From beyond the city, they soared into the imperial capital; within it, crowds surged like waves.
Willow branches along the river swayed in the wind, and pedestrians on the streets often stopped to gaze at the glittering nightlife.
No one sang aboard the pleasure boat by the river, yet it was always the Imperial Clan's personal guards who stood watch over it.
Over a thousand years, pleasure boats had been replaced time and again, yet no songstress had ever played or sung aboard them.
A barrier seemed to surround the Riverboat Pavilion; not even the wind could blow inside.
No one knew the reason. They knew only that this seemed to be a tradition the imperial family had maintained for a thousand years.
It looked utterly theatrical, yet the people of the city seemed long accustomed to it...
A scholar who had come to the capital for the imperial examination gazed at the strange sight in puzzlement, then turned to ask the man beside him, "Why are these imperial guards watching over this Riverboat Pavilion?"
"Is there something special about it?"
Beside the scholar stood a man from Capital City. Hearing the scholar's question, he turned toward the Riverboat Pavilion. "Have you ever heard a certain saying?"
The scholar looked puzzled. "What saying?"
The scholar from Capital City smiled and shook his head. "All the scholars under heaven come from Jiangnan!"
The scholar frowned, seemingly somewhat resistant to those words.
He was not a scholar from Jiangnan, yet the saying seemed to imply that only scholars from Jiangnan were worthy talents.
Seeing the scholar's displeased expression, the scholar from Capital City laughed.
"That saying doesn't mean what you think."
"It means that all the scholars under heaven find their limit in that scholar who walked out of Jiangnan!"
Among all