How cold a northern winter morning can be is impossible to imagine for those who have never been to the north. Jizhou was not as frigid as the northern frontier, yet it was still miserable. Who could say how many of the wandering people outside the city walls would freeze to death in this winter?

When Li Diudiu walked out of his room wearing the winter clothes issued by the academy, he still couldn’t help but shiver. In that moment, he suddenly thought: how had he survived his winters in the past?

At that thought, he turned back inside and took off the padded vest he wore beneath his winter coat. Back then, surviving winter with his master meant enduring it through sheer will. Now, even bundled in winter clothing, he still dreaded the cold wind. Li Diudiu felt this wouldn’t do.

People really mustn’t grow more and more soft.

When he reached the cafeteria, he felt a small sense of relief. Since winter had set in, mercifully fewer academy students managed to wake up early enough to watch him eat. Of all those who had persisted, at least seventy-five percent would be defeated by a single word: laziness.

These people really had nothing better to do. He’d assumed they’d give up in three to five days—who knew they’d keep at it from the height of summer all the way through early winter?

Li Diudiu himself didn’t understand what was so addictive about it. What he didn’t know was that the situation at the academy was relatively mild—at Cloud Studio Teahouse, a devoted following with its own strict hierarchy had already formed around him.

Naturally, Madam Sun occupied the top tier. She was heavily pregnant now, yet still threw herself into the front lines every day. Before Li Diudiu arrived at Cloud Studio Teahouse each afternoon, Madam Sun had everything arranged and ready.

Her husband, Owner Sun, had been persuaded—with a broom and great patience—to have a cordial conversation with Li Diudiu the day before, agreeing to give him one quarter of the teahouse’s total revenue. Li Diudiu still hadn’t given Owner Sun his answer.

Because he didn’t quite know what to say. He didn’t really want that money—even though this one quarter of the earnings was far less than what Li Diudiu brought to Cloud Studio Teahouse.

Cloud Studio Teahouse was now the most prosperous teahouse in all of Jizhou City. Revenue had more than doubled from what it once was. Every morning the teahouse had almost no business at all, but by afternoon it was packed to bursting.

The ladies and young misses competed so fiercely for good seats that the front seats had been organically elevated into something like a VIP section. Some people were willing to put down a hundred taels of silver to reserve a seat for an entire month.

Madam Sun had further stratified her arrangements based on how much each guest spent—which meant that ladies and young misses of more or less equal standing couldn’t bear the thought of having a worse seat than someone else. Without intending to, they had created a fierce competitive escalation, much to Owner Sun’s delight.

Though he was greedy, he did feel that giving away one quarter of the monthly income was a bit much. But he was afraid of Madam Sun—when gentle persuasion failed her, the broom came out. Generally, that was as far as Owner Sun could hold out.

His finest moment was managing to endure until Madam Sun reached for a brick. That was the time he’d tentatively asked about taking a concubine. Madam Sun had skipped the gentle persuasion and the broom entirely and gone straight to the brick—and Owner Sun had folded, fast.

Early morning in the academy’s main cafeteria: only two people sat inside. One at this end, one at the far end, the entire length of the hall between them.

When Li Diudiu came in, he sat down without a second thought, not once glancing toward the other side—nor noticing that the figure at the other end was a girl in a white fur coat.

The moment Li Diudiu walked in, this girl’s eyes lit up briefly and she instinctively started to raise her hand to wave. But Li Diudiu walked straight past her without pausing, and the brightness that had just lit up in her eyes dimmed again.

Li Diudiu greeted Aunt Wu cheerfully and sat down to wait for his food. For some reason, he recalled what Gao Xining had said, and hurriedly looked over—to find the girl looking back at him.

Li Diudiu gave a polite nod in acknowledgment. A flush of red bloomed on the girl’s face.

She raised her hand again to wave at Li Diudiu, but then saw him stand up and walk toward her. She panicked instantly, moved to leave by reflex—her backside already lifted off the stool—but forced herself to fight down the urge and sat back down.

Li Diudiu walked up to the girl, smiled, and said, “Forgive me. I was only thinking about what to eat when I came in. I didn’t greet you properly.”

The girl couldn’t quite hold still. She hurriedly stood up and said, “It’s all right. I just got here too—I haven’t been waiting long.”

Then she realized how awkward that sounded, and her face grew even redder.

Li Diudiu had rarely seen a girl blush. Mainly because he rarely encountered girls. Who was the woman he saw most? Aunt Wu, of course—and at Aunt Wu’s age, she had no reason to be blushing over nothing.

Aunt Wu, at her age, was more likely to be the one making grown men blush than the other way around if the conversation went in a certain direction.

Then there was Gao Xining, who almost never blushed—she was simply too big-hearted. Sometimes Li Diudiu even suspected that Gao Xining’s primary motivation wasn’t actually to find him a wife, but rather to become sworn siblings with him—ahem, of the opposite-sex variety.

“How about…”

Li Diudiu was no expert at talking to girls, but remembering what Gao Xining had coached him on—say something, then invite the person to eat together—he steeled himself and said, “How about we eat together?”

Yuan Jiabei lowered her head and murmured a soft sound of agreement. She expected Li Diudiu to come sit across from her—but that stiff, arrow-straight fellow simply turned around and walked back to his own table.

Because Gao Xining’s instructions said to invite the person to eat together, what Li Diudiu understood as “together” naturally meant back at the spot where he was eating, not sitting down across from Yuan Jiabei.

How much decorum did a girl of Yuan Jiabei’s background possess?

She had already abandoned so much of it—coming to the main cafeteria every day to wait for Li Diudiu; forgetting her father’s instruction to avoid contact with boys as much as possible.

So she bit her lip, stood up, lowered her head, and walked quickly to where Li Diudiu was eating. She sat down across from him.

In that moment, Aunt Wu’s face broke into the warmly satisfied smile of a mother.

Even she had long known that the young miss must have been coming every day to see Young Master Li—yet this Young Master Li seemed to have eyes only for food, and hadn’t once looked at the girl. She’d been getting anxious for them.

“What would you like to eat?”

Li Diudiu asked Yuan Jiabei.

Yuan Jiabei thought for a moment. “Just a bowl of porridge is fine.”

Li Diudiu made a sound of acknowledgment and waved at Aunt Wu. “Bring her a bowl of porridge, and add four meat buns.”

The meat buns in the academy’s main cafeteria were each as big around as the rim of an ordinary household rice bowl.

Yuan Jiabei was slightly bewildered.

Li Diudiu said matter-of-factly, “Just a bowl of porridge isn’t nearly enough.”

Yuan Jiabei didn’t want to refuse, but Aunt Wu couldn’t hold her tongue. She brought Yuan Jiabei a bowl of polished rice porridge and said with a smile, “Young Master Li, girls eat very little.”

Li Diudiu said, “They all eat very little? That can’t be right! Gao Xining eats more in one meal than Xiahou Zuo does!”

Aunt Wu: “…”

Yuan Jiabei was startled. She looked at Li Diudiu. “That’s not right—Xining has such a small appetite. When we eat together, she eats even less than me.”

Li Diudiu said with the same matter-of-fact tone, “Then she must go home and gnaw through two pork knuckles herself.”

Yuan Jiabei: “…”

Just then, a man came striding into the cafeteria, his expression thoroughly dark. He scanned the room and, upon seeing Yuan Jiabei sitting across from Li Diudiu, his face turned even darker.

“Disgraceful!”

This middle-aged man was Yuan Jiabei’s father, Stout Xiu Wei, an academy instructor. He was a rigid, proper man of letters who took the old rule that men and women should not touch each other’s hands with utmost seriousness.

To him, his own daughter saying a single word to a boy was practically a capital offense.

He left home very early every morning—even earlier than Yan Qingzhi, and in that sense was a more diligent instructor. He would arrive at the classroom well ahead of time to prepare lessons and would clean the room himself. That was why Yuan Jiabei could come to the cafeteria each morning. He hadn’t believed it when people told him about it before—he simply couldn’t believe his own daughter would behave so improperly. But when someone came to tell him again today and dragged him to see for himself, he came.

“Have you no shame!”

He could no longer be measured about it. Stout Xiu Wei raised his hand and swung it toward Yuan Jiabei’s face. Driven by rage, the blow was forceful—how could a delicate girl withstand a slap like that?

A sharp crack sounded.

Li Diudiu’s hand closed around Stout Xiu Wei’s wrist. The hand stopped less than an inch from Yuan Jiabei’s face. The wind from the swing rustled the hair at her temples.

“How dare you stop me!”

Stout Xiu Wei glared at Li Diudiu. Li Diudiu looked back at him. The two stared at each other for a long moment.

Stout Xiu Wei said in fury, “She is my daughter. I am disciplining my own wayward child—I haven’t said a word against you. That alone shows you respect. Li Chi, don’t force me to do something that brings shame on a man of letters!”

Li Diudiu said, “Don’t you think that slap, if it had landed, would have brought far more shame than anything—not only to a man of letters, but to the dignity of a father.”

Stout Xiu Wei yanked his hand outward hard, but it didn’t budge. Li Diudiu’s grip on his wrist was like five iron bolts.

“Father, I was wrong.”

Yuan Jiabei stood, bowed low in apology toward her father, then raised her hands to cover her face and ran away crying.

Stout Xiu Wei continued to glare at Li Diudiu. Li Diudiu glanced to the side to check that Yuan Jiabei had gone, then stood up, met Stout Xiu Wei’s gaze, and said, “First, she has done nothing wrong. Second, in a setting like this, you should not strip her of her dignity. Third, a person with a clean conscience will not imagine filth in their own daughter.”

Stout Xiu Wei roared, “You dare lecture me?!”

Li Diudiu released his hand. Stout Xiu Wei nearly stumbled and fell.

“Your daughter and I spoke for the first time today—we have had no prior conversation. Believe that or don’t—but I’m going to say it plainly: Instructor Stout, you feel humiliated? So you mean to publicly humiliate your own daughter? Do you think that makes it less humiliating?”

Stout Xiu Wei said, “I said it before and I’ll say it again—I am managing my own daughter, not you. I have not disrespected you. Don’t speak out of turn. How I educate my own child is my own affair—even if I educate her poorly, that is my business.”

Li Diudiu let out a sigh. “Can we not reason this through calmly?”

Stout Xiu Wei said, “I have no wish to speak with you. You have no standing to speak with me.”

Li Diudiu murmured to himself, “It seems not…” He paused. “Then let’s try a different approach.”

Li Diudiu brought his palm down on the table. The table cracked and split apart with a bang.

Stout Xiu Wei recoiled several paces in fright, his eyes snapping wide at the shattered remains of the table scattered across the floor.

“Reasoning doesn’t work. So let’s try something that does.”

Li Diudiu walked up to Stout Xiu Wei, leaned forward as if to speak in his ear. Stout Xiu Wei, revolted and alarmed in equal measure, immediately tried to back away. Li Diudiu grabbed his collar and pulled him back.

He spoke in a voice barely above a whisper into Stout Xiu Wei’s ear: “Stand still and listen carefully. Move away again and I’ll push your head into the academy’s cesspit. Since Instructor Stout cares so deeply about face—I will spare your face. I won’t have any further contact with your daughter in the future. But you should know I am not a good person. If I find out that you’ve gone home and cursed at her, beaten her, or humiliated her with words, I will strip you bare and hang you in the doorway of your classroom for all your students to see clearly. You are welcome not to believe me—feel free to try. And if you think that doesn’t matter, I can hang you outside the academy gates instead.”

Li Diudiu released his grip. In full view of everyone in the cafeteria, he bowed low. “It was this student who was at fault. Please forgive me, Instructor Stout.”

As he bent forward, his eyes tracked upward.

That one glance drained the color from Stout Xiu Wei’s face. He spun around and ran.

“Outrageous… outrageous!”

He shouted as he fled.

Li Diudiu straightened up. In that moment, he truly did not look like any kind of good person.