Cyber ​​Daming

Chapter 686 Parting ways
"Liu Jinxun, the so-called 'Great Confucian Order' is essentially 'Confucianism in appearance and legalism in nature', which runs counter to the Confucian idea of ​​'ruling the world and comforting the people'. If it is really put into practice, it will only stir up chaos in the entire Ming Empire, and it will not be of any benefit at all!"

"Pei Xingjian, stop talking nonsense and exaggerating! 'The Great Confucian Preface' and 'Governing the World and Comforting the People' are clearly of the same lineage, and they are further consolidated and improved."

Among the crowd, the young man in a snow-white Confucian robe looked like stars surrounding a bright moon, and his every move showed his wealth and elegance.

"Take a good look at this. The imperial family in the empire is now in decline, the martial order is rampant with brute force, and the Buddhist and Taoist schools are misleading people with foolish faith. If we don't practice the 'Great Confucian Order' and establish our dominant position in the order, how can you rule the world and comfort the people?"

"What we pursue in governing the country is peace and tranquility, and what we hope for in comforting the people is a period of rest and recuperation! What you want is nothing more than to dismiss the side schools and respect Confucianism alone. What's the difference between that and the vertical and horizontal schools that provoke wars to achieve their goals?"

The one who engaged in the verbal battle with the scholar in white was a sloppy young man who was simply dressed and unkempt.

Although the number of his companions was far less than that of the opposite side, all of them had a resolute expression and their momentum was not inferior at all.

"Pei Xingjian, Zonghengxu is the ancestral order of the Ming Dynasty imperial family. How can you slander it casually?"

"That's right, the royal ancestor is Zongheng, but Zongheng is not only composed of royal family members. The trick of changing the concept will not work in public. Besides, this is the New Donglin Academy, not the imperial court. Why don't I dare to say it?"

When he was young, Pei Xingjian was like a sword drawn from its sheath, his words were sharp and unstoppable.

"But you, Liu Jinxun, have clearly chosen to pursue a career in scholarship, but you are here openly flattering the royal family. Could it be that you want to enter the officialdom one day, rely on the imperial power, and seek a smooth path to success?"

Pei Xingjian spoke very quickly, crossed his arms and sneered, "But you are right. After all, you are a direct descendant of a powerful family. Official positions, ranks, and status are all within your reach. Why do you need to work hard? If you ask me, you shouldn't go to the academy to study. Isn't it better to enjoy the protection of your ancestors? Why do you have to squeeze in with us, a bunch of peasants?"

A series of sarcastic remarks were thrown out, and the atmosphere in the field suddenly became tense.

The two groups of students, led by Liu Jinxun and Pei Xingjian, gritted their teeth, clenched their fists, had red eyes, stood on tiptoe and stretched their necks, ready to make a move.

There were also veterans with rich experience in struggle who crouched down inconspicuously and groped for the gravel and mud on the ground.

Liu Jinxun looked at the tumultuous crowd with cold eyes: "Pei Xingjian, you said I was changing the subject, but now aren't you also trying to divert the conflict?"

"One's birth to be rich or poor is determined by fate. No one can change it. It is meaningless to provoke opposition based on birth. Only the truth is determined by people's hearts. The academic achievements and works of our children from aristocratic families are never inferior to yours!"

"Okay, you said that the higher or lower truth is determined by the human heart. That's a really good point! Then let's discuss the higher or lower truth today!"

Pei Xingjian paced around, looked around, and stood in front of Liu Jinxun.

"Let me ask you, since it is the 'Great Confucian Sequence', what is the greatness of the Confucian Sequence?"

“You know the answer but you still ask.”

Liu Jinxun frowned slightly. The other party's arrogant look and aggressive tone made him feel very uncomfortable.

"Of course it is the dominance of the imperial order."

“That’s domination.”

"Don't generalize."

"But you cannot deny that in order to achieve dominance over the imperial order, other sequences must be completely defeated."

Pei Xingjian blinked, "Isn't it?"

"Nowadays, the sects, Taoist temples, Buddhist temples, academies, imperial power, sorcerers, and craftsmen in the empire are all fighting each other, causing great suffering to the people. This is the situation we are facing now."

Liu Jinxun avoided Pei Xingjian's gaze and looked around.

"You are right. To gain absolute dominance and educate the people, we must defeat the other sequences."

Liu Jinxun turned around and looked directly at his opponent: "Now that we are united and fighting against foreign enemies, aren't we doing the same thing? Aren't we rebuilding the order of the empire?"

"We are fighting to encourage all parties to coexist and quell civil unrest, not to dominate the world alone! A slight mistake can lead to a huge error!"

"If we are so merciful and soft-handed, even if we can achieve temporary coexistence at the moment, the final result will only be chaos again. Only by occupying an absolute dominant position can we make other sequences restrain their ambitions and truly gain a lasting peace!"

"This is an unrealistic fantasy! Among the six arts of Confucianism, only those who practice Archery and Defense have enough combat power, but they are still no match for Martial Arts and Taoism. If we use the old method of water dripping through a stone to corrode and infiltrate, the methods of Buddhism, Yin-Yang, and Zongheng are just as good as ours. We don't have an absolute advantage on both offense and defense, so what can you use to seize absolute dominance?"

"Pei Xingjian, don't exaggerate here. Wu and Dao may be strong, but the arrogant will be defeated. Yin Yang and Zong Heng may be wise, but they are just a pile of loose sand. The other sequences are nothing to be afraid of. Sooner or later, they will be driven out of the empire by us!"

"Who can't talk about war on paper? But when it comes to that, will Ruxu rely on you? Or will it rely on the group of rich and well-fed young masters behind you?"

Facing the sarcastic looks and mocking sneers, the young man in white took a step forward, his handsome brows full of righteousness and calmness.

"If you can achieve the greatness of Confucianism, I, Liu Jinxun, will be the first to die!"

With these words, everyone in the audience was shocked by the young man's momentum.

His companions standing behind him all blushed, their bodies trembled, and they raised their right arms one after another.

At first, there was a chaotic sound of people shouting out their hometowns and surnames, but it gradually became uniform and finally converged into a deafening roar.

"Be the first to die!"

"Be the first to die!"

Among the crowd that was retreating continuously and about to be defeated, the young Pei Xingjian stood at the front, his face full of shock and horror.

This was the first time in his fight with this group of rich kids that he was refuted so speechless and lost so miserably.

Pei Xingjian blurted out in anger: "Liu Jinxun, don't pretend to be so righteous. Aren't you acting like this just because this is the policy paper written by the headmaster himself? You are just a sycophantic villain!"

"If I am a villain who curries favor with the powerful, then you are a clown who seeks attention!"

Looking at his helpless opponent, Liu Jinxun smiled proudly: "Pei Xingjian, you always go against the teachers and leaders, flaunt your own uniqueness, and play the role of a fearless troublemaker. In fact, you just want to attract everyone's attention and earn the admiration of your classmates!"

Pei Xingjian's face turned pale and he shouted angrily, "You are slandering me!"

"Bloody spewing?"

Liu Jinxun snorted coldly, and a green brick appeared on the palm of his hand that he stretched out from his sleeve. There was green moss on the corners, and it was obvious that it had just been removed from the courtyard wall next to him.

"Not only am I going to blast you, I'm going to beat you up! Brothers, beat them up!"

Pei Xingjian's eyes widened and he tried to retreat but someone grabbed him by the collar. He could only watch as a gray brick covered in mud grew larger in his sight.

Snapped!
Snapped!Snapped!Snapped!
The whip shadows, so fast that they were blurred, mercilessly lashed Pei Xingjian's back, leaving his skin and flesh torn.

"Pei Xingjian, you don't study the six arts well all day long. You lead trouble everywhere, disrespect your teachers and classmates. Do you think that no one in this new Donglin Academy is worthy of your respect, and the rules of the academy can't restrain you, so you say whatever you want and do whatever you want?"

"Principal, all students in the academy can speak freely, but how can I be considered as disobeying the rules you set?"

At this moment, Pei Xingjian's face was bruised and swollen, his nose was crooked, and he trembled in pain every time he spoke, but he still maintained his stubborn attitude.

"And the students don't disrespect their teachers and classmates at all. On the contrary, it is precisely because the students respect them very much that they are so enthusiastic to discuss the academic and philosophical concepts of our Ruxu with them."

"Are you sure you just want to discuss and exchange ideas, and not to provoke a fight?"

"Of course not"

Pei Xingjian shook his head with a crisp sound, and then it got stuck at a strange angle and couldn't move.

"A gentleman should speak with his mouth, not with his fists. I am a student who will follow the path of etiquette and art in the future. How could I possibly do such an uncivilized and rude act?"

"You mean, not only did you do nothing wrong, but you did it very well?"

Pei Xingjian smiled and said, "I can't say it's very good, at most it's average. I still need to learn more from you."

"Then can you tell me what happened to Liu Jinxun's eyes? Didn't you hit him?"

Pei Xingjian subconsciously turned his head upon hearing this, and just in time saw Liu Jinxun kneeling beside him, staring at him with a pair of dark circles under his eyes.

In the gang fight that just broke out, although Pei Xingjian was ambushed and hit in the face with a brick, he, a veteran of many battles, managed to endure the severe pain and did not fall down. He attacked Liu Jinxun's face with both arms and swung his arms.

On the other hand, those rich kids who were instigated by Liu Jinxun were still unable to change their nature of being strong on the outside but weak on the inside, and they lost their courage when they saw a little blood. Bai Bai had such a huge advantage in numbers, but was still beaten to a pulp by his side.

"I was not well prepared for this literary fight and was a little inferior. Fortunately, I still won the physical fight and did not lose face."

Pei Xingjian's thoughts raced, and he felt very proud.

"But the headmaster seems to be very angry today. If that bastard Liu Jinxun continues to make things worse, I will be in trouble."

Just as Pei Xingjian sighed and was about to confess, a hoarse voice sounded in his ears.

"To answer the dean's question, this injury was caused by me accidentally during the chaos just now. It has nothing to do with Junior Brother Pei."

Pei Xingjian was stunned, and saw two inconspicuous black eyeballs moving left and right among the two black bruises, with arrogance in their eyes undiminished.

This bastard
"Liu Jinxun, are you sure?" the old man asked in a deep voice.

"Sure!"

"Pei Xingjian, do you think so too?"

Seeing the old man turning around to look at him, Pei Xingjian lowered his head obediently and said, "Shanzhang, I know I was wrong." "You are lucky this time."

The old man snorted coldly: "Get lost! If you do this again, you will just pack up and leave."

"Okay."

Pei Xingjian curled up into a ball, kicked his feet, and rolled away on the ground.

"Lawless little bastard."

Amid the curses that sounded above his head, Liu Jinxun clearly heard a faint smile among them, and his heart suddenly felt a little sad for no reason, making him feel stuffy in his chest and his nose sour.

At this moment, Pei Xingjian, who had rolled away, climbed up using his hands and feet, but he did not run away in a hurry, but looked back.

Suddenly, their eyes met.

Pei Xingjian raised his hand and made a strange gesture towards Liu Jinxun.

Outsiders may not understand the meaning of this, but as a student of the New Donglin Academy, Liu Jinxun naturally understands that this is a popular and commonly accepted code among their students.

The meaning is also very simple, it only takes two words to say it.

Impressed.

Liu Jinxun grinned, and all the unspeakable emotions disappeared in an instant.

"Do you feel that you are very righteous and proud?"

The old man's tone became stern again: "You are so good, now you dare to bully my junior fellow student in the name of this old man. If the guards hadn't arrived quickly this time, would you have planned to kill a few more people to establish your authority?"

"I do not have."

"Now that you know you don't have it, why were you so brave when you were trying to excuse Pei Xingjian just now?"

Snapped!
A whip shadow fell, and the piercing pain tore through the skin and drilled into the bones.

"As a senior, he did not set an example for others, but instead learned the chivalry of the martial artists, engaging in fights and making trouble out of nothing."

"Have you understood the pros and cons of my policy paper? Have you thought through the key points? You dare to speak nonsense in public without knowing anything. It's okay if you don't want to make progress, but don't implicate and mislead other classmates!"

Whip shadows kept falling, and blood splattered everywhere.

Liu Jinxun raised his head and gritted his teeth, allowing the severe pain to wreak on him without saying a word.

"you"

An iron bar was thrown onto the ground covered with sweat and blood.

"You have a bad temper and are stubborn. You are cruel to others and yourself. I don't know how you developed this kind of personality. If you are like this, you will suffer a great loss after you leave the academy!"

"Then I will not leave the academy and will serve you for the rest of my life."

"Stubborn."

The old man shouted sternly, "Liu Jinxun, do you know whether you are wrong or not?"

Liu Jinxun, covered in blood, knelt tremblingly, with his hands on his legs, his back straight and a determined look.

"What do you mean?"

"Teacher, I am not wrong."

As soon as he finished speaking, his black hair turned white and the blood on his body turned into smoke and dust.

Decades apart, it seemed that two figures of Liu Jinxun, one young and one old, overlapped and knelt in front of the old man, saying the same words.

"Even Pei Xingjian admired me before, and he didn't support your current idea. Why do you still abandon us and choose to go your own way?"

Liu Jinxun's voice trembled: "Teacher, do you really think you are not at fault at all?"

"What's wrong with me?"

The old man who had just bent the bow and shot the moon has lost all his wildness and heroism, leaving only a stubborn old man.

"You have carefully cultivated Emperor Jiaqi Zhu Yiyan in the capital for thirteen years, but he still hasn't changed his wild nature. What he wants in his heart is to revive the Zhu Ming imperial family by any means necessary!"

"You protected the legal order and supported Shang Shang to manage the laws of the Ming Dynasty, but Shang Sigu still chose to rebel and was desperate to kill you!"

"You want to reform the Confucian order, so you let Pei Xingjian and Yang Baize slaughter so many powerful families. Don't forget that they once stood firmly behind you, even if there were mountains of swords and seas of fire in front of them, they would not turn back!"

The continuous questioning seemed to be more powerful than the sword energy that fell from the sky, causing Zhang Fengyue's figure to shake and he could not help but stagger back.

A strong hand held the old man back.

Li Jun stood beside Zhang Fengyue, with a bloody knife wound across his chest and a twisted and deformed ruler in his right hand.

As for Shang Sigu, the only trace left was the dots jumping in front of Li Jun's eyes.

"You left New Donglin Academy, and I no longer have a principal. But I still regard you as my teacher and my idol for life. But everything you did made me realize that you can make mistakes."

Liu Jinxun stopped kneeling and stood up.

"Cutting off the sequence and destroying the connection between heaven and earth is only your thought, but now you are forcing it on everyone in this world. Teacher, have you ever considered us at all in your heart? Have you?!"

"You don't understand, Jinxun."

Zhang Fengyue didn't want to look at those burning eyes again. He closed his eyes and raised his head, his tone heavy and helpless.

"It's not that I don't understand you, it's that you never understand me."

Liu Jinxun's eyes were red, he raised his hands and pounded his chest with fists, making muffled sounds and blood flowing from his mouth and nose.

"In your eyes, Pei Xingjian is the only student who can satisfy you. There has never been a place for me. Even though I followed you from the academy to the government and have been respectful to you all my life, you still say that I am wrong and that I don't understand!"

"You are not my headmaster, nor my teacher! You are just Zhang Fengyue, the Prime Minister of the Ming Empire, and the biggest sinner of the Confucian Order!"

Liu Jinxun, looking like a madman, rushed out, as if he was ready to risk his life to die together with Zhang Fengyue.

Li Jun stepped sideways and stabbed out with the twisted ruler in his hand without mercy.

Pfft!

Liu Jinxun did not dodge or evade, allowing the cold light to penetrate his chest and the force of the collapse to crush his heart.

"Li Jun, do you know that if I wanted to kill you that day, you wouldn't have been able to leave Jinling so easily! I have never been afraid of you, Wuxu."

Li Jun nodded silently. Liu Jinxun smiled when he saw this. His gradually distracted gaze swept over Li Jun's shoulder and looked at the old man with a gloomy expression behind him.

He said in a tiny voice that only Li Jun could hear.

"Don't, don't let him, the old man is too tired."

Liu Jinxun fell to his knees and died.

Li Jun did not look at the words that appeared in front of him, and poured all his accumulated points into the body-building and martial arts tempering: [Ten Thousand Miles of Mountains and Rivers].

The changes of refining and improvement took place quietly in the body, but Li Jun had no intention to look closely. He only saw him take a deep breath and raise his right arm to shoulder level. The floating scarlet eye did not cover the center of the eyebrows this time, but fell on the shoulder.

The dark golden armor scales flowed down his arm and gathered into an embroidered spring sword in his palm.

This time Li Jun no longer needed armor, he just needed an indestructible blade.

He will be able to completely kill this tough old Taoist priest from Mount Longhu!

Above the sky, the broken mountain did not fall, but was held up by the intertwined giant swords.

At this moment, a figure wearing helmet and armor flew out from the wreckage of the collapsed mountain. The aura he exuded was somewhat similar to that of Chen Qisheng!
The Taoist priest wore armor and held a sword, while the warrior held the sword with his bare chest.

There were no dazzling spells and talismans, only silver-white thunder and black-red lightning suddenly appeared between heaven and earth!

clang!
The wind and rain that had been silent for a long time swept in again, blowing the old man's wide robe, and the water marks filled the grooves on his face in the blink of an eye.

Zhang Fengyue opened his eyes with difficulty. This simple action seemed to have exhausted all his strength.

"You are most like me, how could I not understand you?"

He sighed faintly, but he could no longer catch up with the departing soul.

(End of this chapter)