The vermilion gates of the Imperial College looked just as they always had, the golden characters on the plaque above them gleaming in the morning light.
Several students who had arrived early were already standing in twos and threes outside the entrance. When Shi Huai leaped down from his carriage, their gazes seemed to be caught by a magnet and all turned toward him in perfect unison.
One boy dropped the book in his hand without even realizing it. Another had been speaking to a companion, only to suddenly forget what he had been saying, his mouth hanging open for a long while.
“Shi Huai is here.”
A youth in a dark-blue robe murmured the words, his voice filled with a restrained excitement, as though he had just laid eyes on someone extraordinary.
His companion did not answer. All his attention had been seized by the figure stepping down from the carriage.
Shi Huai wore a bamboo-green robe with a crow-black sash tied around his waist. His raven hair was gathered with a white jade hairpin.
The morning breeze blew in from the east, lifting the loose strands at his temples and the hem of his robe.
He looked like an immortal lord who had stepped out of an ancient painting—so beautiful that not a trace of dust or worldly warmth clung to him.
“Morning.” Shi Huai inclined his head toward them, a faint smile touching the corners of his lips.
His smile was as light as the thin mist of dawn, yet it made hearts race more fiercely than any vivid expression could have.
The youth in the dark-blue robe trembled at that single greeting. The book in his hand finally slipped to the ground.
It struck with a sharp snap that sounded especially clear in the still morning air.
When he crouched to retrieve it, his hands were shaking. It took him several tries before he finally managed to pick it up.
Shi Huai did not notice any of this. He had grown used to being watched wherever he went.
He was used to making a whole crowd blush and lose their composure with a single sentence, used to an endless string of gazes following behind him...
He had even begun to feel that this life was not so bad. At least he no longer had to endure people avoiding him as though he were some kind of monster.
He entered the Imperial College, crossed the front courtyard, and turned into the eastern side compound.
The door to the second room in the east wing was still half open. Shen Jinghong’s lazy voice drifted out, accompanied by a few scattered murmurs.
“Shi Huai is here.” Someone called out, and the voices inside immediately fell silent.
It was not the silence of respect, but rather the silence of bated anticipation—as though everyone were holding their breath, waiting to see something remarkable appear.
The instant Shi Huai pushed open the door, it was as if half the air in the second room of the east wing had been sucked away.
Shen Jinghong sat in his usual place by the window, a book in his hand—but he was holding it upside down. His peach-blossom eyes were half-lidded, and his amber pupils reflected Shi Huai’s figure.
From the doorway to his seat, one step, then two, then three—Shen Jinghong’s gaze remained fixed on Shi Huai, like a leopard lazily yet dangerously focused on its prey.
“Brother Shen, your book is upside down.”
As Shi Huai passed him, he paused for a moment. His eyes fell on the inverted book, and the corners of his lips lifted into a faintly amused smile.
Shen Jinghong lowered his head and glanced at the book in his hand.
It was indeed upside down.
Yet he did not panic. He unhurriedly turned it around, flipped a page, and looked up at Shi Huai, his peach-blossom eyes brimming with amusement.
“Reading it upside down gives it more flavor. Don’t you think?”
Shi Huai smiled but did not reply. He walked to his seat, set his book satchel on the desk, and took out his ink, brush, paper, and inkstone, arranging them one by one.
Wang Ren sprang up from his seat and hurried over with a plate of pastries, moving so quickly he might as well have been in a race.
The pastries nearly slid off the plate as it jostled in his hands. He hastily shielded them with his other hand, then stopped before Shi Huai, panting.
“Shi Huai, my family’s cook made some lotus-flower pastries today. Have one. I specifically told him to use less sugar, so they won’t be too sweet.”
The pastries on the plate were exquisitely made. Their pink layers of flaky pastry opened one after another like blooming lotus flowers.
They looked appetizing enough to make one’s mouth water.
Shi Huai picked one up and took a bite. The pastry shattered delicately in his mouth, releasing a faint lotus fragrance and just the right amount of sweetness.
He could not help taking another bite, his eyes narrowing slightly in pleasure.
Watching that expression, Wang Ren’s heart pounded like a drum. The dimples in his cheeks deepened and shifted.
His mouth opened and closed, then closed and opened again. In the end, he managed to squeeze out:
“Is it good? If you like it, I’ll have him make more tomorrow.”
“It’s good.”
Shi Huai finished the rest of the lotus pastry in one bite, leaving a few crumbs clinging to his fingertips.
He picked up a handkerchief and wiped them away, his movements elegant enough to resemble an artist at work.
At some point, Shen Jinghong had also made his way over to Shi Huai’s desk.
He reached into the plate and took a lotus pastry. After biting into it, he frowned and remarked, “It’s all right, I suppose.”
Then he finished it in three or four bites and reached for another.
Wang Ren stared at him, so angry that the flesh on his face trembled.
“If it’s only ‘all right,’ one should be enough. Why are you taking a second?”
“I said it was all right. I never said it wasn’t tasty. What are you getting worked up about?”
Shen Jinghong raised a brow, a maddening smile playing at the corners of his mouth. He slowly stuffed the second pastry into his mouth and chewed twice.
Then, deliberately, he let out a satisfied “Mm.”
Wang Ren was so furious he nearly snatched the plate away.
By the bookshelf, Gu Changning still leaned against it with a book in his arms. He had not looked over once from beginning to end.
He turned the pages one after another, his posture exactly the same as it had been two years ago, as though the passage of time had left no mark on him.
But anyone who looked closely would have noticed that even the way he turned the pages was the same as it had been two years before.
Lu Yanli entered to the sound of the bell signaling the start of class.
He wore an indigo robe. His features were square and dignified, and his short beard was trimmed with meticulous neatness. His gaze was as steady as it had been two years ago.
Yet there were several more strands of white at his temples, and a few additional lines at the corners of his eyes.
Two years had made the middle-aged man, now in his forties, look several years older.
He placed the book he was carrying on the desk. His gaze swept habitually across the students in the room before finally coming to rest on Shi Huai.
It lingered a little longer than usual—roughly the time it took to draw five or six breaths—before moving away.
Lu Yanli cleared his throat.
“Today we will be studying the chapter ‘Fish, Bear’s Paw, and Human Nature’ from the Mencius. First, recite the passage. Shi Huai, you will begin.”
Shi Huai rose to his feet, his back straight and proud. He was nearly a head taller than he had been two years ago.
The bamboo-green robe set off his skin, white to the point of seeming translucent. He resembled a green bamboo growing in a field of snow—refined, otherworldly, and untouched by the dust of the mortal world.
When he began to recite, his voice was deeper than it had been two years before.
The clear brightness of boyhood had faded, replaced by a smooth, mellow tone balanced between youth and adulthood, like wine warmed in winter—rich, yet never harsh.
