In the courtyard of Ren Yun Yi Yun Lou, the old scholar drank himself tipsy. He said he was going somewhere, somewhere he had long wanted to visit in person to offer his thanks. He also said that place had once been the source of his purse, allowing him, for the first time in his life, to gather a fairly respectable set of Four Treasures of the Study and truly resemble a reading man doing scholarship in a study.
Chen Ping'an knew where his teacher was going, so he did not follow.
The old scholar left the courtyard and departed the capital alone, heading south.
Long ago, in a shabby alley of a small country on the Central Divine Continent, there had been a master and disciple, one old and one young. Whenever they were so poor they could not even lift the lid off the pot, with nothing to do and no amount of reading capable of filling their stomachs, they would stand together at the entrance, gazing eagerly for the young man's letter from home. In truth, neither cared what the letter said. They were not waiting for the letter, but for the tuition enclosed with it—the wages paid by the outsider young man to the local scholar for taking him on as a student. Money was a hero's gall. On certain festival days, such as the birthday of Venerable Master Confucius, the employer far away on Treasure Bottle Continent would also send a festival gift for the nominal "private tutor," a red packet containing an uncertain amount of silver.
The first time that impoverished scholar had dealt with a banknote was when he received an exceptionally generous festival gift.
That time, the young man's letter from home contained only a feather-light sheet of paper. The scholar shook