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"Oh. Well done."

"Huh?" He wasn't going to scold her? He was praising her for relieving herself in the Peony Garden? Did the Prime Minister's Son also approve of using free, all-natural fertilizer to tend those delicate peonies?

She looked up at Li Chenjing. With a sweep of his wide sleeve across the table, he casually turned a page, his attention fixed on the book. He did not spare her another glance. She had been certain he would make trouble for her, but it seemed the Prime Minister's Son had inherited his old man's generous spirit. There was room enough in him to sail a boat!

She rejoiced inwardly. Then he coughed softly, and she hurriedly wiped the smugness from her face and lowered her head. A cool question drifted down from above her. Sure enough, it had nothing to do with the Four Books or Five Classics.

"You have a bathtub full of hot water and an empty bucket. At hand are three tools: a wooden ladle, a small wooden basin, and a large porcelain bowl. How would you move the water from the tub into the bucket?"

"...Do you take me for an idiot? What would I need any of those for? I'd just pour it in!"

Hm? Just pour it in. What a clean, decisive answer. Unlike the fools before her, who had flushed red trying to choose between the ladle, the basin, and the bowl, this fellow had tossed out an answer without a moment's thought. Hm... not bad.

"Captain Yuchi went to sea six times in his life. He died on one of those voyages. Which one?"

"A history question? I'm not very good at history." She rubbed her face in feigned distress, propped her chin in her hand, and made a show of thinking hard. Then she snapped her fingers, grinned, and stuck out her tongue. "But whether it's history or geography, a person can only die once. So it must've been the last voyage, right, Lord Examiner?"

"..." She still had time to be cheeky with him? Li Chenjing set down his book and, for the first time that day, took a proper look at this year's applicant.

A green robe, a white outer garment, a short vest, and cloth shoes trimmed in pink gave him a somewhat feminine air. Li Chenjing had not noticed his face before, but now he saw it clearly: a fair, clean face, large bright eyes, clear black pupils glinting with mischief, and small, full pink lips that sometimes pursed and sometimes pouted. Every part of him brimmed with life. He lacked the steadiness expected of an official, but he had none of a pedantic scholar's sour stiffness, either. There was a cleverness about him that he could not hide.

"Lord Examiner, do you have any more questions?" Zhu Bafu blinked and prompted him when no new question came.

Li Chenjing withdrew his gaze and tapped the tabletop with a fingertip. "If you pass, where would you like to serve?"

"Qingzhou! As Warden in Qingzhou!"

"..." Qingzhou, the place every applicant dreaded being sent to? Warden, the post none of them wanted? This fellow... Passing his test did not necessarily mean there was nothing wrong with his head.

"Why do you want to go there?"

"Why?" Her eyes rolled, and she answered with a chuckle, "Because there's money to be made! If someone wants to visit a prisoner or asks for a favor, I could just... heh, heh..." I can't exactly say my father was sent there, and I want a position that'll let me take care of the old man, can I?

"..."

"Oh! My family's poor, but I know how these things work. I won't be stingy. If you assign me to Qingzhou, I'll be sure to set aside a share for you. After all... I'd count as your protégé!"

"..." Poor character and questionable conduct. Yet he lacked the affected airs of those sour scholars. One could, at a stretch, call him honest. A head full of crooked reasoning did not prove he had genuine talent. Li Chenjing knitted his brows and posed another test. "Compose a poem on the theme 'Cold Window' within the time it takes half a stick of incense to burn."

"A poem..." She lowered her head and considered the theme.

Li Chenjing set his book aside altogether and watched him intently. The applicant bobbed his head as he weighed words, looked up at the ceiling, then rose and paced around the hall. Finally, he hurried to the door and crouched to peer through the crack at the spring scenery outside, gathering material on the spot.

For anyone with a little learning, such a theme should have been a piece of cake. Who with scholarly ambitions had not spent ten years studying by a cold window? The sentiment ought to come readily. But the simpler the theme, the harder it was to find something fresh to say. Li Chenjing suddenly found himself looking forward to what this fellow would produce.

When half a stick of incense had burned, Li Chenjing rapped his knuckles on the desk.

"Are you ready?"

Zhu Bafu took a deep breath and nodded.

"Please." Li Chenjing raised his sleeve in invitation.

Swaying her head, Zhu Bafu began to recite. "The parting one hums of parting sorrow; red peonies sigh for crimson dress. The willow bends to bid one stay; lotus leaves smile and gather moonlight..."

"Stop. I know flowery love verses are your specialty, and I never forbade a love poem. But I named the theme 'Cold Window.' You've strayed from it."

"Lord Examiner, I haven't finished! I promise I haven't strayed from the theme." She patted her chest and stepped forward.

Li Chenjing folded his arms and leaned back in his chair, lifting his chin for her to continue.

Zhu Bafu cleared her throat and recited again. "The parting one hums of parting sorrow; red peonies sigh for crimson dress. The willow bends to bid one stay; lotus leaves smile and gather moonlight. Soft rain longs for grass to grow; red sleeves await the cold window. Ten years of bitter study, a hollow dream of fame; ask not where her beloved's shadow went."

The poem finished, she raised her brows triumphantly at Li Chenjing on the dais. Metaphor, personification, neatly matched lines—it not only captured the theme precisely, it gave voice to women everywhere. It was nothing short of a literary masterpiece to startle heaven and earth.

But the praise she expected never came. Li Chenjing fell silent. His satin wide sleeve hung over the desk as his thoughtful gaze shifted to the incense beside his hand. He toyed with it lightly, breathing slowly, as though he cared nothing for her elegant figures of speech—or as though she had stirred something deep within him. He looked out the window.