Four of the poems in Zhuang Rui's manuscript were recorded in the Biographies of Qing Dynasty Figures, all written by the same person. After carefully memorizing the background and life story of this person, Zhuang Rui put down the book.
The author of these poems was Wang Shizhen from the early Qing dynasty. Wang Shizhen, originally named Wang Shizhen, courtesy name Zizhen, sobriquet Ruan Ting, and also known as Yuyang Shanren, some people called him Wang Yuyang. Though he was Han Chinese, after his death Emperor Kangxi posthumously honored him as Wenjian, truly great imperial favor. He was from Xincheng （present-day Huantai County, Shandong） and was the most outstanding great poet of the early Qing dynasty.
Wang Shizhen was born into a family of generations of officials. His grandfather, Wang Xiangjin, served as the Provincial Administrative Commissioner of Henan Province during the Ming dynasty. Wang Shizhen entered the family school at age five, studied the Book of Songs at six or seven, and took the Child Examination during the seventh year of Shunzhi's reign, winning first place at the county, prefecture, and circuit levels—equivalent to topping the exams in elementary, middle, and high school or being the top scorer in the college entrance exam today. In the fifteenth year of Shunzhi, he passed the imperial examination and became a jinshi, gradually spreading his literary fame.
At the age of 23, Wang Shizhen traveled to Jinan and invited famous literary figures of the local scene to gather at the Water Pavilion on Daming Lake. Improvising on the scenery, he composed four poems about autumn willows. When these poems spread, they shook the literary world north and south of the Yangtze River, with many responding in kind. The literary circle called this gathering the 'Autumn Willow Poetry Society,' making it famous far and wide. Later generations named a small alley on the northeast shore of Daming Lake 'Autumn Willow Garden,' referring to the place where Wang Shizhen once chanted his 'Autumn Willows.'
Taking the manuscript out of the box and comparing it with the book, Zhuang Rui was delighted to find that these famous early poems of Wang Shizhen were all included in the manuscript, along with some Qinhuai miscellaneous poems and short lyrics. The manuscripts containing poems all bore seals and signatures. Although he knew little about calligraphy and painting, Zhuang Rui understood that works with inscriptions and seals were worth much more than those without. However, to his embarrassment, he still couldn't make out the names written on these seals, whose they were, or whether they were Wang Shizhen's personal seals.
Wang Shizhen's achievements did not stop there. In the fourth year of the Kangxi reign, he was promoted to a director of the Ministry of Revenue and took up an official post in the capital. At that time, the capital gathered a cloud of talented scholars and writers, providing a stage for Wang Shizhen to display his talents. In his poetry creation, he put forward the 'theory of spiritual resonance,' initiating a new poetic style, and left behind many famous works. His scenic poems were especially praised, and a line from one of his short lyrics, 'Green willows on the city walls is Yangzhou,' was adopted as a painting theme by many famous artists of the time. Emperor Kangxi praised him as 'excelling in both poetry and prose' and 'widely learned and skilled in poetry.'
In the seventeenth year of the Kangxi reign, Wang Shizhen was summoned by the emperor. 'His poems met imperial favor, so he was appointed as a Hanlin Academy expositor, then promoted to reader-in-waiting, and entered the Southern Study.' He became the first Han Chinese official to rise from a ministry position to a literary minister in the Qing Dynasty.
Zhuang Rui often read historical biographies and knew that the Southern Study was where Qing Dynasty emperors' literary attendants were on duty. Qing scholars regarded it as a position of purity and importance, and being admitted to it was considered an honor. Sometimes, they even drafted imperial edicts and decrees following the emperor's wishes. Emperor Kangxi even issued an edict asking Wang Shizhen to submit his poems, an extremely rare honor at the time, making Wang Shizhen's prestige in the court unparalleled for a time.
Wang Shizhen was learned and fond of antiquity, capable of appraising books, paintings, and ancient ritual vessels. He excelled in epigraphy and seal carving, and his poetry made him a master of his generation, equally renowned with Zhu Yizun. His calligraphy was refined and elegant, resembling that of Jin Dynasty masters, and he was highly praised by later generations. Wang Shizhen's early poems were fresh, clear, and tranquil, while after middle age they turned forceful. He excelled in all forms, especially seven-character quatrains.
Moreover, he was a great admirer of talent. In the Kangxi era, after succeeding Qian Qianyi as the leader of the poetry circle, Wang Shizhen became the recognized arbiter of the early Qing literary world. For a time, new poets and younger literary figures who came to the capital to seek guidance for their works would first pay a visit to Wang Shizhen. If they could obtain even a single word or phrase of praise from him, their fame would instantly rise.
In his book, Zhuang Rui also came across a very interesting anecdote: In those days, Pu Songling was an unsuccessful scholar, full of learning but unrecognized. After completing his famous *Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio*, he had no way to introduce it to the world. In desperation, Pu Songling sought out Wang Shizhen.
After reading the first draft, Wang Shizhen greatly praised Pu Songling's *Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio*, wrote many commentaries and returned the draft to Pu Songling, and also presented him with a poem： "Talking idly, hearing idly, under the bean trellis and melon frame, rain like silk. You must be tired of worldly talk, loving instead the ghostly songs sung by autumn graves." This shows the deep appreciation and support Wang Shizhen had for Pu Songling.
To facilitate the publication of *Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio*, Wang Shizhen boldly wrote "Appraised by Wang Ruan Ting" on the manuscript, causing bookshops to compete for the draft and consider it an honor to print the work. At that time, eminent figures praised this event： "The nation's cultural governance surpasses a thousand years, promoting noble arts and fostering refined styles, with great masters emerging one after another. Yet, the authentic master of the era must be acclaimed as Wang Gong of Xincheng, the foremost."
Most of Wang Shizhen's works have been published and preserved throughout his life, from the Kangxi era to the Republic of China. However, the copy in Zhuang Rui's hands was actually a handwritten *Xiang Zu Bi Ji* in brush calligraphy, with a high probability of being Wang Shizhen's original manuscript. If it were truly his handwriting, then each word would be worth a thousand pieces of gold.
It is worth noting that although Wang Shizhen's poems are widely known to later generations, his calligraphy manuscripts are extremely rare. A domestic auction house once sold Wang Shizhen's *Handbook for Conduct in Life and Manuscript Collection*, which was only a few pages, and the final transaction price reached as high as 1.57 million RMB.
Of course, Zhuang Rui was still completely unaware of all this at the time. Nevertheless, through these materials, he gained some confidence. Given that Wang Shizhen was the literary leader during Emperor Kangxi's reign, the manuscript he left behind should be worth no less than twenty thousand yuan. Even if it were written by Wang Shizhen's descendants, it would still count as a rare ancient book.
Zhuang Rui had already made up his mind: when returning to Shanghai, he would bring this manuscript along and have Uncle De appraise it. If it were genuine, he would entrust Uncle De to auction it off. For Zhuang Rui, the greatest value of this manuscript—its informational use—had already been fully exploited. Naturally, he now wanted to capitalize on its monetary value, after all, the twenty thousand yuan spent to acquire it accounted for a third of Zhuang Rui's total assets.
After crawling out of the warm bed and carefully putting the manuscript back into the camphor chest, Zhuang Rui lay back down. A sudden thought struck him: since he could absorb the spiritual energy from this calligraphy, could he also absorb spiritual energy from other antiques？ After all, both items had come to him quite by chance. The couplet was his grandfather's relic, while obtaining this manuscript was entirely down to his own luck. If that old lady had taken the manuscript out in another shop, he probably wouldn't have had the chance to buy it. Zhuang Rui didn't believe that those who specialized in antiques would think it was just a broken book, like Liu Chuan had.
With this ability, what could he do? Become a calligraphy and painting appraiser? He couldn't even recognize seal script. Use X-ray vision to read scratch-off lottery tickets? If he were caught on the spot, he'd probably be sent off for dissection. Could this power only be used to peek at women's bodies?
Zhuang Rui's mind was in a mess, and he started to let his thoughts run wild. The day's events had had too big an impact on him. Not only had his eye's spiritual energy upgraded, but spending a huge sum of twenty thousand yuan at once was also a first for Zhuang Rui, who usually had no more than a few hundred yuan in his pocket.
"Right, there are still many people like Old Lady Zeng who have treasures but don't know it. I can buy low and sell high, profiting from the middle..."
A flash of insight hit Zhuang Rui, and he gave himself the label of a flipper. Little did he know that as living standards rose day by day, the antiques market was heating up, with all kinds of forgeries, imitations, and tricks flooding the market. Even the experts and professors in the Forbidden City in Beijing wouldn't dare claim they had never made a bad call.
As the saying goes： ignorance breeds boldness. Classmate Zhuang Rui drifted off to sleep with the happy feeling of having found his purpose in life.