Mr. Huaixuan: the Last Master of Shu Studies

In the afterglow of the glory of the Qianlong era, a baby's cry in Shuangliu, Sichuan, was as faint as a candle in the wind. His name is Liu Yuan, and he was born as an "unlucky" person soaked in a medicine jar. It seems that he is not even qualified to become a speck of dust in the history books. However, it is this speck of dust that will write a silent and shocking spiritual epic in the shade of locust trees in Bazi, western Sichuan in the next eighty-eight years. This is not a simple counterattack legend. This is the difficult anchoring of a soul in the huge inertia of the times. When all the scholars flocked to the single-plank bridge for the imperial examination, he was "trapped" in his hometown because of his frailty and filial piety. But hardship can turn into an opportunity. In his daily life of serving relatives and farming, he blended the "benevolence and filial piety" of orthodox Confucianism with the Taoist cultivation, which is regarded as "the art of outsiders", and forged a unique path of cultivating "body, mind, nature and life" - Huaixuan School. He lived in civilian life all his life and never wore official uniform. However, with his life practice of integrating knowledge and action and his profound and gentle wisdom, he attracted students from all over the world and was respected as the "Master of Western Sichuan". His story is a vivid picture of Sichuan civil society in the mid-Qing Dynasty. It allows us to see how Confucianism merged into local ethics like salt into water, and how an intellectual used the simplest persistence to respond to the emptiness inside a behemoth that was about to collapse. Following this master who staggered from the edge of death, you will see not only the transcendence of an individual, but also a deep and tenacious pulse of the core vitality of a civilization on the eve of a drastic change. Look at how this weak candle finally illuminates a mountain and river.