He smiled at Pei Ye.
"..." Pei Ye fell silent, then smiled and shook his head. "I only became friends with her because she was willing to be friends with me. I met Lu Xiu at the Sword Cultivation Academy long ago. She usually ignores people, and I couldn't be bothered to make friends with her either-do you understand?"
Xu Menglang looked slightly startled. Pei Ye looked at him earnestly.
"Everyone is the same," Pei Ye said slowly, lowering his head to pick up a pot of clear tea and pour him a cup.
"...Hahaha." Xu Menglang suddenly lowered his head and laughed. "Everyone is born with self-respect; it was never anyone else's charity... Thank you, Young Master Pei. It's been quite some time since anyone spoke such plain, straightforward sense to me."
"You misunderstood me first. I never meant to debate principles with you scholars anyway." Pei Ye smiled and looked down. By then, the Brahma Sound had grown stronger, and some rarely heard instruments had begun to play as well. Yet a faint, inexplicable rustling rose from beneath the atrium.
"But it's all empty talk." Xu Menglang tipped his head back and drained his tea in one gulp, then said quietly, "Young Master Pei, the Vermilion and Purple of my dreams, a lifetime's ambitions, twenty years studying by a cold window... Could I throw all of that away over a little face?"
He tilted his head and smiled. "Why wouldn't I just stay home and farm, then?"
Pei Ye raised an eyebrow. "What, if you ignore Lu Xiu, you won't get third place in the examinations?"
"Hahaha..." Xu Menglang turned his head aside, stifling his voice. "It's hardly a matter of whether I ignore her. If I show even a little less enthusiasm in my flattery, I needn't