A Challenge from Tianjin! (11th Update)

On the top floor of the Heavenly Fragrance Tower, a Western orchestra played a soothing serenade. Amid the swirl of silk and perfume, the crisp clink of glasses rose and fell.

Zhang Yunshang was the brightest star at the banquet. Dressed in a blue-and-white qipao, she looked like a solitary blue lotus blooming far from the world.

She raised her glass of red wine. Her gaze seemed to rest on the wine clinging to its sides, but in truth, it passed through the crowd and settled precisely on the figure in a moon-white gown who had just entered.

Li Xiang.

She had arranged this banquet for him—or rather, to test a certain suspicion—and invited nearly every promising young person in Linjiang County.

Now, the person she had been waiting for had finally arrived.

Yet when he truly appeared before her, Zhang Yunshang's distant-mountain brows drew together slightly. She instinctively felt for the beating in the left side of her chest.

The heart that did not belong to her was beating with perfect steadiness and regularity.

"One, two, three..."

She counted silently.

It did not quicken.

The burning agitation that had threatened to burst through her chest was gone.

That violent flutter she had felt when she caught a fleeting glimpse of him through the carriage curtain amid the funeral procession on the long street might as well never have happened.

"Strange."

Confusion flashed through Zhang Yunshang's eyes.

That day, one glance nearly sent this heart leaping out of my chest. Why is it so quiet now that he's right in front of me?

Was he too far away?

Was the atmosphere wrong today?

Or had this borrowed heart of hers grown tired of its new fascination so quickly?

Zhang Yunshang shook her head lightly, trying to cast the absurd thought