The table in the front courtyard's dining hall was long enough to seat ten people without crowding.
Yet Su Yao and Lin Qingdai had chosen opposite ends of the table, leaving nine feet of empty space between them.
Biyu came in from the left carrying a plate of cold lotus root slices. She reached the middle, stood there for two seconds, then headed toward Su Yao's end.
Zitang came from the right carrying meatball soup. She exchanged a glance with Biyu without breaking stride and set the soup down in front of Lin Qingdai.
A young kitchen maid stood by the table, clutching a platter of braised pork hock. Her eyes darted left and right, and her legs trembled.
"His Highness is here!" someone shouted at the door.
Gu Moran shuffled in with his shoes half on and his hair loose, a lock falling across the bridge of his nose. As he passed the young maid, he casually picked a piece of pork hock off the platter.
He chewed twice, looked at the two great Buddhas at opposite ends of the table, then at the empty space between them. He walked over, picked up half a piece of pork hock, and held it out right in the middle.
"Does the food from your private kitchens taste bad? Why have you both come here to eat? Who wants this piece?"
Su Yao did not look up.
Lin Qingdai did not turn her head.
Silence lasted three breaths.
"All right, it's mine after all."
He stuffed the pork into his mouth, plopped down in the empty space with his legs spread, and beckoned to the young maid.
"Put the pork hock here, and bring another bowl of congee."
The young maid put down the platter and ran off.
"Beloved Consort Su, that slice of lotus root in your bowl is cut as thin as paper. Just looking at it kills my appetite. Want some pork hock?"
"No."
"Beloved Consort Lin, that soup in front of you has gone cold. Want a fresh bowl?"
"No."
Chewing his pork hock, Gu Moran asked indistinctly, "Which of you got here first?"
No one answered.
Biyu added quietly, "Your Highness, both madams arrived at the same time. They ran into each other at the door and both wanted to sit at the north end. In the end, Madam Su went in first."
"Biyu!" Su Yao put down her chopsticks.
"But I didn't say anything wrong. I was just stating the facts." Biyu drew in her neck.
Zitang rolled her eyes from the other side.
Gu Moran pointed his chopsticks at the table.
"Starting tomorrow, when the madams come here to eat, there will be no assigned seats. First come, first seated. The dishes go in the middle of the table, and you can help yourselves to whatever you want."
"Does Your Highness enjoy making rules so much?" Lin Qingdai finally spoke.
"I paid for the cook, and this is my princely residence. Naturally, things are done my way."
Lin Qingdai tapped her chopsticks against the rim of her bowl but said nothing.
Su Yao picked up her teacup and took a sip, then stood. "I'm finished."
She turned and left, with Biyu following behind, carrying her plate with only a few bites taken from it.
Lin Qingdai watched Su Yao leave, drained her bowl of cold soup in one gulp, wiped her mouth, and left as well.
Gu Moran sat alone in the empty space, with the partly eaten braised pork hock in front of him.
A head poked through the doorway. It was Shen Ling'er.
"Husband, I heard there was a battle in the front hall. What happened?"
"No battle. We were eating."
Shen Ling'er sat down across from him, picked up a piece of pork hock, and took a couple of bites. "Mm, it's pretty good."
"Eldest Miss Su and Miss Lin didn't want it."
"All the better. I do."
She tilted her head and looked at him. "Are you going out again today, husband?"
"Yes, for a drink."
"Do you drink every day?"
"Every day."
"Don't you care about your liver?"
"My liver is made of iron."
Shen Ling'er lowered her head and continued gnawing on the pork hock without asking any more questions.
Gu Moran got up, returned to his room to change, then mounted his horse and left the princely residence. At the third alley, he dismounted and slipped into Boss Zhao's teahouse.
Once the door to the private room upstairs was shut, Boss Zhao pushed three letters over to him.
"Ye Qingyun has left Jizhou. He's two days ahead of schedule and will reach the capital in ten days. He's been reading the ancient scroll that Jizhou Daoist gave him as he travels, without stopping to rest along the way."
A traveler who did not stop to rest had a goal in mind.
Gu Moran opened the second letter. Inside were three drafts of poems, the ink still fresh.
They were the "three quatrains" Ye Qingyun had written at a literary gathering in Jizhou. The people at the Imperial Academy were already copying them.
He read them one by one and laid them out on the table. Their meter was impeccable, their allusions carefully chosen, their use of imagery and analogy practiced. He could find no fault with them.
But the second couplets of all three used the same pattern-first a fall, then a rise, then a reversal. In one poem, it was a style; in all three, it was a template.
Their strength lay in technique; what they lacked was experience. A twenty-year-old scholar from a humble family who had never seen the great rivers could not write with true grandeur.
Beside the first poem, he wrote four characters: talented, but without influence.
"There's more." Boss Zhao lowered his voice. "Li Yuan, an adviser to the chancellor, met with a Jizhou bookseller the day before yesterday. The bookseller brought Ye Qingyun's poems and a joint letter of recommendation from literary figures. The last time Biyu returned to the chancellor's residence to fetch clothes, she spoke with Li Yuan's manservant."
Ye Qingyun had not yet entered the capital, but his connections already reached the chancellor's residence.
Gu Moran picked up the third letter.
"The Second Prince's residence submitted a memorial to the palace yesterday. After the man who delivered it came back, he went to the Imperial Academy and met with its director, Xie Huai'an."
Xie Wanqing's father.
Of the five families, the Xie family had the weakest footing. Among the six, Xie Wanqing was the only one whose favorability was positive, and it was only +1.
The Second Prince had picked the easiest piece to pry loose.
"Report Ye Qingyun's movements daily. Add someone to keep an eye on Li Yuan at the chancellor's residence, and list the Second Prince's movements separately."
He left by the back door, made a circuit, and returned to the princely residence through the front gate.
As he entered, he shouted, "Today's wine was no good either. They watered it down even more than yesterday!"
The gatekeeper gave an apologetic smile.
The study door closed, and the poetry drafts were tucked under the inkstone.
A line flashed on the system panel.
[Countdown to the Son of Destiny Ye Qingyun's arrival in the capital: 10 days.] [Anomaly detected: Shen Ling'er developed a new medicinal preparation in the Green Vine Courtyard today. The medicinal ingredients used included cattail pollen (trace amount).]
Cattail pollen. The main ingredient in the last "truth-telling medicine."
Faint voices drifted in through the window from the direction of the Green Vine Courtyard.
The Marrow-Cleansing Pill's effects still lingered, and his five senses were sharper. He heard Shen Ling'er say:
"I've thought of a new method. This time, I guarantee he won't be able to tell."
Gu Moran propped his feet on the edge of the desk and looked at the ceiling.
"Eldest Miss Shen, if you can keep me from noticing, I'll call you master."