The Provincial Examination results would not be posted until mid-April. Counting it out on his fingers, there was still a full month and a half to go.
The day Wei Nisheng returned from the examination, he collapsed into bed and slept as though heaven and earth had gone dark.
He slept from dusk until noon the next day without even turning over once.
Qu Niang went in to check on him three times. The first time, she tucked in his quilt; the second, she felt his forehead, afraid he might have a fever.
The third time, she brought a bowl of congee and set it by his bed. When it cooled, she replaced it; when the replacement cooled, she replaced that too. She changed it three times, and he never woke.
Cui Fu fed the horse in the courtyard, brushing its mane while muttering to the chestnut horse.
"The young master really wore himself out this time.
Look at the hour, and he still hasn't got up.
This is the first time I've ever seen him sleep until the sun was three poles high."
When Wei Nisheng woke, the sunlight had already shifted from one side of the window lattice to the other.
But he simply lay there, staring at the roof beams overhead for a long while.
His mind was empty. He thought of nothing, did nothing, and simply lay there.
The feeling was unfamiliar.
For more than two years, every morning after opening his eyes,
the first thing he did was think about which books to read that day, which essays to write, and which records to consult at the Hall of Literary Depths.
That string in his mind had always been taut, stretched tight, never once slackening.
Now that it had suddenly loosened, he found himself