Don’t Be a Kept Man

r>Once these words were put out there, Xie Su Zhi could not in good faith stop him.
She thought in her heart that at least there was still the face of Chang Guo Gong and His Majesty should not do anything to Chen Miao Ping.
It was also fairly reasonable that he would do this.
Perhaps, Chen Miao Ping could even be noticed and remembered by the Emperor and she became reassured.

The Emperor lifted and sipped on his teacup.
As if it was a casual conversation, he said to Chen Miao Ping, 

“The cheating situation that Zhen has just mentioned, have you heard of it?”

Chen Miao Ping slightly furrowed his eyebrows, never wishing more than anything that he was deaf, 

“Some news may have passed by my ears.”

The Emperor lowered his eyes and said, 

“Do you know why those scholars outside have been outraged for so long and are not willing to leave? The main examiners accepting bribes is one, but many more reasons are that this year’s exams had about 262 men who passed and 70% of those are of high family status. 

“Zhen has ordered an investigation and those who have involved themselves in this do not number more than ten.
But it is still hard to pacify the rage of my citizens.
Zhen remembers that you have come from a poor background, so how do you see this situation?”

The moment his words were spoken out loud, everyone’s eyes were on him.
Chen Miao Ping did not speak and internally his mind was flying through everything he knew.
Trying his best to think about how he could answer without exposing himself as a fake.

His history teacher seemed to have lectured about this before.
Most of those official positions, before it was restricted, were given to sons of those with high family status.
It did not matter whether they had the skills to back it up or not.
They did not need to put in a lot of effort to become a minister. 

Those with actual skills and knowledge have no chance to show off their talents.
The restrictions on the imperial examinations was no doubt a way for these poor background scholars. 

From the examination they could become an official and, with the Emperor’s backing, raise up the skills of the cabinet of ministers.
But before they could get their name out, it was nearly impossible to change the difference between the poor and the rich.

After mulling it over for a bit, Chen Miao Ping opened his mouth to say, 

“There is a common saying within the scholars where there is no poor background up and no high family in the bottom.
This is no doubt harsh, but it does have a reason.
Although the official examination is proclaimed fair in that it does not prohibit age or status, one cannot say that there is not still a difference between high status families and those with no background.”

Xie Su Zhi’s face immediately changed as she heard this and she wanted to say something but was stopped by the Emperor.

Chen Miao Ping looked at the face of the Emperor and continued, 

“This difference is not only in the wealth, but also in the background.
If those of poor status want to learn, just talking about the entrance to a teacher, there is a big cost to consider.
In addition to that is the brushes and paper which can all too quickly be used up.
To save money, a lot of scholars would practice calligraphy on the ground with branches.

“Sometimes a family could scrape out their entire fortune and they still might not be able to invest enough for a scholar in the family.
These are part of the invisible shackles and this is only the first issue. 

“The second is that there are too many private teachers that open their schools up in poor places.
These teachers are usually those who failed to continue onwards in the exam and very few are real scholars who could have become bloated from studying.
For those with family backgrounds, they have hundreds and hundreds of scrolls, and they can invite those with actual knowledge and skills to their homes to teach them.
This is already another setback.
The third, the palace exam for the top ranking examinees, the literary essay is only a half……”

The air in the palace was reaching a freezing point.
Chen Miao Ping paused and his eyes met with the worried eyes of Xie Yu Zhi, before moving his eyes away to look up at the Emperor.
Reaching out with two fingers, he said, 

“…… This essay only covers a half, the other half, is reputation.”

“Every examination year, there are numerous intelligent and excellent scholars that gather.
Included within are those of the same rank who will have their reputation passed onto the main examiners, leaving a good impression.
Which means in the case where two essays are comparable, those who have a good reputation will win. 

“This is called winning by voice.
Like this year’s examination, Ji Zhou has Zhao Ying, Lin Chuan has Shi Chun Yun, Lan Tian has Wang Shu Qing.
These men are from the respective wealthy and known families of those areas.
Their networking is naturally higher than the average commoner.
Even within the pool of scholars with no background, those with some reputation are higher than those without, but are still beneath those with status.”

He finished his speech and lifted his hands in a bow to say to the Emperor, 

“Miao Ping did not look carefully at the list of rankings at the District Examinations, but I can boldly take a guess.
These 262 passing examinees must have shadows of these couple of families. 

“Of course, Miao Ping is not saying that these three do not have the real skills and knowledge to back it up, but in comparison to everyone else, they are considered above the rest.
It is not a lie to say that one with no background could study by a freezing window and suffer in the conditions for more than ten years. 

“Freezing is really freezing, suffering is really suffering.
But from the past to now, to be able to fly up to the top, there have only been so many.
Why the books of history would focus its memoirs on these particular scholars with no background who succeeded above the rest is because there are too few of them. 

“The more it became like that, the more the scholars with no backgrounds collected hatred in their hearts for the system.
This year’s cheating scandal is really, only a temptation to lure out those dissatisfied voices.”

His last word dropped and silence reigned in the palace for a long while.
The people from ancient times and the people from the modern ages have a very different perspective and thought process. 

Chen Miao Ping is someone from thousands of years in the future.
He can stand above with many details at his disposal to conclude the whole, having an omniscient view.
To have the ability to look through a history of more than 5000 years, he can see more clearly than any of the people here today.

Xie Yu Zhi and Xie Su Zhi were both deep in thought and the Emperor looked at his personal eunuch, 

“How many of those who the Flower Seeker just mentioned is on the list?”

Someone immediately went to check and not long after, he came back to report, 

“His Majesty, Zhao Ying, Shi Chun Yun and Wang Shu Qing are indeed on the list of rankings.”

Upon hearing this, the Emperor suddenly sighed out a long breath.
He leaned back in his chair and looked at Chen Miao Ping, saying in a tone that was indistinguishable from any emotion, 

“You certainly have a courageous heart to dare to say out loud whatever you are thinking.
Are you not afraid that Zhen will chop your head off?”

Xie Yu Zhi subconsciously was about to rise up, but his actions were stifled by Xie Su Zhi’s immediate sharp glance.

Chen Miao Ping could see that the Emperor was not really angry and completed a bow with composure, 

“To reward or to punish is all from our Majesty’s grace.
If Your Majesty wanted to chop off Miao Ping’s head, Miao Ping has no words of resentment.”

With a complicated expression on his face, the Emperor said, 

“There has been no one daring enough to say that to Zhen.
Every word you said has enough reason and logic, but there are points that Zhen does not agree with.
To say that you enter a teacher’s group, to have them become your master in education, that their practices can influence each prospective scholar’s thought process. 

“Indeed there are a lot of talents who do not make it past the Metropolitan or the District Exams that become private teachers, but are those scholars to be those with no background without enough skill to be knowledgeable without that kind of help? If they are, Zhen is afraid that they might not be up to it after all.”

Chen Miao Ping said, 

“Of course, there are those who can rise above everyone with their own efforts, or with those teachers, but those must be the top of the top.
However, how many of those could actually be produced in such years?”

Ancient texts are hard to understand, meanings are even harder to decipher.
A long, long scroll without any punctuation does not have a set translation.
Hence, there can be so many interpretations of one single text out there.

Seeing that the Emperor was not uttering a sound, Chen Miao Ping only wanted to rush through his meaning and vaguely pass through this, 

“There are many sides to a person, and with that, there are enough and more people out there that make humans unique.
Within history books that have the same sentence, there are many more that try to interpret the meaning. 

“Why there can be extraordinary philosophers and instructors with their own ideas and thoughts that can be considered “extraordinary” is because each word, each phrase has their own interpretations and understandings. 

“Their group of thoughts on those meanings become their own philosophy or school of thought.
In addition to that, thousands of things and thousands of ideas are out there that have a step by step procedure.
One teacher who stops before the Imperial Exam and one teacher who has been through all stages of examinations, may I ask Your Majesty who you think has the more experience?”

With this, those who have a background are already ahead of the race and those who have no backgrounds, coming from poor families are just participant racers, to show that there is a race.
Their limited background is enough to cover them with a blindfold going into the examination halls, so it could be said that everything was already against them.

These words were, however, too straightforward and so Chen Miao Ping did not say it out.
He saw that the Emperor was still contemplating while having some doubts and gave an example, 

“Miao Ping has heard a story before.
A scholar rushing to the exams was met with a pouring rain and must stay at his relatives’.
But for three days, this rain did not rest.
And that relative was also quite a stingy person and did not want him to stay for free and diminish his food supply.
So he wrote on a piece of paper these words —- ‘A raining day keeps guest day(heavens) keeps I do not keep’.
May I ask Your Majesty, how would you explain these words?”

The Emperor thought about it harder and said, 

“A raining day keeps guest, heavens keep I do not.”

Chen Miao Ping smiled and shook his head, 

“Does Your Majesty have any other explanations?”

 

Notes:
*1 Zhen: This is a reference call to “I” or “me” only used by the Emperor
*2 “deserves death”: a phrase that is usually said to the Emperor for being pointed out for doing something wrong or when you have done something wrong.
It can be used in good faith or to save your life, kind of like placating the Emperor and saying that you know you did wrong/were guilty to ease the anger (if not said like in this situation where the Emperor is really just rebuking Xie Yu Zhi and not really outraged)

Special Notice on a schedule change!!!

Alrightie, so another announcement for a schedule change… as we have very much so been too optimistic and overestimated our pile of work on this novel.
(´;︵;`) Chen Miao Ping’s smooth talking and bullshitting skills are seriously off the charts  But, (you may have notice from my reply to comments…) that in turn creates a lot of work for me to research and translate as I mentioned in Chp 39 (in particular, trying to find an official english translation and if there is none, me pretend to be literary scholar and researcher haha), compared to the first volume where most things I already knew the equivalent (or closest to, at least) like the slang and lingo.

Plum is also kind of in the same boat, in the sense that there’s too much information that I have given them and trying to slim that down to something more readable, and to reach my goal of limiting footnotes (as that would be so much easier but it’s way too much jumping around for reading) is a lot for them.
We have found ourselves to take frequent breaks and do it in small batches, but as it stands, it doesn’t exactly work out.
(;´Д`)

So as much as I hate to change the schedule (especially when I am a reader myself and waiting for updates, gah), I will have to cut down one of the release dates, just so we can keep up some sort of schedule before overwhelming the both of us.
For right now, we will just keep Mon, Wed and Fri as when chapters are released (starting from today) to hopefully catch ourselves a bit of a break (seriously, I have an immense appreciation for all those who translate historical genres  and all translators actually because this is hard work, to find the right words).

At this point, I must also say I am very grateful and thankful to everyone who keeps reading (and liking and commenting and providing feedback), as time and time again, my motivation (and Plum’s) to continue really is because so many of you are enjoying this in some way and continue to read this translation ʚ♡⃛ɞ(ू•ᴗ•ू❁) Sincerely (and out of the bottom of my heart), thank you so much for all your support (and all those lovely comments and likes) to power me (and Plum) through!! I will see you Wednesday for the continuation of what’s going happen to Chen Miao Ping! 

>>Edit: The phrase “Wei Chen” has been changed to “This imperial official” as Plum and I have discussed and thought it was better that way, but it seems the editing software did not want to save it and we didn’t notice the blunder before we released the chapter >: ( In any case, if you were questioning what that meant, wei chen means a third person to refer to oneself, to the emperor (cause you can’t really say me/I), and it’s basically to refer that you are a loyal subject to the emperor.
Only pertains to males with positions(ministers/officials).