Lu Zhiyuan sat in the very center of the head table, his expression composed. A cup of wine sat before him, untouched from beginning to end.
Whenever someone came over to toast him, he would lift the cup, brush it against his lips, and set it down again without saying a word.
Shi Huai sat down beside him, picked up the wine cup in front of him, and glanced sideways at him.
“Brother Lu, congratulations.”
Lu Zhiyuan turned to look at him. After a moment of silence, he lifted his cup, touched it to his lips, set it down, and said, “Your essay was very well written.”
The corners of Shi Huai’s lips lifted slightly. “Your essay was well written too, Brother Lu. Better than mine.”
Lu Zhiyuan shook his head.
“Your policy essay was better than mine, especially that line: ‘Taxes are levied with the urgency of falling stars, while officials are as fierce as wolves and tigers.’ I couldn’t have written it.”
Shi Huai raised his cup and took a sip.
The fiery liquor burned all the way from his throat to his stomach, making him frown slightly.
“It’s not that you couldn’t write it, Brother Lu. You simply didn’t want to. Your essays are measured and faultless. No one can find anything wrong with them.”
Lu Zhiyuan’s fingers paused. His gaze settled on Shi Huai’s face, carrying a hint of scrutiny.
“So you wrote yours that way because you wanted people to remember it?”
“If you don’t want people to remember it, why write an essay at all?”
Lu Zhiyuan fell silent for a long while. The corner of his mouth twitched slightly, as though he wanted to smile—or say something. In the end, he merely lifted the cup before him and, unusually, took a large swallow.
Liu Ziheng sat on Lu Zhiyuan’s other side. Hugging a wine jar, he poured himself a full cup and downed it in one go.
When it was empty, he poured another. Then he drank that one too. After three cups, his face had turned red, and he had grown considerably more talkative.
He set down his cup and grabbed Shi Huai by the sleeve, his voice thick with tears.
“Young Brother Shi, do you know how many years I’ve been taking the examinations? Fifteen! I started at fifteen and took them until I was thirty. Fifteen whole years!”
“Every year I failed, and every year people laughed at me. The villagers said I was chasing an impossible dream. My relatives said I was wasting my time. Even my own father told me to stop taking the exams and go home to farm.”
Shi Huai lowered his eyes to the sleeve Liu Ziheng had wrinkled in his grip but did not pull away.
Liu Ziheng released him, poured another cup, and drank it down. Liquor ran from his chin onto his collar, but he did not seem to notice.
“If I failed again this year, I was going to give up and go home to farm. My wife and child would have come with me, and we would have lived out the rest of our lives that way.”
“But Heaven finally took pity on me. I passed—and I came second! Second place!”
At last, Liu Ziheng’s tears began to fall, one after another, landing in the wine cup before him and sending tiny ripples across the surface.
Shi Huai handed him the handkerchief prepared by the guildhall.
Liu Ziheng took it and pressed it over his face, his shoulders trembling as he sobbed.
It took a long while before he finally stopped. He wiped his face clean with the handkerchief and looked up at Shi Huai, his eyes still red.
“Young Brother Shi, you’re only thirteen and you’ve already come third in the Palace Examination. Do you know how envious I am of you?”
Shi Huai looked at his face, flushed from wine and tears. The corners of his lips twitched slightly.
“Brother Liu, I envy you.”
Liu Ziheng froze. “You envy me? You’re a thirteen-year-old Third Place. What could you possibly envy me for?”
“I envy you for taking the examinations for fifteen years without giving up. If I had failed for fifteen years, I would have quit long ago.”
Liu Ziheng stood there blankly, his mouth hanging open.
Suddenly, he laughed. As he laughed, he began to cry again. After crying, he laughed once more, behaving like a madman. The people around them turned to stare, but he paid them no mind.
Shen Yizhi had watched the entire scene from the corner.
He lifted the cup before him and drained it in one swallow. When he set it down, there was a smile on his lips, but a faint bitterness in his eyes.
By the time the celebration banquet ended, the sky was completely dark.
Shi Huai walked out of the guildhall. The night wind swept over him, and the alcohol rushed to his head. His steps faltered, and he had to brace himself against the doorframe to stay upright.
Shen Yizhi followed him out from behind. His face was flushed from drinking, but his steps were steady. He reached out and caught Shi Huai by the arm.
“You’re drunk? You only had a few cups, didn’t you?”
Shi Huai rubbed his temples. “A few cups are still wine. I’m not like you—able to drink a thousand cups without getting drunk.”
Shen Yizhi chuckled and supported him toward the carriage. After a few steps, he suddenly stopped and looked at the green-curtained carriage parked by the roadside.
A middle-aged man stood beside it. He wore a slightly worn indigo robe, and his hair was tied up with a bamboo pin. His entire person exuded a cool, distant air.
Shi Huai’s steps halted when he saw him.
“Second Uncle? What brings you here?”
Shi Yuanping walked over from beside the carriage and looked Shi Huai up and down. His gaze paused for a moment on the bright red robe he wore.
“I came to see you.”
Shi Huai glanced at Shen Yizhi. “Brother Shen, go on ahead. I have a few words to say to my second uncle.”
Shen Yizhi nodded and released his arm. He walked toward his own carriage, then turned back after a few steps to look at Shi Yuanping’s retreating figure.
He was certain he had seen that face somewhere before, but he could not remember where.
Only after Shen Yizhi had gone did Shi Yuanping speak.
“Third Place. Better than I expected.”
Shi Huai leaned against the carriage and gazed up at the crescent moon in the sky.
“Didn’t you say I was blessed with good fortune, Second Uncle? For someone with good fortune, becoming Third Place is nothing remarkable.”
Shi Yuanping was momentarily left speechless by the remark. The corner of his mouth twitched slightly as he reached into his sleeve and took out a sheet of paper.
“This is what I had someone investigate before the Palace Examination. His Majesty originally intended to name you First Place, but several old pedants from the Hanlin Academy stopped him.”
Shi Huai took the paper and glanced over it. The writing covered the page in dense lines, recording everything that had happened in the Hall of Supreme Harmony on the day of the Palace Examination.
How the emperor had praised his essay and said he intended to name him First Place. How several old scholars had knelt and remonstrated to the death. How the emperor had ultimately compromised.
In the end, Shi Huai had been named Third Place.
The reason was not that his essay was lacking, but that “since the founding of the Great Yan Dynasty, there has never been a thirteen-year-old First Place. If word got out, outsiders would gossip.”
Shi Huai folded the paper and tucked it into his sleeve before raising his head to look at Shi Yuanping.
“You’ve gone to a lot of trouble, Second Uncle.”
Seeing his indifferent expression, Shi Yuanping finally felt the weight in his heart lift.
What he had feared most was that Shi Huai would feel wronged, believe the situation unfair, or think his talents had not received the recognition they deserved.
Now, it seemed Shi Huai was far more mature than he had imagined.
“What do you plan to do next? The Palace Examination is over, and you’ve become Third Place. Will you wait for the Ministry of Personnel to select your post, or do you have other plans?”
Shi Huai leaned against the carriage, his fingers tapping absently against its side twice.
“The Ministry of Personnel won’t make its selections until next year. I can’t spend the next six months doing nothing. I want to go out and see the world.”
“Where?”
“I haven’t decided yet. I’ll go wherever the road takes me.”
Shi Yuanping was silent for a moment.
“By yourself?”
“By myself. At most, I’ll bring Qinghe. More people would only cause trouble.”
After all, in this world, only he and Qinghe were truly dependent on each other. Neither of them would ever abandon the other.
Oh, right. There was also Tangerine now.
