At the third quarter of the Mao hour, on Gongyuan Street.
The September north wind swept down from the Great Wall, driving straight into the capital’s thoroughfares.
A thick layer of white frost covered the bluestone pavement, and even the mules pulling carts were reluctant to move their hooves, snorting out heavy white breath.
Thousands of students from the Great Qian Empire gathered outside the Dragon Gate of the examination compound.
The sky was dim, and only the sheep-horn lanterns in the hands of the attendants swayed in the wind, casting elongated shadows on the white frost.
Most of the impoverished students could only afford thin blue cotton jackets, clutching bamboo-woven examination baskets, their faces pale blue from the biting cold.
Some stamped their feet repeatedly, trying to summon a bit of warmth into their numb soles.
At the front of the line, it was a completely different scene.
Lu Huaijin and a few other pure-stream scholars from the Imperial Academy gathered together.
They all wore thick fox-fur cloaks, the fur glossy and well-oiled, blocking the chill tightly. Each of them carried a small gold-engraved hand warmer, burning premium silver-thread charcoal inside, radiating comfortable heat.
They spoke lightly, discussing the Confucian classics, showing no sign of pre-exam anxiety or the struggles of the surrounding poor students.
The line of class distinction was drawn on this frost-covered street.
Imperial Academy student Zhao Xuan, with his hands tucked into his cloak sleeves, looked around idly. His gaze unintentionally swept to the side and rear.
He raised an eyebrow, noticing Xu Zijin standing in a sheltered corner against the wall.
Xu Zijin wore only a washed-out blue cotton gown, carrying a half-worn examination basket, standing alone.
The wind pressed the thin garment tightly against his back, outlining a lean but upright spine.
Zhao Xuan snorted coldly. The "autumn examination for top scholar" bet that had stirred up the entire city a month ago was known to everyone in the Imperial Academy.
He bumped the shoulder of a classmate beside him and tilted his chin. Several scholars followed his gaze and started laughing.
Zhao Xuan strode over and stopped three paces in front of Xu Zijin.
"Brother Xu," Zhao Xuan said, looking up and down at the thin gown, his tone full of undisguised disdain, "With the cold seeping through today and the examination cubicles open to the drafts, dressed like this, can your fingers even hold the brush? Don’t end up unable to write even the first character of the top scholar’s paper."
At this, the few scholars who had followed burst into muffled laughter.
"Exactly, Brother Xu takes the autumn exam as a joke. We can’t stop him."
"He’ll freeze in the examination hall. Never mind becoming top scholar—he’ll probably be carried out."
The wind continued to blow. Xu Zijin’s expression remained calm, his eyes without the slightest ripple.
Holding his examination basket, he glanced at the valuable fox-fur cloaks and responded with a simple courtesy, "Thank you all for your concern. The cold wind only chills the skin; it cannot disorder the handwriting."
This unperturbed reply fell on Zhao Xuan’s ears as nothing but an attempt to save face. Zhao Xuan stepped half a pace closer, about to continue his mockery.
Behind them, Lu Huaijin turned around.
The moment he saw Xu Zijin’s face, Lu Huaijin’s genial, noble expression changed instantly. The five fingers holding the golden hand warmer tightened instinctively; the scalding metal pressed against his palm, yet a cold sweat broke out on his back.
Those fools Zhao Xuan had no idea who they were provoking!
A few days earlier, a scene at Academy Director Li Changgeng’s residence came crashing back into Lu Huaijin’s mind like a hammer blow.
He had gone to pay respects to Director Li and saw on the desk a greasy, crumpled scrap of paper.
The paper had originally been a wrapper for melon seeds from Widow Zhang’s fried goods stall in the Eastern Market, scribbled with heretical vernacular lines like "Water flows downward because it has a reason."
Lu Huaijin needed only a glance at the handwriting—the three dots of the character "xin" connected in a line—to recognize it as Xu Zijin’s brushwork. When he had written the "Poem of Scorning Water" to mock Xu Zijin, he had thoroughly studied the flow of the opponent’s strokes.
After Li Changgeng identified the defaced and scrawled-over "Discourse on Rectifying the Mind and Investigating Things" manuscript, his face turned pale. He had dragged Lu Huaijin straight to the private residence of Grand Secretary Xu Jie.
In the study that day, the tea’s aroma had grown cold.
Chief Grand Secretary Xu Jie sat upright in his armchair, holding the greasy scrap of paper, his gaze lingering over it for a long time.
The Old Grand Secretary did not show anger. He simply pressed the incomplete manuscript under his gavel and looked down at the trembling Li Changgeng and Lu Huaijin, speaking in a steady but undeniable tone, "This fragment ends here. I will keep it. Once you leave this door, let it be as though it never appeared in the market. After the autumn examination, the Imperial Academy will receive an explanation."
With just a few words, he suppressed this discourse of new learning that could have toppled the foundations of the old guard.
When Lu Huaijin withdrew from the Grand Secretary’s study, his legs were weak.
He knew better than anyone: Xu Zijin was long no mere impoverished hanger-on at the Xu residence.
The blade of that "Discourse on Rectifying the Mind and Investigating Things" was now held personally by the reigning Grand Secretary.
And now, Zhao Xuan, with no idea of his own death warrant, was provoking this weapon hanging over the heads of all officials in court with a flimsy bet.
Lu Huaijin’s throat went dry. He wanted desperately to shout Zhao Xuan down, but the Grand Secretary’s gag order cut like a blade at his throat.
If he leaked Xu Jie’s plan, he needn’t enter this autumn examination hall. Tomorrow, the Shuntian Prefecture prison would hold one more scholar’s corpse.
Ahead, Zhao Xuan’s voice continued.
"Brother Xu, anyone can boast. When the papers are handed out, I’ll be waiting to read your—"
Zhao Xuan’s words never finished.
Lu Huaijin strode forward, shoving aside the blocking classmate.
He walked quickly up to Xu Zijin and pressed his golden hand warmer into Xu Zijin’s wide sleeve pouch.
Then, under Zhao Xuan’s stunned gaze, he raised both hands, crossed his sleeves, and—facing Xu Zijin in his thin blue gown—made a deep, formal bow. He bent his back low, pausing for a full two breaths.
"Brother Xu," Lu Huaijin straightened up, his voice a little tight but clear, "On this day of the grand examination, may your literary thoughts flow like a spring and your brush set words on paper."
The wind blew through Gongyuan Street. Apart from the night watchman’s drum and the horses’ snorts, there was no other sound.
Zhao Xuan’s words stuck in his throat, his mouth half-open.
The surrounding scholars who had been jeering stood frozen in place, watching the pure-stream leader of the Imperial Academy pay such great respect to a man they regarded as an arrogant disciple of the new learning.
Xu Zijin looked at Lu Huaijin, whose head was bowed before him. Their eyes met briefly—one holding restraint and calculation, the other carrying a deep calm born from surviving life and death.
He understood that the Old Grand Secretary’s design had already unfolded before these old-school scholars.
Xu Zijin raised one hand, basket in the other, and returned a proper, respectful fist-and-palm salute.
"With Brother Lu’s kind words."
Only those five words, nothing more. He turned his gaze toward the closed Dragon Gate of the examination compound, ignoring the silken-robed Imperial Academy students around him.
Zhao Xuan snapped back to reality, hurried over to Lu Huaijin’s side, and lowered his voice, "Brother Lu, what are you doing? Have you forgotten the challenge he issued at Juxian Tower? Did you—"
Lu Huaijin turned his head and cut him off.
"The autumn exam is imminent. Don’t stir up trouble." He glanced at Zhao Xuan, his voice so low only the two of them could hear, "From now on, don’t provoke him."
After dropping this warning, Lu Huaijin wrapped his fox-fur cloak tightly around himself, turned, and strode back to the front of the line without looking back.
Zhao Xuan stood in the biting wind, utterly bewildered, his simmering anger forcibly stifled by this uncharacteristic admonition. He stared suspiciously at Xu Zijin’s straight back, a vague chill of unease creeping into his heart.
The hour had come.
Within the high walls of the examination hall, three muffled cannon blasts soared into the sky, shaking the frost and snow from the battlements.
“Open the Dragon Gate—!”
The ritual official’s proclamation echoed through the long street.
The two vermilion gates began to slowly swing open to either side.
Inside, Imperial Guards in gleaming armor stood in two rows, holding torches that illuminated the deep passage leading to the examination cells.
Thousands of scholar candidates surged like a tide, stepping forward one by one to undergo the body search.
Xu Zijin, carrying his examination basket filled with coarse grain cakes and silver charcoal, stepped onto the stone steps covered with white frost.
The wind lifted the hem of his blue cotton robe. He walked steadily, straight into the brightly lit, peril-laden imperial examination grounds of the Great Qian Dynasty.
