At this, Le Zhan immediately stopped.
"Who? Who's there?" Little Fatty Le froze.
"I'm asking you! Who wrote this poem?!" Le Zhan threw a crumpled sheet of paper down in front of Le Pang.
Le Pang stared blankly. Wasn't this the letter he had sent Lady Xie? How had it ended up here?
"Speak!" Le Zhan raised the cane to strike again.
Le Pang hurriedly shielded himself with his arms. "Don't, don't, don't! This... I wrote this."
"Bullshit!" Le Zhan lashed his son again. "Never mind the handwriting-you think I don't know how little ink you've got in your belly? You could write a poem like this?!"
Seeing that the truth had come out, Le Pang did not want to drag Wang Yang into it. He steeled himself and said, "I've been learning to write poetry lately, and I've made... considerable... progress... Ah-Father, not there! That hurts! Ah-"
"Progress, is it? 'Adrift through rivers and lakes, I journeyed with wine!' You could write that?! Who do you think you are, Cao Zhi or Ruan Ji?!"
Cao Zhi's posthumous title was "King Chen Si," so people in ancient times habitually referred to him as "Chen Si." In the eyes of their contemporaries, Cao Zhi and Ruan Ji were both masters of poetry-the equivalent of invoking Li and Du today.
"'A slender Chu waist, light enough to dance upon a palm!' Heh, what a line, what a line!" Le Zhan recited as he beat his son. The verse left him rather exhilarated, and even his blows began to fall in rhythm.
Sitting in the rear hall, Xie Xinghan heard Le Zhan reciting those lines with considerable excitement. Her delicate brows knitted, and her slender hands tightened slightly.
"I'll give you 'light upon a palm'! I'll give you 'light upon a palm'!"
"Father! Stop... stop hitting me! I... I didn't give... It wasn't... I didn't write it!" Le Pang truly could not take any more.
"Then who did?!" Le Zhan demanded fiercely.
"Someone... someone I met at a wine shop."
"His name?" Le Zhan stared at Le Pang, his gaze burning.
Xie Xinghan listened intently.
Le Pang took a deep breath and sobbed, "I don't know! He didn't tell me his name!"
"Then why didn't you ask?! 'Adrift through rivers and lakes, I journeyed with wine; a slender Chu waist, light enough to dance upon a palm!' You saw those two lines and didn't even ask his name? How did I father an idiot like you?!" Furious, Le Zhan began beating his son again.
"Please wait, Lord Le." Xie Xinghan emerged from the rear hall, her raven hair half pinned up and her white skirt swaying gently. With jade-like features and snow-white skin, she stood as graceful as the moon.
Le Pang had never seen such a beautiful girl. For a moment, he even forgot the pain.
Le Zhan wore an expression of stern righteousness. "There is no need to plead for him, Fourth Lady. An unfilial son like this deserves even to be beaten to death!"
Fourth Lady?
Fourth Lady...
Fourth Lady!
Le Pang was wild with joy. He had pursued her so painstakingly for so long without ever catching a glimpse of her, yet today, getting beaten had actually brought him face-to-face with Fourth Lady Xie!
Sending that letter was worth it!
This beating was worth it too!
She truly deserved to be one of the Three Beauties of the Imperial Capital! I wonder what the other two are like.
"You still dare stare?!" Le Zhan brought the cane down on Le Pang's backside.
Le Pang let out a wail and hurriedly lowered his head.
"Young Master Le, could you tell me the name of the person who wrote this letter?" Xie Xinghan asked courteously.
Ah!!!!!
She's talking to me?!!!!
Le Pang felt so happy he could have fainted.
"Lord Le, your son is young, and some missteps are inevitable. This incident was chiefly the result of someone else egging him on. As long as he names the person who wrote the letter, please punish him no further."
Le Zhan snorted at his son. "It is a rare thing for the Fourth Lady to speak on your behalf. Answer honestly at once, and conceal nothing."
Hearing Fourth Lady Xie plead for him, Le Pang felt a wave of dizziness and overwhelming excitement. In his daze, he began, "His name is..."
"What is it?" Seeing Le Pang pause, Lady Xie asked again, her voice as dreamlike as an illusion.
"His name..." Le Pang paused, gritted his teeth, clenched his fist, and lowered his head. "I don't know his name either."
Xie Xinghan's expression chilled, and Le Zhan raised the cane once more.
Inside the main hall of the Le Residence, Le Pang lay on the floor as though unconscious. Before long, Le Zhan entered. After ordering all the servants out, he said, "She's gone. Stop pretending."
Le Pang opened his eyes a crack and glanced around before climbing to his feet. With a woeful expression, he said, "Father, you hit far too hard this time."
"Don't play the innocent after getting off lightly! You've made such an enormous mess this time-surely you know how much strength I actually used? Do you know who Xie Xinghan's father is? The Chen Commandery Xie Clan! A renowned scholar! Director of the Secretariat! Chancellor! And who was her grandfather? Also Director of the Secretariat! Also Chancellor! Two generations of chancellors in one family, bold enough to refuse even the emperor his due! And you dared bother their daughter?!"
"I didn't bother her! I only wanted to send a letter. Father, can I sit down? I'm sore and exhausted."
Seeing his father's stern expression, Le Pang ultimately did not dare sit.
"By rights, I ought to punish you severely today, but..."
Hearing his father's tone soften, Little Fatty Le asked curiously, "But what?"
"But you refused to sell out a friend in the face of danger, and beauty could not shake your loyalty. You do have something of the spirit of the ancients!" Le Zhan broke into a smile.
"Then... then can I sit?" Le Pang asked cautiously.
Le Zhan added a soft cushion to his son's seat before saying, "Sit."
At last, Le Pang sat down.
Le Zhan sat opposite his son. "Now, tell your father properly: who exactly wrote 'a slender Chu waist, light enough to dance upon a palm'?"
Outside the residence, Black Han waited and waited, but Le Pang never came with the money, and doubts began to rise in his heart. Then he saw the Xie Residence's yellow-ox carriage with its crimson netting approaching from behind. He hurriedly moved aside, wondering whether it had come out of this grand residence.
He waited for quite a while longer. Just as he was about to give up, a household servant finally emerged carrying a money pouch and asked Black Han to count it in front of him. After thanking the servant, Black Han hurried back to find Wang Yang.
The two of them had originally possessed nine hundred and thirty-three coins. They had scattered thirty-three coins into the air to create confusion and spent four hundred on flour, leaving five hundred. Adding the two thousand borrowed from Le Pang brought the total to twenty-five hundred, just enough for the clothes and shoes.
A white lined spring jacket, a padded rest tied at his waist; the young man played his flute in Prince Ning's service.
Wang Yang changed into his new clothes. With eyes like brilliant stars and sideburns as sharp as if cut by a blade, he was transformed into a dashing, handsome youth, leaving Black Han and the shopkeeper staring.
"Sir, you're as handsome as jade. With this robe and these shoes, you truly look like a young master from a great clan." The shopkeeper clicked his tongue in admiration.
Beside him, Black Han said, "My young master is a young master from a great clan."
Heh. Never seen a young master from a great clan this poor.
Though the shopkeeper grumbled inwardly, his face remained full of cheerful flattery. Then he launched into his sales pitch. "Your head looks rather bare, young master. No crown, no cap, no hairpin..."
Sales tactics really are the same, ancient or modern!
Wang Yang was just about to refuse when the shopkeeper continued, "But you're so young, sir, surely you haven't reached the age for your capping ceremony yet. And with such an elegant bearing, a headscarf would make you look even better!"
With that, he produced an indigo headscarf he had prepared earlier. "I'll let you have this Folded-Corner Scarf cheaply, young master. Just one hundred coins."
Wang Yang felt a stir of interest. Taking the headscarf, he asked, "Is this the Lin Zong Scarf?"
The Lin Zong Scarf originated with Guo Linzong, a renowned scholar of the Eastern Han. Once, he was caught in heavy rain on the road, and his headscarf became soaked, causing one corner to droop. People of the time admired his bearing and began pressing down one corner of their own headscarves. Thereafter, this style became known as the Folded-Corner Scarf and was very popular among men of letters and Confucian scholars.
Wang Yang planned to visit the Commandery Academy next, and this sort of headscarf would be quite appropriate. Besides, if he posed as a traveling student from a great clan who was short of funds, wearing "counterfeit finery" would not seem so incongruous. Otherwise, he would constantly have to find ways to explain the mismatch between his illustrious "Langya Wang" identity and his clothing.
The problem now, however, was that he could not produce even a single coin.
Before you continue