That year, snow came later to the capital than it had in previous years. It was already midwinter when it finally began to fall.
As A-Ji listened to the old scholar lecturing at the front of the classroom, his phoenix-shaped eyes drifted, quite without his noticing, toward the world beyond the hall.
That morning, the snow had still been light and scattered, like willow fluff. By now, however, it had become great goose-feather flakes, whirling down thickly from the sky. The plants in the garden and the pebble paths alike had been blanketed beneath a deep quilt of snow.
The capital saw snow nearly every year, and snow days were hardly a rarity. Yet the first snowfall of the year was always something special.
A-Ji was already making plans for what amusement he might find after class.
As his thoughts began to wander, his gaze naturally shifted toward the young man seated on the other side of the orchid-painted screen.
In the full bloom of youth, the young man sat upright at his desk, a purple-bristled brush in hand, carrying himself with the pristine grace of fresh snow.
His obsidian-dark eyes were usually calm and detached, but at that moment they held a particular air of concentration.
A-Ji’s lips curled into a smile as he watched him for quite a while. Perhaps his gaze was too blatant, for the person beyond the screen finally swept him a brief glance.
Seizing the chance while the scholar had his back turned, A-Ji raised his hand and tossed a small paper ball onto the other’s desk.
“Little Shu, want to go boating and admire the snow after class?”
Qin Shu looked at the few dog-scratch strokes on the note. He suspected that, apart from himself, there was unlikely to be a second person capable of deciphering them.
A-Ji’s handwriting was not actually bad. But after he had once been caught passing Qin Shu a note mocking the scholar, he had received two hard raps across the palm from Song Wushen after class. Sniffling, he had told Qin Shu, “I’ve learned my lesson. I’ll never make that mistake again.”
Qin Shu had thought he truly had mended his ways. Who could have expected that A-Ji would turn around and invent this dog-scratch script instead—and teach Qin Shu how to read it beforehand?
That way, even if the scholar caught them passing notes during class, he could ensure that the “confidential” contents would remain unknown to any third party.
Qin Shu did not reply. He merely tucked the note away and lightly tapped his desk.
From the other side of the screen, A-Ji read the gesture as: *Pay attention.*
He pouted, but in the end obediently listened through the rest of the scholar’s lesson.
After what felt like half an hour of burning oil, class was finally due to end. Unfortunately, the scholar had become so absorbed in his lecture that he dragged it on for another stick of incense. Still, when he finally closed the book, he announced that there would be no homework for the day.
A-Ji nearly cheered aloud. But after hearing Little Shu tell him three times to conduct himself with more composure, he had learned enough of a lesson to swallow the shout before it escaped.
The dozen or so students in the Song family school hurriedly packed their book cases, forming small groups of two and three as they arranged where to go and play. Han Rongrong gathered two young lady friends, apparently intending to play hammerball. She looked toward A-Ji’s seat, meaning to ask whether he wanted to join them, only to find no one there. He had already perched cross-legged atop the heir apparent’s desk.
Han Rongrong glanced at the heir apparent’s stern face and abandoned the idea of calling out to him. She feared that if she went over to ask, she might be detained as well and made to recite her lessons. So she quietly slipped away with her two friends.
A-Ji leaned close to Little Shu. “Are we going or not? It’s the first snowfall of the year. We could light a fire in the pavilion at the heart of the lake, brew tea, and roast tangerines and longans. If we’re lucky enough to run into a hunter outside, we could buy a couple of cuts of venison, roast it as we drink, and have wine with it.”
They were so close that Little Shu’s faint scent of snow tea seemed to have drifted onto A-Ji as well.
He took a long breath of that pleasant fragrance while pleading, “The tutor hasn’t assigned us any work today. Isn’t this the perfect chance to enjoy the snow at our leisure?”
Little Shu looked at the bright-eyed, fine-featured youth before him. The way he spoke softly as he begged was terribly persuasive.
Yet he did not relent. “You’ll be sitting for the examinations after the New Year, and you’re still so fond of playing.”
“Han Rongrong and the others are going to play hammerball, but I didn’t go join in. How am I being playful?”
“Rongrong doesn’t have to enter the examination hall. Do you not have to, either?”
Qin Shu said, “It would be one thing if you make the list next year. But if you fail, whatever went wrong will inevitably reach Lord Song’s ears. If the questions are truly difficult, that would be no matter. But if you answer them incorrectly because you were lazy and failed to study properly, we’ll see whether you escape punishment then.”
A-Ji fell silent.
All the other students had already left the classroom. He dropped his head onto Little Shu’s shoulder. “Fine, we won’t go. But you’ll stay at my residence for dinner before going home, won’t you?”
In the end, Qin Shu did not say no again.
He had studied at the Song family’s private academy since he was ten. His imperial uncle was exceedingly fond of him, and knowing how much he preferred life outside the palace, had granted him an official title as the heir apparent when he came of age two years earlier, at sixteen, along with a residence beyond the palace walls.
The estate was somewhat far from the general’s manor, but it was quite close to the Song residence. Over the past two years, eating at the Song household had become a commonplace occurrence.
A-Ji went to have two braziers lit, then slipped into the kitchen to select some fresh fruit newly delivered by riders from distant places. He sent his attendant to Cuihua Tower to buy two plates of good dishes, then took Little Shu into the study.
Though their main purpose was to study, it was the first snow of the year, and they were not as pressed as usual to compose essays and practice calligraphy. Little Shu allowed A-Ji to practice his painting.
“Then I’ll paint a scene of snow in ink.”
With one hand holding his brush, A-Ji popped a grape into his mouth with the other, swallowing it skin and all.
Qin Shu sat opposite him and lifted his eyes to glance at him. At once, A-Ji became a little more serious.
His wrist shifted lightly. The brush moved across the paper, ink spreading over the page as a painting slowly took shape.
Qin Shu watched in silence. Whenever A-Ji truly put his mind to it, whether in calligraphy, essays, or painting, he excelled at all of them. Even in archery, riding, and polo, he ranked among the finest young men in the capital.
Perhaps because he was gifted at everything, there had never been any problem truly difficult or incomprehensible to him. His thoughts therefore tended to wander, and he rarely settled down for long.
At some point, the concentration in Qin Shu’s eyes began to drift.
His gaze moved from the painting to A-Ji’s prominent brow and tall, straight figure, upright as a pine.
That chubby little ball of a child from years ago had somehow grown up in the blink of an eye. The older he grew, the more fresh and youthful he became—like the sudden lush flourishing of grass and trees on the eve of summer.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
A-Ji had been about to ask Little Shu what else he wanted to add to the painting of the first snowfall when he turned his head and found that the other had drifted off in thought.
He set down his brush and quietly made his way over to Qin Shu.
Qin Shu’s gaze flickered when he saw the boy suddenly standing before him. “It’s nothing.”
After a pause, under A-Ji’s suspicious look, he added openly, “I was thinking of when you were little.”
“So you were laughing at what I was like as a child.”
A-Ji narrowed his eyes. “Even if you’ve hidden a portrait of me at five years old in some secret compartment, I’m not afraid anymore.”
He bent down slightly and looked Little Shu straight in the eye. “I’m taller than you now, you know, big brother.”
Little Shu’s ears suddenly reddened. He averted his gaze from the boy’s smiling eyes.
Then he frowned. “...I’m going back first.”
