Who Says Literati Can't

This book is based on the life of Li Yu, a writer in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties, and uses the hexagrams of the "Book of Changes" as hidden threads to connect his ups and downs in life from an ignorant boy to an old man. From his hometown in Rugao, where he devoted himself to study and won the first prize in the Five Classics, to his study tour in Jinhua, where he endured and gained enlightenment, from staying true to his true nature during the marriage dispute, to the ups and downs of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, to writing books and retiring to seclusion in his later years, all aspects of his life that combines the character of a scholar and the wisdom of the world are displayed. The book incorporates Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism and philosophy, and deeply binds the wisdom of the Book of Changes to Li Yu's life choices. It not only describes his perseverance and disputes in his academic career, opera creation, and bookshop management, but also his tender relationship with women such as Xu and Cao, hiding true love and redemption in troubled times. The folk dialects and market fireworks of Rugao, Jinhua, Hangzhou and other places are interspersed to make the characters more vivid and the scenes more three-dimensional. Li Yu kept his original intention amidst the ups and downs, pursued leisurely feelings in the hustle and bustle, used pen and ink as a boat, and life as poetry, and finally wrote "Idle Feelings Occasionally", leaving an immortal cultural context. The whole book contains the vicissitudes of the times and the glory of human nature, conveys the life philosophy of "according to one's heart and lives seriously", and presents the legendary life of this "master of leisurely love" in three dimensions.