Volume 2 Chapter 1

  Swenshion sighed, bouncing his recently changed baby girl in his arms as he made his way into the classroom, where his student was diligently studying the history of trade between the Green Monkey Empire and the Blue Dragon Empire. Indeed, his student was so diligent that he held the book directly in front of his face.

  While it lay on the desk

  With the boy’s head on top of it.

  Tan was drooling slightly. He’d been snoozing for a while, Swenshion could tell. Silently, the imperial scholar stepped over to the boy’s side to see what page he’d reached before succumbing to dreamland and sighed. He’d only made it two pages on his own without Swenshion there to keep him on task.

  Well, that wasn’t surprising. Tan was a lot of things, but a great scholar would never be one of those things. His parents were relying on Swenshion to educate him enough to ensure that he was able to move in imperial circles, but it was a sisyphyan task.

  The boy’s retention of knowledge was just fine. But he had trouble switching numbers and letters about sometimes. A common enough ailment, but one which was a critical detriment in Swenshion’s world. It didn’t seem to impair him when cultivation was concerned, as he had a knack for everything related to the spiritual world.

  But for more mundane matters…

  Well, that wasn’t entirely true. He was an able farm boy, in addition to everything else that he was.

  But he would never be a scholar of any note.

  Still, that didn’t change Swenshion’s task. His task was to cram as much knowledge into his student’s head as he could manage, and he would do his best to manage.

  But first, he picked up the boy’s brush, dipped it in the inkwell, and carefully wrote the courtly characters “sleep” and “head” upon the boy’s cheek. Tan didn’t stir.

  Swenshion sighed and returned to the front of the classroom. There were five desks, one for each of the five children of the farm. But the others were all on different education paths than Tan. Tan’s dyslexia made it difficult for him to complete independent reading projects, which meant that Swenshion must dedicate his full attention to the boy to make certain he didn’t fall behind the others, who were under the tutelage of Swenshion’s wife and the mother of their daughter together, Lokari.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  So while the others were outside reading on their own at the moment, Tan was trapped in the schoolhouse that his father had erected for them.

  Swenshion gave the ink a few minutes to dry, then he slammed a book down on the teacher’s desk, causing Tan to jerk awake and say “I wasn’t sleeping!”

  “Uh-huh,” Swenshion said, soothing his daughter whom he had accidentally spooked with his theatrics. She settled down quickly. “So then, tell me how far you got on your own. What did you learn?”

  “That I hate the Green Monkey Empire and wish that we did a lot less trade with them,” Tan admitted, his voice grumbly.

  “The relationship between our empire and the Green Monkey Empire is one of the most significant, in large part because it is perhaps the least friendly of the three other great empires of the world,” Swenshion said. “However, even when the tensions between our rulers have been at their height, trade between the empires has always been an important and significant factor. In many cases, it was the weight of gold that would be lost due to war which tipped the scales towards peace, rather than any other factor.”

  “I know that,” Tan said.

  “Do you?”

  “Well I do now that you told me that,” Tan amended. “So do I really have to know how much silk we traded for how much corn and rice and whatever? Is it really that important?”

  “No,” Swenshion said. He sighed. “If you were becoming an imperial steward, then yes. But that is not likely to be your path. Not with your affliction.”

  “I hate it when you call it that,” Tan said. “I get things mixed up reading, what’s the big deal?”

  Swenshion sighed. “It’s a malady, and a difficult one to overcome, but you’re right, it’s not the end of the world. Now then, since you find trade so dull, let’s move on to another topic. Perhaps the poetry of Iva Verash will be more interesting?”

  “Who?” Tan asked.

  “Yes, let’s discuss that as well,” Swenshion said. “Six hundred years ago, a great poet was born to a poor merchant family. When she was sixteen, she wrote her first play, and hiring beggars as playactors, she formed one of the most successful troupes of the era, often performing for the emperor himself!”

  “You mean my grandfather,” Tan said.

  “Yes, Tan, I mean your grandfather. Anyway, her plays remain influential at court, so we shall need to get you familiar with them so that you understand when she has been referenced in conversation. We shall begin with one of her most famous tragedies, ‘A Rose By Any Other Name.’”

  Tan groaned, but inside he figured that anything was better than the subject he’d just finished.

  Swenshion took book which contained the collected works of Iva Verash and began to read.

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