In the other room, Changmei the Daoren hadn’t fallen asleep either. He waited a while, heard no sound, assumed Li Diudiu had gone back to his room, and then got up to fumble around and relight the lamp.

He pulled a small chest from under the bed, opened it, took out everything inside, and laid it piece by piece on the bed.

Part of it was banknotes — all of it given to him by Li Diudiu, which he had been too frugal to spend and had saved away instead. His plan was to use this money after graduation to buy Li Diudiu a position in the government.

If you could buy yourself a destiny, you could buy yourself a career — that was genuinely how he thought about it.

He counted the banknotes carefully and set them aside, then picked up the other items one by one to look them over, estimating their total value, thinking about whether this much silver, offered as a gift to Yu Chaozong if Li Diudiu went to Yanshan Camp, might buy him a good position there.

Off to one side, he had set aside a small pile of loose silver — what he planned to live on himself.

He thought for a moment, then picked the slightly larger pieces back out from that small pile and moved them to the other stack.

He reasoned that he could manage fine with less to eat and spend. Once the new year passed and Diudiu went to the Academy for meals, it would be just him alone at home, and expenses would be minimal.

Thinking this, he reached into that already-meager handful of small silver fragments and removed a few more pieces to add to the other pile.

Out in the courtyard, Li Diudiu noticed the lamp come back to life in his master’s room. He looked back at it, unable to see the person inside — but he had a pretty good idea what his master was doing.

All these years, his master understood him as well as he understood himself, and the same was true in reverse.

“Old man,” called Li Diudiu from the moonlit terrace.

“Stop counting. Go to sleep.”

The instant he called out, the light in the room was blown out — Li Diudiu could almost picture the flustered scramble that had caused.

“Old man.”

“Mm?”

Changmei answered on reflex.

“Are you asleep?” asked Li Diudiu.

“Fast asleep,” said Changmei.

“I can’t sleep,” said Li Diudiu.

Changmei immediately asked: “Why? Something on your mind?”

Li Diudiu got up, walked over to the window, and smiled as he spoke: “Back when I was small, I always used to sleep with my head on the old man’s arm. Slept soundly, too. And when I couldn’t sleep, the old man never asked me why — he’d just pat me on the back and say, ‘Sleep now, sleep now, Master’s here.'”

Inside the room, Changmei the Daoren extended his arm through the window.

“Master’s here,” he said.

Li Diudiu grinned, trotted into the room, and burrowed under his master’s covers like a little creature diving into its burrow. He lay down on his master’s arm, swung his feet back and forth, and kicked off his socks.

“Your feet are freezing!”

Changmei startled and said with mild reproach: “It’s so cold out there — why were you sitting outside all this time?”

“Eavesdropping,” said Li Diudiu. “Wanted to see how much pocket money the old man’s been hiding, so I could sneak in and steal it later.”

Changmei rapped him on the head.

“It’s all yours anyway.”

“If it’s all mine, then stop hiding it.”

“That won’t do.”

Changmei thought for a moment, then chuckled. “It’s a habit by now.”

Li Diudiu burst out laughing. After a good while he said: “Master… feel this — aren’t my arms a lot more muscular now?”

Changmei asked: “What are you getting at?”

“Want to try lying on my arm for once?”

Changmei laughed and shook his head. “Your master’s arm still holds up just fine. When the day comes that it doesn’t, I’ll take you up on that.”

“Master.”

“Mm?”

“I want braised offal.”

“First thing tomorrow morning, we’ll go get some.”

“Deal.”

Li Diudiu answered with a pleased sound, then pressed his head deeper into his master’s chest. Since entering Jizhou City — since that pile of straw that first day — this was perhaps the first time he’d lain on his master’s arm to sleep, just like he used to.

—

Meanwhile, at the Four Pages Academy.

Gao Xining couldn’t sleep. She tossed and turned, unable to settle, feeling that something was off. Suddenly out of nowhere this so-called disciple of Master Yuming had appeared, and just like that, Li Chi had gone off with Mr. Yan to Tangxian.

Her grandfather’s obsession with books meant that the mere mention of Master Yuming’s personal library and manuscripts would naturally stir his heart — wasn’t that textbook catering to someone’s known weakness?

Then she thought about what her grandfather had mentioned over dinner — that Prince Yu had wiped out Yiji Hall — and she felt certain that Li Chi must have had something to do with it. Why else would Xiahou Zuo have gone to storm Yiji Hall?

She sat up abruptly, threw on her outer robe, and walked to the doorway — then stopped. She realized that even if she woke her grandfather right now, there was nothing to be done about it.

For the first time, she felt a fear she couldn’t quite name: a desperate worry combined with a sense of complete helplessness. The coldness of it spread through her entire body.

If someone truly meant to harm Li Chi, and she had worked it out — but had no way to help him — what good was working it out at all?

She sat down in her room, bare feet on the floor, brow knit deep.

Li Chi had never gone out of his way to provoke anyone. So why did people keep coming to provoke him?

Thinking this, even someone as sharp as Gao Xining must have begun to put together the reason. Xu Qinglin had to be involved. That time when Xu Qinglin had been so eagerly, so apparently sincerely, accompanying her grandfather around — always finding forced reasons to keep the conversation going.

And then he had suddenly left in a rush, clearly somewhat rattled.

Thinking all this through, Gao Xining’s revulsion toward Xu Qinglin grew thicker by the moment — thick enough that she wanted to find him right then and slap him across the face.

“From now on…”

She murmured to herself, almost like talking to no one in particular.

“From now on, I have to find a way to protect him.”

But the moment that thought surfaced, the helplessness welled up again. She was only a young girl — what could she possibly do to protect Li Chi?

And so it was that this girl on the first tender edge of love sat through the cold night wrapped in her outer robe, sitting up for nearly the whole night, thinking many, many things.

Of all the feelings in this world, none are more pure than those of first love.

By the time a person reaches maturity, even their feelings come with calculations — comparisons, conditions. Most passionate romances are laced through with such weighing and measuring. But when love first stirs, you don’t even stop to wonder whether you and the other person are suited — where would calculations even fit into that?

A person’s life has so little time in it that isn’t driven by self-interest.

—

The next morning, before it was even light, Li Diudiu rose, completed his daily practice, washed up, and got ready to take his master out for braised offal — but his master had changed his mind about going out.

“Diudiu.”

His master looked at him and said: “I just remembered — you haven’t come back yet, have you? How can we go out for braised offal?”

Li Diudiu smiled. “It should be fine. Those people don’t know where we live — they won’t be watching.”

His master shook his head. “Better to be cautious. Yu Jiuling is still impersonating you, and hasn’t returned to Jizhou yet. You went to all that trouble making preparations — you shouldn’t throw it away over a bowl of braised offal.”

“Then we won’t go. I’ll do as you say.”

Just then he heard a voice outside the door — trembling, tentative.

“Is… is Li Chi here?”

Li Diudiu recognized the voice immediately and hurried to pull the door open. There before him stood Gao Xining, her face gone pale from the cold, wrapped tight in her heavy cloak, frost even settled on her eyebrows.

“What are you doing here?”

Li Diudiu felt something in his chest take a sharp blow — it ached.

Gao Xining said: “You told me where you lived, but I’d never been to this part of the city. It was dark out, I couldn’t find it easily. I didn’t dare knock at strange doors, so I waited a little while… I’m just glad you’re alright.”

When she saw Li Diudiu, the tension visibly drained from her.

“How early did you leave?”

As Li Diudiu spoke, he began shrugging off his padded cotton coat. Gao Xining quickly shook her head: “No need, no need, I’m not that cold. I snuck out while my grandfather was still asleep — I didn’t dare tell Ruoling either. She’d never have let me come if she knew.”

Li Diudiu had already taken the coat off and wrapped it around her. As he did, he noticed that Gao Xining wasn’t even wearing socks. It wasn’t hard to imagine how urgent her departure had been.

“Come in and warm up by the fire first.”

Li Diudiu reached out for her arm.

Gao Xining shook her head: “I need to get back. Grandfather will be up soon — if he finds me gone, I’ll definitely get a scolding. Seeing that you’re safe is enough.”

Li Diudiu glanced back at his master. His master nodded: “We can skip the braised offal, but you absolutely must walk her home.”

Li Diudiu agreed, turned and ran inside to grab a quilt and wrap it around Gao Xining too. Her lovely face peeked out from the layers of quilting like something nestled in a pile of cotton.

“I’ll carry you.”

Li Diudiu bent his knees and crouched in front of her. Gao Xining’s face flushed red: “There’s no need for that, I can walk on my own, I’m very fast…”

Before she finished speaking, Li Diudiu had already hoisted her onto his back.

By now the sky was just beginning to brighten. The streets were still mostly empty. As he walked, Li Diudiu said: “Hold on tight. If I run with you on my back, we’ll make it in time — your grandfather won’t have a chance to scold you.”

Gao Xining’s face went even redder. She reached her arms out from under the quilt and wrapped them around Li Diudiu’s neck — carefully, gently, monitoring her own grip.

“Quit being so dainty,” Li Diudiu said. “Hold on properly!”

Gao Xining thought: you clueless oaf! She brought her hand down on his head with a thwack.

But after that, she tightened her arms around him a little more.

Li Diudiu ran and talked at the same time: “You heard Director Gao mention Yiji Hall, then figured that he’d sent me off to Tangxian, and got worried something had happened to me?”

Gao Xining made a soft sound of confirmation — barely a breath. Something about admitting this out loud, when it made it so obvious how much she’d been worried about him, meant she had to keep her voice very small if she was going to admit it at all. Otherwise it would be… embarrassing.

“Ridiculous — getting yourself half-frozen. If those people who want me dead couldn’t finish me off, they’d still have your grandfather to worry about if you caught a cold.”

He could really run fast.

Gao Xining thought: why is this fool running so fast? He could slow down a little — it wouldn’t matter if they took longer. She’d just tell her grandfather she’d been out for morning exercises.

Li Diudiu ran all the way to the Academy in one go, arriving in a sweat. Gao Xining had her arms around his neck and could feel the moisture soaking through onto her arms — so she reached up and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

He carried her in over the rear courtyard wall, scaling it one-handed even with her on his back. If anyone had seen that, they would have accused him of being some kind of thieving scoundrel — and he wouldn’t have had a leg to stand on.

He crept carefully close to Director Gao’s residence, then set Gao Xining down. Catching his breath, he said: “Hurry back. Otherwise the Great Demon King will definitely scold you — and while I can stand up for you against anyone else who gives you grief, the Great Demon King is the one person I can’t touch.”

Gao Xining didn’t quite understand what came over her — suddenly she had an irresistible urge to kiss him on the cheek. But she didn’t dare.

So instead she kicked him in the backside, then spun around and ran.

She crept quietly into the courtyard, thinking she’d gotten away without anyone noticing — but the moment she stepped through the gate, she found Director Gao right there, stretching as he came out of his room. Grandfather and granddaughter locked eyes. Gao Xining’s heart nearly leapt out of her chest.

“What… where have you been, this early?”

Director Gao looked at her and asked.

“I was… I went for morning exercises,” Gao Xining answered, deliberately panting for effect.

Director Gao pointed: “Wrapped in a quilt for morning exercises?”

Gao Xining nearly jumped out of her skin — genuinely startled — and thought: thank goodness for the quilt. Without it, Li Chi’s padded coat underneath would have given everything away.

“It’s cold,” she said.

Feigning perfect calm, she swept inside with the quilt still wrapped around her. After a moment’s thought, she decided a version closer to the truth would be a safer lie.

“It was so cold last night that I went out first thing to check on Shendiao and Gouzi.”

Director Gao let out a grunt. “When Li Chi gets back, I’ll have him take those two creatures elsewhere. You running around outside at all hours of the morning…”

“I know, I know!”

And Gao Xining slipped into her room.

Ruoling inside rubbed sleepily at her eyes. Seeing the young miss return in that state gave her quite a shock.

“Young miss, where did you go to steal a quilt?”

Gao Xining clapped her hand over Ruoling’s mouth: “Shh.”

As she reached out, the quilt slipped away, revealing Li Chi’s padded cotton coat.

Ruoling’s eyes flew open wide. The expression in them said something to the effect of: this wasn’t a stolen quilt — this was a stolen man!

Gao Xining: “Calm down… calm down.”

—