Shi Huai scooped Tangerine up from beside Qinghe’s feet and placed the cat in Nanny Zhou’s arms.
Tangerine struggled a few times, but when it realized escape was impossible, it resigned itself to its fate and curled up in Nanny Zhou’s embrace, letting out a deeply reluctant “meow.”
Holding Tangerine, Nanny Zhou stood at the doorway and watched Shi Huai and Qinghe leave the courtyard one after the other. Her eyes reddened slightly.
“Nanny Zhou, you don’t have to see us off. We’ll be back by evening.”
Shi Huai turned around and called to her.
Nanny Zhou nodded. Her arms tightened around Tangerine as she stood in the doorway, watching their figures disappear behind the moon gate.
When the carriage stopped outside the Imperial College, the gatekeeper, Old Li, was squatting on the threshold eating a steamed bun. The moment he saw Shi Huai jump down from the carriage, he nearly choked on it.
He swallowed with difficulty, then rose and arranged a broad smile across his face. “Young Master Shi, you’re back? Congratulations, congratulations, Third Scholar!”
Shi Huai took the cloth bundle from Qinghe and nodded to Old Li. “Good day, Uncle Li. Are the teachers here?”
“They are, they are. Mr. Lu is in the side room in the rear courtyard, and Master Du is in the Class A classroom. Which one would you like to see first?”
Shi Huai thought for a moment, then turned and headed toward the rear courtyard.
Qinghe followed behind him, carrying the bundle.
The door to Lu Yanli’s side room was half open. Shi Huai knocked twice against the doorframe, and a hoarse voice came from within.
“Come in.”
Lu Yanli sat behind the writing desk. An old book with frayed edges lay open before him, and he was bent over it, circling and annotating passages with a red brush.
He raised his head and saw Shi Huai standing in the doorway. The red brush paused in his hand, and a drop of ink fell onto the page, spreading into a red flower.
“Teacher, your student has come to pay his respects.”
Shi Huai entered the room, placed the cloth bundle at the corner of the desk, then stepped back two paces and bowed with perfect decorum.
Lu Yanli set down the red brush and leaned back in his chair, looking Shi Huai up and down.
“You’ve lost weight. Didn’t you eat properly at Great Awakening Temple?”
“I did. Vegetarian meals are nourishing, but they lack oil.”
The corner of Lu Yanli’s mouth twitched faintly. His gaze fell on the inkstone. “Is that for me?”
“I’m not used to using it, and it would only gather dust sitting around. You can make use of it, Teacher.”
Lu Yanli picked up the inkstone and turned it over to examine its base. His brows drew together slightly.
“This is stone from She County, from an old mine. It’s hard to find on the market these days.”
“A friend gave it to me.” Shi Huai did not elaborate.
Lu Yanli placed the inkstone back on the desk and leaned against the back of his chair as he looked at Shi Huai. “I read your palace examination essay. It was well written, but far too daring.”
“Which part do you mean, Teacher?”
“‘Taxes are levied with the urgency of falling stars, while officials are as fierce as tigers and wolves.’ If anyone else had written that, they would have been thrown out of the examination hall before they could blink.”
The seriousness in Lu Yanli’s voice made the air in the side room grow heavy.
Shi Huai sat down and looked at him. “Do you think what I wrote was wrong, Teacher?”
“Wrong? It was absolutely right. That is precisely why it was so dangerous.”
Lu Yanli lifted the teacup from the desk and took a sip. When he set it down, his fingers tapped lightly against the rim twice.
“The Emperor wants to hear the truth, but he doesn’t want to hear the truth put too harshly. Every one of your words struck directly at his sore spots. If anyone else had written them, it would have been a death sentence.”
“But I didn’t die. I even came third,” Shi Huai said in an utterly even tone.
Lu Yanli stared at him for a long while before suddenly letting out a laugh.
The smile on his face was as bitter as a bowl of aged vinegar brewed decades ago.
“Yes, you didn’t die. You even came third. Do you know why?”
“Because I’m young, and I look good. The Emperor couldn’t bear to kill me.” Shi Huai’s tone remained flat.
Lu Yanli’s fingers stilled. He studied Shi Huai’s calm face and remained silent for a long while before finally speaking.
“It’s good that you know.”
“What do you plan to do next? The Ministry of Personnel’s selection won’t take place for another six months or more. You can’t spend all that time idling around.”
“I’d like to travel for a while. I’ve been in the capital too long, and I’m tired of it.”
Lu Yanli looked at him. “Where will you go?”
“I haven’t decided. I’ll go wherever the road takes me.”
Lu Yanli fell silent for a moment. “That’s fine, too. They say reading ten thousand books is not as good as traveling ten thousand miles. Go out and broaden your horizons.”
He drew a letter from his sleeve and handed it over.
“This is the travel journal I kept when I was young. It records the local customs of many places, as well as people worth visiting. Take it and have a look. It may prove useful.”
Shi Huai accepted the letter. The writing on the envelope had faded with age, and its corners had turned yellow. It was clearly quite old.
“You traveled when you were young too, Teacher?”
“What scholar hasn’t traveled? If you spend all day locked in a room reading dead books, all you’ll produce is dead weight.”
There was a trace of mockery in Lu Yanli’s voice. It was impossible to tell whether he was speaking of others or himself.
Shi Huai tucked the letter into his sleeve, stood, and straightened his collar. “Teacher, I’ll go see whether Master Du is here.”
Lu Yanli nodded, returned to his desk, and picked up the red brush, continuing to circle and annotate the pages.
When Shi Huai reached the doorway, Lu Yanli’s voice came from behind him.
“Shi Huai, wherever you go in the future, don’t forget that you are a scholar.”
Shi Huai’s steps paused. Without looking back, he pushed open the door and walked out.
Du Ziteng was sitting behind the lectern in the Class A classroom, staring blankly into space. He held a brush in his hand, but not a single character had been written on the sheet of rice paper before him.
Hearing footsteps, he looked up. When he saw Shi Huai standing in the classroom doorway, the brush slipped from his hand with a sharp clack and splashed ink across a small section of the paper.
“Teacher, your student has come to pay his respects.”
Shi Huai entered the classroom and stopped before the lectern, bowing with perfect decorum.
Du Ziteng came back to himself. He bent down to pick up the fallen brush, dipped it in the inkstone, scrawled two random strokes on the paper, and set it aside.
“Third Scholar, you’re back? Sit down. Don’t just stand there.”
He pointed to the seat in the first row—the one Shi Huai had occupied in the past.
Shi Huai walked over and sat down, then turned to face Du Ziteng.
Du Ziteng leaned back in his chair, his gaze settling on Shi Huai’s face.
“I read your palace examination essay. It was truly excellent. No wonder the Emperor wanted to name you the top scholar.”
“How do you know the Emperor wanted to name me the top scholar?”
The corner of Du Ziteng’s mouth lifted slightly, taking on an air of profound mystery. “You don’t need to concern yourself with that. Just know that it’s true.”
He pulled a sheet of paper from beneath the desk and handed it over. “This is the essay you wrote when you first enrolled. I’ve kept it all these years. Take a look and see how it compares with what you write now.”
Shi Huai accepted the paper and looked down at the crooked handwriting on it. The corners of his mouth rose despite himself.
He had been only nine at the time. His characters looked like worms crawling across the page, and the essay was so childish it was almost laughable, filled from beginning to end with hollow phrases built out of “therefore” and “thus.”
“I really was terrible back then.” He folded the paper and handed it back to Du Ziteng.
Du Ziteng took it and carefully tucked it inside a book. Then he raised his head and looked at Shi Huai.
“You weren’t terrible. Even then, I knew you would amount to something one day.”
Shi Huai looked at Du Ziteng’s earnest face, not knowing what to say. In the end, he merely nodded.
Du Ziteng fell silent again for a moment, as if carefully choosing his words. At last, he asked, “Shi Huai, what has your second uncle, Shi Yuanping, been busy with lately?”
