The Elixir is for You, The Poison is for Me

#149 - College

The academy has no name.

From the day it existed, it was called the academy.

Outsiders only know that the Ministry of Astronomy has an academy specifically for cultivating special talents needed by the Ministry of Astronomy. The courses taught are probably nothing more than things like observing celestial phenomena and deducing the calendar.

If you ask the old people in the capital, especially the elderly princes, or the old officials who have been in the court for many years, most of them will be stunned first, then show a thoughtful look, and then nod, saying in a somewhat uncertain tone, it seems that there is such an academy.

However, if you continue to ask them where this academy is, how many people are inside, how to get into it, what you can do after studying, and what rank of official you can become, none of them can tell you the reason. If they are annoyed by the questions, they simply throw you a sentence to go to the Director of the Ministry of Astronomy.

But after saying this, the way they look at you will become strange again.

And when you follow their guidance and find the Director of the Ministry of Astronomy, you will understand why their eyes are so strange.

Because the Director of the Ministry of Astronomy is a "mute."

Of course, in the Chen Dynasty, people with disabilities could not enter the court as officials, so the Director was not really a mute.

It's just that no matter what questions you ask him, he will only show you a kind smile, so over time, everyone behind his back calls this Director a mute.

The most famous thing about this mute Director happened more than thirty years ago, when Renzong was still on the throne, and the Chen Dynasty's factional struggles had reached their most intense moment.

All the civil and military officials were forced to take sides. Although the Ministry of Astronomy was a well-known unimportant department, and besides this mute Director who went to court on time every day, the rest of the officials were a group of elusive people.

However, even so, some people still came to the door and questioned the Director about the Ministry of Astronomy's position in person.

The Director naturally continued to smile and remained silent, so the person became anxious and said, if you don't speak again, we will count you as one of the opposite party! Don't cry injustice then.

The Director was forced to open his mouth.

As a result, when the other party talked to him about politics, he replied that the steamed dumplings in that restaurant in the capital were the best. When the other party talked to him about national governance, he chatted with them about bronze and stone antiques, and even brought up the high housing prices in the capital.

The two sides talked at cross purposes for half an hour, and finally ended with the person leaving in anger.

Since then, the mute's name of this Director has been completely confirmed.

Afterwards, an official censor, because he couldn't stand it, impeached this Director for holding a position without doing any work and neglecting his duties.

As a result, the memorial was submitted but was retained by His Majesty the Emperor.

This official censor was very unwilling, so he possessed the spirit of Di Gong and continued to investigate, and surprisingly found that the court secretly allocated a large sum of money to the Ministry of Astronomy every year, and the purpose column stated that it was for compiling the calendar and observing celestial phenomena.

The amount of this silver was quite large, and the Ministry of Astronomy was not polite, spending all of it every year, and sometimes even daring to shamelessly ask the court to continue adding money.

The official censor felt that this was simply the biggest joke in the world. What kind of calendar compilation requires so much money? As for observing celestial phenomena, it was even more ridiculous. With the small number of people in the Ministry of Astronomy, wouldn't it be enough for you to find a wild mountain to observe? Why spend money?

If so much money was used to build school buildings, educate the world, or build water conservancy projects to improve people's livelihoods, wouldn't that be better? Even using it to expand territory would be good.

Thinking of this, a strong sense of responsibility arose in the chest of this official censor, and he picked up his pen and wrote a memorial of ten thousand words, impeaching the Ministry of Astronomy for corruption, embezzlement, and being a parasite of the country.

As a result, this time the Emperor approved it very quickly, but there were only two words on it.

— Idle.

It should be known that the posthumous title of this Emperor was Renzong, who was extremely kind to his subordinates and was always known for his good temper. During his reign, he didn't even confiscate any families. These two words were already very heavy.

However, an official censor was originally a job of finding scolding. The more miserably he was scolded, the easier it was to gain fame.

Moreover, this time this official censor believed that he was right, and was planning to roll up his sleeves and have a good spray with the Emperor, but then... there was no then.

Because this official censor was exposed to accepting bribes and forming cliques for private gain, and was forced to resign and return to his hometown.

In fact, not only him, but also several previous impeachments or attacks against people in the Ministry of Astronomy, the final fate of the initiators was not very good.

In the officialdom, there are originally few completely clean people.

After several times, a consensus was reached among the officials, that is, not to care about the affairs of the Ministry of Astronomy, anyway, this was not an important department.

So the Director was able to continue to be his mute in the court happily.

And the other people besides the Director did not come to court at all. Most of the officials only heard their names but did not see their people. The legendary academy was still unknown, and gradually became a strange tale in the capital.

Yang Tao first reached out and touched his chest. The place where he was hit by the scimitar was not bleeding. Then he checked the previous wounds on his body and found that those wounds had also miraculously disappeared.

Then he had time to carefully look at where he was now.

He saw that the schoolhouse was bright and clean, and there was a censer on the right hand side, rising with wisps of green smoke.

Yang Tao smelled a faint pine fragrance in the air. Strangely, when he smelled this fragrance, his mind gradually calmed down from the previous tense battle.

And on his left hand side was a row of bookshelves, and a nightingale stood on the bronze table next to the bookshelf.

The nightingale was not afraid of people. When Yang Tao looked at it, it glanced back at Yang Tao, and then continued to groom its feathers, appearing quite lazy.

Of course, what attracted Yang Tao's attention the most was the plaque hanging directly opposite, which read "Supervise the World," with sharp strokes.

Yang Tao felt a faint stinging sensation just by looking at it, and quickly turned his eyes to the middle-aged man who looked like a teacher sitting under the plaque.

However, that person did not look at him, but looked down at a stone slab in his hand.

Yang Tao rubbed his eyes, and didn't know if he was seeing things, because he actually saw words beginning to appear on the originally blank stone slab.