There are many ways to destroy a person.
Su She provided one of the cruelest methods.
Xu Fang was once a true scholar. His learning was profound, he was well-versed in Confucianism and Daoism, and he excelled in the art of debate, with no rival in eloquence.
Xu Fang's "arrogance" was known throughout Linzi.
The people he had scolded were not just Su She, not just the Gathering Treasures Merchant Guild.
From the Crown Prince down to the local governors. From the powerful nobles of Qi to the Chu ruler—he had even scolded the King of Chu.
As long as he saw something unfair or unjust, he would speak out against it.
Undoubtedly, he had offended many people, but no one could do anything about him.
Because he was very famous.
The word "name" is composed of "mouth" and "evening." In ancient times, when people walked at night and couldn't see each other clearly, they would shout their names loudly to let the other person know. That's how this character came to be.
Therefore, the meaning of "name" can be extended to mean making one's name known through boasting.
Xu Fang lived up to his reputation, and his character could be called noble.
He came from a poor family, and when he was still studying at the Three-Drum Academy, the academy dean, in order to curry favor with the powerful, secretly changed the ranking of the examination essays, promoting the son of a powerful family from a lower position to second place, while the original second place was pushed down.
This had nothing to do with Xu Fang, because he was first.
But when he learned about this, he tore up his books in anger and swore never to be in the same company as the corrupt.
Many people believed in "each person sweeps the snow from their own doorstep, why care about the frost on others' roofs."
But Xu Fang was defending the justice and fairness of the entire academy.
For a scholar to destroy books was a serious crime, and he was even at risk of being stripped of his scholarly status.
But this matter had too much impact and alarmed Yan Ping, who was the Prime Minister at the time.
Yan Ping personally intervened, and later the entire Three-Drum Academy was disbanded, and Xu Fang became famous throughout the land because of this.
Because he was such a scholar, his attack on the Gathering Treasures Merchant Guild was so effective. One phrase "that thing" (meaning money), and one gesture of covering his nose with his sleeve, directly brought the reputation of the Gathering Treasures Merchant Guild to rock bottom.
And what did Su She do?
Besides responding with one indifferent sentence, he did nothing.
Seven years passed like this, long enough that Xu Fang might not even remember that he had scolded the Gathering Treasures Merchant Guild. Because he hated injustice, he had scolded too many people and things, and what was the Gathering Treasures Merchant Guild compared to them?
Xu Fang had been living in Linzi for years, but his hometown was in Xinming County, northwest of the Qi capital. The Xu family was originally poor, but because they had produced someone like Xu Fang, they lived reasonably well locally.
Seven years later, Xu Fang was in the State of Jing participating in a scriptural debate.
And the Gathering Treasures Merchant Guild's business had grown larger and larger. By this time, they had already controlled about seventy percent of the business in Songcheng, Xinming County, where Xu Fang's hometown was.
Su She gave the order.
In the entire Songcheng, not a single merchant was willing to sell anything to the Xu family.
Firewood, rice, oil, salt—no matter what they tried to buy, the prices were sky-high, and they simply couldn't afford it.
The Xu family wrote letters to Xu Fang, but these letters lingered at the postal station for more than ten days and just couldn't be sent out.
The Xu family simply couldn't hold on any longer, and later even tried to beg their way to Linzi, but everywhere they went, doors were shut and bolted.
For every household that refused to give alms, the Gathering Treasures Merchant Guild gave one tael of gold, which people at the time called "Door-Shutting Gold."
Just for this expenditure alone, the Gathering Treasures Merchant Guild spent one hundred thousand taels of gold.
And this massive expenditure brought about—
During peaceful times, the entire Xu family starved to death!
From the seventy-three-year-old elderly mother down to the wife who managed the household, and the three-year-old son.
No one was spared.
And from beginning to end, Su She's people never touched a single finger of the Xu family.
Only then did that family letter finally reach Xu Fang's hands with miraculous speed.
But by the time Xu Fang rushed back day and night, only he was left alive in the Xu family.
There was no way to sue, and no one was willing to stand up for him. He went mad and stormed their doors, but was easily subdued by the Gathering Treasures Merchant Guild, and he couldn't even see Su She's face.
They only left him one sentence: "The people do not kill scholars."
Xu Fang's Dao heart collapsed on the spot, and from then on he disappeared without a trace.
The reason this matter didn't spread was partly because the Gathering Treasures Merchant Guild deliberately covered it up, and partly because the people of Songcheng, knowing they had acted unjustly, remained silent.
Some questioned how the Xu family could have starved to death during peaceful times because they couldn't buy food.
Was it that the Gathering Treasures Merchant Guild had secretly killed them?
Su She once responded: "Perhaps they were lacking in that thing!" (referring to money)
That phrase "I have never seen anyone use that thing to shame people as much as the Gathering Treasures Merchant Guild!" is still mentioned today, but the person who said it never appeared again.
...
After bringing Xu Fang into a secretly controlled inn, Chong Xuansheng's first instruction was to have him take a bath and change his clothes.
"Wouldn't it be better to look more pitiful?" Xu Fang asked.
Jiang Chen glanced at him, understanding that this man probably had never let go of his hatred. When he was destitute in Yuli Ward, living with beggars, he must have been thinking about how to take his revenge.
For that, he was willing to live an even more wretched life, so that the long-overdue revenge would be even more violent.
"Are you still expecting someone to uphold justice for you?" Chong Xuansheng frowned. "I don't want you to play the victim, I want your scholarly dignity and your arrogant pride."
He had gone to great lengths to find Xu Fang, not because of justice.
So-called justice hadn't protected Xu Fang back then either.
In fact, if it weren't for the Gathering Treasures Merchant Guild suddenly stabbing him in the back, he wouldn't have remembered this matter at all. Who was Xu Fang, how pitiful was he, what did it have to do with him?
"I don't understand." Xu Fang asked hoarsely. "What do you want to do?"
Chong Xuansheng replied with a question: "Do you have the ability to take revenge? Do you have any plan to bring down the Gathering Treasures Merchant Guild?"
Xu Fang fell silent.
Even though his face was so covered in filth that his expression couldn't be seen, his pain was still palpable.
"Then go take a bath," Chong Xuansheng said.
Xu Fang turned around and actually went to take a bath.
Chong Xuansheng told him that he only needed to follow orders. And he had no other choice.
After lingering on the edge of survival in Yuli Ward for so many years, the only person who had come was Chong Xuansheng.
As for "respect"?
He no longer needed such things. He only wanted revenge.
Once, he would naturally rise in anger and leave with a flick of his sleeve. Someone like Chong Xuansheng, a so-called heir of a noble family, he, Xu Fang, could point at his nose and curse him to pieces.
But all of that no longer existed.
Now he was just a son who had lost his mother, a husband who had lost his wife, a father who had lost his son,
A beggar living on the streets.
A avenger with no hope of revenge.
...
"Let's go."
Watching Xu Fang leave, Chong Xuansheng said.
Jiang Chen asked: "We finally found him. If we're going to do something, shouldn't we act quickly?"
"No matter how quickly we act, we still need to give him time. He's been lying on the ground for too long and has forgotten how to be a person."
Chong Xuansheng pushed the window open a crack, looked at the sky outside, then closed the window and walked out: "It's almost dawn. Let him rest for the whole day, and we'll come back tomorrow."
Jiang Chen was worried that Xu Fang, without receiving any promise, might do something foolish, so he asked: "Shouldn't you tell him something?"
Chong Xuansheng just shook his head: "I believe he has enough patience."
He had one more thing he didn't say.
If the current Xu Fang no longer even had this bit of patience, then he would have no value left at all.