The next day, the fifth of the Ninth Month.
The slow beat of the night watchmen’s drums had just passed the fourth watch through the winding streets and alleys of the capital.
Not a trace of light had yet broken in the sky. Darkness still pressed down upon the entire imperial city.
The chill of deep autumn swept in on a draft that coursed through the lanes, gathering on the steps outside the Xu Mansion’s gate until it crusted into a thick layer of white frost.
The rules of this Great Qian Dynasty’s state examinations had followed precedent from the previous dynasty and the Tang ever since its founding.
These scholar exams were held once every three years, and the provincial examinations—the Autumn Tribunals—were traditionally meant to begin during the crisp, high skies of the Eighth Month.
But this year, the calendar happened to bring an intercalary month. The officials of the Ministry of Rites had quarreled over omens for the exam date for half a month before stubbornly shifting the entire schedule deep into the Ninth Month.
When the capital examinations were held in the Eighth Month, a few lingering cicadas still scraped their late-summer song from the trees. But by the Ninth Month, the northern wind came howling down from the Great Wall, and the cold seeped straight into a man’s marrow.
The examination cells in the shrine grounds, long neglected and poorly repaired, were bitterly cold and utterly bleak.
This year’s exam date promised to be ten times harsher than any in memory.
Inside the Xu Mansion’s main gate, sheltered from the wind by the porter’s lodge, stood a lacquered wooden table.
Xu Zijin, dressed in a plain blue gown worn thin and washed pale, stood before it.
He kept his head lowered, methodically arranging the exam basket on the tabletop.
The basket was finely woven from slivers of bamboo and set in three tiers. He placed each item within its proper place: the wolf-hair brush, the pine-soot inkstick, a coarse stone inkstone.
Ever since that day he had sat for so long in private study with Chief Grand Secretary Xu Jie, a change had come over Xu Zijin’s very nature.
The hungry ambition and shallow pride that had marked him as a scholar had scrubbed away completely.
He stood there now with no visible stir of emotion, like a deep, still current—his face showing the steadiness of a man tempered by trials that bordered on death.
From the corridor behind him came the heavy tread of footsteps.
A door creaked open, and a draft of winter wind slipped through as Xu Youde crossed the threshold, dressed in a simple black homespun robe.
Hearing the sound, Xu Zijin set down the brush holder in his hands at once and turned, bending at the waist in a formal bow.
But Xu Youde paid no attention to such formal gestures from a junior.
His expression unmoved, he walked straight to the table and plunged his hand directly into Xu Zijin’s basket.
His search was even more thorough and exacting than the inspecting soldiers stationed outside the shrine gate.
First, Xu Youde pulled out the coarse grain cakes, wrapped in thick oil paper from the basket’s middle tier. He weighed them in his palm, squeezed to test their hardness, then peeled back one corner of the paper, brought it close to his nose, and sniffed carefully to check for any strange odor.
After inspecting the food, he reached into the lowest tier, fished out the smoke-free ember coals wrapped in oilcloth, and rubbed each one between thumb and finger.
Satisfied that the charcoal was solid and free of shoddy wood chips that might produce heavy smoke, he returned them to their place.
As he rearranged the basket, Xu Youde murmured under his breath: “Ziqin, those examination cells in the shrine—by name, they’re places chosen for the Son of Heaven’s future disciples. But they’re no different from prison cells. The bricks on every wall let the wind pour through, and the tiles overhead aren’t even fully laid.”
“At this time of the Ninth Month, once the draft picks up in the deep of night, it can freeze half the life from a man’s bones.”
He pressed the basket lid tightly closed and turned his gaze to Xu Zijin’s threadbare gown: “That woolen blanket you brought—when night comes, you must wrap it tight around yourself, without shame to your scholar dignity. Some of those cell rows sit next to the stinking pits. When the wind shifts, the foul reek sours the air.”
Xu Youde slowed his words, letting each one drop like a hammer on the tabletop: “For the love of all that’s sacred, do not let disgust at the smell drive you to skimp on food or water. A man goes in hungry and stiff-fingered, his essay comes out flat and brittle, without the very bones to hold it up. In that examination hall, you must first survive as a man, then write as a scholar.”
With these household maxims attended to, the air before the table did not ease.
Xu Youde turned, raising a hand and letting it fall heavy upon Xu Zijin’s thin shoulder. He leaned forward, closing the distance.
The trace of mild household concern that had lingered in his voice moments before was gone. What emerged now was only the chill authority of the rank-and-file Minister of Revenue in the current dynasty.
“Ziqin,” Xu Youde said at the lowest possible pitch, each word dense with weight, “these cakes and coals in the basket—they will only keep your life going in the shrine cells.”
He fixed his eyes on Xu Zijin’s brows and eyes: “But the brush in your right hand, and what it writes on paper—that must preserve the very foundation of our Great Qian Dynasty.”
Xu Youdai dropped his hand, hooked it behind his back, and stared out into the night beyond the gate.
“Beyond the northern border, that girl Qinghuan, with over a hundred thousand border troops, is locked in a desperate stand against the heavy armored cavalry of the Helian at Zhenbei Pass. On the Tongzhou river, Wuyou has just finished closing the Tongjin Gate—and seen blood spilled.”
Xu Youde addressed Zijin directly: “The two of them—sister and brother—have offended the whole court, the officials and the great families of Jiangnan thoroughly. Our Xu family now stands on the knife-edge of the storm, surrounded by wolves that sniff only for flesh.”
He lifted his fingers to point at Xu Zijin’s chest: “This Autumn Tribunal today is meant to be a wedge—a sharp spike that my family and His Majesty in the palace are driving straight into the heart of that officialdom. From this fight, there is no step back.”
Xu Zijin remained standing. The weight on his shoulder lifted.
He lifted his head and met the eyes of Magistrate Xu, the man who held the realm’s grain and revenue in his palm.
In the glow of the lamps, his face did not stir. In his eyes there was neither the terror of an approaching ordeal nor the fever of a momentous duty.
He raised both hands and steadily lifted the empty bamboo brush holder from the desk.
"Magistrate Xu, rest assured," Xu Zijin said, neither impassioned nor making any solemn vow. "Once I enter the examination hall today, I seek not the highest honors, only to pass this gate."
Xu Youde stood motionless before the desk, his gaze fixed on Xu Zijin.
A full three breaths passed. The drip of the water clock in the room was clearly audible.
Then, Xu Youde's taut, aged face relaxed.
He nodded with great satisfaction, withdrew his hands from behind his back, lifted his sleeve, and brushed off a speck of frost that had settled on the cuff.
A faint smile appeared.
"Good," Xu Youde said, striding toward the door. As he passed Xu Zijin, he tossed back a final remark: "I will have a jug of strong wine warmed in the main hall, awaiting news of your success."
His voice faded as his figure stepped across the threshold, hands clasped behind his back, melting into the biting dawn wind and the dark obscurity of the courtyard.
Outside the heavy vermilion gate of the Xu Mansion, a green-canopied carriage waited at the foot of the stone steps.
The horse harnessed to the carriage snorted in the cold wind, puffs of white mist streaming from its nostrils and mouth.
An elderly servant of the Xu family, hunched over, approached carrying a wind-proof sheep-horn lantern. He cast its light upon the frost-touched steps, guiding Xu Zijin down the staircase.
Xu Zijin, carrying his examination basket, stepped onto the carriage’s foothold, bent down, and climbed into the compartment.
The old servant raised his whip and cracked it across the horse's back.
The wheels turned, and the wooden axle ground against the thick hoarfrost covering the long street, steadily bearing the carriage toward the Examination Street in the eastern part of the capital.
As the sky gradually grew lighter, more and more candidates for the examination appeared along the road.
Scholars gathered from every direction—some on foot, some in sedan chairs, but most riding in mule-drawn carts.
Along the entire avenue, the rumble of wheels, the neighing of horses, and the shouts of porters mingled together.
The somber, oppressive atmosphere of the imperial examinations swept toward them like a wave from the surging crowd.
In less than half an hour, the carriage came to a slow stop at the end of the street.
Ahead lay the majestic Dragon Gate of the examination compound.
Here, both sides of the street were already packed with a dense throng of scholars.
The cold wind rustled the long sleeves of the Confucian robes worn by the candidates and degree holders. Countless lanterns swayed in the dim dawn light, illuminating faces filled with hope, tension, and solemnity.
Thousands of scholars from the Great Qian Dynasty gathered outside the Dragon Gate, waiting only for the main doors to swing open, so they could step into that examination hall where their destinies would be decided.
