The Twenty-Third Chapter

His mind was a complete blank when it came to Dongxu Mansion. How could he know the way to Six Ministries Hall? Jingyi Pavilion, the Winding Corridor—how had those names sprung into his head and become instinctive responses?

The winding corridor... the towering walls, the Pebble Path leading to Six Ministries Hall, the great old tree beside the red wall—all seemed to cast faint, blurry shadows in his mind.

A glimpse of gauze worn by a woman flashed before his eyes, accompanied by exquisitely beautiful music. Had someone once played for him here?

A woman? This was an academy. How could a woman be playing music here...

Yet the music really was coming from beneath the tree. Unsure what he hoped to find, he changed direction and walked toward it. The clear, pleasing notes rippled like rain across a blue lake. As the melody rose and fell ever faster, it revealed just how flawless the player's technique was.

Beneath the shade sat the musician, cross-legged on the ground in an embroidered jade-colored brocade robe. Long black hair hung loose and stirred in the breeze. A guzheng rested across the musician's knees, fingers plucking and picking at its strings. Dark eyes, half-hidden behind a curtain of hair, studied him as he approached in a daze. The musician did not stop playing, but plucked faster still. The light rain in the music quickened until it was almost a sudden downpour.

"Hey, keep playing like that and your blue lake's going to flood."

Clang. The music stopped.

The musician drew back those hands and smiled. "You call me 'hey'? You can hear what I mean in my music, yet you don't know who I am. Little Jing, you truly are something."

"Meow—" An affectionate cry came from behind the musician. A cat with soft fur as white as snow bounded toward him as though it knew him.

Before the cat could get anywhere near him, a jade-colored sleeve swept out and barred its way. The musician scooped it up and cradled it, fingers that had just been flying across the strings now scratching beneath its chin. As if the cat could understand every word, the musician patiently explained, "Don't go over there, Imperial Noble Consort. He doesn't know who you are right now, and he's hardly gentle with delicate creatures. He might step on you."

Hearing the implication, Li Chenjing frowned. "You know me?"

"More than that."

"Are we close?"

"Closer than you can imagine."

"Friends?"

The musician raised an eyebrow and gave him an inscrutable smile. "You could say that."

"Either we are or we aren't. What do you mean, 'you could say that'?"

"Because I want to be your friend, but you don't want to be mine."

"How unpleasant."

"You mean me?"

"I mean me."

"Huh?" Was he trying to tie the musician's tongue in knots?

"I mean the person I used to be. So what if his family has a little money? So what if he lives off the public purse? So what if he can write a few lousy couplets? What's so impressive about that?"

"Pfft! Little Jing, you don't have to put so much effort into insulting yourself."

"I'd do more than insult him. If I met him, I'd give him a good beating."

Beat himself up? That would be quite a feat.

"...So you really aren't pretending with Zhen." Lifting the guzheng from those knees, the musician took two steps toward him and held its graceful lotus-carved body before his eyes.

A blurred image flickered before him, but the thread of memory snapped like a broken string. All that remained were a few scattered notes, not enough to make a tune.

"Do you remember whose guzheng this is?"

"..." A faint tenderness stirred in his chest. He instinctively reached toward the guzheng, but heat flared through his fingertips and stopped him from touching it. "...Little Eight's?" Could she play? She had never told him. But he felt no aversion to the guzheng. If he did not dislike it, it ought to be hers.

"Little Eight?"

"The person I like."

His frank answer was startling, but it sent the man holding the guzheng into a fit of laughter. He laughed without restraint, so hard he nearly doubled over. "This Little Eight of yours wouldn't happen to be Pig Kid, would she?"

"Don't laugh at her." His brows drew together coldly.

The man's laughter gradually faded at the sight of his earnest protectiveness, and he drew back the guzheng. "All right, I won't laugh at her. This guzheng belongs to a woman, not Little Eight."

"Oh." The answer was not the one he had hoped for, and he abruptly lost interest in the striking instrument.

"Aren't you going to ask who she is?"

"Not interested." He turned to leave. He still had to attend some inexplicable meeting at Six Ministries Hall. Why had he wasted so much time talking to someone who sat around playing music and teasing a cat?

Watching Li Chenjing walk away, the man lowered his gaze to the guzheng in his arms and smiled faintly. He tossed it onto the ground as though he, too, had lost interest. "Rongrong, it seems I overestimated your place in Little Jing's heart."

A note from the author:

I'm learning how to schedule chapters~~~~ If you see an update at eight, that means I succeeded, hahaha.

The Twenty-Third Chapter

"New Academy Student Zhu Bafu. As a newly admitted student of Dongxu Mansion, you missed the first three days of classes without cause. Have you no respect for your teachers? No regard for basic decency? You have been here only three days, yet you are already unruly and overbearing. How will you observe the proper conduct between ruler and subject when you enter the palace to serve your sovereign? How will you serve your country loyally? Will you not end up rebelling and murdering the emperor?"

"Master, do you have to make it sound so politically terrifying? I was only two days late because something came up at home. It's not like I'd stage a rebellion and kill the emperor for fun."

"What 'Master'? I am the Doctor of Law at Dongxu Mansion,

specializing in

ritual propriety and self-cultivation. A poor student like you, who slipped in through a little cleverness, should be properly disciplined from the moment you enter the academy, so you forget that decadent 'eat, drink, and be merry' life you led before coming here. You—go stand beneath the Imperial Academy Gate as punishment, now! Offend again, and you will be expelled and barred from readmission forever!"

Ranking List

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Historical Romance

Woman Dressed as a Man