I am not Yuan Shu

Chapter 11: How dare you be so rude?
Seeing Ma Rong so relaxed, Yuan Shu took a deep breath.

"You don't need to ask. It's not that you are not allowed to ask. Ma's disciples also respect you as their teacher. Why do you treat them differently? If I don't ask about this matter, I will feel guilty."

"Conscience?"

Ma Rong laughed and said, "You have a conscience, and so do others. But, Shu, do you know why some people are dissatisfied with this but can't do anything about it?"

"Please give me some advice, teacher."

"The world is bustling with people because of profit. The world is bustling with people because of profit."

Ma Rong said slowly: "Rites and music have collapsed, people's hearts are no longer the same, the world is in decline, material desires are rampant, this is the current situation, and the conscience you mentioned is obviously only possessed by a few people. How can the conscience of a few people fight against the insatiable desires of the majority?

There is a popular saying that to cut off someone's financial resources is like killing their parents. All the conscience in the world combined cannot satisfy the deep desires. As you said, teachers can indeed make regulations to correct this trend, but so what? Can correcting one person change the majority of people?
They enjoy justice from the Master, but they cannot always study here. Can the Master protect them for a while or for a lifetime? When they leave, or return to their hometown to make a living, or enter the officialdom, how can they accept the material desires in the world?
"This world is not the world in the books. There are not so many moral gentlemen in the world. The most important lesson that a teacher can teach students who come to study is that the world is dangerous, and there are wolves, tigers and leopards everywhere. If you are not careful, you will be crushed to pieces. For them, it is good to experience some things early."

After hearing this, Yuan Shu took a deep breath.

"Teacher, I don't agree with what you said."

"Why?"

"Material desire is the emptiness of the human heart, and conscience is the product that fills this emptiness in the heart. Both exist in the human heart and in the world at the same time. How much material desire have you seen, and how much conscience have you seen? How can you assert that there are more material desires and less conscience?"

"???"

Ma Rong blinked and was stunned for a moment.

He didn't expect Yuan Shu to answer him like this.

When Yuan Shu saw that Ma Rong was stunned, he continued to speak.

"Benevolent people like Duke Zhou and Confucius also need to wear clothes, eat, buy things, and have material desires. Evil people like Jie of Xia and Zhou of Shang also have compassion. Why do you think that there are more material desires and less conscience? Why do you sit back and watch material desires run rampant without doing anything after you make your decision? Isn't this helping the evil king?"

For many years, no one has held Ma Rong accountable in such a direct manner. The last time seemed to be decades ago, which gave people a sense of déjà vu.

But, to say that he aided and abetted the evil?
He could not agree with this.

"Shu, you have never really entered the officialdom, and you have never understood what the current Han officialdom has reached. What your teacher said is true, and not false. What you said is simply courting your own death!"

"I have also heard my elders mention this at home. I am not unaware of the difficulties in the officialdom and the viciousness of human nature!"

Yuan Shu said slowly: "That's right. Good people should stand up and correct the world. Otherwise, if good people remain silent and watch the evil people wreak havoc and bully the world, then the world will be completely rotten and beyond redemption!"

"There are people who want to correct themselves, but what's the point if only a few individuals want to correct themselves?"

Ma Rong shook his head and sighed: "Someone can want to correct it. Even if they occupy a high position and correct it for a while, when they die, the politics will end and return to the original point, or even worse than before. This has happened more than once."

"Such people are heroes, the backbone of the world!"

Yuan Shu said angrily: "People should be grateful, should remember, should follow in his footsteps and continue to fight! Instead of sighing like the teacher, and then watching coldly, and finally sighing, sighing that human power is limited and a mantis arm cannot stop a chariot!"

Ma Rong glared and suddenly became furious.

"You brat! How dare you be so rude?"

"Teacher, you can punish your disciples as much as you want, but disciples must speak!"

Yuan Shu did not flinch, and said with his neck stiff, "If you see people of noble character and lofty ideals fighting bravely and don't step forward to help, you are cowardly. Cowardice is common to everyone, and it is not shameful. What is shameful is that you are clearly cowardly, but you still mock those who are fighting. Don't be content to starve to death, but still try to imitate the mantis! In this way, how is it different from helping the tyrant to commit atrocities?"

"You bastard! You bastard! How dare you talk nonsense like that!"

Ma Rong was really angry. He slammed the table in front of him and shouted angrily, "Someone! Someone! Get this bastard out! Get him out!"

The servants of the Ma family walked in, looked at Ma Rong with his hair and beard standing up, and then looked at Yuan Shu with anger, and were at a loss. Ma Rong was the head of the family, so of course he had to obey the orders of the head of the family.

But Yuan Shu is of noble status. What would his father, the Jingzhao Yin, think if he were to touch him?
If Yuan Feng gets angry by then, Ma Rong will definitely be fine, but they will be in trouble. If they are used as scapegoats, their fate will definitely not be good.

So they looked at each other, not knowing what to do.

Seeing that they did not move, Ma Rong became even more furious. He slammed the table and shouted, "What are you doing? Get this bastard out of here!"

Yuan Shu looked back at the servants, and the coldness in his eyes made them shudder.

"My dear, this... this is Master Yuan..."

"you!"

Ma Rong looked at the cowardly servants and became even angrier. He was about to curse again, but after cursing a few times, his voice became smaller and smaller, and his anger became less and less, as if he had realized something.

He looked at Yuan Shu, who was standing in front of him with an angry face, pointing at him, and for a moment he didn't know what to do.

After a while, his arms fell down.

"You come from a wealthy family, so you can do whatever you want without worrying about retaliation from others. But, Shu! Not everyone has a family background like yours. You have the Yuan family as your backing, but what about others? They don't have a family background as good as yours! They don't have it! They will die!"

“So I didn’t drive them to charge into battle, but stood here alone.”

Yuan Shu shook his head and said, "It is precisely because I know I have a backer that I face the teacher directly. If the person with a backer does not step forward, do you want to let the person without a backer go out and die? It is like this today, and it will be like this in the future.

When encountering injustice, disciples should take the lead. If someone wants to retaliate, just come after me! If someone wants to kill someone, just come after me! They just need to stand behind me and follow me closely. I will handle everything else!"

"you……"

Ma Rong's expression changed again, he was very surprised, as if he could not understand why Yuan Shu did this at all.

But Yuan Shu said just that.

Speak for the disadvantaged and stand up for the disadvantaged.

What can we gain by doing this?

"Shu, why do you do this? What can you gain by doing this?"

"Disciples also have desires in their hearts, and they are very strong, but disciples also have consciences in their hearts, which are also very strong."

Yuan Shu touched his chest and said, "I know that if one's virtue is not in line with one's position, disaster will occur. If one does not do good deeds, one will be punished by heaven. I envy the teacher's extravagant life and yearn for it! So in order to enjoy the same extravagance as the teacher, to live a life of luxury and have many wives and concubines, I must do something!
In this way, the disciple will not die an untimely death. In this way, when the disciple grows old, there will not be a person like the disciple today standing in front of him and scolding him for being shameless! The disciple not only wants to enjoy his life, but also wants his good name to be passed down to future generations! Therefore, he must stand up now!"

"you……"

Upon hearing this, Ma Rong was stunned for a long time.

He couldn't figure out whether Yuan Shu was scolding him or himself.

Or...

Both he and I were scolded?

During this moment of distraction, the anger in Ma Rong's heart disappeared without a trace. He looked at Yuan Shu with extremely complicated eyes, so much so that Yuan Shu didn't know how much meaning was contained in those eyes.

Looking at it, I felt a little bit of envy, a little bit of jealousy, a little bit of yearning, a little bit of anger, and a little bit of... shame?
The whole scene seemed to freeze. Apart from breathing, no one moved at all.

(End of this chapter)