“All this was just idle chatter after class—whether you understood it or not doesn’t matter, don’t overthink it. Now, back to the lesson—as for Zhou Pei’s question, there are many ways to look at it. The Classic of Filial Piety says…”
Having finished delivering that startling theory, Ning Yi returned once more to proper lessons on the classics and poetry—though by then everyone’s minds were still in something of a daze, hardly in the mood to listen to any of that. Zhou Pei had no interest in listening to the old clichés either; even if she had, she’d probably have thought her tutor was just going through the motions, and that she herself could have explained it better. Of course, since apprenticing under him the previous year, she’d never had much doubt about Ning Yi’s learning.
But learning was one thing—an improper attitude as a teacher was simply intolerable. Steeped as she was in Kang Xian’s influence, Zhou Pei found herself constantly irritated. She genuinely enjoyed the lectures and the stories, yet during class itself she remained thoroughly displeased, even wanting at times to just drag her brother away and leave. But she also knew perfectly well that she really did learn things from this tutor, which left her torn and conflicted. Lately, with the added worry over the prospect of a consort and growing up, she’d been troubled all the more. Fortunately her self-control was strong, and she hadn’t lost her composure—if anything, she’d only grown more determined to set this tutor straight.
With the new school year starting, the class Ning Yi taught had already grown to more than twenty students. Zhou Pei, gifted in her studies and gentle in her manner with others, was well regarded and even admired by many, though the boys were generally too shy to speak with her directly. This time, she resolved to rally the group. “Even though our tutor is never serious, we ought to hold ourselves to a proper standard.”
For this cause, Zhou Pei prepared an elaborate speech before Ning Yi arrived in class, all about how they were destined to become pillars of the nation and ought to conduct themselves accordingly in the classroom. Truth be told, Zhou Pei had quite a gift for oratory, and given that the general atmosphere at various academies these days tended to be uniformly severe—tutors competing to outdo each other in strictness—someone like Ning Yi could only get away with teaching the way he did because the academy head shielded him. When Zhou Pei made her case, most of the students found it reasonable enough and resolved to hold themselves to stricter standards in class.
This was, in truth, simply a matter of differing perspectives. Every tutor Zhou Pei had ever had was extremely strict—even as a young princess, she’d been scolded harshly, struck on the palm with a ruler, and made to copy out the Analects as punishment. If not for that kind of discipline, at the very least a classroom ought to remain solemn, with no idle chatter or joking permitted. Ning Yi’s habit of telling stories in class was something she thoroughly disapproved of, and this disapproval had rather colored her opinion of him in other respects as well.
As for Ning Yi’s own view, he felt that after being under his influence, these students had actually become quite well-behaved. A few mischievous ones at the start had, by now, essentially disappeared from the class—perhaps in part because of how well-known his reputation had become within the Su household. When it came to actual instruction, hardly anyone dared talk back or misbehave; but when it came to storytelling, drawing out various points for discussion, the whole point was to let the students think for themselves—what was funny, what was interesting, what was worth pondering. Raising a few questions and sharing a laugh now and then, like at a gathering among friends, was only natural. Why would he want to discourage that?
If Zhou Pei had had a bit more life experience, she might have realized that most of the children who agreed with her proposal did so simply because they found her argument “reasonable”—that a teacher without authority wasn’t good, that as students they ought to help maintain their tutor’s dignity. Others, though they murmured, “But Teacher’s always said a more relaxed atmosphere is better,” went along with the crowd regardless.
For the next several days, whenever Ning Yi taught, the students sat up rigid and proper, and whenever he cracked a joke, someone would occasionally fail to hold back a laugh, only to immediately force themselves back into an extremely, painfully serious expression—leaving Ning Yi thoroughly baffled.
But such spontaneous discipline couldn’t hold up for long under Ning Yi’s provocations, and by the end of the month, he finally asked, half-amused, “Have I really gone out of style? Are my jokes just not funny anymore?” The students then chimed in one after another, urging him to be stricter with them, saying it would help preserve his standing and reputation—each one acting like a tiny adult.
By this point, Ning Yi wasn’t just respected within the Su household—his reputation as a scholar had spread far and wide, and people who didn’t understand his temperament often came to pay him visits. The students, feeling a reflected sense of pride, had also begun considering how to look out for their teacher’s reputation, especially since his unorthodox teaching style was often criticized—he’d only been teaching for a year, and Yushan Academy hadn’t exactly produced any notable talents under him yet. Hearing others gossip about it, the students had grown concerned on their teacher’s behalf, and it eventually came out that it was Zhou Pei who had used this very argument to rally them all into deciding the class needed more discipline.
At this, Ning Yi was left utterly dumbstruck, not sure whether to laugh or feel touched. Once the matter came to light, Zhou Pei stood up in class herself. The girl was quite pretty, though these past days her mood had been poor, and now her face was set in a wooden, expressionless mask. “This student acted on her own initiative. I ask for the teacher’s punishment.” Ning Yi, walking among the rows of seats listening to the children explain, happened to be standing not far in front of Zhou Pei at that moment, and was momentarily struck speechless—the girl was being scrupulously honest about it, which was rather putting him on the spot.
Watching her stubborn, defiant expression, Ning Yi found the whole thing rather amusing. After a moment, he let out a helpless laugh. “The important thing is having your own opinions. You did well—why would I punish you for that?”
The girl stood facing him for a long moment, then glanced at the ruler he usually waved around as a pointer during lessons, closed her eyes, and held out her palm.
The exchange between them consisted of only a couple of lines and a single gesture, but in truth, neither of them had backed down an inch—though none of the other students could read that much into it. Ning Yi, torn between amusement and exasperation, finally took the seldom-used ruler and gave a light tap to her palm. Zhou Pei’s furrowed brows twitched slightly, though she felt no pain at all. When she opened her eyes, Ning Yi had already turned away with a smile, launching into a lecture on the importance of “understanding” and “drawing inferences” in the pursuit of learning.
The young princess pursed her lips and sat back down without another word, and she didn’t take in much of the rest of the lesson. Before long, no one could really tell from her expression that anything was wrong, though she barely spoke a word the entire morning. At lunch, she sent her brother off to eat alone; little Junwu could sense the killing intent radiating off his sister and didn’t dare go near her, slinking away in a hurry.
She wandered around the academy grounds for a while, barely acknowledging the few girls who greeted her—unusual behavior for her, normally so composed. When she reached the bamboo grove at the edge of the academy, she finally sat down for a bit. There was still snow on the ground here, and though the daytime temperature had risen somewhat, the bamboo grove remained cold, and hardly anyone came this way. She sat there for a while, and then, unable to help herself, felt her nose sting and tears start to fall. She wiped at her face with her hand and simply sat there and cried.
In truth, she wasn’t quite sure why she was suddenly crying so hard. Ordinarily she wasn’t the type to get so upset over such things—she understood, deep down, that her tutor was a capable man, and that his teaching methods weren’t necessarily useless; she understood that much herself. It was just that lately, thinking about her father’s plans to choose her a husband, her heart raced, and she felt a hollow emptiness besides.
More than a decade of life, and just as she was beginning to truly understand things, she was already expected to marry off. All the things she’d once wanted to do—in the end, she’d never actually accomplished any of them.
Had she been a few years older, she might have found this present distress rather childish. But right now, she was only a thirteen-year-old girl, and could do nothing but sit there in the bamboo grove crying, tears streaming down like blossoms in the rain, her vision blurred.
Lost in her sorrow and wiping at her tears, she suddenly noticed a figure standing not far off, looking her way. She hurriedly wiped at her tears and looked up, only to see that the figure was Ning Yi, apparently on his way out after class had ended. Zhou Pei, her eyes blurred with tears, hadn’t noticed him approaching, and Ning Yi, in turn, hadn’t noticed her either as he walked over. It was only now that the two of them saw each other clearly. The thirteen-year-old girl tried desperately to compose her face and stop crying, but no matter how hard she tried, for the moment, she simply couldn’t…
…
The afternoon sun was bright, and though there still wasn’t much warmth to it, it was, at least, far more uplifting than an overcast sky.
After a season of bitter winter, tender young grass had already begun sprouting in the little courtyard—owing to the fact that the previous occupant had never bothered to tend the grounds. Patches of tender green now carpeted the courtyard floor, with a few unmelted snowdrifts still scattered here and there, lending the scene an added sense of vitality. As wind chimes tinkled softly under the eaves, a girl in an elegant dress of white and green sat perched on the railing, eating a meat-and-vegetable wrap from her hand.
By the standards of this era, the girl’s attire had already crossed into adult territory, but in truth, no matter how proper and composed her demeanor, a girl standing barely one meter thirty tall still looked, at a glance, like nothing more than a child who hadn’t yet grown up. Her small, delicate frame, combined with the deliberately grown-up expression she was trying so hard to maintain, along with her fine, expensive clothing, made her look rather more like a porcelain doll earnestly trying its best to grow up.
Having been caught crying by her tutor earlier at the academy, a jumble of embarrassment, sorrow, and unease churned through Zhou Pei’s mind—at the time, it would have been hard to say exactly what she’d been feeling. In the past, she’d found Ning Yi’s teaching style amusing even as she privately grumbled about it; her recent frustration had simply come from being in a poor mood. But now that nothing had actually come of her little rebellion, the small setback had only piled onto her already troubled heart.
Of course, none of this was something she could openly admit to. She’d been hoping her tutor would find some way to talk her around; being caught crying wasn’t something she wanted to bring up, but she couldn’t simply pretend it hadn’t happened either—so she’d followed along with Ning Yi. Having eaten nothing at lunch, she’d bought a meat wrap and was now gnawing on it.
But naturally, she had no way of understanding what was actually going through Ning Yi’s mind. Ning Yi didn’t approve of a girl of thirteen or fourteen being married off, but that was simply the norm in the Wu Dynasty, dictated by custom and propriety—and since she wasn’t his own daughter, there was little point in saying anything. Zhou Pei largely considered herself already an adult, but in truth, she was still very much a child. He had no wish to make a child grow up too fast, nor did he think it appropriate to placate her with methods meant for children. Some things in life, she would simply have to work out and accept on her own—in truth, though she felt troubled now, once she actually did marry, she’d likely come to accept it naturally enough in time.
The little girl sat under the eaves, waiting in vain for Ning Yi to come offer her some words of comfort, and, assuming her teacher was off doing some experiment inside, took a few savage bites out of her wrap. A moment later, the door opened, and Ning Yi emerged carrying a long, wrapped bundle on his back. “Are you and Junwu staying to play at the academy this afternoon?” he asked.
Zhou Pei stared at the long bundle on his back, swallowed the food in her mouth, and bit her lip. “Where are you going, Teacher?”
“Over to the Consort’s residence, to see if your Uncle Lu is in. You should head back to the academy.”
“Going to see Grandfather Consort… then I’m coming too.”
Zhou Pei thought it over for a moment, then lifted her skirts and rose to follow along behind him. Glancing at the bundle on his back, she noticed it wasn’t wrapped very neatly—a bamboo tube poked out from one corner. She and Junwu had seen this item before when they’d come by, though their tutor never let them touch it; she knew it was a military fire-lance.
Compared to “playing” with Junwu back at the academy, she was naturally far more interested in matters of real substance—and besides, the gloom from the past few days still hadn’t fully lifted. She’d have to tag along regardless; if her tutor brought anything up, she’d need to argue her case properly, to let him know she wasn’t just some child who could only cry. Having been caught crying earlier had been purely accidental—that, above all, was what mattered most.