Shengyuan Continent, Jing Country, Jiangzhou, Dayuan Prefecture, Ji County.
The sky is clear and the sun is shining. Birds are singing happily. The ground is littered with leaves and petals that have been blown down by the night rain, and spring is in the air.
Fang Yun felt cold all over and woke up suddenly. He opened his eyes and looked around blankly.
Fang Yun found himself lying on the bluestone slabs in an alley. The ground was wet. He hurriedly stood up with the help of the wall. At the same time, he felt pain and burning all over his body.
"I clearly remember there was a fire in the library and I jumped off the building to escape. How did I end up here? Where is this place?" Fang Yun thought to himself in confusion.
Fang Yun noticed something was wrong with his clothes. He looked down and was shocked to find that he was wearing ancient linen clothes, which were stained with mud and blood. His arms were thin and small.
There was a small puddle nearby. Fang Yun looked down and saw his face reflected in the puddle.
“Isn’t this me when I was fourteen or fifteen?”
Suddenly, Fang Yun felt a sharp pain in his brain, stars appeared in his eyes, and a large number of memories flooded into his mind. He gritted his teeth and sweat oozed from his forehead.
I don’t know how long it took before Fang Yun calmed down. His eyes were extremely complicated as he slowly recalled the extra memories.
"It turns out that this is no longer Earth, but the Shengyuan Continent that I have never heard of. This young man, also named Fang Yun, has been beaten to death. Did I fall to my death in the library, and then by chance I took over his body? Is this the legendary rebirth?"
"Fang Yun's strongest wish is to become a student and bring honor to his family with his talent. There is actually a power called 'talent' here. Scholars can use their talent to control the 'energy of heaven and earth' and gain even more powerful power. This is really unheard of."
"Huh? The history here..."
Fang Yun discovered that apart from the monsters and barbarians in this world, the history of Shengyuan Continent was normal before the Shang Dynasty, but it underwent tremendous changes since the end of the Shang Dynasty.
At the end of the Shang Dynasty, King Ji Chang of Xibo, who later became King Wen of Zhou, observed the sun, moon and stars and wrote the immortal book "The Book of Changes". A miraculous phenomenon appeared in the sky, and he was inspired to be the second sage by heaven. He went to Xiqi to attack King Zhou.
The Xiqi army was unstoppable and arrived at the Shang Dynasty's capital, Chaoge, after many days. The city gates suddenly opened, and one hundred thousand monsters, three hundred thousand barbarians, and a million Shang soldiers poured out like a tide and surrounded the 200,000 Xiqi soldiers.
King Zhou of Shang stood on the city wall, hugging the fox demon Daji, and cursed the soldiers of Xiqi. Then he ordered a general attack. Seeing that the soldiers of Xiqi were about to suffer a devastating disaster, King Wen of Zhou descended from the sky on a blue cloud.
King Wen of Zhou, dressed in white, looked cold and stern as he listed the ten major crimes of King Zhou of Shang. For every crime he mentioned, the fortune of the Shang Dynasty decreased by 10% and King Zhou of Shang aged 10 years. After King Wen finished speaking, the fortune of the Shang Dynasty collapsed and King Zhou of Shang was about to die.
The talent of King Wen of Zhou turned into a blazing sun, hanging high in the sky. He held the holy book "I Ching" in his hand and recited it. Tiny golden characters flew out of his mouth, getting bigger and bigger, and finally growing to the size of a person. Countless golden characters surrounded the blazing sun of talent, emitting golden light and illuminating the world.
The golden light did not hurt the human race, but the 100,000 demons and 300,000 barbarians suddenly wailed miserably, their bodies split from the inside out, blood splattered everywhere, and they died one after another.
In the end, all five Barbarian Saints died, and only one of the three Demon Saints escaped.
On Muye, blood was flowing and pestles were floating.
When King Zhou died, millions of Shang soldiers surrendered.
Later generations praised King Wen of Zhou: He single-handedly slew the demons and barbarians and brought peace to the world.
Later, King Wen of Zhou passed the throne to King Wu, who devoted himself to studying the Book of Changes and lived to be 500 years old.
After that, there was no one with talent in the world until Confucius was born.
When the sage Confucius was born, he was ugly and deformed, and was abandoned in the wilderness. The weather was very hot, so a goshawk descended and flapped its wings to fan him to drive away the heat. A tigress took Confucius into her den and fed him with tiger milk. Therefore, later generations said that Confucius was "given by a dragon, raised by a tiger, and fanned by an eagle."
Later, the tigress returned Confucius to his mother, who raised him with great care.
Confucius' mother was a concubine. After his father died, Confucius and his mother were driven away by his father's wife.
Confucius was very poor when he was young. After he was canonized as a saint, he once said to his disciples, "I was poor when I was young, so I was able to do many menial jobs." This means that he was very poor when he was young, so he knew many menial skills.
Confucius was very ordinary when he was young, but he showed his uniqueness in middle age and traveled around the countries.
In his old age, Confucius returned to the State of Lu to serve as an official, and finally became the Grand Secretary of Justice, one of the highest officials in the State of Lu, but was eventually squeezed out and resigned.
After resigning from office, Confucius revised the Book of Songs, the Book of History, the Book of Rites, and the Book of Music, and wrote a preface for King Wen's Book of Changes. Finally, Confucius personally wrote the Spring and Autumn Annals. When the book was completed, his talent soared to the sky, the sky was full of stars, the sky was full of clouds, the world was shaken, and he became the second sage.
After being canonized as a saint, Confucius secluded himself for ten years.
Not long after, the snake demon king who had fled during the war between Shang and Zhou dynasties was said to have cultivated for 800 years and made further progress to become a great sage. In an attempt to avenge King Wen's extermination of the demons and barbarians, he launched a massive invasion.
The power of the Great Sage is slightly stronger than that of the human sub-sage, and even King Wen of Zhou was inferior to him.
When the coalition forces of monsters and barbarians arrived at Yuhai City, the people were terrified.
Seeing that the demons were about to attack the city, Confucius flew over on the Wenbao "Wheel of Nations", holding the "Spring and Autumn Book" in his left hand and the "Spring and Autumn Brush" in his right hand. When he saw the Great Sage of the Snake Clan, he smiled and said, "I never tire of fine food, and I never tire of fine meat. Please come into my jar and cook you in a fierce fire."
Millions of demons and barbarians were furious, and saw Confucius picking up his pen. Winds and clouds surged, the sky and the earth changed color, and he wrote nine "Zhu" characters with his pen, one character at a time, killing the Great Sage of the Snake Tribe. He cut the Great Sage of the Snake Tribe into ten, and then Confucius cooked the Great Sage of the Snake Tribe in public and ate the hundred-foot-long Great Sage by himself.
During the cooking process, a coalition of millions of demons and barbarians tried to escape. Confucius casually threw out the Spring and Autumn Book, which covered the sky for three thousand miles. When the big book moved, it killed millions of demons and barbarians.
All the people knelt down and called him a saint.
Later, Confucius founded the first academy, Qufu Academy, breaking the education monopoly of the time. He enrolled 30,000 ordinary disciples, 3,000 personal disciples, and 72 virtuous disciples.
All those who take Confucius as their teacher naturally acquire talent after learning from him.
Later, Confucius went a step further and achieved the status of a sage, unprecedented and unrivaled.
The sage had insight into the secrets of heaven and realized that the human race was facing a great crisis, so he drove a chariot of various countries, went alone to the Three Barbarians, descended to the Four Seas, and climbed the Five Demon Mountains, forcing the demon and barbarian tribes to sign a thousand years of non-war agreement.
No one knows the details of Confucius' journey to the Three Barbarians, the Four Seas and the Five Mountains. All we know is that after his return, Confucius visited hundreds of schools of thought and then remained in seclusion.
After Confucius went into seclusion, Mencius, Xunzi, Zengzi, Zisi and Yan Zi, who received personal instruction from Confucius, were successively conferred the title of Semi-Sage, which is lower than the Sub-Sage.
Confucian disciples no longer opposed the other schools of thought. Confucius' grandson Zisi even proposed the idea of "learning from the hundreds of schools of thought". He took the initiative to ask for advice from the hundreds of schools of thought and helped them learn their talents. Mozi of the Mohist school, Han Fei of the Legalist school, Lü Buwei of the Eclectic school, Xu Xing of the Agricultural school, and Sun Tzu of the Military school were successively named semi-saints.
It was not until Emperor Taizu of Han, Liu Bang, killed the white snake demon and started an uprising that Confucius' disciples learned that he was about to die.
When Confucius passed away, his holy body turned into a column of talent and smoke that went straight into the sky. It lasted for a long time and could be seen by everyone in the world. Three days later, the column of talent and smoke split into three parts: one went into the Qufu Academy, one went into 30,000 disciples, and one went into the world.
The five semi-sages, Mencius, Xunzi, Zengzi, Zisi and Yan Zi, therefore went one step further and were named sub-sages.
Since then, the era of talent has begun.
From then on, the Hundred Schools of Thought finally came under Confucianism.
Without the tragedy of overthrowing all schools of thought, the human race would flourish.
After Confucius' death, Qufu Academy was renamed "Shengyuan" and had an extraordinary status.
The Holy Academy gradually improved its talent and strength, adhering to Confucius's will, absorbing the essence of hundreds of schools of thought, selecting people based on their talents, and establishing ten literary ranks, namely, tongsheng, xiucai, juren, jinshi, Hanlin, daxueshi, daru, half-sage, second-sage, and sage.
The higher the scholar's literary rank, the more talent he has, and the stronger the vitality of heaven and earth he controls.
Fang Yun's heart was filled with excitement. He didn't expect that there was such a magical world.
"As long as you become a Tongsheng, you will have the most basic 'talent' and at the same time obtain the gift of literary rank. The gift of a Tongsheng is 'clear night vision', which means you can see things at night and read at night without lighting an oil lamp. Becoming a Xiucai is even more amazing, as you can 'talk about war on paper'. This is not a mocking remark, but the war poems and lyrics written by the Xiucai can turn words into reality and form a powerful force. When you have a higher literary rank, you will have even more incredible divine power."
Fang Yun recalled that Shengyuan Continent also experienced the Qin, Han and Three Kingdoms periods, and currently there are ten countries in Shengyuan Continent. Fang Yun deduced from recent historical figures that Shengyuan Continent was probably before the Sui and Tang Dynasties.
Fang Yun enumerated the celebrities who had been canonized recently.
Wang Xizhi, known as the "Saint of Calligraphy", was named a semi-saint, second only to the second-saint, based on his works "Preface to the Lanting Collection", "Ping'an Tie" and "Sangluan Tie".
Tao Yuanming was named a semi-saint for his works such as "Peach Blossom Spring", "Biography of Mr. Five Willows" and "Returning to the Countryside".
Zu Chongzhi was awarded the title of semi-saint for his works "Zhuishu", "Damingli" and "Yiyi".
Li Daoyuan was canonized as a semi-saint thanks to his "Annotations to the Classic of Waterways" and "Benzhi".
Fan Zhen was named a great scholar for his "Theory of the Extinction of Gods", second only to a semi-sage.
But, there is no Li Bai! No Du Fu!
No Bai Juyi! No Wang Changling!
No Li Shangyin! No Wen Tingyun!
No Wang Wei! No Du Mu!
No Han Yu! No Liu Zongyuan!
There is no Yan Zhenqing! There is no Liu Gongquan!
No Su Dongpo! No Ouyang Xiu!
No Lu You! No Li Qingzhao!
There is no Lu Jiuyuan! There is no Cheng Yi and Cheng Hao! There is no Zhu Xi! There is no Wang Yangming!
There is not a single celebrity after the Sui and Tang Dynasties!
Fang Yun took a deep breath. There was no doubt that this might be the best time for him!
Suddenly, Fang Yun's expression changed slightly, because he just remembered his current identity and today.
Fang Yun came from a poor family. His parents died early, and he had only a child bride named Yuhuan who was three years older than him.
The Fang family could not afford to buy a child bride, but Yuhuan was taken by her father to escape famine and was taken in by the Fang family. Her father stole the little money the Fang family had to gamble, but he lost and cheated, and was beaten to death. Before he died, he said that he would sell Yuhuan to the Fang family as a child bride to repay the money.
Yuhuan had been a beauty since she was young, and she became even more beautiful when she grew up. She was called "Jiangzhou Xishi" by her neighbors. Even though her family was poor and she could only wear a very simple coarse cloth skirt, it was difficult to conceal her peerless grace.
After their parents passed away, Fang Yun and Yuhuan depended on each other. Yuhuan was clever and skillful and made money by doing needlework.
Fang Yun studied in a private school in the morning and started working as a waiter in the Jixiang Restaurant at noon to make a living, with the intention of passing the examination to become a student.