The bell of the Imperial Academy rang, and the new tutor Du Ziteng stepped into the classroom of Class A right as the final chime faded.
He looked to be in his late twenties, dressed in a crow-blue robe with a moon-white silk sash tied around his waist.
He did not wear a formal headpiece.
His hair was simply gathered loosely with a bamboo hairpin, giving him a free-spirited, dashing air.
His features were strikingly handsome, with sharp sword-shaped eyebrows, bright starry eyes, a high straight nose, thin slightly pressed lips, and a crisp jawline — a kind of beauty entirely different from that of Shen Jinghong.
Shen Jinghong’s beauty was bold and vivid, while his was cool and ethereal, like a lone pine on a mountain slope, or a secluded orchid growing deep in a valley.
Du Ziteng stood behind the podium, his gaze sweeping slowly across the classroom, casual and unconcerned, as if he was looking at a group of ordinary people not worth his full attention.
Then his eyes landed on Shi Huai.
The scroll in his hand slipped from his fingers and clattered to the ground, the sound sharp and clear in the quiet room.
When Du Ziteng bent to pick it up, his movements were half a beat slower than usual. His fingers curled slightly around the paper, he took a deep breath, and then straightened back up.
His gaze settled on Shi Huai once more.
This time he held it longer, for roughly the span of four or five breaths.
Only then did he look away, his voice calm, carrying a deliberately suppressed steadiness.
"I am your new tutor. My surname is Du, my given name is Ziteng. Starting today, I will be in charge of teaching Class A poetry and fu prose."
The name Du Ziteng reverberated through the quiet classroom for a few moments.
Several students could not hold back their laughter, quickly clamping their hands over their mouths, their shoulders bobbing up and down.
Shi Huai kept his head bowed, pretending to sort through his book bag, the corner of his mouth twitching faintly as he fought to keep a straight face.
He took a deep breath, holding the urge to laugh in his chest, his face smoothing back to an unruffled expression as he looked up at Du Ziteng on the podium.
Du Ziteng’s gaze drifted back to Shi Huai again, as if drawn to him by some invisible, unbidden force.
This time he stared so long that even Wang Ren, sitting in the back row, noticed something was amiss.
Shen Jinghong leaned back in his chair, half-lidded eyes fixed on Du Ziteng, a faint, knowing smirk playing at his lips.
Du Ziteng finally pulled his eyes away, flipped open his lesson plan, and began his lecture.
He was speaking of the Songs of Chu, starting from Qu Yuan’s life story to the background of the creation of the Nine Songs, from the symbolic meaning of fragrant herbs and fair ladies to the shamanic customs of the Chu region.
His lecture was brilliant, drawing on countless classics with effortless ease, and now and then bringing up original, thought-provoking insights that made every student feel they had heard something entirely new.
Shi Huai listened intently, jotting down notes on paper from time to time, the tip of his brush making a soft rustling sound against the rice paper.
Du Ziteng’s eyes kept drifting unconsciously toward Shi Huai’s direction.
Each time they wandered over, they lingered for a moment, taking in the sight of him bowing his head to write, the fan-shaped shadow his eyelashes cast under his eyes, and the long, pale, slender hands holding the writing brush.
He cursed himself inwardly for being absurd, but he just could not tear his eyes away.
Du Ziteng was, after all, from an eminent scholarly family. His grandfather had been the imperial tutor to two successive emperors, and his father was a grand secretary of the imperial court.
He himself had never cared much for the civil service exams, but he was still brimming with erudition, a dashing and talented man that countless noble ladies in the capital had been eager to marry, only for him to turn them all down without a second glance.
But today, he had stumbled.
He had stumbled over a twelve-year-old boy.
Absurd. Utterly absurd.
Du Ziteng took a deep breath, holding the air in his chest for a long time before exhaling, and flipped his lesson plan over with a sharp snap, raising his voice as he tried to distract himself by lecturing with even more fervor.
It did no good at all.
He spoke for the entire class, covering Qu Yuan’s loyalty to his sovereign and his devotion to his country, Song Yu’s unparalleled literary talent, and the far-reaching influence the Songs of Chu had on later generations of literature. By the end he was parched, feeling he had given the very best lecture of his life.
But his mind kept replaying the moment Shi Huai had looked up to meet his eyes, just gazing at him quietly without doing a single thing, and he had nearly lost himself entirely in that gaze.
When the class ended, Du Ziteng lingered behind the podium for a long while, pretending to tidy up his lesson plans, though he was actually waiting for something.
Shi Huai stood up, book bag in hand, walked to the front of the classroom, and stopped to bow politely. "Master Du, your lecture was wonderful. This student has learned a great deal."
Du Ziteng felt light-headed at the sound of his address, and he grabbed the teacup on his desk to take a big gulp of tea.
"You must be Shi Huai. The one who ranked first in the special examination, right?"
"That is this student, sir." Shi Huai nodded.
Du Ziteng’s gaze rested on his face for a brief instant before he quickly looked away, lowering his head to pretend to sort through his teaching materials.
"The writing you did in class today is very good. It is a clear improvement over the essay you wrote for the special examination."
Shi Huai paused in faint surprise. The essay he had written for the special examination had never been made public, so how did Du Ziteng know what it was like?
But he did not voice the question, only smiled gently. "You are too kind, sir. This student still has much to improve on, and would be grateful for your guidance."
Du Ziteng nodded, said nothing more, and walked out of the classroom clutching his lesson plans, his steps swift, the hem of his crow-blue robe flashing down the hallway and disappearing in a blink.
He was hurrying not because he had somewhere urgent to be, but because he was afraid if he stayed one more second, he would do something irreparable.
He was afraid he would not be able to stop himself from reaching out to pat Shi Huai’s head, or blurt out how truly lovely he was, or ask if Shi Huai would be willing to be his student, and his student alone.
Du Ziteng walked down the corridor, turned into the backyard, pushed open the door of the temporary side chamber where he was staying, tossed his lesson plans on the table, and flopped face down onto the bed, burying his face in the pillow and letting out a muffled, weary sigh.
He lay there for a very long time, long enough that the pillow grew damp from his breath in a small patch, long enough that the bright white daylight outside the window faded into a warm, amber dusk.
Then he rolled over, staring up at the wooden beams of the ceiling, his fingers tapping gently against the edge of the bed, his mind filled with nothing but Shi Huai’s face.
He remembered the sound of Shi Huai’s voice calling him "Master Du", the look on his face when he said the lecture was wonderful, the faint, soft smile on his lips.
Du Ziteng closed his eyes, and recited Qu Yuan’s Li Sao from beginning to end in his mind.
When he reached the line "I grieve that the myriad plants must fade and fall, I fear the fair one will grow old too soon", he suddenly opened his eyes and laughed at himself in self-ridicule.
A fair one. Hah. A fair one.
Du Ziteng had read poetry and books for most of his life, and written countless lines of verse praising beautiful people.
Today he had finally laid eyes on the real fairest of them all, a beauty so striking it left him too tongue-tied to write a single line of verse.
While Du Ziteng tossed and turned restlessly in his chamber, an unassuming green-canopied carriage pulled up at the gates of the Imperial Academy.
