A live-streamed Chinese language lesson under the sky—the ancients were taken aback.

Fan Zhongyan, standing in the courtyard under the sky, had appeared at some point.

The night wind rustled his robes, and he tilted his head back, his lips moving slightly.

He knew what the next sentence was.

"They would surely say: 'Be the first to worry about the world's troubles, and the last to enjoy its pleasures!'"

"These sixteen characters have elevated the spirit of Chinese literati to an unprecedented height."

Before Fan Zhongyan, few people had refined this sense of responsibility into such a pure principle for the conduct of scholar-officials.

Qu Yuan's sorrow was the indignation of a loyal minister;

Du Fu's sorrow is the compassion of a poet in a chaotic world;

Han Yu's worries reflected the Confucian scholar's desire to uphold morality and order in the world.

Fan Zhongyan's worries reflected the shared sense of mission among a generation of scholar-officials.

He was not limited to being a subject loyal to his monarch, nor was he merely a writer expressing his own joys and sorrows.

He placed himself at the height of "the world," taking the world as his responsibility.

[Tears welling up]

This is the backbone of Chinese intellectuals.

Therefore, "The Yueyang Tower Inscription" is not merely a description of scenery, but a spiritual declaration.

……

What did this sentence later become? It became the spiritual compass for Chinese literati for the next thousand years.

Gu Yanwu said, "Every man has a responsibility for the rise and fall of the nation," which is actually another version of "worrying before others and enjoying after others."

Countless patriots in modern times have responded to this statement to varying degrees.

He stopped short of continuing:

"From a literary perspective, the structure of this article is exquisitely flawless."

"The narrative introduces the event, the description lays the groundwork for the emotions, the expression of feelings touches the heart, and the final discussion elevates the entire article from a personal 'feeling of climbing the tower' to the level of 'the scholar-official's sense of security and purpose.'"

"What's even more remarkable is that it's an extremely restrained expression."

Fan Zhongyan never said, "I am miserable, I am wronged, I have been demoted." He didn't even mention a single word about his personal experiences in the article.

He simply describes the scenery, the emotions, and then his aspirations.

"Readers may not even realize by the end that the person who wrote 'Be the first to worry about the world' is now being abandoned by the world."

Liu Yuxi slowed his pace.

The wind in the courtyard suddenly subsided a bit.

Liu Yuxi stopped talking and moving, just standing there under the old osmanthus tree, looking up.

"This man is really bold. He was banished to Dengzhou, and he still said something about 'when one is far from the court, one should worry about one's ruler.' If it were me, I would have written poems to criticize the court in Dengzhou long ago."

He paused, then added, "No, I not only write poems, but I also send them back to Chang'an so that those who drove me away can see that I, Liu Yuxi, am more upright than anyone else."

As soon as he finished speaking, he suddenly remembered that every line in his poems contained the word "I".

"My 'A Crane in a Clear Sky' is, in essence, a struggle against the heavens and against myself."

You say autumn is desolate, but I disagree.

You say I should be sad, but I'll laugh instead.

But in the end, I was still led astray by that word "sadness."

He raised his hand and patted the branches of the old osmanthus tree, as if talking to a silent friend.

"Fan Zhongyan did not fight; he did not fight against Heaven, nor against fate."

He doesn't even want "me" anymore.

He wrote the article, but I wasn't part of it.

Liu Yuxi looked up as the words on the sky slowly faded away.

"I am not him," he said softly. "I will never become him in this lifetime."

I'm the kind of person who speaks up when I'm upset, and gets up and keeps going when I fall.

You ask me not to feel sorrow for myself? I can't do that.

He paused, then suddenly smiled, a smile somewhat reminiscent of Liu Mengde in the past.

"But I know that there are people in this world who are older than me."

It is so large that it can contain the whole world and detach itself from it.

I may not succeed, but I accept it.

Liu Zongyuan looked up at the sky, where the words on the celestial canvas were still floating.

The stream flowed past his feet, its soft sound seeming to be reminding him of something.

Liu Zongyuan suddenly remembered that day in Liuzhou when he stood on the newly built East Pavilion and looked at the newly planted trees below.

The tree is still small, with sparse leaves.

His thought was that once these trees grew, they could provide shelter for several families.

At that moment, he forgot that he was a person who had been demoted, and he forgot his joys and sorrows.

But it only lasted for a short while.

Back inside, he spread out paper and wrote down only the lines: "Desolate and deserted, chilling to the bone."

"I see."

"Fan Zhongyan was not without hardship; he swallowed his bitterness and could still ask: Is the world a good place?"

I can't accept it. I always feel that the world owes me an explanation.

He looked down at his hands; they were thin, dark, and calloused from years of holding a pen.

"I keep asking myself, why me? Why Yongzhou? Why Liuzhou?"

"I can't do it."

I am easily disturbed by external things and hurt by my own experiences.

When I climb a building and it rains, I feel sad; when I see a sunny day, I feel a little happy.

Fan Zhongyan's ability to say "not to grieve for oneself" is truly remarkable.

Liu Zongyuan bent down, picked up the brush, and dipped it again into the already dried ink stain.

"That's enough. Everyone has their own way of living. I can't be like Fan Zhongyan, but I haven't lived in vain."

The image on the screen lingers on the misty waves of Dongting Lake, where the water and sky blend seamlessly, and the building's shadow hangs alone.

He hesitated for a moment, seemingly wanting to speak, before slowly opening his mouth.

"There's a question that many people have asked."

"Fan Zhongyan was demoted so many times, so why could he still write 'Not elated by external gains, nor saddened by personal losses'? Why didn't he feel the indignation of Qu Yuan, the coldness of Liu Zongyuan, or the stubbornness of Liu Yuxi? Why was he so calm?"

"Does he really not care?"

She paused for a moment.

No, he cares too.

As long as a person is alive, no one truly doesn't care about being wronged, exiled, or kicked out of the court as a member of a faction.

Fan Zhongyan was also a human being.

He gets tired, he feels pain, and he can't sleep at night.

"But what sets him apart from many other exiled writers is that he figured this out a long time ago."

The scene changes, and a yellowed page appears, containing a passage written by Fan Zhongyan in his early years.

Unable to stop speaking, he recited:

"When Fan Zhongyan was young, he wrote a famous line: 'If I cannot be a good prime minister, then I will be a good doctor.'"

"It means that if I can't be prime minister, then I'll be a good doctor."

A prime minister governs the people of the world, while a doctor saves the person in front of him.

Although their official ranks differed, they were essentially doing the same thing.

"Did everyone understand?"

"In Fan Zhongyan's mind, position was never the most important thing; what mattered was whether you were still doing your job."