Pei Ye stepped barefoot into the small tower. The carriages, horses, and woman vanished behind him, and the only sensation inside was quiet.
Looking at the stairs and the floors he passed, Pei Ye found all the furnishings simple and unadorned-not luxury pretending to be modest, but genuinely plain, durable materials. Calligraphy hung on both walls, much of it unmounted, simply pasted or hung up casually.
Pei Ye read as he slowly climbed. He recognized most as lines of poetry. A few contained characters he did not know, and most he could not understand, yet he could not stop looking.
He had recently begun to like such things anyway, and the handwriting really was beautiful.
He climbed floor by floor, asking Little Cat about anything he did not recognize. Little Cat could explain every instance clearly, much to Pei Ye's surprise. He did not doubt Little Cat's ability to read, but much of the writing was so casual, yet the cat never stumbled once.
At last he reached the fourth floor. Near the end, his gaze suddenly fixed as several familiar words entered his sight.
Slowing slightly, Pei Ye read the whole line: "Three feet of water within my senior's case once plunged into a Wu pool to slay a dragon's son."
He knew every character in this line, yet somehow it left him transfixed. A strange feeling rose in his heart. "This poem... is there more after this?"
"...Little Cat?"
But the reply did not come from Little Cat.
"It is Jing Ke's very heart; let it not reflect the Chunfang's written words." A clear, steady voice recited softly, ringing through the empty hall.
Pei Ye turned in astonishment, then froze.
He had already reached the corridor's end. The woman casually closed the book before her and raised her