Wang Shuyang and Hei Baizi’s eyes suddenly lit up as they Zu An. They both rushed over excitedly and said, “Sir Zu, we finally found you.”

The crown princess was speechless. What the hell is going on? Am I dreaming?

Junior sister Qi Yaoguang finally couldn’t stand it anymore. “What the heck is up with you all today? One after another? His future might have peach blossoms, but they’re not chrysanthemums!”[1] By her predictions, Zu An might be entangled with a lot of women in his life. But why didn’t she see any women, and instead saw a bunch of men rushing at him with infatuation?

Zu An looked at the little girl, marveling. This sweet looking girl could actually talk like that? Furthermore, did chrysanthemums have that meaning in this world too?

Hei Baizi didn’t pay her any attention and grabbed Zu An’s hands. “Sir Zu, I played another dozen rounds with my disciple. I finally know where I was defeated! Come, come, come, let’s play another round! I definitely won’t lose so easily this time.”

The crown princess began to question life now. If her memory served her correctly, wasn’t Hei Baizi the Go saint? She had never heard of anyone in the capital defeating him in Go. This man was incredibly arrogant! Yet judging from the sounds of it, he seemed to have lost to Zu An?

Qi Yaoguang also voiced her surprise. She looked at Zu An with curiosity and asked what the crown princess was curious about. “You won against Hei Baizi?”

Zu An humbly said, “It was just by a fluke, a fluke.”

Hei Baizi said with a sigh of admiration, “It wasn’t a fluke at all. Only after reviewing our game did I realize that there were dozens of vicious traps hidden behind every single piece played. No matter how I tried to counter them, it would only pressure me closer and closer to defeat. Such a level of chess strategy even leaves me in amazement.”

The crown princess’ cheeks turned red when she heard that. She had found that the five-in-a-row game Zu An had taught the crown prince was crude and simple, and she had wanted to blame him for leading the crown prince astray, wishing to call him ignorant and incompetent. Who could have thought that Zu An’s skills were this great!? Even Hei Baizi felt inferior?

The crown princess came from a distinguished clan. She was different from those noble daughters that loved rebels; she actually liked a man who excelled in the traditional system of values more. Gentle, well-educated and accomplished young masters were what she liked the most.

Zu An met her standards in terms of outward appearance, but he had always carried that stupid unruliness from the streets that she had never really liked. She hadn’t expected him to have such talent! Of the four arts—zither, Go, calligraphy, and painting—Go was the most difficult. If he was so formidable in even the most difficult of the four, then how could he be lacking in the others?

She suddenly remembered that she’d had her subordinates look into Zu An’s background. He seemed to have been well-known in Brightmoon City for his songwriting and poetry, but she hadn’t paid much attention to it back then. She had assumed that he’d merely used that to court girls from the brothel, and that he didn’t have any real skills…

But now, she suddenly realized that he was a real genius; it was just that he usually deliberately chose not to show off that side. Instead, he disguised himself with his usual frivolous appearance. Why would he do that?

To begin with, he had been brought to the capital by his majesty because he had obtained the method of eternal life, the Phoenix Nirvana Sutra. Then, he had managed to become hated by King Qi’s faction. Pressed between the capital’s two powers, he might be crushed if he even slipped up a little bit. He was probably acting like this on purpose to protect himself.

She couldn’t help but feel pity when she thought of that. According to the information she read, she remembered that Zu An was an orphan, and the only family he had left, his uncle, had also died. Then, he had suffered all sorts of mistreatment when he was taken into the Chu clan.

Just as he had finally managed to gain a stable footing in the Chu clan, the Phoenix Nirvana Sutra matter had popped up. The Chu clan had then ruthlessly abandoned him. Now, he was all alone in the capital with no one to count on but himself. He was just too pitiful.

I have to do what I can to treat him a bit better in the future… The crown prince suddenly appeared in the crown princess’ head. Compared to Zu An, the crown prince was the complete opposite! He was trash who only knew how to eat until the day he died.

...

While the crown princess was lost in thought, Qi Yaoguang asked Zu An with great curiosity, “Even though Hei Baizi can’t win against me, his skills are still passable. You actually won against him? Hey, let’s play a game too!”

Hei Baizi’s face immediately turned as black as a black piece. He was the glorious Go Saint, and yet this stupid girl always left him at such a loss. The worst part was that it wasn’t even his skills that were worse! He would always feel wronged when he thought of that.

Zu An said with an embarrassed smile, “Another day, another day.”

Qi Yaoguang smiled and said, “Okay, then we’ll play another day. It’s decided!”

Wang Shuyang finally couldn’t hold himself back anymore. He pushed Hei Baizi and Qi Yaoguang to the side. “You’re all only talking about trifling things that sap the will! Don’t interfere with my important matters.”

Hei Baizi harrumphed. “Who said we weren’t talking about important matters?” Even though he was a bit upset, he knew that Wang Shuyang was indeed a good citizen who worried for the people. That was why his voice became quieter and quieter, unable to argue with Wang Shuyang.

Wang Shuyang tugged Zu An’s arm and said, “Sir Zu, I thought carefully about the hybridized paddy farming you suggested to me earlier. I realized that there was one large issue! After all, rice paddy flowers are all hermaphrodites and they self pollinate. If we wanted to crossbreed them, we would have to cut off their stamens. However, their flowers are so small, it’s practically impossible!”

Zu An sighed in relief. Thank goodness he knew the answer to this question. In the past, there had been arguments on precisely this topic. As a keyboard warrior, he had participated in these arguments and read up on some such things during the process. He just happened to know about this problem.

“That’s not too difficult of a matter. Look for male rice flowers that grow naturally in the wild. There are issues with their stamens, but the pistils are fine. Won’t you be able to crossbreed then?” Zu An replied.

Wang Shuyang’s eyes lit up. He couldn’t hold back his admiration. “Wonderful! A single sentence from sir is equivalent to a decade of reading! Sir Zu, please accept my kowtow.” Then, he bowed to Zu An respectfully.

The other disciples were incredibly shocked. Even though they didn’t understand farming, they knew that if this thing really worked, it would have a huge impact on the world.

The key was that Zu An hadn’t withheld his knowledge about something so precious at all. If it were anyone else, they would definitely have tried to gain something out of it. Everyone bowed toward Zu An when they thought of that. Jiang Luofu was no exception as well.

“What are you all doing? Please don't do this, please rise.” Zu An felt a bit of a headache. He seemed to have gotten himself in too deep this time.

...

The crown princess watched the scene in shock. Then, she looked at the libationer at her side. She decided to test the waters. “Sir Libationer, are you not upset that your disciples are bowing to a young man?”

The libationer said calmly, “There is something I’ve always taught them. When in a group of three, there will always be one who can be your teacher. It seems they didn’t forget after all. I’m extremely happy to see this scene, so why would I be upset?”

The crown princess laughed inwardly. In that case, why did you kick Yin Shi down the mountain?

...

Wang Shuyang used this chance to ask, “By the way, Sir Zu, I have some other question…”

Zu An was starting to get a headache. He only knew some concepts, how could he know anything about the details? He quickly said, “I need you to look into these things slowly on your own. There’s a reason why everyone has their own karma and fate; this world has its laws of operation as well. If we rashly try to change them too quickly, we might cause the laws of the world to rebound, and that might instead be bad.”

...

“Oh?” The libationer voiced his surprise from inside the wooden hut. His eyes flickered with radiance. As he looked out of the window, his expression became more and more serious.

The crown princess was shocked. She felt that these words were profound and mysterious as well, but she hadn’t expected even the libationer to be moved. That meant that this was on a level she couldn’t comprehend yet.

So Zu An’s level was already so high! It seemed she had still underestimated him. She couldn’t treat him like before anymore in the future.

The people outside all revealed looks of shock too. After all, they were all the libationer’s core disciples, so they were all at a high level. They all gained a bit of enlightenment after hearing those words.

Zu An thought to himself, No way, right? I just repeated some random words I read from a web novel, and you guys really believed it?

Jiang Luofu saw Qi Yaoguang nodding repeatedly. She couldn’t help but smile and asked, “Junior sister, do you understand what he’s trying to say?”

Qi Yaoguang replied quietly, “Nope.”

“If you don’t understand, then why are you nodding?” Jiang Luofu asked in confusion.

Qi Yaoguang replied, “They’re all nodding, so if I don’t nod, won’t I look dumb? That’s so embarrassing.”

Jiang Luofu was stunned. Girl, you make so much sense right now. She coughed lightly and said, “Fellow disciples, let’s not trouble Ah Zu for now. I wish to take him in as a teacher of this academy, but teacher said we must obtain more than half of the votes from the remaining disciples. I must pay great senior and fourth senior a visit first.”

The others immediately cried out, “What are you visiting them for!? Aren’t we already more than half if we all agree?”

“What kind of joke is this? If a great talent like Sir Zu is willing to teach here, it will be our academy’s glory!”

“Forget about having him teach the students, he’s more than enough to even be our teacher!”

…

Inside the wooden house, the crown princess was already growing numb from shock. When she saw something that had originally seemed so hopeless being agreed to so easily, she instead nodded as if it were to be expected. She looked at the man outside with a complicated expression. Was this the same man she knew?

1. Chrysanthemum is slang for anus.