The Phoenix General

Chapter 5

Despite it still being autumn, the mornings began giving off a frosty glow. Verglas clung onto the blades of grass, and nearly all the leaves had been blown away by the wind. Within the red pavilion, Hui Chao was preparing for his classes.

One by one, students began trickling into the room. They dutifully sat themselves at their assigned seats and prepared to take notes. With one last clear of his throat, Hui Chao made his way to the front of the room. He greeted his students and began by telling them to write down the lyrics to Thoughts on a Silent Night from memory. The students were all obedient and began immediately. Su Hai was one of the students.

"Su Hai." Hui Chao called. "Explain to me what the first line of the poem means."

Su Hai immediately stood up, determined to answer correctly.

"Teacher Hui, the first line of the poem is chuáng qián míng yuè guāng (床前明月光). Li Bai states that the moonlight is at the front of his bed. Upon further analyzation, Su Hai believes it explains that the poet is awake and unable to sleep, as most people would be sleeping at night. Therefore, Su Hai believes that there is something troubling Li Bai."

Hui Chao stroked his beard. "Very well, you may sit down."

Su Hai sat down, internally congratulating himself for answering correctly.

Hui Chao continued calling on his students until he had gotten past the last line of the poem. He took his own copy of the poem and began unfurling it in order to show his students how the calligraphy should have been done.

However, he was quickly startled by 'his own' writing. Hui Chao constantly boasted about his own calligraphy to his students, so when he had seen the writing on the scroll, he was appalled. But he was a little too late when it came to covering up the writing on the scroll. Most of the students had already seen the calligraphy.

Hui Chao began rummaging through his other scrolls, frantically scanning each of them. All of them were replaced with someone else's atrocious writing. A vein began to pop on his forehead and neck, he knew immediately who the culprit was.

"Jin WangShu!" He hissed through gritted teeth.

Su Hai meanwhile was also surprised at what was on the scrolls. He had not realized that he had been unknowingly helping Jin WangShu pull off a prank on his teacher. Su Hai was horrified, but was very unsure of what to do. So he stayed completely silent, while covering up his trembling hands with his sleeves.

Hui Chao glared at his class, humiliation shown on his face.

"Your lessons today are over!"

Without saying another word, Hui Chao pivoted and stalked out of the pavilion. He immediately headed toward the courtyard in attempts to find the emperor. He was in luck, as the emperor had happened to come out at the same time.

Hui Chao immediately bowed down in respect to the emperor.

"Your humble servant would like to speak to his imperial majesty regarding his new disciple."

Li FeiHong looked at Hui Chao in indifference.

"Rise and speak."

Hui Chao stood up and began to speak. "Your humble servant begs his majesty to assign another teacher for Jin WangShu."

The emperor raised a brow. "Why?"

Hui Chao took a deep breath and continued. "Jin WangShu has tarnished your humble servants reputation as a teacher this morning. He had replaced all of your humble servant's scrolls with scrolls filled with his less than impressive calligraphy. Your humble servant is certain that this was done in order to spite his teacher."