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Inside the elegant chamber of Room 77, agarwood incense curled upward from the Gilt Bronze Sparrow Censer, gathering into a fine mist like spring rain and haze.
Chen Xiaojun picked up the purple clay teapot to pour tea for his guests, then gently pushed a celadon cup toward Si Baining. "Dean Baining, your name is renowned throughout Five Mausoleums. Alas, fate has long denied us a meeting."
"Your righteous words in the hall today touched me to the depths of my heart."
As he spoke, he tilted the jade pot slightly, pouring amber tea into the cup before Xia Yun.
Si Baining raised her round fan to her lips with fingers as tender as spring scallions, her eyes shimmering like peach blossoms in March. "You flatter me, Young Master Chen. Those words of mine were mere rootless duckweed and drifting catkins. How could they shake a towering locust tree? This affair still owed everything to your Chen Clan's might in Fasno."
Chen Xiaojun raised his swordlike brows slightly. "You mustn't say that. Heavenly Peak Academy enjoys great renown in Fasno. Speaking up for justice on the Viewing Stand was enough to give voice to all the academies, like winter plum blossoms breaking through the snow."
Si Baining suddenly set her round fan on the Intertwined-Branch Pattern Armrest, her slender fingers smoothing the gold-thread edging of her shawl. "Great renown in Fasno? You praise us too highly."
"Heavenly Peak Academy placed eighth this year, worse than our seventh-place finish last time. Rather, I should congratulate Five Mountains College on making the top three."
Xia Yun silently raised his cup in acknowledgment. Through the drifting tea mist, a keen gleam flashed in his rhinoceros-like eyes.
Chen Xiaojun's jade-fair fingers paused slightly as he set down the pot,