This Scholar Is So Ordinary

People said he was mediocre. He wasn't much of a student, wasn't strong at martial arts, and his family's official rank was too low to mention. At the academy, the children of royal relatives made fun of him, wealthy merchants' daughters looked down on him, and when his teacher asked what "zhizhonghe" meant, he couldn't answer. Zhen Fan thought so too. Until the day he spoke up for a bullied page, took his punishment, knelt down, and kowtowed, but still refused to take back his words. Until his father handed him a wooden box, only to be dragged off to prison that very night. Until he discovered that the official documents his father had copied all his life concealed an old case involving "Guixu" that no one dared touch. Geniuses rose to the altar one by one, then fell and shattered one by one. Those who calculated everything under heaven ultimately couldn't calculate the human heart. And all this ordinary boy wanted was to understand one thing: Could living without leaning to either side truly count as a skill? He couldn't explain "zhizhonghe," but he spent his whole life becoming its answer.