[an amateur meta piece on qi huilian, hai liangyi, shen zechuan, yao wenyu, and xue xiuzhuo. spoilers for all of qjj.]
i had this thought while thinking about the old rivalry between qi huilian and hai liangyi, and how it influenced their personal stances and teachings towards their pupils - some who even go on to take in pupils themselves.
qi huilian and hai liangyi's rivalry backstory is mostly in ch88, which sums up how they used to compete in academics. qi huilian excelled at the imperial examinations, meanwhile hai liangyi was unremarkable, but qi huilian is later demoted from the capital, and hai liangyi started to rise through the ranks. still, the former crown prince chose qi huilian as his teacher.
"Hai Liangyi came second to me his entire life. But he is a gentleman. When the Eastern Palace fell, the crown prince was condemned by all. Only Hai Liangyi believed there was still hope in him—that he wasn't beyond redemption. On the basis of this alone, I cannot compare to him. Between us, there is no superiority or inferiority, only mutual appreciation. But alas, heaven is blind. Though we share the same path, we cannot walk it together." [qi huilian, ch88]
"Only Hai Liangyi believed there was still hope in him—that he wasn't beyond redemption." this statement also gives reason as to why hai liangyi decides to also become a mentor for li jianheng. he was the only one, during li jianheng's early ascension, who believed that he could become a good emperor.
The loyal ministers of the court, led by Hai Liangyi, all watched Li Jianheng. In their eyes, he was perhaps a hopeless case. But Hai Liangyi had raised both hands to prop Li Jianheng up with that aging frame, urging him to hang on, to turn over a new lead, to be an emperor who would leave a glorious legacy. [ch33]
more on this later. now let's turn to each their pupils. qi huilian has only ever taken two pupils: the former crown prince, and shen zechuan. there is emphasis on the fact that the former crown prince chose qi huilian to be the grand mentor despite him already being demoted at that time, and shen zechuan, in the temple of guilt, similarly chose qi huilian, stating: "if xiansheng will be my scroll, i will be his sword." [ch7]
and, i want to specifically point out this part:
"In this lifetime, I've taught only two students. Both times I imparted to them all the knowledge I learned over the whole course of my life. The first time, I thought too highly of myself and was unwilling to compromise, and it was precisely through this pride that I caused my student such great harm." [qi huilian, ch88]
"I thought too highly of myself and was unwilling to compromise, and it was precisely through this pride that I caused my student such great harm." this statement actually very closely describes someone—xue xiuzhuo. he came from a humble background and had a late education, which is why he and yao wenyu had the opportunity to be classmates despite yao wenyu being younger. though the two could be considered childhood friends, they were opposites in every way.
yao wenyu was favored by hai liangyi due to his family, and this sparked resentment in xue xiuzhuo due to him being just a bastard son of the xue clan. he asked to be hai liangyi's pupil 3 times, but was rejected all times. hai liangyi took yao wenyu as his pupil, but he kept him away from the court.
Unlike Hua Siqian, he kept no apprentices, and had only one student—Yao Wenyu. Yet because Hai Liangyi wished to avoid a conflict of interest, Yao Wenyu had stayed away from court politics despite his extraordinary talent. [ch33]
xue xiuzhuo dedicated himself to politics, establishing himself as a capable official. this was around the time hai liangyi acknowledged his abilities too. but, despite all his efforts, he was mistreated again and again by hua siqian and his cohort. as a result he grew disillusioned by the state of the court and started to grow ambitions to dismantle the system.
but what makes xue xiuzhuo and yao wenyu so different? let's look at it from the officials' perspective:
Jiang Qingshan did not hold Yao Wenyu in high esteem, or even read Yao Wenyu's essays, because they were the practical doers rather than the idealistic talkers. To officials like them, Yao Wenyu was not as important as Xue Xiuzhuo was, even if Yao Wenyu was truly a genius. [ch148]
although hai liangyi kept yao wenyu away from politics to avoid a conflict of interest, yao wenyu still got judgment from the officials because he was perceived as an idealist who did not want to do anything for the nation. what's important here is that yao wenyu staying away from court is indeed a choice, and one that he does have a right to, but qudu is so obsessed with politics that if you're a genius and you don't want to engage with politics, you suck.
so! what does yao wenyu aspire to, if not politics? he actually takes after his teacher. although hai liangyi is the secretariat elder, he is first and foremost a gentleman who cares about the masses, doesn't discriminate against those of common birth, and always has hope for the imperial bloodline to reign in a rightful and just way, which is why he mentored li jianheng after his ascension. no one taught him how to be emperor, and the officials thought he was hopeless, but hai liangyi went on to instruct him in the classics.
despite being the "unofficial pupil" of hai liangyi, having received promotions from him time and time again, xue xiuzhuo looks down on hai liangyi for being too rigid in his thinking. he thinks that this teacher of his is too orthodox to share his mind that the empire must be overturned.
yao wenyu is much like hai liangyi. he is also a gentleman who cares for the masses, but xue xiuzhuo thinks him as orthodox as his teacher, as such, both were obstacles to his goal.
there is something interesting. xue xiuzhuo is remarked to have qi huilian's shadow in him [ch148] and i fully agree. since yao wenyu fully takes after hai liangyi's traits, xue xiuzhuo is much more like qi huilian, who is ruthless enough to treat people as pawns and show partiality to those he deems worthy/shared his ideals. he is equally ruthless towards himself, giving everything into the pursuit of his so-called practical ideas to remove the emperor and put his own heir on the throne. they had this conversation, after hai liangyi committed suicide:
"One day, I will die." Xue Xiuzhuo said in a raspy voice. "Regardless of whether I will be forsaken and deserted by all, or bring ruin and infamy upon myself, I will walk along this path to the very end.
"You stop at nothing to kill others and yourself." Yao Wenyu released his grip on the chess piece. "You won't be able to save all of the so-called masses in the world." [ch148]
"It's a draw today. The victor has yet to be determined." Xue Xiuzhuo stopped in his tracks. He did not look back. "But since there's Xue Yanqing in the world, what need is there to keep a Yao Yuanzhuo around? You and I do not share the same path. After tonight, there is no need for us to see each other again." [ch148]
"Since there's Xue Yanqing in the world, what need is there to keep a Yao Yuanzhuo around?" this sounds incredibly conceited coming from the man himself, but that is truly how the officials saw it. if yao wenyu did not have the intention to enter the court, then he is lesser than the scholars who dared to enter the court, and practically useless with xue xiuzhuo among their ranks.
i also want to draw a parallel between "You and I do not share the same path," spoken by xue xiuzhuo to yao wenyu, and "Though we share the same path, we cannot walk it together," spoken by qi huilian about hai liangyi. although qi huilian and hai liangyi were academic rivals, they had mutual appreciation for each other. it was just that they cannot walk the path together due to hai liangyi being a secretariat of the court, and qi huilian had long lost his flame.
recall that xue xiuzhuo asked qi huilian to teach li jianting, initially. i think that xue xiuzhuo is placing himself as qi huilian's "pupil" here, in the sense that qi huilian is the one he is taking after, against yao wenyu who takes after hai liangyi. the enmity between yao wenyu and xue xiuzhuo is taken to an extreme due to xue xiuzhuo's own radical thinking that mirrored qi huilian. it was just that he lacked empathy, foresight, and trust in others which i'll get into shortly.
xue xiuzhuo's mentality is thus: those who had to be killed, will be killed. to him, it's a dog eat dog world, because he had experienced the hardship of climbing to the top of power with nothing but drive alone, and was beaten back down again and again. li jianheng was no good as emperor, so he must be killed. hai liangyi was an orthodox man who didn't want to replace the emperor, so he must die. yao wenyu would not act in any way of help to him, so he must be killed. but xue xiuzhuo was fair and treated everyone as pawns—he himself is a pawn. in other words, those who can take him down will become the winner.
ironically, it's because he has this mentality that his efforts fail to amount to anything in the end. something that i found interesting is how teacher-disciple relationships in qjj are often highlighted as being like a father-son relationship, if not just as close. the most direct example is actually ji gang who, as shen zechuan's shifu, is as good as a father. yao wenyu also said thus: "serving one's teacher is akin to serving one's father." [ch83]
xue xiuzhuo taught li jianting from a young age in order to shape her into becoming a great sovereign of dazhou, one that fits his expectations. but although she called him "teacher", he did not consider her a pupil or daughter, and it's all due to his belief that "there is no place in the court for teacher and pupil, only the sovereign and his ministers." [ch22]
so, in the end, when xue xiuzhuo surrendered to shen zechuan for li jianting's sake, he did so as a subject and not as her teacher. the thing to be noted is that he did essentially what qi huilian did in ch96 by giving up his life and honor for the sake of his pupil—so, once again, he is embodying qi huilian—and yet he failed to be a teacher in li jianting's life: a guardian to look up to, an idol to embody. he was just someone who guided her and taught her how to be an emperor. she did not receive any sort of "fatherly love" that qi huilian gave to shen zechuan and hai liangyi gave to yao wenyu, and in return, they showed filial piety to their xiansheng.
even li jianheng acknowledged hai liangyi like a father, just that he felt like he was still too foolish— "just a few days ago i was memorizing classics. ... i really did want to call him my second father." [ch96]
even though neither li jianting nor xue xiuzhuo felt like they needed this kind of bond, it is what ultimately made them fall - that they lacked a genuine familial relationship to sustain them on a deeper, emotional level.
She and Xue Xiuzhuo mutually complemented each other, but they did not have even a smidgen of teacher-pupil bond. Xue Xiuzhuo had no need for it, and so did Li Jianting. Even to this moment, Xue Xiuzhuo was still doing what he was as a "subject." [ch280]
there's also something else: trust. xue xiuzhuo micromanaged and scrutinized every step of li jianting's ascension to the throne because he's paranoid like that, and he has such a fixation on everything going right the way he thinks of it. the fact that he could not trust in his own heir indicated that he had not been even the best teacher. although xue xiuzhuo took on qi huilian's traits of ruthlessness in using people as pawns, ultimately sacrificing themselves for li jianting and shen zechuan individually, xue xiuzhuo could not let li jianting go to achieve what she really wanted, which is the power to liberate herself—an ambition VERY much like shen zechuan's.
Qi Huilian dared to do anything, and the driving force behind his insane actions was his trust in Shen Zechuan.
Lanzhou was not his pawn.
And it was precisely because of this that Qi Huilian left nothing behind for Lanzhou. Shen Zechuan did not need restraints. [ch280]
xue xiuzhuo still used li jianting as a pawn, but lanzhou was not qi huilian's pawn. he was his pupil, the only living person to receive all of his teachings to go and overturn the empire. he was his heir apparent. in the end, it was shen zechuan who came out of his shell to become someone truly worthy of the throne, to take control of his life and fate—something that li jianting failed to do even as emperor because she had stayed under xue xiuzhuo's finger and was also constricted by her own doubts and fears. but shen zechuan dared to pave his own way to the top, overturning dazhou for good and starting a new regime for peace and prosperity.
xue xiuzhuo is not the only pupil who had his own pupil. yao wenyu started to teach xiao xun when shen zechuan's ascension to the throne was imminent, because he has the foresight to know that shen zechuan needed an heir if he were to land this goal of overtaking qudu.
"I know he is not the man to be an emperor, but I still wanted to assist him, because he is a natural-born overlord. Your father knew Zhongbo was on a rapid rise to power and prominence. He granted Shen Zechuan's entry into Libei, because Xiao Xun is Shen Zechuan's one and only option."
"Since Lanzhou dares to head towards that position," Xiao Chiye enunciated each word, "it's his."
"It's his," Yao Wenyu said, "but only if he has Xiao Xun." [ch237]
yao wenyu is meaning to do what xue xiuzhuo already did: raise a kid and teach them properly into becoming the future emperor. if they did not have xiao xun, shen zechuan wouldn't have legitimacy of power due to his lack of successors and shen name—he is not of the li clan. but it's exactly this radical thinking that helps them succeed. xue xiuzhuo criticizes hai liangyi for being rigid, but he himself is rigid in wanting to preserve the li clan as the rightful heirs to the throne, which is why he painstakingly went to find emperor guangcheng's bastard daughter and make her his heir apparent. this is how, once again, yao wenyu and xue xiuzhuo are at a draw. they are both intelligent men with foresight, but although xue xiuzhuo had qi huilian's radical thinking, he was still confined by his mindset that the imperial clan was the only clan that could rule. yao wenyu understood that shen zechuan was the only one who could actually rule by this point, and supported him to the top, teaching xiao xun to be his successor.
at the very end, once xue xiuzhuo has landed himself in prison and shen zechuan has been deemed the victor, yao wenyu was losing his life. xue xiuzhuo was also about to die, so the two met up one last time, in which xue xiuzhuo boldly declares that he does not change his mind about anything.
"Even until today," Xue Xiuzhuo raised his eyes, "I still do not approve of Teacher's path. No one can convince me in this game, and you can't either, Yuanzhuo."
Yao Wenyu turned his wheelchair around and made his way out of the cell.
Xue Xiuzhuo said as he looked at Yao Wenyu's back, "Heaven beget me, Xue Xiuzhuo, so take my life, call me what you will. Between you and me, who has won? I was merely defeated. My master was born at the wrong time and lost to Shen Zechuan. It was her timing that was wrong, not her fate." [ch282]
"Between you and me, who has won?" is a good question, because xue xiuzhuo and yao wenyu had spent their whole life as diametrically opposites, rivals where one stood in court and the other traveled the land. i think, in the end, they were still at a draw. neither won, for they both fought valiantly in this game of chess and lost their lives for it. xue xiuzhuo declared his surrender to shen zechuan, he did not surrender to yao wenyu. and so, shen zechuan is the winner, but the one behind the winner, the master of the pupil, was the true driving force.
Qi Huilian was the teacher of the emperor; he would only teach someone heading into that position. He reached out to Shen Zechuan not only because he was forced into a dead end but also because this was the most insane of the Grand Mentor's schemes.
Qi Huilian molded Shen Lanzhou into being, and he pushed a sharp Shen Zechuan back into his sheath with the aim of obliterating all the self-resentments that sustained Shen Zechuan and kept him hanging onto life. He wanted to set Shen Zechuan's path right, so that Shen Zechuan could see himself for who he truly was.
Xue Xiuzhuo did not make the wrong move; he had simply been a tad too late. Qi Huilian had long already possessed his own Heir Apparent. [ch234]
everything happened the way it did and the reason lanzhou went on the path he did, was all thanks to qi huilian's insane scheming that went over even xue xiuzhuo's head. this is why qi huilian, long after his death, is the ultimate winner of qjj.
qi huilian > former crown prince
qi huilian > shen zechuan
hai liangyi > yao wenyu > xiao xun
hai liangyi > li jianheng
hai liangyi > xue xiuzhuo (with influences of qi huilian) > li jianting
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