The Regent’s Secret

Opening his mouth, Zhao Yuan asked the Crown Grandson to teach him, but he never expected that Li Yi would agree. The words he spoke were stubborn, arrogant, and even somewhat provocative. 

The morning light on the cliff shone on him, making him look like a jade-faced beauty with an imposing and heroic aura; while Zhao Yuan stood there as if he were a sword out of Kunwu, radiating brilliance and coldness. 

Li Yi didn’t want to admit it, but he couldn’t stop his heart from pounding with the desire to get closer to him. 

He hesitated for a moment, then slowly nodded and said, “If I have time, I’ll teach you. Does Shizi come here every day?” 

Zhao Yuan was taken aback for a moment before answering, “Yes.”

“Don’t wait every day. If you feel it’s inconvenient to learn with me later, you can find a more suitable teacher.”

Li Yi knew that he couldn’t come every day, and the Shizi’s interest might just be temporary. He could find someone else later.

Three days later, Li Yi returned to Wuliang Mountain and only taught one class, but he found that Zhao Shen had a great talent for language.

For example, he learned pronunciation very quickly. Li Yi only had to teach him a few times, and when he practiced, Zhao Shen would not make any mistakes in pronunciation.

Whenever he corrected the word usage and sentence structure errors, the Shizi could quickly understand and often used them correctly after one or two attempts.

With such intelligence, how could he not learn to read?

Since Li Yi had already taught the official bureaucratic language, he decided to review old lessons by teaching “The Book of Songs” directly.

After teaching for a while, Li Yi felt that his conclusion about Zhao Shen’s intelligence was made too early.

“‘The people of this country do not give me food. They raise and nurture me, and then I return to my clan.’”

The meaning of this passage is that the people of this country refused to give the poet food and raise him. Therefore, the poet lamented and decided to return home to his own clan.

Once this is understood, the next line, “These people in this country cannot be associated with. My words are turned back, and I return to my brothers,” should also be clear. It means that the poet cannot associate with the people of this country and will return to his brothers. ‘

“I don’t understand,” Zhao Yuan said simply.

Li Yi looked at the Shizi’s expression of taking it for granted and had to start over and explain it in detail.

Was language talent and reading ability really two different things? Li Yi comforted himself that he already knew the Shizi wasn’t that clever. As long as he was willing to learn, it was still good, it was just that his foundation was a little weak.

After teaching so many students over the years, he could handle one more, even if it was just this one.

“Your Highness, I see that you have the intention to study, why do you always have to deface your textbook and not be able to listen to the lecture?” Li Yi couldn’t help but ask.

“Does Your Highness not understand?” Zhao Yuan smiled, with a disrespectful tone.

If there were eunuchs around the Crown Grandson at this time, they would have jumped up in anger and scolded him for being disrespectful. But Li Yi thought of the only lunch he had in Pan palace, “Is it the students who did it?”

Zhao Yuan sneered, “Different styles every day, a group of people against one person.”

Zhao Yuan’s words were simple, but Li Yi understood that this was a tactic of using a rotating war to deal with him alone. Today, you splashed ink, tomorrow, I scribble, the day after tomorrow, he will tear the book, and the day after tomorrow, someone will throw away the textbook.

Don’t the teachers care? Li Yi was just about to ask when he suddenly remembered the words of Emperor Guanghua, “Although not very clever, he is someone who sticks to his own duties. Tell them to teach carefully.”

Teach carefully, Li Yi finally understood what this meant. With the attitude of the emperor, everything was explained.

Li Yi looked at the person in front of him and felt that his eyebrows, eyes, and face were like a storm brewing.

“The people of this country do not want to be subservient. Words will return to our nation,” Zhao Yuan suddenly recited in a pure and rhyme-matching bureaucratic language.

“Your Highness, that’s a great poem, isn’t it?” 

Li Yi had a momentary illusion that this Dian Nan Wang Shizi, who was standing in front of him and smiling at him, knew exactly what he was talking about from beginning to end.

But the next moment, the Shizi’s tone completely changed, “At least it’s easier to understand than those gentlemen who speak in a non-gentlemanly way.”

Li Yi was suddenly discouraged and felt that all the lessons before were taught in vain.

With the talent of Dian Nan Wang Shizi, even if he had collected all the scholars in the palace to teach him well, Li Yi felt that the emperor and father were overly concerned.

At first, Li Yi only gave the Shizi a class every four or five days, along with practicing and correcting his bureaucratic language.

This kind of teaching lasted for more than a month, and Li Yi brought a book box to the Shizi, who opened it to find several half-new and old books inside.

They were not newly printed books, nor were they ancient books, and they were not something that someone with Li Yi’s status would show off.

Zhao Yuan flipped through the pages in confusion, the hand-written regular script was elegant and leisurely. The strokes flowed gracefully and were beautiful to look at. Upon closer inspection of the content, it turned out to be the first poem of Xiao Ya, “The Deer’s Call.”

“The deer bellows, feeding on the wild apple.”

Zhao Yuan looked through the other books beside him, including hand-copied versions of “Book of Documents” and “Spring and Autumn Annals,” which were annotated with small characters next to them, clearly notes taken by a student.

This was impossible.

Zhao Yuan looked at Li Yi in astonishment, not because he wanted to pretend he couldn’t speak the official bureaucratic language, but because he really didn’t know what to say.

Li Yi was the Crown Grandson and what was Zhao Yuan’s identity?

“I cannot come here every day. With these, Shizi can review at any time, and I hope you will study hard,” Li Yi said with a smile, picking up his own notes from when he was in the Eastern Palace and continuing the previous lecture.

A few days passed, and the summer solstice had passed. With the minor heat approaching, the daylight was getting brighter day by day.

Li Yi enjoyed the coolness of the mountains and started painting the scenery of Wuliang Mountain every other day. As the Shizi wanted to learn from him, the location of their tutoring sessions changed with Li Yi’s painting locations.

After two consecutive days of heavy rain, the water vapor in the mountains was thick. Li Yi wanted to sketch a waterfall and arranged to meet Zhao Yuan at the Emerald Wave Pond.

Zhao Yuan always arrived at the agreed location before dawn and finished a set of exercises by the time the sun rose, reading books and waiting for Li Yi.

When the Crown Grandson arrived, he usually lectured the Shizi for a while before letting him study on his own. Li Yi painted by the side and answered questions when needed.

For several days, Zhao Yuan could feel someone’s gaze on him. As a martial arts practitioner, he was quite sensitive to this, and after discreetly paying attention, he found that in addition to the Crown Grandson’s attendants occasionally paying attention to him, most of the gazes falling on him came from Li Yi.

Li Yi always looked at him when he pretended not to know.

Zhao Yuan pondered for a moment and suddenly got up and walked towards Li Yi, realizing that the Crown Grandson hastily concealed a piece of familiar parchment when he saw him approaching, then quickly began to paint on the paper again.

Zhao Yuan lowered his head and smiled, slowing down his steps towards Li Yi, thinking that he might as well test him tomorrow.