“He grades on a curve only he understands.”
A Ink immortal of The Celestial Court
3 known connections · an open question
Once Zhang Yazi, a Sichuan hero of the Jin dynasty, posthumously promoted to God of Literature and patron of every examination hall in China. For a thousand years, every scholar who ever sharpened a brush has burned incense to him the night before the exams. He grades on a curve only he understands.
He is reading examination essays tonight — a thousand years of them, stacked to the ceiling of his hall — red brush in hand, marking the ones with real fire in them.
One examination season, the papers will all come back perfect — every scholar honest, every essay true — and Wenchang will set down the red brush and finally read something for pleasure. He has been waiting a thousand years for a good book. The scholars keep almost writing him one.
“He was aiming at a scholar — a good one, deserving — and the brush flew wide, past the Dipper, and wrote one character on the dark between stars. Wenchang looked it up in every dictionary in heaven. It isn't in any of them. Kuixing won't throw another until he knows what it says. The scholars are waiting. The character is waiting longer.”
Kuixing's brush wrote a character no dictionary holds.
The Jade Emperor’s court: the Queen Mother of the West, the thunder dukes, the star lords, the weaver and the cowherd. The bureaucracy of the cosmos — every god holds an office, every office holds a ledger, and somebody is always auditing.
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