Echoes of My Heart Throughout the Court-Chapter 348: Your Mother Being Alive Affected Your Performance? New

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They understood “filial piety”, they understood “outsourcing”, and they understood “contracts”.

But put together… the phrase sounded strange.

Several ordinary censors had gathered to watch the commotion.

They all looked toward the senior censor. “Lord Ge, you’ve served in the imperial archives from the previous dynasty to this one, over forty years—so learned and experienced. What does this term ‘outsourcing filial piety’ mean?”

The old censor stroked his beard and tried to summon all his scholarly knowledge to interpret: “Filial piety likely has no hidden meaning. Outsourcing—perhaps it refers to wrapping filial piety in something external.”

The other censors: “!!”

They immediately agreed:

“That must be it.” freewebnσvel.cøm

“Lord Ge is indeed wise!”

“But I wonder, when little Bai Ze said to wrap up filial piety, did he mean with something good or something bad?”

“It must be something bad. If it were good—good wrapped in more good—how could he possibly be unsure whether filial piety or rules were more important? If you wrap filial piety in a layer of filth, then ‘outsourced filial piety’ must be saying this: He appears to be doing something filial, but outsiders misunderstand him!”

“Exactly! That makes perfect sense!”

“Not necessarily. Perhaps he’s just too filial to choose. If he says filial piety matters more, wouldn’t that mean he has to let the little princess in?”

“I agree!”

Once officials start debating, they all stick to their own views. The old censor smiled placidly on the side, slowly stroking his beard.

He was also quite pleased to have learned a new term.

Outsourced filial piety. Hmm. It must be similar to a phrase like gold nuggets and pearls.

[Anyway, I’m not going to help him. People who outsource filial piety are truly disgusting. Can’t even be filial to their own mothers, and expect their wives to do it for them.]

“Huh?”

So that’s what ‘outsourced filial piety’ means?

The old censor didn’t care whether his guess had been wrong. He quickly had someone lay out paper and grind ink, then picked up his brush.

Quick! We need to document how this Vice Minister to the Crown Prince is unfilial! Another achievement for us censors!

—After all, having a wife be filial to the in-laws is something many people consider totally normal.

That’s what daughters-in-law are supposed to do.

Meanwhile, Vice Minister Huo, who had heard every bit of Xu Yanmiao’s inner thoughts, was both flustered and embarrassed. But since it was his private thoughts, there was no way he could barge over and argue with him.

Wait—yes, he could!

Huo turned to the young princess and sighed deeply, as if speaking with profound sincerity: “Your Highness, filial piety and rules are not mutually exclusive. For example, in some households, before the man passes the civil service exams, he is too busy studying to tend to his mother personally, and must entrust household matters to his wife. My mother did miss me, and wished to see me often. But if I drew water to wash her feet, she would be pleased, yes—but also scold me and tell me to focus on my studies, to save my energy for the exams.”

“So later, I devoted myself entirely to studying, buried in books—”

[And only passed the exam at sixty, after sending your mother off to the afterlife?]

[Was your mom being alive interfering with your performance?]

“Pfft—”

Laughter burst out from behind the old censor.

Though the senior censor held back from laughing himself, his hand trembled so hard that his brush left a thick black crescent on the white paper.

Xu Yanmiao’s tongue was too sharp!

What on earth had Vice Minister Huo said to earn such a vicious remark?

Curious.

Several censors exchanged looks, then began encouraging one another: “Lord Ge, why don’t we move a little closer to see what’s going on?”

“Yes, yes. Vice Minister Huo is an old man bullying a young princess—we can’t just stand by.”

Though already seventy-two years old, the senior censor also wanted to watch the fun (crossed out), or rather, uphold justice and stop this elder from bullying an eight-year-old girl: “In that case, I shall go as well.”

Yan Linghui looked at Vice Minister Huo’s face—one moment flushed, the next pale, with veins bulging on his forehead—and was thoroughly puzzled.

How could this man be so easily rattled? All she’d done was use her age to her advantage, cried a little while stabbing him with words, and asked that deliberately tricky question—“Which is more important, filial piety or rules?” Was that enough to make him this upset?

If he was this fragile, wouldn’t he cough up blood the moment he was censured or targeted by political enemies?

She watched Huo Guozuo stumble in his words, then suddenly fall silent, sneakily purse his lips, and finally put on a sobbing tone to continue: “Devoted to study, buried in books. And then?”

Huo Guozuo gritted his teeth and endured for a moment before pretending not to care about Xu Yanmiao’s earlier thoughts and continued his speech to Yan Linghui: “And then, I passed the civil service exams at sixty. In all those decades, I never once abandoned my studies to return home and serve my mother. In the eyes of society, I surely broke the rules. She was my mother, and yet I passed off all the duties of filial piety to my wife. But to my mother, and to my wife, I was the most filial of men. Because that was what my mother wanted—that was how I truly honored her.”

Huo Guozuo said, “Would your mother really want you to go against convention, draw criticism from others, and be accused of neglecting your proper place—all for her sake?”

Yan Linghui: “My mom would want that.”

Huo Guozuo’s entire argument was slammed to a halt by that one sentence—“My mom would.”

Suddenly, he realized—

That was the proud, ambitious princess who had even taken a female imperial husband. Why would she care about worldly conventions? His brain had clearly short-circuited. How had he even thought to use the princess as a tool to pressure this little girl?

But it didn’t matter—outsiders didn’t know the truth.

Just like in a debate, he didn’t need his opponent to agree—he only needed the audience to accept his argument.

“Nonsense! Child, how could you lie just to get through the imperial exams?!”

Huo Guozuo’s expression twisted slightly, but under the sunlight, the distortion wasn’t too noticeable. He said, “When parents love their child, they plan far ahead for them. How could your mother possibly wish to put you in a position where you’re condemned by everyone?”

No sooner had he spoken than those annoying inner thoughts came again.

[Exactly, exactly. You must know this well yourself.]

[After all, when you were in your fifties and your mother had a stroke and was bedridden for years—unable to relieve herself properly…]

[You had no money to hire servants, so your wife tended to her day and night. You never stepped into your mother’s room even once, pretending to study.]

[Ah yes, the great “SageBooks”!]

[Pah!]

Xu Yanmiao flipped through the gossip while fuming inwardly: [What, do the sages say that when your mother is bedridden, can’t feed herself, can’t wipe her own waste, it’s fine for a son to think it’s too dirty and disgusting to help?]

[All you had to do was say to your wife: That’s my mother, she’s sick now, her temper’s bad, but we’re husband and wife—we share everything. Please be patient with her.]

[Wow, how very filial.]

[I should ask Master Quan later—does Confucian filial piety really mean this?]

[This so-called “outsourced filial piety,” where you don’t lift a finger but talk a big game, where other people’s filial acts are all “I will be filial to my parents,” but his version is “my wife must be filial to my parents”?]

[If that’s the case, I won’t be learning that.]

Nonsense!!!

Quan Yizhang angrily thumped the ground with his cane, pretending to be smashing Huo Guozuo’s head.

Confucian filial piety is not like this. One person does not represent the entire Confucian school.

Human nature is inherently selfish. People are not born with filial piety. Humans “hunger and want food, feel cold and want warmth, tire and want rest, love profit and hate harm”—this is instinct. When one suppresses instinct and puts filial duty above survival, that is true filial piety.

To be filial is to go against human nature—it needs external discipline.

This Huo fellow is lazy and self-indulgent. Faced with his paralyzed mother, he didn’t want to take care of her himself—so he forced his wife to do it. That was her filial piety, what does it have to do with him?

—Yes, the Classical Prose School follows Xunzi. Quan Yizhang firmly believed in the philosophy that “human nature is inherently evil.”

Quan Yizhang turned to the other members of the Classical Prose School. “Bring me brush and paper—I’m going to scold him to death!”

He absolutely could not let Bai Ze misunderstand the Classical Prose School. This worm of a man must be clearly separated from them!

Someone among them quietly suggested, “Master Quan, how about we classify him under the New Text School instead?”

Quan Yizhang: “Oh?”

The other scholar cleared his throat and explained, “You see, the New Text School follows Mencius. Mencius believed human nature is good, and that filial piety is instinctual. If filial piety is instinct, then him delegating—no, entrusting—his wife with it, and obeying his mother’s wishes not to care for her in person when she was ill… doesn’t it match Mencius’s quote: ‘The greatest act of filial piety is to honor one’s parents’?”

“Huo Guozuo must be a member of the New Text School!”

A distortion! An absolute distortion! But between academic schools, distortions aren’t called distortions—they’re called academic disputes.

Quan Yizhang had never been soft-hearted, so he agreed decisively: “Fine. Write it exactly like that.”

—As for a few days later, when Ji Sui heard about this and flew into a rage, picking up a brush to write a rebuttal focused on “this man has nothing to do with our New Text School; he’s yours, from the Classical School, and here’s why xxxxx…”—and how both schools treated Huo Guozuo like trash they kicked back and forth—that was a matter for the future.

For now, all Huo Guozuo knew was that Xu Yanmiao had just slammed him, and even dragged Lord Quan into it.

And he knew how much Lord Quan wanted to bring Xu Yanmiao into the Classical School!

With those thoughts alone, he had probably completely cut himself off from the Classical School!

“Ohoho!”

“That kid is just as sharp as ever!”

“Look at that line—‘SageBooks’—absolutely dripping with sarcasm!”

“He’s red! His face turned red! No longer pale, it’s all red from holding it in!”

“What?! Quick! Bring me the thousand-li mirror—I have to see this!”

All this commotion belonged to his colleagues. Huo Guozuo had no idea they were even watching with a thousand-li mirror.

He only felt… Xu Yanmiao’s attacks toward him were baffling.

His mother had been dead for fifteen years! Her bones were probably dust by now—what was the point of using her to target him?

Xu Yanmiao felt there was a point.

Of course, it wasn’t about his mother—it was purely because he couldn’t stand the concept of “outsourced filial piety.”

[Tsk tsk. Father died early, and the mother raised the household alone. No filial piety shown during that time—he’d just toss his bowl aside after meals. Never once washed his mother’s feet at night.]

[Then after getting married, he kept telling his wife: “My mother held this household together—it wasn’t easy. We’re husband and wife—you must help me honor her.” Or: “My mother worked so hard to raise me alone. Can’t you try to understand her better?”]

[What, your mother only became worthy of pity after your wife entered the picture? If not, I suggest you reflect: who actually made her life so hard in the first place?]

[Wow!]

[What kind of person is this?!]

[Back when his mother was still alive, she did everything by herself during the New Year, and he had the nerve to criticize his wife for being inconsiderate and not helping—tsk tsk. So basically before he married, his mom made every New Year’s dinner alone, and this grown man didn’t even help carry a bowl?]

[Was he blind before his wife moved in? And then once she did, poof! Suddenly he could see how hard his mother had it?]

[Applause, applause—]

[We should give the wife a plaque inscribed with “Miracle Worker”.]

“Hss—”

Such scathing words!

The capital officials were in awe.

Little Bai Ze’s tongue was sharper than ever, but in daily interactions, he was perfectly normal—actually quite courteous. How could his inner thoughts be this different from his outer appearance?

“Could it be that he secretly bad-mouths His Majesty so often that he’s built up this skill?”

One official blurted it out—only to be stared down hard by his colleagues, instantly silencing him.

—You big mouth!

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