Duan Ling hasn’t realised that these particular emotions spring from the changing of seasons; all he knows is that a desire in his heart is rushing to and fro just beneath the surface, and it cannot be relieved. In truth, when he first made his request, what he really wanted was just to have Wu Du buy him a skewer of candied hawthorn after the exams.
But gradually his heart has started to fill up with fanciful thoughts, until the day he wakes up on the day of the exams and a flower petal flutters through the window to land on his cheek.
“Rise and shine,” Wu Du says.
Sleepy-eyed, Duan Ling sits up. Wu Du pulls the door open to a courtyard filled with dancing peach blossoms.
Duan Ling stares outside, speechless.
Peach trees tender and lush, how brilliant their blossoms. Everywhere in the city, peach trees have bloomed overnight; spring has arrived in Jiangzhou. The sight of them is even more tangible and stunning than that spring in Shangjing, and Duan Ling calls out joyously, taking in the entirety of their courtyard — in one night, every peach tree in their courtyard house has become studded with blossoms.
They leave the house after breakfast. Through streets and alleyways, flowers are blooming in dazzling shades; the main street of Jiangzhou is covered in petals dancing in the spring breeze, with a blazing sun shining down from above.
“It’s rather pretty.” Wu Du sits on the back of the horse, with Duan Ling sitting in front of him. The last time he came to Jiangzhou it was already late spring and most of this grandeur had withered, so now he can’t help but rein in the horse as well so he can spend time getting a better look.
“It’s so beautiful.” Duan Ling is instantly engrossed in this magnificent landscape. The city is bustling, and after they go past another two streets, they start to see regular checkpoints along the way. The exams are taking place behind the Hall of Success; walk one more block and they’ll reach the Office of the Secretariat’s meeting halls.
Duan Ling wants to enjoy the view for a while longer, but Wu Du is telling him, “Let’s go. All the fine things will stay right here, it’ll all be waiting for you when you get back.”
Duan Ling tilts his head to look at Wu Du, and Wu Du reaches out, giving him a pat on the head. They hand their name plaques to the Black Armours on guard for inspection, only allowed passage once they’ve been verified.
Every student of the Jiangzhou literati is here today in an endless stream of carriages crowding their way through the alley outside the Hall of Success.
“Our ride may not be as impressive looking as theirs,” Wu Du laughs, “but the horse we’re riding on is the late emperor’s mount.”
Duan Ling starts laughing. Wu Du even wants to take Duan Ling all the way inside, but the Black Armours on guard block his way. “Attendants may not enter with the examinee.”
“I’m going to go do my work. In the evening, I’ll be outside here waiting for you. No need to be so tense. You can do this.”
“I …” Duan Ling wants to hug Wu Du, but he’s already sixteen.
He’s no longer the young lad who used to be dropped off and then accompanied all the way into school.
“Then I’m heading in,” Duan Ling says.
Wu Du stands outside the Hall of Success, takes out his flute, and begins to play it in the spring breeze.
The hubbub of the alley gradually grows quiet, and everyone stops to watch Wu Du play the flute. On this fine spring day, Joyful Reunion seems to hasten each radiant peach blossom in the alley into full bloom.
“It’s Wu Du!” Someone is whispering.
In the throng many are speaking softly at one another; the four great assassins’ reputation reach far and wide, and over the years they have garnered the admiration of a great number of young men from Xichuan. Wu Du himself is even more of a legend — some say he’s a master of poisons, some say he’s the traitor who killed the late emperor, but no one expected to see him taking someone to the examination hall on the day of the exams, and to play the Joyful Reunion under the gaze of so many pairs of prying eyes.
Duan Ling stands there quietly and finishes listening to the song. All his eyes can contain is this one person standing in the spring breeze.
More and more people have noticed Wu Du, and they look him up and down curiously. As soon as the song ends, Wu Du turns to leave. This time, Duan Ling doesn’t chase after him; he knows Wu Du will surely return.
“Was that Lord Wu Du just now?”
Duan Ling didn’t expect to run into Huang Jian here, and they bow and greet each other right away. They’re both students of the chancellor, but they only saw each other briefly and never got a real chance to talk. Now that they’ve run into each other again it’s a good opportunity for them to get to know each other.
Huang Jian isn’t very articulate, and the last time Duan Ling saw him he didn’t say much more than “sure” and “nice to meet you”, but he appears quite mature, rather average looking, and a bit dusky. Duan Ling is guessing that he’s very well-read, but his relatively unattractive looks makes him unlike the type of person Mu Qing tends to become close to. Yet if Mu Kuangda recognises his worth, then he must be quite talented.
“Let’s go.” Duan Ling talks with Huang Jian while they go looking for their places. “It was Wu Du.”
“Is he an assassin?” Huang Jian is also extremely interested in such things like heroes and vigilantes — young men tend to be fond of those who fight for justice.
“That he is,” Duan LIng laughs, “but he’s a good-natured person and never kills indiscriminately.”
“I heard His Majesty summoned him and asked him to join the palace as the Junior Guardian of the Heir Apparent. He actually turned it down! A most outstanding man indeed.”
Duan Ling’s heart does a somersault, immediately recalling what happened with Wu Du earlier. Is that what happened?! No wonder!
Distracted by those words, Duan Ling is lost in thought as he says his goodbyes to Huang Jian, and he’s still thinking about it by the time he enters the exam hall. Did Wu Du turn down the position of Junior Guardian for his sake? He must have.
Once upon a time he’d thought if he met Li Yanqiu he’d be able to find some way to reinstate his position as crown prince. And yet his uncle’s reaction was tantamount to forcing him into a dead end — he can no longer take another step forward, so all he can do is retreat.
Duan Ling is occupied with his complicated thoughts until the examiner comes in to hand out their exam papers. In order to prevent cheating, the examinees are each locked in their own room, and the examiner has each of them make a palm print.
Meanwhile, flute music is ringing out again, but it’s not Wu Du’s playing — it’s Lang Junxia’s!
“Who’s playing that flute?” The examiner stops what he’s doing and says with puzzlement.
Everyone in the same row of rooms as Duan Ling can hear the music.
“Joyful Reunion,” the examiner says.
“You’ve heard it before, sir?” To Duan Ling’s surprise, his heart is utterly calm.
“It feels like it was only yesterday, but the Ire of Shangzi is already many years ago. I did not anticipate hearing this song twice today.”
A long time passes before the song comes to an end. The examiner leaves the room, pastes a seal on the door, and as Duan Ling looks down to face the empty parchment before him, flute music is still reverberating in his ears. What the examiner said has blown away the haze of anxiety that has previously obscured his heart — the Ire of Shangzi, the shame of their vanquished land, Great Chen relocating to the south, the capital in ruins, their northern territories falling to Liao and Yuan; this is the burden they’ll always bear, until the day they expel these foreign invaders from their territories behind the Great Wall.
To him, perhaps the position of crown prince is who he is, but to many, perhaps Li Jianhong’s son, the Li descendant, represents their last hope.
Two renditions of Joyful Reunion, aside from giving Duan Ling a reminder, have perhaps also given every single examinee in the hall a reminder.
Duan Ling unrolls the exam question. The subject is: what’s past is past, but the future is yet to be determined.2
The connections between Chen, Liao, Yuan, and Xiliang forms into a giant net, and a picture scroll of the world seems to unroll before his eyes.
The past, the present, and the future; those countless complicated ties of Southern Chen, all the joys and sorrows that come with every parting and reunion tangling in times of war have finally pushed him to the present moment. If he returns to the imperial court, what is it that he ought to do?
Your Majesty, it’s your turn.
He can still hear his father’s voice by his ear, it seems. Duan Ling picks up his brush, dips it in ink, and all his previous confusion vanishes into nothingness. Armoured horses gallop across icy rivers, carrying with them the resounding passions of war, all of it pouring into a single writing brush. It is what he learned throughout his past years of schooling, as well as the heavy burden that he must face in his lifetime.
He still has one more chance, and that is to make his way before Li Yanqiu when he’s one of the top exam graduates, listed on the golden honour roll.
With Li Yanqiu’s written order in hand, Wu Du arrives at the Jiangzhou Military Headquarters. Most of the officers have gone to supervise and stand guard at the exams today, leaving only Xie You to hold the fort.
“I need forty people,” Wu Du produces the written order, “for an investigation of a case of collusion between Jiangzhou officials and the Mongolians.”
As though he already knows Wu Du will come, Xie You says, “It’s taken some time longer than I thought it would. Let’s hope it hasn’t gotten in the way of actual business.”
Xie You’s subordinate comes up to serve tea, but Wu Du doesn’t stay for it, rising to go, taking forty Jiangzhou officers to another of the city’s organisations — the “Shadow Headquarters”. The Shadow has been established since the previous dynasty, and their goal is to safeguard members of the Imperial family as well as foreign diplomats. Ten years ago, after Feng Duo was sent to jail over colluding with court officials, the Shadow Guard no longer had a commander, and control of it fell to Zhao Kui. The Shadow Guard once resented Wu Du’s status and was unwilling to obey him.
Since then, their positions have gone under a complete reversal, and with the emperor’s handwritten order, Wu Du hands down assignments for the Shadow Guard to operate in secret while he himself heads to each of the court officials’ estates to visit them one by one.
“Lord Su.” Wu Du intercepts the carriage outside the Ministry of Revenue, and gestures for Su Fa to come out. “There’s something I need to speak with you about. This way please.”
The Minister of Revenue Su Fa replies, “Wu Du?”
Wu Du extends another invitation, and seeing that they’re surrounded by Jiangzhou military guards, Su Fa can but board Wu Du’s carriage.
“On the seventeenth of the month previous,” Wu Du says to Su Fa after he takes his seat in the carriage, “we discovered that the Mongolian envoy Khatanbaatar made a visit to your estate. Could you tell me what happened?”
Su Fa immediately bristles, saying furiously, “Wu Du! Who told you such a thing? Who sent you here?! This is slander!”
Wu Du picks up the small casket sitting at his side and opens it in Su Fa’s face. Inside are three night pearls.3
“This is a present from Khatanbaatar. We found it in your house. There’s also eight banknotes for two hundred silver taels each, as well as a piece of coral stone. If it’s alright with you, I’d like you to sign for them.”
“Why you … Wu Du!” Su Fa could never have anticipated that he was followed and observed through this entire business, and he’s actually momentarily ashen.
“No such thing has ever happened!” Su Fa denies.
“The list of gifts is right here.” Wu Du shows Su Fa the list. The outside is stamped with gold leaf and For Lord Su Fa along with some polite formalities is written right there at the top. This time, Su Fa can no longer disavow his liability, and he starts shaking.
“Your Lordship can have the stuff back,” Wu Du says politely, “I’ll keep the gift list for you. Please step off the carriage. I’m only here to ask whether these things really are yours.”
Anxious and uncertain, Su Fa stands there shaking for a while even after he gets off the carriage. Wu Du barks out another command, “Head to the Order of the Secretariat.”
Time flies, and in the blink of an eye it is already the afternoon, and Duan Ling begins checking over his answer essay: starting with the founding of Southern Chen, to the configuration of the empire as understood by his father, the confrontation between the four nations, as well as the relocation of the capital which Mu Kuangda described to him with the entrenchment of the literati clans in Jiangzhou; the present nature of Liao, Chen, and Yuan standing like three legs of a tripod checking and balancing one another.
At last he puts down his name, and with the ringing of the bell, the examiner rips off the seal and comes in to pick up his exam papers.
“Good calligraphy,” the examiner tells him.
Duan Ling rises and bows to him. Out in the courtyard, it’s starting to get noisy from the students as they discuss the exam question. Mu Qing finds Duan Ling in the crowd and hurries towards him.
As far as Duan Ling’s eyes can see are students he doesn’t recognise, and from their accents he surmises that they’ve sorted themselves into several factions — one from Xichuan, and another is made up of locals from Jiangzhou.
“I didn’t wait for you this morning,” Duan Ling says.
But Mu Qing’s already used to Duan Ling coming and going on his own, and he waves off the apology. “How’d you do?”
Duan Ling gives him a smile. “I did alright.”
From what he heard from Mu Kuangda, he has a basic reckoning of the level of these children from the literati clans, and his time studying in the Mu estate has given him too much, so much that he could extrapolate the future of Southern Chen from the big picture he has of the central plains.
“I seem to have written a memorial instead of an exam paper.” Duan Ling is only thinking of that now, and exclaims at once, “Oh no.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Mu Qing says, “you’re already done with the exams.”
The outside of the exam hall is crowded with those here to pick up their family. Duan Ling says to Mu Qing, “I’m going to wait for Wu Du. You should go home.”
Mu Qing says stubbornly, “Then I’ll wait with you.”
In the spring evening, Duan Ling and Mu Qing wait together for a long time, but Wu Du still hasn’t come.
I do not monetise my hobby translations, but if you’d like to support my work generally or support my light novel habit, you can either buy me a coffee or commission me. This is also to note that if you see this message anywhere else than on tumblr, do come to my tumblr. It’s ad-free. ↩︎
From the Analects of Confucius, Weizi, slightly reworded. The original was supposedly sung out of a passing carriage, and Kongzi wanted to speak to the person in the carriage but never got a chance to do so. ↩︎
Not actually “pearls”, but ancient glow in the dark orbs, carved out of naturally luminescent stone, usually said to be fluorite. ↩︎
Duan Ling hasn’t realised that these particular emotions spring from the changing of seasons; all he knows is that a desire in his heart is rushing to and fro just beneath the surface, and it cannot be relieved. In truth, when he first made his request, what he really wanted was just to have Wu Du buy him a skewer of candied hawthorn after the exams.
But gradually his heart has started to fill up with fanciful thoughts, until the day he wakes up on the day of the exams and a flower petal flutters through the window to land on his cheek.
“Rise and shine,” Wu Du says.
Sleepy-eyed, Duan Ling sits up. Wu Du pulls the door open to a courtyard filled with dancing peach blossoms.
Duan Ling stares outside, speechless.
Peach trees tender and lush, how brilliant their blossoms. Everywhere in the city, peach trees have bloomed overnight; spring has arrived in Jiangzhou. The sight of them is even more tangible and stunning than that spring in Shangjing, and Duan Ling calls out joyously, taking in the entirety of their courtyard — in one night, every peach tree in their courtyard house has become studded with blossoms.
They leave the house after breakfast. Through streets and alleyways, flowers are blooming in dazzling shades; the main street of Jiangzhou is covered in petals dancing in the spring breeze, with a blazing sun shining down from above.
“It’s rather pretty.” Wu Du sits on the back of the horse, with Duan Ling sitting in front of him. The last time he came to Jiangzhou it was already late spring and most of this grandeur had withered, so now he can’t help but rein in the horse as well so he can spend time getting a better look.
“It’s so beautiful.” Duan Ling is instantly engrossed in this magnificent landscape. The city is bustling, and after they go past another two streets, they start to see regular checkpoints along the way. The exams are taking place behind the Hall of Success; walk one more block and they’ll reach the Office of the Secretariat’s meeting halls.
Duan Ling wants to enjoy the view for a while longer, but Wu Du is telling him, “Let’s go. All the fine things will stay right here, it’ll all be waiting for you when you get back.”
Duan Ling tilts his head to look at Wu Du, and Wu Du reaches out, giving him a pat on the head. They hand their name plaques to the Black Armours on guard for inspection, only allowed passage once they’ve been verified.
Every student of the Jiangzhou literati is here today in an endless stream of carriages crowding their way through the alley outside the Hall of Success.
“Our ride may not be as impressive looking as theirs,” Wu Du laughs, “but the horse we’re riding on is the late emperor’s mount.”
Duan Ling starts laughing. Wu Du even wants to take Duan Ling all the way inside, but the Black Armours on guard block his way. “Attendants may not enter with the examinee.”
“I’m going to go do my work. In the evening, I’ll be outside here waiting for you. No need to be so tense. You can do this.”
“I …” Duan Ling wants to hug Wu Du, but he’s already sixteen.
He’s no longer the young lad who used to be dropped off and then accompanied all the way into school.
“Then I’m heading in,” Duan Ling says.
Wu Du stands outside the Hall of Success, takes out his flute, and begins to play it in the spring breeze.
The hubbub of the alley gradually grows quiet, and everyone stops to watch Wu Du play the flute. On this fine spring day, Joyful Reunion seems to hasten each radiant peach blossom in the alley into full bloom.
“It’s Wu Du!” Someone is whispering.
In the throng many are speaking softly at one another; the four great assassins’ reputation reach far and wide, and over the years they have garnered the admiration of a great number of young men from Xichuan. Wu Du himself is even more of a legend — some say he’s a master of poisons, some say he’s the traitor who killed the late emperor, but no one expected to see him taking someone to the examination hall on the day of the exams, and to play the Joyful Reunion under the gaze of so many pairs of prying eyes.
Duan Ling stands there quietly and finishes listening to the song. All his eyes can contain is this one person standing in the spring breeze.
More and more people have noticed Wu Du, and they look him up and down curiously. As soon as the song ends, Wu Du turns to leave. This time, Duan Ling doesn’t chase after him; he knows Wu Du will surely return.
“Was that Lord Wu Du just now?”
Duan Ling didn’t expect to run into Huang Jian here, and they bow and greet each other right away. They’re both students of the chancellor, but they only saw each other briefly and never got a real chance to talk. Now that they’ve run into each other again it’s a good opportunity for them to get to know each other.
Huang Jian isn’t very articulate, and the last time Duan Ling saw him he didn’t say much more than “sure” and “nice to meet you”, but he appears quite mature, rather average looking, and a bit dusky. Duan Ling is guessing that he’s very well-read, but his relatively unattractive looks makes him unlike the type of person Mu Qing tends to become close to. Yet if Mu Kuangda recognises his worth, then he must be quite talented.
“Let’s go.” Duan Ling talks with Huang Jian while they go looking for their places. “It was Wu Du.”
“Is he an assassin?” Huang Jian is also extremely interested in such things like heroes and vigilantes — young men tend to be fond of those who fight for justice.
“That he is,” Duan LIng laughs, “but he’s a good-natured person and never kills indiscriminately.”
“I heard His Majesty summoned him and asked him to join the palace as the Junior Guardian of the Heir Apparent. He actually turned it down! A most outstanding man indeed.”
Duan Ling’s heart does a somersault, immediately recalling what happened with Wu Du earlier. Is that what happened?! No wonder!
Distracted by those words, Duan Ling is lost in thought as he says his goodbyes to Huang Jian, and he’s still thinking about it by the time he enters the exam hall. Did Wu Du turn down the position of Junior Guardian for his sake? He must have.
Once upon a time he’d thought if he met Li Yanqiu he’d be able to find some way to reinstate his position as crown prince. And yet his uncle’s reaction was tantamount to forcing him into a dead end — he can no longer take another step forward, so all he can do is retreat.
Duan Ling is occupied with his complicated thoughts until the examiner comes in to hand out their exam papers. In order to prevent cheating, the examinees are each locked in their own room, and the examiner has each of them make a palm print.
Meanwhile, flute music is ringing out again, but it’s not Wu Du’s playing — it’s Lang Junxia’s!
“Who’s playing that flute?” The examiner stops what he’s doing and says with puzzlement.
Everyone in the same row of rooms as Duan Ling can hear the music.
“Joyful Reunion,” the examiner says.
“You’ve heard it before, sir?” To Duan Ling’s surprise, his heart is utterly calm.
“It feels like it was only yesterday, but the Ire of Shangzi is already many years ago. I did not anticipate hearing this song twice today.”
A long time passes before the song comes to an end. The examiner leaves the room, pastes a seal on the door, and as Duan Ling looks down to face the empty parchment before him, flute music is still reverberating in his ears. What the examiner said has blown away the haze of anxiety that has previously obscured his heart — the Ire of Shangzi, the shame of their vanquished land, Great Chen relocating to the south, the capital in ruins, their northern territories falling to Liao and Yuan; this is the burden they’ll always bear, until the day they expel these foreign invaders from their territories behind the Great Wall.
To him, perhaps the position of crown prince is who he is, but to many, perhaps Li Jianhong’s son, the Li descendant, represents their last hope.
Two renditions of Joyful Reunion, aside from giving Duan Ling a reminder, have perhaps also given every single examinee in the hall a reminder.
Duan Ling unrolls the exam question. The subject is: what’s past is past, but the future is yet to be determined.2
The connections between Chen, Liao, Yuan, and Xiliang forms into a giant net, and a picture scroll of the world seems to unroll before his eyes.
The past, the present, and the future; those countless complicated ties of Southern Chen, all the joys and sorrows that come with every parting and reunion tangling in times of war have finally pushed him to the present moment. If he returns to the imperial court, what is it that he ought to do?
Your Majesty, it’s your turn.
He can still hear his father’s voice by his ear, it seems. Duan Ling picks up his brush, dips it in ink, and all his previous confusion vanishes into nothingness. Armoured horses gallop across icy rivers, carrying with them the resounding passions of war, all of it pouring into a single writing brush. It is what he learned throughout his past years of schooling, as well as the heavy burden that he must face in his lifetime.
He still has one more chance, and that is to make his way before Li Yanqiu when he’s one of the top exam graduates, listed on the golden honour roll.
With Li Yanqiu’s written order in hand, Wu Du arrives at the Jiangzhou Military Headquarters. Most of the officers have gone to supervise and stand guard at the exams today, leaving only Xie You to hold the fort.
“I need forty people,” Wu Du produces the written order, “for an investigation of a case of collusion between Jiangzhou officials and the Mongolians.”
As though he already knows Wu Du will come, Xie You says, “It’s taken some time longer than I thought it would. Let’s hope it hasn’t gotten in the way of actual business.”
Xie You’s subordinate comes up to serve tea, but Wu Du doesn’t stay for it, rising to go, taking forty Jiangzhou officers to another of the city’s organisations — the “Shadow Headquarters”. The Shadow has been established since the previous dynasty, and their goal is to safeguard members of the Imperial family as well as foreign diplomats. Ten years ago, after Feng Duo was sent to jail over colluding with court officials, the Shadow Guard no longer had a commander, and control of it fell to Zhao Kui. The Shadow Guard once resented Wu Du’s status and was unwilling to obey him.
Since then, their positions have gone under a complete reversal, and with the emperor’s handwritten order, Wu Du hands down assignments for the Shadow Guard to operate in secret while he himself heads to each of the court officials’ estates to visit them one by one.
“Lord Su.” Wu Du intercepts the carriage outside the Ministry of Revenue, and gestures for Su Fa to come out. “There’s something I need to speak with you about. This way please.”
The Minister of Revenue Su Fa replies, “Wu Du?”
Wu Du extends another invitation, and seeing that they’re surrounded by Jiangzhou military guards, Su Fa can but board Wu Du’s carriage.
“On the seventeenth of the month previous,” Wu Du says to Su Fa after he takes his seat in the carriage, “we discovered that the Mongolian envoy Khatanbaatar made a visit to your estate. Could you tell me what happened?”
Su Fa immediately bristles, saying furiously, “Wu Du! Who told you such a thing? Who sent you here?! This is slander!”
Wu Du picks up the small casket sitting at his side and opens it in Su Fa’s face. Inside are three night pearls.3
“This is a present from Khatanbaatar. We found it in your house. There’s also eight banknotes for two hundred silver taels each, as well as a piece of coral stone. If it’s alright with you, I’d like you to sign for them.”
“Why you … Wu Du!” Su Fa could never have anticipated that he was followed and observed through this entire business, and he’s actually momentarily ashen.
“No such thing has ever happened!” Su Fa denies.
“The list of gifts is right here.” Wu Du shows Su Fa the list. The outside is stamped with gold leaf and For Lord Su Fa along with some polite formalities is written right there at the top. This time, Su Fa can no longer disavow his liability, and he starts shaking.
“Your Lordship can have the stuff back,” Wu Du says politely, “I’ll keep the gift list for you. Please step off the carriage. I’m only here to ask whether these things really are yours.”
Anxious and uncertain, Su Fa stands there shaking for a while even after he gets off the carriage. Wu Du barks out another command, “Head to the Order of the Secretariat.”
Time flies, and in the blink of an eye it is already the afternoon, and Duan Ling begins checking over his answer essay: starting with the founding of Southern Chen, to the configuration of the empire as understood by his father, the confrontation between the four nations, as well as the relocation of the capital which Mu Kuangda described to him with the entrenchment of the literati clans in Jiangzhou; the present nature of Liao, Chen, and Yuan standing like three legs of a tripod checking and balancing one another.
At last he puts down his name, and with the ringing of the bell, the examiner rips off the seal and comes in to pick up his exam papers.
“Good calligraphy,” the examiner tells him.
Duan Ling rises and bows to him. Out in the courtyard, it’s starting to get noisy from the students as they discuss the exam question. Mu Qing finds Duan Ling in the crowd and hurries towards him.
As far as Duan Ling’s eyes can see are students he doesn’t recognise, and from their accents he surmises that they’ve sorted themselves into several factions — one from Xichuan, and another is made up of locals from Jiangzhou.
“I didn’t wait for you this morning,” Duan Ling says.
But Mu Qing’s already used to Duan Ling coming and going on his own, and he waves off the apology. “How’d you do?”
Duan Ling gives him a smile. “I did alright.”
From what he heard from Mu Kuangda, he has a basic reckoning of the level of these children from the literati clans, and his time studying in the Mu estate has given him too much, so much that he could extrapolate the future of Southern Chen from the big picture he has of the central plains.
“I seem to have written a memorial instead of an exam paper.” Duan Ling is only thinking of that now, and exclaims at once, “Oh no.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Mu Qing says, “you’re already done with the exams.”
The outside of the exam hall is crowded with those here to pick up their family. Duan Ling says to Mu Qing, “I’m going to wait for Wu Du. You should go home.”
Mu Qing says stubbornly, “Then I’ll wait with you.”
In the spring evening, Duan Ling and Mu Qing wait together for a long time, but Wu Du still hasn’t come.
I do not monetise my hobby translations, but if you’d like to support my work generally or support my light novel habit, you can either buy me a coffee or commission me. This is also to note that if you see this message anywhere else than on tumblr, do come to my tumblr. It’s ad-free. ↩︎
From the Analects of Confucius, Weizi, slightly reworded. The original was supposedly sung out of a passing carriage, and Kongzi wanted to speak to the person in the carriage but never got a chance to do so. ↩︎
Not actually “pearls”, but ancient glow in the dark orbs, carved out of naturally luminescent stone, usually said to be fluorite. ↩︎
