Xie Wanqing raised her head.
"You want me to go, husband?"
"I'd like to ask you a favor."
It was the first time he had ever used the word "ask" when speaking to Xie Wanqing.
Her hand steadied around her cup as she waited for him to continue.
"Someone will be attending the poetry gathering: Ye Qingyun from Jizhou. Have you heard the name?"
"I have. Lately, everyone at the Imperial Academy has been talking about his Three Jizhou Quatrains."
"What do you think of his poetry?"
Xie Wanqing thought for a moment.
"He has talent, and his allusions are polished and his structures ingenious, but..."
"But what?"
"His vision isn't broad enough. They read as though they were written shut up in a study. The farthest he's probably ever been is the Jizhou city wall."
Gu Moran glanced at her.
As expected of the foremost of the four talented women, her eye was sharp enough to draw blood.
"On the day of the gathering, I need someone to step forward after Ye Qingyun finishes writing and outshine him with a more sweeping work."
Xie Wanqing set down her cup.
"You mean for me to be that person, husband?"
"You come from the family of the Imperial Academy's chancellor. It would be perfectly natural for you to compose a poem in public, and no one would grow suspicious."
"But I'm afraid I won't write a good enough poem..."
Gu Moran reached into his sleeve and drew out a folded sheet of paper. He unfolded it and laid it on the table.
Xie Wanqing lowered her eyes and read it once.
Twice.
Three times.
She pressed her fingers against the paper, bearing down with her fingertips.
"Did you write this, husband?"
"What do you think?"
"Such breadth of vision..."
She didn't finish, but the answer was already written in her eyes.
This poem and Ye Qingyun's three quatrains simply weren't on the same level.
It wasn't a difference in technique, but a difference in scope.
"I wrote the poem, but at the gathering, you wrote it."
Xie Wanqing drew her fingertips back from the paper.
"Why don't you step forward yourself, husband?"
"I'm a wastrel. If a wastrel wrote a poem like this, who do you think would believe it?"
"But if someone presses me about it..."
"You're the foremost of the capital's four talented women. Would anyone need to question you for writing a good poem?"
Xie Wanqing fell silent for a few breaths.
"Husband, are you...?"
Gu Moran picked up his tea and took a sip. The fragrance of Biluochun was faint.
"Your father has recently come under the watch of the second prince's people. Did you know?"
Xie Wanqing clenched a hand on her knee.
"I... had heard some rumors."
"If you make a name for yourself at the gathering, the Xie Clan's standing in literary circles won't be something the second prince can casually shake. He'll have to think twice before making an issue of your father."
"You've thought far ahead, husband."
"I think far ahead because I don't want my own people to suffer."
Xie Wanqing kept her head lowered and studied the poem for a long time.
"I have a suggestion."
"Go ahead."
"I can recite this poem at the gathering, but I'd like to change two characters in the final couplet."
"Which two?"
She picked up a brush, circled two characters on the paper, and wrote their replacements beside them.
Gu Moran took a look.
A good change.
She had erased the trace of deliberate sharpness lingering in the two characters he had written and replaced them with a more natural expression, one that better suited the spirit of the entire poem.
"You've improved on what I wrote."
The corners of Xie Wanqing's lips curved up a little, a tiny arc that vanished in a flash.
"Then I'll take on this task."
By the time he left the Tranquil Ink Courtyard, the sun had begun to sink in the west.
An update popped up on the system panel.
[Xie Wanqing's favorability: +12 (↑5). Source of fluctuation: positive emotions triggered by a sense of being trusted and the intention to protect her. The "valuable" tag has been generated for the first time.]
When he reached the door of his study, one of Boss Zhao's people had come again.
The undercover agent was crouched in a corner, his expression grim.
"What is it?"
"Your Highness, Ye Qingyun is ahead of schedule."
"By how much?"
"One day."
Gu Moran's steps faltered for a beat.
"When will he arrive?"
"This evening."
As soon as the words left his mouth, a rapid clatter of hooves came from the distant city gate.
Gu Moran walked to the stone steps by the courtyard wall and rose on tiptoe to look south.
The setting sun had set half the sky ablaze with orange-red, and a trail of dust rose from the official road leading to the southern gate.
A carriage emerged from the dust at an unhurried pace. Its curtain was woven from green bamboo, and the evening breeze lifted one corner.
A hand appeared behind the curtain.
Its fingers were long and clean, the knuckles well-defined, and they turned the pages of a yellowed book.
The countdown on the system panel stopped ticking.
[The Child of Destiny, Ye Qingyun, has entered the capital.]
A carriage stopped outside the Azure Cloud Inn by the southern city gate.
The curtain lifted, and a young man in a gray-blue long robe stepped down.
He was of average height. His robe had been washed pale but was neatly starched, the soles of his cloth boots were worn thin, and a bamboo tube hung at his waist, its opening sealed with wax.
Standing outside the inn, he looked up at the signboard and quirked his lips.
"Azure Cloud Inn."
He read the four characters aloud, then nodded.
"A fine name. Could it be they admire my reputation for talent?"
A fifteen- or sixteen-year-old bookboy climbed down behind him, carrying a worn bundle. His legs were so tired they no longer felt like his own, and he seemed to sink with every step.
"Young master, let's rest. I feel like my feet don't even recognize me anymore."
"Let's go inside and order a pot of wine first."
The bookboy rolled his eyes and followed him in with the bundle on his shoulder.
Ye Qingyun asked for a table by the window on the second floor.
When the pot of wine was brought over, he was in no hurry to drink. He pushed open the window and looked out.
Chang'an Street lay below him, running east to west and broad enough for four carriages to travel abreast.
Shops lined both sides from one end of the street to the other. Cloth shops, apothecaries, restaurants, and teahouses were crowded together, their banners fluttering in the evening breeze.
In the distance were the upturned eaves of the imperial palace, edged with gold beneath the setting sun.
He poured a cup of wine and raised it before the window.
"What a great capital."
The bookboy gnawed on a steamed bun beside him, his words muffled.
"Young master, what exactly did we come to the capital for?"
"To break off an engagement."
"What engagement?"
"The one with the chancellor's residence."
The bookboy nearly choked to death on his bun.
"Young master, you don't have a fever, do you? An engagement with the chancellor's residence is such a great honor. Other people couldn't get one even if they begged."
"Would I, Ye Qingyun, need to beg? Stop gnawing on that bun and go buy four meat buns. From now on, I'll see that you eat well."
Ye Qingyun set down his cup, an indescribable certainty in his eyes.
The engagement had been arranged with Old Master Su while his father was alive.
The two families were old friends. His father had once saved Old Master Su's life, and Old Master Su had thumped his chest and promised him his granddaughter.
Later, the Ye family fell on hard times. His father died of illness in Jizhou, and the family was so poor they couldn't put food on the table. The Su Clan never sent another letter.
For five years he failed the imperial examinations, and he was so poor he had sold his blood and written legal petitions.
But that was all in the past.
Half a month ago, outside Jizhou, he had met a mad old Daoist who gave him a worn set of bamboo slips.
Those bamboo slips had changed his fate.
After practicing the cultivation technique for only a few days, he had gone from a poor scholar too weak to truss a chicken to a martial artist with powerful legs.
His literary inspiration had opened up as well. Poems flowed from his brush, and his very first efforts were three quatrains that spread throughout Jizhou.
He ran through his improved plan for coming to the capital in his head.
He had gone over this new plan no fewer than twenty times on the journey from Jizhou to the capital, and each time, the more he thought about it, the more foolproof it seemed.
He would go to the chancellor's residence, no longer to ask them to honor the engagement, but to break it off to Su Yao's face!
Then he would compose a poem on the spot.
He would let her see for herself what sort of man the poor boy she had once looked down on had become.
Then he pictured the scene with perfect clarity in his mind.
Su Yao would first be stunned, then flustered, and then she would chase after him.
Not too quickly. He would have to take three steps before Su Yao called his name.
He would stop, but he wouldn't turn around immediately. He had to let Su Yao call him a couple more times.
Finally, he would turn and look at her, his expression a little aloof but with a trace of tenderness in his eyes. That way, he would appear loyal and affectionate without losing his backbone.
As for what came afterward...
She was the chancellor's legitimate daughter, one of the capital's four beauties, beautiful and well-mannered.
With qualities like those, he would naturally let her stay by his side and truly experience what it meant to "misjudge someone and nearly miss out on a good man."
Privately, Ye Qingyun thought that once this story spread, it would make a fine tale.
Just then, the bookboy came hurrying back, clutching four buns.
"Young master?"
"Tomorrow, go to the chancellor's residence and deliver a calling card. Tell them Ye Qingyun of Jizhou has come to pay a visit."
The bookboy put the buns aside and rubbed his hands together hesitantly.
"Young master, there's something I heard at the bun stall. I don't know whether I should tell you."
"What is it?"
"While I was in line, some people in front of me were talking about six imperial marriage decrees..."
Ye Qingyun filled his cup and said casually, "What does that have to do with me?"
"Those people said Miss Su from the chancellor's family... was among those granted a marriage. She's already married."