The moment Bai Yan heard Magistrate Liang brag about his "vast and practical learning," something inside him snapped. Not loudly—more like the polite crack of a gentleman folding a fan before committing academic murder.
"Oh? So Liang-daren is also a master of arithmetic?" he said, smiling the way a scholar smiles before flipping a table with numbers.
Liang Shixian returned the smile with official confidence. "I study all things pertaining to governance and statecraft. Not like those fellows who only compose poems and sigh dramatically at the moon."
If he hadn't added that last part, things might have ended peacefully. But he did—which meant Bai Yan's pride as the county's self-appointed mathematics warlord detonated on the spot.
Bai Yan tightened his grip on his math textbook. A strange aura surrounded him—the type of aura only seen in men who have memorized multiplication tables for fun. He thought, Fine, you dare talk big in front of me? How many of the Six Arts can you actually do, Liang-daren? And you dare challenge me in numbers? Today I'll mop the floor with you and that foolish son of mine at the same time.
He said warmly, "If Liang-daren is so skilled, why don't we have a little competition later?"
Liang's eyes lit up. "Why not?"
These were two men who had waited their whole lives for someone—anyone—to challenge them academically. Both immediately forgot why they'd gathered here in the first place.
Only one man remembered: Fang Wushang.
"Are we not here to discuss military strategy?" he thundered. "Why are you two suddenly dueling with arithmetic?!"
Shansier rushed forward and pulled him aside. "General Fang, allow me to handle the militia deployment. I will send our village defense teams to Bai Family Fort immediately. You may return to your station."
Fang Wushang grunted. Fine. The bandits wouldn't arrive today anyway. If the scholars of the world wanted to hold a math tournament, let them. He marched away with his soldiers, leaving the arena to the lunatics.
Meanwhile Bai Yan and Liang Shixian, far too pleased with themselves, headed toward Gao Family Fort. If they were going to duel, it had to be somewhere respectable—and nothing was more respectable than the Workshop's academy they called the Shujing.
Once seated inside, surrounded by scrolls, desks, ink, and enough scholarly atmosphere to choke a horse, Liang Shixian inhaled deeply. "This academy is remarkable," he said, genuinely touched.
Bai Yan laughed. "It isn't a private school. It's a public school—open to every child in the village. Anyone who wants to learn to read can study here for free."
Liang froze, stunned. A free school? In a village? This man must think he's living in the future. He grew emotional. "Noble. Truly noble. I always knew the Li family were good people, but I never imagined goodness to this degree."
As they spoke, Bai Yan's son and his wife entered.
Formal greetings followed—polite, short, and irrelevant to the upcoming bloodshed.
The young Bai immediately brightened at the mention of a math competition. "Father, ever since becoming math class representative, my skills have skyrocketed. I respect you deeply, of course, but I won't lose in arithmetic."
Bai Yan burst into laughter. "Enjoy this arrogance while it lasts, boy. Today I will teach you what it truly means when people say: your father is still your father."
Liang Shixian scoffed. "You two must have forgotten I'm still here. With me present, both father and son will lose."
Three men. Three egos. One battlefield.
Li Daoxuan sipped his pre-rain tea from the sidelines, settling in to watch the massacre.
Bai Yan graciously said, "Liang-daren, please present the first problem."
Liang nodded. "Very well. A field is twelve steps long and fourteen steps wide. What is the area?"
He had barely finished speaking when Bai Yan and his son answered in unison:
"One hundred sixty-eight!"
Liang blinked. "So fast?"
Bai Yan waved a hand. "Just a two-digit multiplication. Liang-daren must be going easy on us."
The young Bai added, "Even a second-year child could solve that."
Liang didn't know what "second-year child" meant, but he understood the context: You are insulting me. His pride rose like a general mounting a horse. "Then produce a problem yourselves."
Bai Yan nodded. "Very well. Reduce the fraction twelve over eighteen."
Fraction? Liang nearly laughed. Fractions had existed since ancient times—every scholar knew them. He mentally opened the arithmetic scrolls of the ages: Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Arts, Zhoubei Classic, Five Classics of Arithmetic… pages flipped in his mind like a lantern-wheel turning at a festival. Finally, he landed on the rule: multiply denominators, divide, reduce.
He announced proudly, "Two-thirds."
Then he noticed the boy had already written "two-thirds" neatly on paper—with good handwriting at that.
Liang's jaw tightened. This child was faster than him? Impossible. His mental lantern-wheel had spun furiously. How fast was the boy's?
The young Bai smirked. "My turn."
He drew a circle on the paper. "Given a circular field with a diameter of ten zhang, find its area."
Liang stiffened. A geometry problem. A difficult one. This child was openly challenging his honor.
His lantern-wheel spun again—Nine Chapters again—he remembered the rule: circle area equals circumference times diameter divided by four. Except… the boy hadn't given the circumference.
He protested, "This question is incomplete. The circumference—"
Before he finished, Bai Yan casually answered, "Seventy-eight point five."
Liang stared at him like he'd just witnessed a man divide by zero. How—how had he solved it without the circumference? And why seventy-eight point five? What kind of mystical shortcut was that?
Bai Yan, sensing blood in the water, continued, "Next question. A cylinder has a base diameter of one chi and a height of two chi. Compute its volume."
This time Liang's lantern-wheel didn't turn. It didn't even flicker. His mind was empty—like an abandoned exam hall after the imperial tests end, with only wind blowing through.
He collapsed onto the table. "I… I concede…"
Young Bai also paled. "A cylinder's volume? That… I haven't learned yet."
Bai Yan threw his head back and laughed triumphantly. "Victory! With my twelve Holy Volumes in hand, nobody under Heaven can defeat me in the Art of Numbers! Hahaha!"
And so, in the Shujing of Gao Family Fort, history recorded an event scholars would one day refer to as the Great Mathematics War—where three generations of male pride collided, and only one man walked away with his ego inflated to dangerous levels.