“In this room there are my six brothers, and also Brother from the Xia family, Brother from the Zhou family, Brother from the Sun family…” Li Hanyuan stood at the very front, looking at the people in the room, afraid of missing anyone. Below, everyone sat in their seats with expressions of watching a good show.

Qiu Xinran stood beside Li Hanyuan, her expression focused on the little princess. After she had stammered through everyone’s names once, Qiu Xinran nodded and said, “Thank you for your trouble, Ninth Princess. Why don’t I start with the several princes first?”

She turned around, her gaze sweeping across everyone’s faces. Those whose eyes met hers showed various expressions—some unnaturally looked away, some smiled politely at her, some watched her with slightly challenging arms crossed. When her gaze finally landed on Xia Xiuyan, he lifted his eyelids and looked over with deep, dark eyes that made her heart falter.

“Are you done yet?” Li Hanyi urged impatiently.

Qiu Xinran withdrew her gaze and pointed to the person closest to her. “This is the Third Prince. The one on the left is the Fourth Prince. The one by the window in back is the Eighth Prince…” She went around in a circle, and without needing to look at everyone’s expressions, she knew her guesses were accurate.

“How does she know?” Li Hanfeng’s face showed some astonishment, though it was unclear whether he was talking to himself or asking others. Xia Xiuyan made no sound, while Li Hanyi had already snorted coldly over there. “What else? You’ve only guessed less than half.”

“I didn’t remember many of the remaining names,” Qiu Xinran said a bit sheepishly as she turned her head and addressed Li Hanyuan. “Could you please tell me again, Ninth Princess?”

There were still over ten people present. Not remembering the names after hearing them only once was perfectly normal, so Li Hanyi tacitly approved this request.

Li Hanyuan then recited the remaining names again. Qiu Xinran looked at the several people in the room as if silently memorizing these names in her mind. After Li Hanyuan finished, she nodded at her again and began walking from the west side. Whenever she reached someone, she would stop and announce their identity. “If I’m not mistaken, this should be Heir Zheng.”

Zheng Yuanwu was the legitimate son of General Zhenglu. Seeing her guess his identity, he was also startled and stood up to return her greeting, his expression showing some bewilderment. Qiu Xinran smiled and took another step forward, stopping to address the youth behind him. “This should be Heir Sun.”

The youth named Sun Jue, like the previous one, stood up and cupped his hands toward her, his expression somewhat excited. “How did you know?”

Qiu Xinran smiled without answering and continued walking. As she proceeded like this, each young man whose identity she guessed couldn’t help but stand up, their gazes following her along the way. By the time she reached the easternmost position by the window, only Xia Xiuyan remained seated.

Qiu Xinran stopped beside him, pursing her lips in a smile as she said, “Finally, only Brother from the Xia family is left.”

Xia Xiuyan didn’t stand up. He tilted his head slightly to glance at her, neither confirming nor denying, but Li Hanyuan over there was already calling out excitedly, unable to contain herself. “You guessed them all correctly! Xinran, you’re amazing!”

Qiu Xinran turned around and cupped her hands toward Li Hanyi. “Does the Second Prince remember what he said before?”

Li Hanyi’s expression was uncertain, but he wasn’t one to go back on his word. His tone was stiff as he said, “I always keep my word. The previous matter is wiped clean. From now on, you’d better not let me catch you at anything else…”

Before he could finish, Li Hanxing was already waving his fan and couldn’t help interrupting. “Little Daoist, tell us—how exactly did you guess? Can this be calculated too?”

“Everyone told me themselves.”

Li Hanfeng also couldn’t help but ask curiously, “When did we tell you?”

“Although I’ve never seen the princes before, I’ve recently been helping the Empress copy scriptures in her palace. The consorts from each palace visit the Empress daily to pay respects, so I’ve seen them many times during this period. Children resemble their parents, so based on appearance and age, I could roughly estimate.”

Upon hearing this, the several princes couldn’t help but look at each other and found that it was indeed as she said. The several princes in the academy were of different ages, and even those of similar age had vastly different appearances and temperaments. However, being able to guess identities based on this—besides her own cleverness, luck played a large part.

Li Hanling said thoughtfully, “Then how did you guess the others?”

“I asked the Ninth Princess to tell me once who everyone in the academy was. The Ninth Princess is young and doesn’t know how to hide things, so when she called out someone’s name, her gaze would also fall on that person. I just needed to follow the Ninth Princess’s gaze to roughly know where that person was in this room.”

Li Hanyuan hadn’t expected that she was the one who had leaked the secret and laughed sheepishly, pursing her lips. “But you guessed them all correctly just now. Was it because you were lucky?”

“Luck naturally played a part.” Qiu Xinran admitted frankly. “So just now I asked the Ninth Princess to recite them a second time. Generally when people hear their own name called, they’ll subconsciously have some reaction. Although none of you spoke, many small movements can still be detected. Combined with the approximate positions from before and matching them one by one, it wasn’t difficult to guess who was who.”

Li Hanyi frowned in dissatisfaction. “You said you could divine and calculate, but it turns out you just guessed using these little tricks?”

“This also counts as divining and calculating,” Qiu Xinran said with a bright smile. “Divination doesn’t come from thin air. Reading faces, examining palm lines, interpreting characters, and explaining fortune sticks all have traceable evidence for deducing results. It’s just that when ordinary fortune tellers read fortunes for people, they only tell the results and don’t explain their mental deductions to the customers.”

Li Hanyi felt she was full of twisted logic, but when it came to these matters he really wasn’t knowledgeable, so he could only snort coldly. “Complete nonsense! Clever words and an ingratiating manner!” With that, he flicked his sleeves and was the first to stride out the door.

Everyone in the room saw the show was over, their expressions still showing some lingering reluctance. But it was getting late. A few who couldn’t hide their excitement came forward to greet Qiu Xinran before leaving, inviting her to read their fortunes too if she had time. The others who had no particular interest left together in groups as well.

The several princes still had a family banquet at night, so Li Hanfeng left first. After most people had left, Xia Xiuyan slowly gathered his things and came out. Qiu Xinran was standing outside the door, having just seen off the Ninth Princess, when she turned back and happened to run into him. For some reason—perhaps because he had heard her gossiping about General Xia behind his back last time, or perhaps because of what she’d heard from Yuan Zhou’s experience, or perhaps because this sickly Heir Xia looked truly gloomy—Qiu Xinran always felt somewhat cautious when she saw him.

“Bureau Official Qiu has impressive skills.” Xia Xiuyan said coolly, his words heavy with mockery. Without waiting for Qiu Xinran to respond, his gaze fell coldly on her. “Today you settled your account with the Second Prince. Next you should carefully consider how to settle your account with me.”

Qiu Xinran’s heart skipped a beat, but her face still feigned ignorance. “What is Heir Xia talking about? I don’t understand.”

Xia Xiuyan scoffed lightly and didn’t say more to her, striding away.

Qiu Xinran was very young in age but held high seniority in her sect. Someone like Yuan Zhou was two years older than her but still had to call her Senior Sister. On the mountain she had many junior disciples like Yuan Zhou, so much so that in her eyes, age really didn’t count for much. Except for her master and senior uncle who were nearly fifty, everyone else looked like her juniors.

Although her master had repeatedly admonished her before she came down the mountain, and she had restrained her behavior considerably in the palace, appearing respectful to everyone on the surface, in truth she didn’t take these princes and nobles very seriously in her heart.

Although Xia Xiuyan had threatened her with settling scores after autumn that day, while she felt somewhat uneasy after returning, she wasn’t truly very worried about it.

A few days later, Qiu Xinran went to deliver copied scriptures to the Empress. Passing by the training grounds, she heard a chorus of cheers. She stopped and curiously walked closer to discover that an archery lesson was in progress.

It seemed Zheng Yuanwu had just shot two arrows into the bullseye from horseback, earning applause from the entire field. As he rode back, his face showed some pride. People below congratulated him one after another, and Instructor Qian teaching the class also showed approval. Compared to the sickly Xia Xiuyan, he as a general’s son was more competent, fully living up to people’s praise that a tiger father has no dog son.

Zheng Yuanwu had just left the field when Xia Xiuyan was next to go up. Because of his health, he rarely came out for archery lessons. When mounting his horse, he needed guards beside him to help him up. Once seated, watching him sway unsteadily on the horse unable to grasp the reins made people worry he would fall off at any moment.

Qiu Xinran watched him ride to the target. The arm drawing the bow trembled slightly. The sun was blazing, making people dizzy and disoriented. When he released, the arrow indeed fell to the ground, not even grazing the edge of the target. Some below showed mocking expressions. No one in the training grounds spoke—the silence was somewhat awkward.

Xia Xiuyan nocked the second arrow on his bow and once again aimed at the bullseye. This time the arrow grazed the edge of the target before falling to the ground. Some in the field let out regretful sighs, others sounds of disdain. The person on the horse seemed not to hear. The instructor teaching them archery came forward and pointed out a few things about his posture. Xia Xiuyan drew his bow a third time. The youth sat on the horse with a straight back, his gaze resolute. Under that scorching sun, Qiu Xinran suddenly glimpsed the Marquis Dingbei of ten years hence—on a silver saddle and white horse before a thousand troops, drawing his bow to shoot eagles.

Unfortunately, with a twang, the third arrow shot through the air but still missed the bullseye. At least this time it finally stuck in the target. Xia Xiuyan lowered his bow, looked at the target and smiled, then rode back to the edge of the field.

Li Hanfeng came forward to console him. “Each arrow was better than the last. Next time you’ll be able to hit the bullseye.” Li Hanxing heard and scoffed lightly. “Little Sixth speaks truly, but you won’t be going into battle to kill enemies, so whether you can hit it doesn’t really matter.” Li Hanfeng was slightly displeased with his Fourth Brother’s words, but Xia Xiuyan seemed not to care.

He turned his head to glance at the edge of the training grounds. It was empty with no one standing there.