A solitary figure clad in white emerged from the colossal gates that opened into the labyrinthine heart of the city's ministries, censorates, and administrative halls. Amid the ceaseless tide of officials and bureaucrats, robes whispering, wooden hu tablets tucked beneath sleeves, it was hardly difficult to discern Ba Sing Se's newest Zhuangyuan scholar, who bore himself with an unstudied composure among those long enthroned in service to the mighty state of the northern Earth Kingdom.
Shan's gaze drifted across the thoroughfare in search of his pupil. Yet before even the faintest crease of concern could disturb his habitual nonchalance, Satchiko hastened from a side gate that adjoined the nearest garden.
"All is well here, Shan," she uttered preemptively, forestalling inquiry. The White Scholar acknowledged her with a slight inclination of the head. "So, what did you and Han Fei discuss?"
Shan attempted a mercifully concise summary of his meeting with the venerable mentor. To expound upon the full architecture of its political implications would have required an hour, perhaps more, and Satchiko had only recently mastered the basic dance of ink and brush. Today's matter concerned yet another trifling yet perilous skirmish between Ba Sing Se's fractious neighbors, the quarrelsome states of Jian Xin and Xiao Zhong. Bothersome to this city's border guards as always.
As ever, the two sent men to perish in muddy fields over causes so grand as a pond of undrinkable water or some rotting tree, all the while casting anxious glances toward the giant at their doorstep, praying it would not tilt its favor toward the other side. Mere hours ago, Ba Sing Se's border garrison had observed another clash that crept uncomfortably close to the city's outer demarcations. A handful of stray arrows had crossed into Ba Sing Se's territory and struck the city's golden coin banner, indeed an egregious trespass that could not, by any calculus of statecraft, be ignored.
The response naturally would be proportionate yet unmistakable. A few thousand lives expended in minor chastisement is preferable to the cataclysm of a drawn-out war.
"It should have been Xiao Zhong, shouldn't it?" Satchiko ventured. "My sister told me their soldiers are often the ones who went across boundary."
Though she withheld the more harrowing particulars of her own journey beyond the walls, the question itself was bold, perhaps too bold for a mere student of the White Scholar.
Once again, Shan's reply was more measured. To leap toward conclusions, he reminded the naive student unskilled in the intricate realm of political science, is a lethal folly in an era so saturated with volatility. In warring times such as these, inference could become indictment, and suspicion could become a death sentence. A scholar, even an aspiring one, must cultivate observation tempered by restraint, lest she descend into the wanton conjectures of common gossip.
"A rather inquisitive spirit," an older voice interjected smoothly. "It is an admirable quality in a young student."
Satchiko turned. Han Fei himself is descending the steps of the administrative entrance. The passing throngs of officials and ministers performed customary bows that did not disrupt their duty for too long. There are still those who cast sidelong glances. Some curious, some speculative. Many perhaps wondering why the caretaker of the fractured realm's most esteemed museum director has addressed so informally toward one without rank or office.
Following Shan's example, the pupil also bowed deeply, but uncertain how best to address the older mentor who still somewhat occupies the paramount role of being the White Scholar's teacher. Thus, occupying a level of cultural importance not to dissimilar to being a parent, even if filial piety may not be the strongest trait of the harsh Legalism.
As usual, the director waved aside excessive ceremony, though his eyes gleamed with unmistakable interest. He seemed almost delighted to meet the pupil of his most distinguished student.
"My mentor insisted on greeting you personally," Shan added, as though he himself found the gesture faintly astonishing. After all, Han Fei the philosopher and accomplished official had little reason to concern himself with a novice whose conviction to a reviled school of thought is dubious at best.
And yet perhaps curiosity stirred him. In an age when practically all young students hailed from affluent backgrounds are sent to be taught by Earth Sages, who had nearly monopolized education throughout the Earth Kingdom by shaping virtue, propriety, and orthodoxy in their own image, it is an anomaly to find a youth instructed outside their doctrinal canopy. Of course, all competing Earth Kingdom philosophies have scholars who can teach others how to read and write the most common administrative script. But the youth being educated by those other than the mainstream culture of Earth Sages is not a sight anyone can just openly see in cities like Ba Sing Se or Omashu.
"Forgive my intrusion," Han Fei said with a genial laugh, unwilling to appear a doting relic of another era. "I did not anticipate my student would assume the mantle of teacher so soon. And besides, young adherents of our… tradition, may be counted upon one's fingers each generation."
Satchiko absorbed this in silence. Only now did she consider the rarity of her own education. Han Fei does not appear to be an Earth Sage, and Shan is obviously no orthodox moralist. Yet it is the Earth Sages who defined the intellectual pulse of the realm for thousands of years.
"How many Legalist scholars such as yourself and Shan remain?" she asked, the question escaping her before caution could restrain it.
Shan wanted to open his mouth, perhaps to soften the impropriety of the pupil's candor. But Han Fei answered without hesitation.
"Let's just say that men of our ilk frequently incur the displeasure of those who prefer the realm fragmented into hereditary fiefdoms, where birthright masquerades as Heaven's decree." The philosopher's tone remained measured, careful not to trespass into words where the consequences of being eavesdropped is too high. Yet the absence of alarm among the passing officials suggested he neither feared censure nor courted it recklessly. "Even my most illustrious predecessors in thought," the older man continued with a level of reverence. "Those who enacted the most sweeping reforms and won the confidence of rulers, seldom escaped the executioner's blade." A faint smile touched his lips. "Well, the funny story is that the cleaver once hovered uncomfortably close to my neck too."
Perhaps wishing to divert the conversation back to seriousness, Shan elaborated further upon the experiences that scholars of their philosophy have endured in the thousands of years past.
"Courting the favor of those who inherit their station by birthright is a treacherous current," Shan added solemnly, lacking his mentor's unexpectedly buoyant disposition when recounting the embattled history of their much-maligned philosophy, a doctrine that had earned the contempt of nobles and Earth Sages alike. "Even should one secure the indulgence of a king, no monarch serves as an immortal bulwark against men who refuse to see beyond their own narrow vantage. It is a lamentable truth that the nepotists who perpetuate the lofty yet hollow ideals of those vaunted sages are as innumerable as the sands of the Si Wong Desert."
In the present age, or at least by Han Fei's own estimation, fewer than ten scholars in the Earth Kingdom dared to openly style themselves steadfast Legalists, willing to stand in deliberate opposition to the prevailing moral orthodoxy shaped by the mainstream Earth Sages. Satchiko, of course, scarcely qualified. She possessed neither the iron resolve nor the scholarly refinement such a title demanded, both facts she acknowledge with zero qualm at all.
"Shan." Han Fei turned toward his prized pupil, a faint shadow of disappointment dimming his otherwise composed expression, a response to perhaps yet another of the White Scholar's subtle deviations from the unspoken path the elder philosopher had laid before him. "I understand impatience. But no great tree has ever flourished because its roots were tugged skyward before their time."
It may well have been a subtle rebuke of the White Scholar's somewhat precipitate decision to anoint himself an educator. Though the duty of a teacher is one held in high esteem among the scholars of the Earth Kingdom, Han Fei likely considered a young literatus such as Shan better suited to pursuits more fitting to his years, particularly the careful tempering of his rhetoric lest an incautious phrase inadvertently provoke the notoriously thin-skinned Te Laoye.
Yet another concern weighed upon the philosopher and curator's mind. The act of cultivating successors, individuals not merely willing to tolerate, but to champion a school of thought long reviled and openly scorned by the Earth Sages. This is no trivial undertaking. Such a charge, as Han Fei took care to stress, is not meant as an affront to the young pupil presently standing before them. Rather, it is a matter of principle, a responsibility of such gravity demanded a far more exacting discernment in the selection of the White Scholar's very first disciple.
"Though I commend your ambition to walk the dignified path of an educator," Han Fei continued. "One must first weigh the consequences. Young Yuko here has yet to complete her Earthbending studies. And I am more than certain that Zhu Xi will not look kindly upon a student of his to dabble in doctrines that affront the sagely men of this world. I welcome curiosity and diligence in the young. But you must not accept a pupil merely because she hails from beyond the Upper Ring's estates. In this, you would do well to emulate my own mentor in Omashu, Xun Kuang."
"Yours truly understand," Shan replied, bowing with measured humility.
Of course, none of this suggested Satchiko would be dismissed. If anything, Han Fei appeared faintly pleased that she had not fled upon encountering what many Earth Sages and mainstream scholars condemned as the tyrannical dimensions of Legalist thought. But in all fairness, if this teenager's affinity for books and scrolls is on par if not exceed the regular young students of this city, perhaps it just might tempt the old mentor to acknowledge this novice as a promising new member to the frowned upon school of Legalism, which had survived since before the very concept of a unified Earth Kingdom.
Regardless, such theories are not important for the pupil now. Satchiko wished to address Han Fei properly, though she hesitated over the correct honorific for a museum director of his stature. She settled instead for honesty, which may be more convincing to the older mentor, who perhaps hasn't thought much about Shan's ability to teach.
"Honored Grandmaster."
Han Fei was slightly surprised. Unlike Shan, his face was more reactive. Perhaps the middle-aged statesman never actually expecting to live long enough to hear someone address him with this very specific title, which is relevant in the tradition of the Earth Sages that acknowledges concepts such as scholarly ancestry.
"The gravest peril to any ruler lies in blind trust towards those around them and the inability to fairly deliver reward and punishment without favoritism, of course, Zhu Xi and the Earth Sages would reject such a claim," Satchiko began, immediately compelling Han Fei's attention as the older man recognizes this very iconic tenet espoused by past Legalist scholars who encourages reasonable paranoia amongst rulers. "I am not an accomplished scholar, and my dislike of the Earth Sages are nowhere near as fervent and sophisticated as yours. But that does not make me incapable of learning. And Shan did not assume the mantle of teacher lightly."
Her defense of Shan was sincere, though tactfully incomplete. She withheld details of her own travels, meeting pompous governors and a treacherous marquise, along with other anecdotes unlikely to pass the lips of a sheltered Ba Sing Se student schooled too long in ornamental rhetoric and moral platitudes.
"I see you have made progress," Han Fei observed in an impressed manner, commending the young student who is presented as having no affluent background at all. "Yet understand this. Many parents would recoil upon learning that my star pupil teaches more than the writings of the Earth Sages. Tell me, child, how did you find the texts that so plainly invite the disdain of your other instructor, Zhu Xi?"
Satchiko chose honesty over embellishment but still worded the answer carefully. These are not foppish nobles to be appeased with flattery, nor sanctimonious sages to be placated with rehearsed reverence. She confessed that while she could not wholly embrace the harsher, more cynical strains of their philosophy known as Legalism, she had discerned within it a clarity she had never before encountered. Certain principles possessed a stern merit, one that a provincial girl might previously have dismissed as incomprehensible. For that revelation, and for her advancement in letters and scholarship, she expressed unfeigned gratitude.
"Good to hear that," Han Fei replied briskly, evidently satisfied that his star student was at the very least a somewhat competent instructor, no small achievement in any age. Though it remained evident that Shan's pedagogical talents did not extend to the elemental discipline of Earthbending, a craft in which Satchiko's progress was painstakingly slow despite access to immaculate instruction scrolls.
Even so, the director voiced tempered confidence that perseverance would see her master whatever discipline she undertook beneath the White Scholar's tutelage. Visits such as these, after all, are customary. Thus, affording her the rare privilege of observing the machinery of state at close hand.
"Thank you, Director Han Fei," Satchiko said at last, bowing again. Despite uttering the earlier phrases associated with the unfeeling and impartial philosophy of Legalism, she ensured the sleeve still concealed the earthen glove clenched within her palm.