in the middle of the wall and walked to the right.
It was no longer water, it was a wide road. Li Bai’s boat disappeared, and a horse appeared, which he went up to ride it and whipped away. When Ke Shaobin saw this scene, he immediately put away Xiao Tu, and everyone lined up to follow behind Li Bai. In order to catch up with Li Bai, who was riding a horse, Yue Xingwen decisively used ‘Fast as Lightning’ team acceleration skill.
After about 5 minutes, Li Bai’s horse stopped in front of a pavilion.
A figure appeared under the pavilion, and they saw that he was wearing a dark blue cloth coat, a black hat on his head, and no decorations on his body, looking very simple.
A hover box popped up in front of them——
New Character Unlock: Du Fu.
A famous poet of the Tang Dynasty. The character was beautiful, known as Old Shaoling.
Please continue to explore the maze by following Du Fu’s footsteps.
Exploration 10%.
Yue Xingwen remembered that when he first met Li Bai, the Exploration of the maze was 5%, and now when he met Du Fu, the Exploration had become 10%. He looked back at Jiang Pingce and said in a low voice, “Could it be that unlocking a poet increases exploration by 5%?”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Jiang Pingce nodded in agreement. “En. There are likely to be 20 poets scattered throughout this maze. After unlocking all the poets and answering all the questions correctly, we can find the exit with 100% exploration.”
Po atlr kjr atf mjrf, atf gfdelgfwfcar obg atf gfrfgnf bo qbfwr kfgf nfgs tlut. Qlat rb wjcs qbfar’ kbgxr, lo atfs fcmbecafgfv rbwfatlcu atfs vlvc’a xcbk, atfs mbeivc’a jcrkfg atf defralbcr mbggfmais jcv atfs mbeivc’a fzqibgf atf ktbif wjhf.
Liu Zhaoqing complained. “This course doesn’t look like a course of 4 credits, the difficulty is not low ah! Like the poems of <An Ode to Swordsman> just now, if Xingwen didn’t write the full text word for word, we wouldn’t be able to open the mechanism.”
Tef Wlcukfc rwlifv jcv mbwobgafv fnfgsbcf. “Ktbrf ktb jqqfjg tfgf rtbeiv yf kfii-xcbkc qbfar. P yfilfnf atja atf ilygjgs kbc’a yf abb wemt. Coafg jii, lo atf fzjw defralbcr jgf abb vloolmeia obg j 4-mgfvla mbegrf, kbc’a jii atf afjwr ojli tfgf?”
Ke Shaobin nodded and said, “Yes! There should be hints for the more difficult questions, and it’s impossible for all the poems to be empty for us to memorize entirely, right?”
As soon as the words fell, Li Bai and Du Fu began to greet each other.
The meeting of the two poets was also a rare scene in a thousand years, and everyone immediately quieted down. They saw Du Fu invite Li Bai to sit down in the pavilion, and took out a pot of wine. The two looked at each other and smiled, drinking each other boldly.
Twelve students looked at each other in disbelief.
Everyone stood next to them and watched ‘Poetry Immortal’ and the ‘Poetry Sage’ drinking as if no one was around, and the didn’t know what the two of them was talking about, but the scene in front of them was like a ‘silent movie’, and the sound of Li Bai and Du Fu’s conversation didn’t reach their ears.
There were fewer than a thousand glasses of wine for a confidant, and the two drank very happily.
With a pot of spiritual wine, Du Fu picked up a brush and wrote two lines of words on the wall in front of the pavilion: “When autumn comes, you’re drifting still like thistledown. You try to find the way to heaven, but you fail.”
Two blank lines of answer boxes appeared below.
Everyone looked back at Yue Xingwen and asked him if he knew with their eyes.
Yue Xingwen took a step forward, picked up the brush, and quickly wrote the second half of the poem in the blank space: “In singing mad and drinking dead your days you drown. For whom will fly the roc? For whom will leap the whale?”
The answer was correct, and the complete poem on the wall flashed with a soft light effect.
After Du Fu finished writing the poem, Li Bai actually picked up the brush and wrote two lines of words on the stone wall next to him: “Before we part we’ve drunk for many days, and visited all the scenic spots and bays. When at the Gate of Stone shall we meet and drain our brimming golden cups of wine again?”
The last two lines were empty as usual, and Yue Xingwen stepped forward to pick up the brush to finish the whole poem: “The autumn waves of River Si still flow, the seaside mountains stand in morning glow. You’ll go away as thistle-down will fly, so let us fill our cups and drink them dry.”
Ke Shaobin adjusted his glasses, looked at the poems on the wall and said, “I haven’t heard these two poems! Alas, why do I feel illiterate when I come to the Faculty of Humanities?”
Yue Xingwen laughed. “These are not the contents of your professional studies, it’s normal that you don’t know. If you write a row of computer code in front of me now, I will also feel illiterate.”
Hearing him say this, Ke Shaobin’s mood was much better, and he hurriedly asked for advice, “These two poems should be given to each other by Du Fu and Li Bai, right?”
Yue Xingwen nodded and explained, “Li Bai and Du Fu have only met three times in history, the first time was in the third year of Tianbao in the Tang Dynasty, Li Bai was forced to leave Chang’an, met Du Fu in Luoyang, and became close friends. The two met in Liang Song, which is now Henan Province. In the autumn of the same year, they met and came to Liang Song. In the spring of the following year, they reunited in Shandong and traveled to Qi Lu together. At parting, these two poems were sent to each other.”
Although Yue Xingwen’s narration was very calm, he was extremely excited.
In history, the meeting of many celebrities had left behind a thousand years of stories. Li Bai and Du Fu was also one of the most famous, they only met three times in their lives, but it was these three meetings, the two became a lifelong confidant.
The two of them, who were 11 years apart, drink together, recite poetry together, and talk about the past and present, so happily!
In those turbulent times, it was not easy to meet a confidant. For many years afterward, they never saw each other again, but they never forgot each other, and left countless masterpieces for future generations.
Yue Xingwen’s favorite poets in high school were Li Bai and Du Fu, and when he was a freshman, he wrote a research paper on the poems of Li Bai and Du Fu, so he was very familiar with the poems of these two.
This kind of time and space disorder made him feel extremely complicated.
Li Bai and Du Fu in front of him were not real people, just two virtual images created by the library, and they couldn’t be heard at all. But Yue XIngwen would like to say one thing, your works, which have become treasures of Chinese culture, will be passed on and remembered by future generations.
Li Bai and Du Fu ended their meeting, and after separating, Li Bai’s figure disappeared from sight, while Du Fu continued to move forward on horseback. Everyone looked at each other and immediately followed him.
They thought Du Fu would lead the way to meet the next poet, but everyone didn’t have to walk long before they were seeing a heartbreaking scene——
In the era of war and chaos, there were traces of war everywhere.
Charred flags fell beside the ruins, randomly discarded skeletons on the side of the road were gnawed by wild animals, orphans and widows who did not have enough to eat cried and knelt down to beg for a bit of dry food, and the old man turned white overnight after his son’s death…
The scene of mourning and wilderness swayed on both sides of the road like a movie.
As the most famous realist poet of the Tang Dynasty, Du Fu had always been most concerned about the people’s livelihood. In the turbulent era after the An Shi Rebellion, he composed countless heartfelt and bone-chilling poems, and people of later generations, even if they did not personally experience that period of time, could still feel the suffering of the common people of the time from his poems.
Yue Xingwen thought that Du Fu’s well-known poems would be tested this time, such as ‘When you get to the top of the mountain Tai, you’ll see all the other hills are getting smaller’, ‘While the rich people wine and dine, the poor people die of cold by the roadside’, and other popular poems.
Unexpectedly, dense text suddenly appeared in the hover box on both sides, and at first glance, it was a long poem. There were still a number of vacancies in it that they obviously needed to fill in themselves.
The name of the poem at the top read <Lament of the Newly Wed> <Lament of a Homeless> <Lament of an Old Man>!
These were not poems that needed to be mastered in the high school of Literature teaching, and only students who love poetry in the Chinese Department would go looking specifically for Du Fu’s masterpieces to study.
Sure enough, as soon as the title of the poem came out, Jiang Pingce said, “I remember that when you were a freshman, you wrote an analytical paper of Du Fu’s masterpieces, Three Officials and Three Farewells.”
Jiang Pingce was not interested in poetry, but XIngwen often went to self-study with him. He sat next to Yue Xingwen, watched Yue Xingwen consult a lot of information, and he also clearly remembered every paper that Yue Xingwen had written.
Therefore, after seeing the three poems in the hover box, Jiang Pingce knew—— it was settled again this time.
Sure enough, Yue Xingwen smiled and said, “That’s right. The Three Officials and Three Farewells are Du Fu’s representative works describing the suffering of the people caused by the way, although each one is very long, I remember them all word by word!”
Du Fu’s Three Officials and Three Farewells, Yue Xingwen could even write it all as he closed his eyes and wrote silently.
Moreover, at this time, the answer wall also had a line of hints for every other sentence, which was really too easy for Yue Xingwen.
He stepped forward, picked up the brush, and quickly filled in the blanks with characters.
“My hair knotted to you as a newlywed, but we have not yet warmed our nuptial bed. Married last night, at dawn we bid adieu, why should I part in such a hurry with you?”
“None knows where the living have fled, while to dust have returned the dead. My humble self after the defeat, come back to find my old retreat…”
“In all the country there’s no peace, how can an old man live with ease. Sons and grandsons in battle slain, why should my old body remain?”
The bride whose husband was forced to go on the march on the day after the wedding; Youth who returned to their hometowns but were homeless; The lonely old mans whose sons have all died in battle—— Lament of the Newly Wed, Lament of a Homeless, Lament of an Old Man, depicted the miserable conditions of the people in those times, word by word in blood and tears.
Seeing that Yue Xingwen quickly filled all the blanks, the other students were in a complicated mood.
Each of the poems in Three Farewells was 16 lines, 32 short sentences, and 160 words, which added up to 480 words. It was difficult to memorize all such a long poem, and Xingwen’s memory was indeed outstanding, word by word, he remembered it all.
However, as a student of the Chinese Department, it seemed reasonable to know Du Fu’s masterpieces?
Anyway, as senior brother Liu said, it would be right to follow Xingwen and lie down to win this time!
I took would feel illiterate lol. Thanks for the chapter!
As a humanitarian student I must say — it is not normal to remember everything about your subject, it’s just true love
Thank you for your translation 💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚
I remember reading Du Fu’s poems before so the feeling of pride while seeing poems I could recognize were huge lolol