Rant Show: I Angrily Criticized a Million Parents

Chapter 225 An absolute stalemate throughout the ages, how to break it?
The viewers in the live stream felt embarrassed.

"Oh, how embarrassing. I don't even know when eyeglasses were invented, let alone when the Tang Dynasty fell."

"Me too, after graduating from university, I completely forgot all that knowledge."

"I never expected Zhou Yang to be such a hidden academic genius. He's so low-key."

"Yeah, what about those people who call themselves academic geniuses just because they can only solve a linear equation in two variables?"

"But isn't this riddle unanswerable? Didn't they say that eyeglasses didn't exist in the Tang Dynasty?"

"It's possible the production team made a typo."

"..."

"I think the answer is Li Bai!" Zhou Yang suddenly said.

"Huh?! Why?" Fatty Di asked, puzzled.

Zhou Yang gently patted Fatty Di's head and said with a smile, "Think about it, 'The bright moonlight before my bed seems like frost on the ground.' This means he can't even distinguish whether what he sees is moonlight or frost. Isn't that nearsighted?"

Upon hearing Zhou Yang's explanation, Fatty Di immediately understood.

The audience was completely stunned; this was simply amazing!
"Wow, that's awesome! I never thought of that."

"Does this sound like a riddle? It feels more like a brain teaser."

"Zhou Yang's understanding is incorrect. This Tang Dynasty poet's works are very old and of poor quality, and he was also in poor health, so his pen name should be..."

"The person upstairs is right! This answer is much better than Zhou Yang's."

"That's amazing! If there had been netizens in the Tang Dynasty, there would have been far more than three hundred Tang poems!"

"..."

After completing this level, Zhou Yang led Pang Di to find the exit and enter the next floor.

Unfortunately, they ran into Zhang Wanxing, Yue Yunpeng, and Yi Xi from Mianyang.

The three stood in front of a door, frowning and discussing from time to time.

Upon seeing Zhou Yang and Pang Di, Yi Xi's eyes lit up, and he excitedly shouted, "Brother Yang, come and help us!"

"Let's go see what they're busy with." Zhou Yang led Pang Di to them.

Then they discovered that there was a couplet posted on the door, but only the first line was there; the second line was nowhere to be found.

There was a table next to it, on which were the Four Treasures of the Study (writing brush, ink stick, inkstone, and paper).

Clearly, the task here is to compose a poem based on the couplet and write the second line to paste on the table.

“Zhou Yang, although my calligraphy skills are quite good and I can write it, this couplet is a bit difficult. The three of us have been thinking about it for a long time but still haven’t found the answer,” Yi Qianxi said with a wry smile.

Yi Xi has been studying calligraphy since childhood and has even participated in national calligraphy competitions, but couplets are not his forte.

Yue Yunpeng chimed in, "If you asked me to write crosstalk, I could definitely do it."

Zhang Wanxing retorted without backing down: "If you asked me to write a song, I could definitely handle it!"

Zhou Yang smiled and joked, "You can think of it as one monk carrying water, two monks sharing the burden, but three monks won't have any water to drink."

The three of them were immediately a little embarrassed.

Zhou Yang shook his head and looked up at the first line of the couplet.

"South Tongzhou, North Tongzhou, both Tongzhou connect the North and South."

This first line of the couplet is indeed very difficult, and it was once considered an absolute masterpiece in history.

The young man next to me, Yue Yunpeng, said dejectedly, "I just wrote 'male student, female student, male and female students have male and female,' but the old man in charge of reviewing it here said it was uncivilized and wouldn't let me pass. He even stormed off in anger, even though my writing was perfectly neat."

At this moment, the viewers in the live stream also began to have a heated discussion.

"I actually think what Yue Yunpeng said makes a lot of sense."

"Men are paired with the South, women with the North, and students with Tongzhou—I think that's fine!"

"That's not right. Each character should have a corresponding meaning. It should be 'male student, female student, male and female students learn from boys and girls,' but what does that mean?"

"Then it's better to write 'Male netizens, female netizens, male-female netizens' online."

"Holy crap, are all the people in this livestream graduates of a couplet-matching university?!" "Uh oh, I'm just a primary school graduate; I can only look up to you big shots."

"..."

puff...

Fat Di couldn't help but burst out laughing; Yue Yunpeng's matching couplet was just too funny.

Zhou Yang's lips twitched. If he were to approve the second line of the couplet himself, he would definitely be so angry that he would run away.

A good second line is not just about matching the first and second lines; it also requires consideration of parts of speech, structure, and rhythm. Most second lines found online fail to meet these requirements.

At this moment, Zhou Yang called to Yi Xi, "Yi Xi, get ready to write and see how I respond."

"Ok, no problem."

Zhou Yang pondered for a moment, then said loudly:
"East pawnshop, west pawnshop, pawn things at both pawnshops!"

Yi Xi's eyes lit up, and with swift, flowing strokes, he quickly wrote the second line of the couplet.

"Zhou Yang, your second line is fantastic! It's sure to pass!" Yi Xi said excitedly.

"Wow, why couldn't I have thought of that? Zhou Yang, your second line is fantastic!" Zhang Yixing gave Zhou Yang a thumbs up.

"It's almost the same as my second line from earlier." Yue Yunpeng pouted, looking unconvinced.

Fat Di was completely captivated at this moment, and her eyes were filled with admiration as she looked at Zhou Yang.

"Hey, why is Fatty Di looking at Zhou Yang like that?" someone suddenly noticed.

"Based on my experience as a girl, it seems like Dilraba has a crush on Zhou Yang," someone joked.

Wow, are they showing off their love?

"That's not fair! Why is Zhou Yang so popular with female celebrities?!"

"Because Brother Yang is handsome!"

"..."

Yi Xi and the other two needed to wait for the old man to return for review, so Zhou Yang and Pang Di left first.

After going through two floors, Zhou Yang also discovered some patterns in the challenges set up by the program team.

The first level is a challenge that tests physical skills.

The second level focuses on testing knowledge of humanities.

Each level seems to be a test of the abilities and qualities one should possess on the path of pursuing dreams in life.

On the third floor, Zhou Yang and Pang Di arrived at a huge and cluttered warehouse and found the mission instructions. A card read:

"The warehouse must be thoroughly cleaned before it can be cleared."

Zhou Yang looked at the spacious warehouse that covered a hundred square meters, exchanged a glance with Pang Di, and the two couldn't help but smile wryly.

"Fatty Di, let me do this heavy work. You can rest for a bit," Zhou Yang suggested.

Fat Di shook her head like a rattle-drum: "No way, we're teammates, how can I let you do the work alone? We should work together."

Dilraba showed off her charming smile, which was very beautiful.

Zhou Yang was slightly stunned, then nodded in agreement: "Okay, you take care of the small items, and I'll take care of the big ones."

"Understood!" Fatty Di replied playfully.

Half an hour later, the two finally managed to clean the entire warehouse.

Fatty Di was already drenched in sweat, and Zhou Yang noticed this and gentlemanly took out a tissue to wipe away her sweat.

"Thank you," Fatty Di said with a smile.

It must be said that Zhou Yang's gentlemanly manners made her very fond of him.

Although Zhou Yang is still a child, his speech, behavior and physique are no different from those of an adult.

(End of this chapter)