The next morning, at the Feng Residence.
Feng Yan sat alone in his study, a letter from Qin Yan spread across his desk.
The letter mentioned that word of Wei Nisheng performing an elder's funeral rites for a servant had already spread among the literati.
At the end, Qin Yan had added a line.
[This young man has a fierce temperament and acts like a raging fire. If he enters the Court one day, he is sure to become a figure who commands the winds and clouds.
Yet an edge too exposed is easily broken and damaged. You must protect him well.]
After reading the letter, Feng Yan set it on the desk, leaned back in his chair, and closed his eyes for a while.
"An edge too exposed..." he murmured. "When has that boy ever hidden his edge?"
"To him, Wei An was no servant, but a grandfather."
"No one could have stopped him!" Feng Yan opened his eyes and sighed deeply.
"And now the Grand Princess has forcibly kept Fu Niang in the Palace. Her intentions are plain.
She wants to bind me to her boat by bestowing a marriage as an elder, seeking to protect herself..."
At this, Feng Yan rose and walked to the window, looking at the old Chinese scholar tree in the courtyard.
An autumn breeze blew, and its leaves rustled down, carpeting the ground in gold.
Meanwhile, news that Wei Nisheng had performed an elder's funeral rites for a servant
had spread through every rank, finally setting the Capital's scholars boiling.
At first, there had only been whispers, with groups of three or five gathering in teahouses and taverns,
each adding his own words, spittle flying as they talked.
But the arguments grew louder and louder, gradually spreading from the teahouses to