Li Pin was still in the room, probably digesting those ideas, maybe even taking notes. That was fine. Once he'd said certain things, he didn't care if Li Pin pondered them later—those would become Li Pin's own thoughts and path.

Some ideas he'd voiced, others he hadn't. As he'd said: "Just jokes." This wasn't merely avoiding suspicion—to him, all of it really was just jokes, irresponsible jokes.

Trying to patch holes in the current political system was nearly delusional. Of course, he'd thought about the problems they faced. Take commerce—it wasn't a weakness in the Wu Dynasty that urgently needed developing. It was already their strongest suit, and far ahead of everyone else's. Looking at balanced development, many other systems couldn't keep pace with commercial growth anymore. Pushing commerce further might taste sweet, but it would create a deformity. For a country, such deformity was genuinely dangerous.

As for Confucian learning reaching its current point of saturation and overflow—if there really was a chance to actively take a step forward, specialized division of labor would be a good direction. On one hand, it could reasonably redirect the overflow of educational capacity; on the other, it could prepare for a possible industrial revolution. Of course, it looked beautiful in theory. The problem was, it was just a joke.

The reason all came back to Confucian learning.

When Ning Yi said he admired Confucian learning, it wasn't flattery or sarcasm—it came from sincere reverence. He'd done management work before and could see the strengths and weaknesses of various management theories clearly. A company with thousands or tens of thousands of employees—he could perfect the systems, manage people well, everyone followed procedures, cycles established themselves, everything ran smoothly. But life wasn't that simple, and a country certainly wasn't that shallow.

Confucian learning wasn't some useless pedantry from Confucius. The Analects merely taught people self-cultivation and life principles. But later rulers found the key insights within these principles, discovered methods for making rules and guiding these patterns. Then generation after generation refined and supplemented it. When they encountered problems, they'd modify, fine-tune, find compromises. For thousands of years, every dynasty's top minds invested themselves in perfecting this governing philosophy, like waves washing away sand...

On the surface it looked gentle and academic, but at its core, this was a brutally practical system for running a society. Think about modern companies—just building a culture where people feel they belong takes enormous effort and is often the ultimate goal. If modern management was an 8-bit computer program, Confucian learning was the entire human genome. It managed tens of millions of hearts, yet made it completely imperceptible—people just felt it was natural and right.

Thousands of years of development and evolution, natural selection and survival of the fittest. If you viewed the Han people as a whole, this was almost one strand of their developed genetic code. Even a thousand years later, anyone ruling this land would ultimately have to use variations of Confucian learning. It wasn't that they truly admired Han culture—it was that not using this model meant elimination. In its sophistication and complexity, whether European constitutional monarchy, parliamentary systems, church rule, Japanese bushido, or India's caste system, none could compare to Confucian learning.

Like a massive spider web—you moved, and those beside you pulled you back, link by link in layers upon layers. For internal reform, no one knew where to apply force, no one knew how much force would achieve results. It was like punching water—no matter how high the splash, it would all push back. Anyone wanting reform faced a giant web formed by tens of millions of people, the collective wisdom of every dynasty's and era's greatest minds, a massive Taiji diagram. It was like one person trying to flip rope patterns within such a system.

For Ning Yi, he would sit there thinking about and appreciating such a system, even trembling at its exquisite perfection. He viewed it as a work of art. But asking him to reform from within? He had no such confidence in internal revolution. Some dynasties had geniuses who found key leverage points, but whether those points were right, few could be confident. The Northern Song's Wang Anshi reforms¹—a genius with the emperor's support who persisted for years, yet was ultimately crushed by the massive pressure feeding back. The Qin Dynasty's Shang Yang²found the right leverage point and succeeded, but as an individual, he'd offended too many people and was ultimately torn apart by five horses³.

Chinese philosophy included Taiji and yin-yang⁴—the greater the force applied, the greater the force that pushed back. Those who tried major reforms within the Confucian system rarely had good endings. Of course, people with certain ideas could use their efforts to push within this system. Li Pin had such qualifications—if he wanted to do it, let him. That's why Ning Yi casually shared those thoughts with him.

But in Ning Yi's heart, internal reform was thankless work. Even if he excelled at intrigue and power struggles with modern theoretical support, perhaps he could play Taiji and lead a court around in circles. But when that force pushed back, he had no confidence he could block it.

Of course, why block it? If he really wanted to do something, Ning Yi would only consider becoming another Liao or Jin—crushing the entire Wu Dynasty from outside. Governing systems had to depend on people's existence. After a country was crushed, the Confucian system would fall into a frozen state. People could then take the opportunity to stuff what they wanted into this system, and conveniently sweep away the accumulated redundancies from running for so many years. Like reinstalling a computer system, then... watching what it would become as it slowly digested everything when running again...

This was what Ning Yi genuinely felt was the simplest reform method. Of course, even in casual chat, he couldn't tell Li Pin this. Li Pin wanted methods for internal revolution, so he shared thoughts on internal revolution. Li Pin wasn't someone who blindly followed without thinking. Even if Ning Yi was alarmist, after being startled once, Li Pin would gradually digest it and transform it into his own concepts. If this person could truly achieve something in the future, Ning Yi would probably watch these changes from the side and find them interesting.

Just casual chat, really. It was only afternoon, and he was just an idle merchant family's live-in son-in-law. After finishing the empty talk, he put it behind him and walked toward the academy gates. Reaching Yushan Academy's entrance, he saw two carriages parked by the roadside wall corner, with some attendants and guards probably waiting for someone. Prince Kang's carriages. Ning Yi was slightly puzzled and looked back toward the academy.

Had that pair of siblings come to challenge him again and missed him?

Missing was good. Ning Yi smiled mischievously, shook his head, and left directly. He hadn't eaten lunch yet and was planning to eat something at a restaurant on the nearby street. As he turned the corner, he saw Xiao Chan coming from across the road, passing through the shade of a large locust tree by the roadside. Seeing him, she smiled and waved: "Young Master." Sunlight filtered down through the locust tree.

A household servant followed her, carrying some boxes. Recently, quite a few disaster victims had entered the city. Though public order remained basically fine, the Su household had instructed that female family members and maids must have someone accompany them when going out to avoid incidents. This servant had probably been commandeered by Xiao Chan as attendant and bodyguard. Now seeing Ning Yi, Xiao Chan turned back to say a few words, then nodded slightly and bowed in thanks, dismissing him. The servant seemed somewhat flattered—when in a good mood, Xiao Chan was always the most polite, treating everyone warmly and cordially.

Meanwhile, at the Yushan Academy entrance Ning Yi had just left, a pair of siblings sneakily emerged. Not seeing Ning Yi's figure, they became openly confident again. Zhou Junwu looked at both sides of the street and slumped his shoulders: "Sister, that Ning Yi is really amazing."

Zhou Pei was somewhat silent, frowning. After a long while, she glanced at her brother: "I know he's amazing too."

"Are we still going to test him?"

"Of course we'll ask him." Zhou Pei thought for a moment and headed toward the carriages. "But we'll wait until we're prepared."

"Mm-hmm." Zhou Junwu followed behind, nodding in agreement. "He even made Li Pin give up—that's so cool! How amazing is he exactly... But I didn't really get what he said... Sister, sister, did you understand..."

"Shut up."

"Oh... But I think..."

The siblings' voices disappeared into the street as the carriages started moving. In the early autumn afternoon, white clouds drifted lazily. On another street, Ning Yi and Xiao Chan were heading to a nearby restaurant.

That evening, Zhou Pei sat in Prince Kang's mansion garden, lost in thought. There were no lanterns around, no maids coming to disturb her. The young girl with her commandery princess title had always liked thinking about things in such quiet environments. She wore a long dress, her post-bath hair still damp, shoes and socks removed as she leaned in the garden pavilion. It was near the seventh month's half, the moonlight bright and clear, fireflies dancing among the nearby flowers and grass.

Zhou Junwu wasn't home tonight. After dinner, he'd run off to Imperial Son-in-law Grandfather's place to play. He was also sitting in the Imperial Son-in-law's mansion garden, cooling off. Taking advantage of the other children running around playing, he secretly recounted today's events to Kang Xian.

"Imperial Son-in-law Grandfather, does what that Ning Yi said make sense?"

Kang Xian frowned, his gaze serious as an abyss of ten thousand feet. His scholarship had always been known for its seriousness. He just showed a different kind of seriousness in front of children like Zhou Pei and Zhou Junwu, rarely displaying such a gaze. Unless he was truly discussing something very important with Old Qin and others, even among friends, he wouldn't show this expression.

"Did he... only say these things?"

"Mm. Sister seemed to understand some of it, but probably there's also a lot she didn't understand... I think he's really amazing—even that Li Pin admitted defeat! Imperial Son-in-law Grandfather, can we invite him to be my teacher..."

"Hey, isn't that a bit too fast?"

Ning Yi's tone was casual, which was exactly the style Su Tan'er was quite used to. There were still many oranges in the small bamboo basket on the table. Su Tan'er turned back with an apologetic yet helpless smile: "I still have things to do..."

"Need help?"

"No need, husband should eat oranges."

Su Tan'er smiled sweetly and turned back to her room. She'd indeed been quite busy recently—with floods approaching and city gates about to close, various matters needed contingency plans. Plus she was secretly mobilizing funds and quietly accumulating resources to prepare for major moves. Though tiring, her spirits seemed good—probably because the Imperial Merchant matter had truly made a breakthrough.

Everything seemed to be going smoothly, just like life itself...