"The Confucian School is divided into the civil and martial factions. I belong to the civil faction and do not know martial arts. If you want to fight, go fight outside, and do not harm the innocent!" Yanyan walked back to his book chest, cupped his fists in a salute to the three Lesser Master of Fates, and spoke with neither servility nor overbearing.
The Black and White Sisters looked at Lesser Master of Fate. The very reason they had fled into the caravan was because they knew Lesser Master of Fate would not strike amidst a crowd.
"Naturally!" replied the Black and White Sisters.
Lesser Master of Fate's gaze remained fixed on the Black and White Sisters. Hearing Yanyan's words, she finally withdrew her gaze, flickered a few times, and vanished into the caravan, maintaining her aloof and cold demeanor to the absolute core.
"She's gone?" Yanyan watched the vanished Lesser Master of Fate, and looked hesitantly at the Black and White Sisters.
"How is that possible?" The white-robed girl shook her head with a bitter smile.
If Lesser Master of Fate were so easily shaken off, they would not have been chased all the way from the Luosheng Hall to this place.
Furthermore, it was obvious that the Yin-Yang School had already abandoned them. At least Donghuang Taiyi, Moon God, and Xinghun had not come out to stop it, which clearly showed they were intentionally condoning it.
"Your affairs—I don't want to meddle in them, and I can't afford to!" Seeing the Black and White Sisters look toward him, Yanyan resolutely shook his head.
He certainly didn't dare to interfere in matters concerning the Yin-Yang School, and he knew very well what the Black and White Sisters were plotting.
They simply wanted to use him to seek help from the grand scholar and teacher standing behind him.
However, they were neither relatives nor acquaintances; why should he invite trouble and needlessly bring a huge disaster upon the Yan Family?
A gentleman does not stand under a dangerous wall. In this regard, Yanyan was well aware of his own limitations—especially since he truly did not know martial arts!
He had only himself to blame for this predicament. Back at Yushan Academy, the Libationer and the proctors had asked him which of the Confucian School's inner cultivation mental arts he wished to practice, and had listed the top-tier Confucian techniques for him.
There were the Mind-Forgetting Mental Art, the Kingly Way Mental Art, the Sage Mental Art, the Flowing Waters Mental Art, and other top-tier techniques. Yet, of all things, Yanyan had chosen the Grand Qi of Vastness, which had been introduced with such extravagant praise!
He still remembered that he was only six years old at the time. The inner cultivation mental arts of the Confucian School also required tempering from childhood, and once chosen, one could only practice a single art with no possibility of changing it. Moreover, the classics and meanings studied afterwards would also be somewhat biased.
Yet the Grand Qi of Vastness was placed in the highest position, listed alongside the Great Way's Course. All the others—Mind-Forgetting, the Vast Kingly Way, and the Nameless Sage—ranked behind these two.
The explanation and commentary for the Grand Qi of Vastness consisted of only a single sentence: *The most grand and most unyielding martial art in the world!*
And so, Yanyan had excitedly chosen the Grand Qi of Vastness!
After all, having been poisoned by novels from later generations, he deeply understood that what Confucians cultivated was precisely a breath of the Grand Qi of Vastness.
The result can be imagined. The Libationer and the proctors had looked at him with profound expressions and asked if he would regret it.
He had firmly answered that he would not regret it!
Then he was informed that whether it was the Grand Qi of Vastness or the Great Way's Course, both were legendary mental arts and martial techniques proposed by the Confucian School, and absolutely no cultivation methods for them existed whatsoever.
They were merely utopian concepts, just like the ideal spiritual kingdom of the Great Way's Course where the world belongs to the public—they could only be imagined, but could never be attained.
The Grand Qi of Vastness was the same.
It first appeared in the book Mencius, where Mencius stated that he was good at nurturing a breath of the grand qi.
Later, the Yan Family went to investigate, and it turned out that Mencius was nothing more than a master of empty rhetoric who used it to fool his disciples and enemies. He had imagined a most grand and most unyielding grand qi, and at the same time explained what kind of existence this grand qi was.
However, later on, a whole bunch of proud prodigies throughout the entire Confucian School went to study it, trying to nurture that breath of grand qi. The final result was that all of them crippled themselves; not a shred of grand qi was born, but plenty of anger was generated.
The Confucian School also valued its pride and dignity, and stubbornly refused to admit that the grand qi could not be cultivated—especially given the mockery from Mencius's lineage, which taunted the various Confucian branches for failing to cultivate it because they were too incompetent, rather than there being any problem with the Grand Qi of Vastness!
Their core strategy was simply a flat refusal to admit it!
Thus, the Grand Qi of Vastness was shelved by the Confucian School, and no one ever attempted to practice it again.
Yanyan's misfortune lay in the fact that some unscrupulous fellow had actually placed this Grand Qi of Vastness into the Library, where he happened to lay eyes on it!
And Yushan Academy perhaps remained unwilling to give up, hoping to test whether he could manage to cultivate the Grand Qi of Vastness. Consequently, they did not give him the opportunity to switch to cultivating other Confucian mental arts.
As compensation, he was allowed to freely study and borrow all Confucian classics without being restricted to just a single classic.
Here, Yanyan could not help but sigh with emotion that too many classics had been lost to later generations.
The Confucian classics at this time totaled fourteen: the *Classic of Filial Piety*, the *Three Hundred Poems*, the *Classic of Music*, the *Book of Documents*, the *Rites of Zhou*, the *Book of Changes*, the *Spring and Autumn Annals*, the *Zuo Commentary*, the *Gongyang Commentary*, the *Guliang Commentary*, the *Analects*, the *Great Learning*, the *Doctrine of the Mean*, and *Mencius*.
Rather than merely having the Four Books and Five Classics, the *Classic of Filial Piety* served as the initiation for all classics.
The most regrettable part was that among the fourteen classics, most were preserved and passed down, while only the *Classic of Music* was completely lost. The chain reaction of this was that the *Three Hundred Poems* also lost its matching musical accompaniments.
Therefore, what Yanyan rejoiced in was being able to see the *Classic of Music* once again and study it!
"The words of Confucians are deceptive ghosts; Confucian scholars are even more detestable than the Gongyang!" The black-robed Lesser Master of Fate glared at Yanyan.
If one believed even half of what Confucians said, it would still be too much. It wasn't as if they hadn't witnessed a Confucian grand scholar who claimed the very second before that he was a scholar who knew no martial arts, only to slap a group of top-tier experts onto the wall the next moment.
When Confucian scholars said they didn't know martial arts, there were two situations: one was that they truly didn't know martial arts, and the other was that they believed what they practiced was not martial arts—or rather, that no one was worthy of discussing martial arts with them, and they disdained even speaking of it!
However, the graduation standard for the Confucian School was proficiency in both civil and martial arts. Who would believe someone who didn't know martial skills?
Yanyan had no intention of entertaining the two sisters. They were already among the Five Elders of the Yin-Yang School; since he was not out of his mind, he had better not go looking for death.
"They won't make a move within the caravan. Just leave them be!" Yanyan found the steward and offered a reminder.
"Many thanks!" The steward let out a sigh of relief. As long as it didn't affect the caravan, it had nothing to do with him, so he respectfully presented a cloth pouch with both hands.
Yanyan knew what was inside the pouch—nothing more than Chu currency—but since he hadn't helped with anything, he naturally wouldn't take it.
"A gentleman loves wealth and acquires it through proper ways. I did nothing to help in this matter, so I would feel ashamed to accept this!" Yanyan turned around and left.
Watching Yanyan's retreating figure, the steward still felt a deep sense of admiration. As expected of a disciple from a prominent family, this demeanor was simply beyond the reach of ordinary people.
The subsequent journey proved peaceful and quiet. The only slightly unpleasant part was that at night, Lesser Master of Fate would always appear in the camp.
Yanyan could understand; even martial arts experts needed to rest, so Lesser Master of Fate was likely afraid the Black and White Sisters would escape and thus needed to conduct close surveillance to prevent the two from running away.
"Don't you think you're a bit foolish?" Yanyan said, looking at Lesser Master of Fate, who was sitting not far from him, yet still emanating a maiden's delicate fragrance.
Lesser Master of Fate's pair of lovely, starry eyes still gazed at Yanyan without any emotion, but the movement of her turning her head also showed that she was not entirely devoid of feelings—especially as a Myriad Leaves Flying Blossom Style danced and flowed across her nimble fingertips.