As a famous poet in the Tang Dynasty, many of his poems had been selected into Literature textbooks, the most famous of which was ‘Spring Dawn’, which elementary school students could memorize. Of course, the library would not test this kind of simple ‘bonus questions’, everyone followed Meng Haoran and walked forward for a while, and the exam question soon appeared, called ‘A Farewell to Official Wang Wei’.
Most of the students didn’t remember this poem, and Yue Xingwen quickly filled in the answer——
Still, quiet— why wait anymore, morning after morning, the Royal Court— I come back empty. Desiring to seek more fragrant grass, I leave, with sorrow for the old friend as I part. Of those who take the road to power, who will lend a hand? Rare in the world are those, who know the tune of true friendship. I must reverse, conserve, the still silence, and cloak myself behind the door of my ancient garden.
Lan Yarong looked at the poems in the hovering box and said, “This is a poem written by Meng Haoran to Wang Wei!”
Yue Xingwen nodded. “En. Meng Haoran went to Chang’an to take the exam when he was 40 years old, but he failed to get fame, and Wang Wei was already a guest of the nobles in the capital at that time. Meng Haoran was disheartened and didn’t want to stay in the capital, and he was reluctant to part with his friends, so he wrote this poem to Wang Wei.”
Ke Shaobin said with emotion. “Is this the ‘circle of friends of the great gods’? Many poets are actually inextricably linked to each other! It’s actually quite interesting to look at it closely.”
Liu Zhaoqing looked at Yue Xingwen doubtfully, “We took the road of Idyllic Poetry, we met Wang Wei at the beginning, then met Xie Lingyun, Xie Tiao, Tao Yuanming, and finally met Meng Haoran… went around in a circle, and winding up the same at the end?”
Jiang Pingce said calmly, “Senior brother is right, we have indeed come full circle.” He spread out the map he had drawn in front of everyone, and Yue Xingwen immediately leaned over to take a closer look.
Along the way, they passed through the forest, river, mountain, and countryside, and enjoyed the fresh and beautiful scenery. The distance was farther than that of the Border, and it took more than half an hour. After meeting Meng Haoran, the Exploration also increased to 50%.
When they walked, they only felt that the mountain path was winding and very quiet—— The road of Idyllic scenery was actually circular.
This result made everyone look at each other.
Lan Yarong couldn’t help but say, “Could it be that if we go further, we’ll meet Wang Wei again?”
Yue Xingwen frowned slightly, “Let’s take a look.”
Everyone followed Meng Haoran’s footsteps and continued to walk forward.
Along the way, they encountered two more questions, one was Meng Haoran’s masterpiece ‘Passing the Old Man’s Village’ and the other was ‘Reminiscences on the Early Winter’, and Yue Xingwen successfully filled in the blank words in both questions.
Go forward, they really saw Wang Wei!
The familiar scenery around them, as well as the traces left by Yue Xingwen after filling out the answer box, all clearly told them, ‘You’ve been here just now.’
Jiang Pingce looked at Yue Xingwen and said, “The road of Idyllic Scenery seems to be a complete closed loop. From Wang Wei, to Xiew Lingyun, Xie Tiao, Tao Yuanming, and finally Meng Haoran, the five NPCs stood in a circle.”
Ke Shaobin said, “If the exit of the maze is not here, then we only have one road left to take! It seems that we have to go back to Li Bai again, the way to the Yellow Crane Tower.”
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.
Yue Xingwen nodded and looked at Qin Lu. “Continue to switch places, from the intersection of the Idyllic Scenery and Border Scenery, go back the same way.”
Wang Wei was near the intersection, everyone walked back according to the map, and with the help of Qin Lu’s ‘Plate Movement’, it didn’t take long for them to return to the wall where Li Bai wrote <An Ode to Swordsman> with a stroke of his brush.
Kkb gbjvr jqqfjgfv lc ogbca bo atf kjii, jcv atf ‘Vtjdle Jlas’ bc atf gluta wfa Ge Me, jcv atfc obiibkfv Ge Me obgkjgv, jcv atfgf kfgf akb obgxr bo Dbgvfg jcv Pvsiilm, jcv cbk la tjv yffc mbcolgwfv atja jii atf gbjvr bc atf gluta kfgf vfjv fcvr.
Tef Wlcukfc jcv Aljcu Ulcumf uijcmfv ja fjmt batfg jcv kjixfv ab atf ifoa lc ajmla ecvfgrajcvlcu.
After only a few minutes on the left, a familiar building appeared in front of everyone’s eyes—— They saw that beside the Yangtze River, there was an exquisite attic, a five-storey building, the shape of the whole building was like a yellow crane that spread its wings, and there was a plague hanging under the eaves of the attic, which was written with the three words of ‘Yellow Crane Tower’ with goldin light.
Everyone was not surprised at all when the Yellow Crane Tower appeared here, after all, there was a sign of ‘Yellow Crane Tower’ at the fork in the road just now, and the next exam question was of course expected by the students.
<Seeing Off Meng Haoran for Guangling at Yellow Crane Tower> Li Bai.
My old friend said goodbye to the west, here at Yellow Crane Tower. In the third month’s cloud of willow blossoms, he’s going down to Yangzhou.
The lonely sail is a distant shadow, on the edge of a blue emptiness, all I see is the Yangtze River flowing to the far horizon.
Everyone could memorize this poem, each person looked up a word, and quickly filled in the answer.
They thought that after Meng Haoran appeared, he would ride a horse and take everyone to continue to travel, unlocking more areas of the maze and getting to know more poets. However, as soon as they finished writing the answer, the scene in front of them suddenly flickered, and everyone actually came to the place where they had just seen Meng Haoran.
However, the ‘Maze’s Exploration’ in the hover box had increased to 55% because they had unlocked the area of the Yellow Crane Tower, increasing the Exploration by 5%.
Liu Zhaoqing was puzzled. “What happened? Back to Meng Haoran again, haven’t we just come to this road? Moving forward is Wang Wei! Then is the fork of the Idyllic and Border?”
Qin Lu was also puzzled. “It shouldn’t be an illusion, right? I remember, when I saw Meng Haoran just now, there were trees behind him, should we try further ahead?”
In order to determine whether they had returned to the original point, everyone continued to walk forward, and the surrounding scenery became more and more familiar, and after turning the corner, there was indeed an acquaintance in front of them looking at them with a smile—— it was Wang Wei.
Jiang Pingce frowned and said, “Further on, it’s the fork in the road between Idyllic and Border, and then we meet Du Fu, and then Li Bai, and when we go to the Yellow Crane Tower, we will be teleported to Meng Haoran’s side.”
Ke Shaobin adjusted his glasses, looked at the map carefully and said, “In other words, the maze of the 55% area we are currently exploring has formed a complete closed loop. Li Bai was the starting point, Li Bai wrote <An Ode to Swordsman> split into two paths, the Border and Idyllic on the right side are dead ends; The Yellow Crane Tower on the left is a teleportation point, which directly teleported us to meet Meng Haoran, and as a result, we once again on the Idyllic road, and it’s still a dead end!”
Liu Zhaoqing couldn’t help but complain. “Isn’t this a dead end? No matter how we go, we are going back and forth on a path that forms a closed loop?”
Everyone thought about it, but they couldn’t figure out where the exit of the maze was.
Yue Xingwen had no choice but to look at Jiang Pingce for help. “Pingce, what do you think?”
Jiang Pingce was frowning at the map at the moment, and when he heard Xingwen’s words, he was silent for a few seconds before he said, “A circular path doesn’t necessarily have no exit. This Poetry Maze is not a flat maze, but a three-dimensional maze.”
Yue Xingwen’s eyes lit up. “Just like the Prime Number Maze encountered in the Faculty of Mathematics. There seems to be no exit on the same floor, but can you take the elevator to reach the other floors?”
Jiang Pingce nodded and said, “The reason why I’m sure this is a three-dimensional maze is because the teleportation point in the Yellow Crane Tower is not in the same space as the Idyllic Scenery at all.”
On his map, the road between the Yellow Crane Tower and the Idyllic Scenery could not be connected no matter what mathematical algorithm was used, and could only be directly teleported across time and space. Since such a teleportation point had appeared, it meant that there were other teleportation points within the maze, and the corresponding spaces had not been unlocked by them.
Ke Shaobin thought and said, “Where will the teleportation point be?”
Qin Lu suddenly said, “I remember that Wang Zhihuan we encountered over at the Border Scenery before, went into the mist, where there seemed to be a transparent wall of air blocking us.”
Ke Shaobin said, “The transparent air wall can be understood as the boundaries of different spaces. We tried it at the time, but we couldn’t get into the mist, so it shouldn’t be the answer, right?” He looked at Jiang Pingce and asked, “What does Pingce think?”
Jiang Pingce said, “Personally, I prefer that the teleportation point is still on the Idyllic Scenery road.”
Ke Shaobin thought carefully about the experience along the way——
First of all, they met Wang Wei and took two poems <Autumn Dusk in the Mountains> and <Painting>, which increased the Exploration by 5%.
Following the increase in difficulty, Xie Lingyun <Written on the Lake, Returning from Stone Cliff> and Xie Tiao’s <Gazing at Dusk on the Capital from the Three Peaks> added up to 5% exploration.
Then there was Tao Yuanming’s <Picking fenceside chrysanthemums at will, carefree I see the Nanshan>, which did not increase the Exploration, and then met Meng Haoran, who increased the Exploration by 5% after answering the question.
So many poets added up to 15% of the Exploration, which felt unreasonable.
Ke Shaobin scratched his hair and asked, “Is there something missing?”
At this moment, Yue Xingwen suddenly said, “It’s Tao Yuanming!”
Everyone looked back at Xingwen in unison, but Yue Xingwen’s eyes were on Jiang Pingce’s body, and he said seriously, “Tao Yuanming, as the founder of the Idyllic Poetry, has the exam question <Picking fenceside chrysanthemums at will, carefree I see the Nanshan>, this is a poem that high school students will memorize, it’s too simple, and only this one is examined, maybe there is a hidden mystery.”
Jiang Pingce carefully pondered the artistic conception of this poem, and then thought of the scene at that time, and suddenly a flash of inspiration flashed in his mind. “At that time, we only saw chrysanthemums everywhere, but we didn’t see the ‘Nanshan’ he depicted!”
Everyone thought about it carefully, and they did only see a large number of chrysanthemums at that time, which was in line with the description of ‘Picking fenceside chrysanthemums at will’, and there was a road in front of them, so they subconsciously followed the road.
But, what about the ‘carefree I see the Nanshan’?
Yue Xingwen said, “There’s definitely a mist that hasn’t been unlocked in Tao Yuanming’s area.”
Everyone quickly returned and came to Tao Yuanming’s location.
Tao Yuanming picked chrysanthemums there very leisurely, occasionally paused to rest, wiped his sweat, and squinted comfortably to look in one direction. Yue Xingwen followed his gaze and saw a floating white mist appear in the distance, and a mountain loomed under the cover of the white mist.
Jiang Pingce and Yue Xingwen glanced at each other and walked in the direction of the mountain in tacit understanding.
Surprisingly, there was no road here, but as they walked forward, a curvy path appeared at their feet. Ke Shaobin said excitedly, “It’s a hidden path!”
The road was very long, Jiang Pingce walked and calculated the distance at the same time, when he came to the end of the road, a beautiful mountain range appeared in front of everyone. Jiang Pingce said, “The distance we just walked is exactly the radius of the circle, that is to say, this mountain is right in the center of the Idyllic Scenery’s circular area.”
This sentence made everyone excited—— They must have found the right answer!
However, there was no way to go any further.
They couldn’t go up the mountain, the layers of white mist blocked them at the bottom of the mountain, and the moment they came into contact with the white mist, a hover box popped up in front of them, like encountering a ‘combination lock’, and they needed poems to unlock it.
口口口口口口口
口口口口口口口
Fourteen characters in space, without any hints.
Xu Yishen shrugged his shoulders helplessly, “Is there no question? They just let us fill in the answer?”
Everyone looked at each other in disbelief.
The previous questions all had hints, either the scene corresponded to the poem, or the previous line was directly given and the examinees were asked to fill in the next line. But this time, the scene corresponded to Tao Yuanming’s poem ‘carefree I see the Nanshan’, but it was not a seven-word at all! There were no hints in the upper and lower lines, how to fill them in?
Ke Shaobin said, “Didn’t we draw a brush prop before? Why don’t we just use the prop?”
Yue Xingwen smiled slightly and said, “No need, I know how to fill it out, let me try.”
As he spoke, he stepped forward, picked up the brush next to the answer box, and quickly wrote down a line of poetry.
——There is a way out; every cloud has a silver lining.
Leave it to Xingwen! Thanks for the update
It’s not only training my knowledge of chinese poetry, this arc also training my knowledge of English idioms
Thank you for your translation 💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚
stop this is so cool