Instructor Yan Qingzhi at the Four-Page Academy fixed Li Diudiu with ice-cold eyes and replied: “Because you’re poor.”

A moment later he added: “Any other questions?”

Though Li Diudiu felt a knot in his chest, he shook his head and said: “None. That’s quite reasonable.”

Yan Qingzhi’s brow furrowed slightly. The words “quite reasonable” coming from Li Diudiu sounded like mockery.

“It can be made even more reasonable.”

Yan Qingzhi stepped forward a few paces and stood over Li Diudiu, looking down at him. “Sweep the room twice a day.”

“Is there pay?” Li Diudiu asked.

Yan Qingzhi’s frown deepened. “You know that each student’s academy uniform and books must be purchased with their own money, don’t you? You sweep the classroom to pay off that debt—and since you’ll be doing it twice a day, I can count you as paying it off at nearly twice the speed.”

The other three children watched Li Diudiu, thinking: you really are unlucky to be humiliated by your instructor on the very first day. All three came from good backgrounds and naturally couldn’t fathom what having three taels of silver meant to someone poor. So instead of sympathy, they found it amusing.

But after listening to Yan Qingzhi, Li Diudiu actually laughed—without even a trace of embarrassment.

He said: “That makes it even more reasonable, Instructor.”

Yan Qingzhi’s expression shifted. He seemed to regard Li Diudiu with even greater contempt. He turned and walked away, calling back: “Starting tomorrow we begin formal instruction. Arrive late once, stand outside for one hour. Arrive late three times, expelled from the academy. Same goes for breaking any other academy rules.”

Zhang Xiaolin had been beaten by Li Diudiu—his nose was still swollen—so naturally he was delighted to see Li Diudiu humiliated by the instructor. He walked up to Li Diudiu with a grin: “So what if you can fight? Can’t even come up with three taels of silver. Want me to lend it to you? Call me Shifu and I’ll give you three taels as a gift.”

Li Diudiu shrugged and paid him no attention.

Zhou Huaili, standing off to the side, couldn’t bear to watch. He came over and pulled Li Diudiu along. “Let’s go.”

Li Diudiu nodded. “Yes.”

Zhou Huaili said: “The academy uniform I gave you earlier has a wooden tag on it with your room number. Most students don’t actually live in the academy—even though room and board is provided, they’d rather go home. After all, home is more comfortable…”

He glanced at Li Diudiu and paused before continuing. “Don’t feel as though you’ve been wronged. In the future—”

Before he could finish, Li Diudiu suddenly stopped him. “Master Zhou.”

“Yes?”

“Here—take this back.”

Li Diudiu took out the coin pouch and held it out to Zhou Huaili. “The academy has me sweeping classrooms to pay for the uniform and books. That suits me fine, so I won’t need this money. I’m returning it to you.”

Zhou Huaili was taken aback. He looked down at Li Diudiu. The child’s fair, clean face still carried that slightly irreverent expression—but when Zhou Huaili looked into his eyes, a wave of aching sadness washed over him. This boy’s neck was quite dark from sun and grime, but his face had been scrubbed clean, and his eyes were cleaner still.

“Keep it,” Zhou Huaili said. “It’s a gift. You don’t need to repay it. In case you run into expenses later, at least you won’t be completely empty-handed.”

“No need.”

Li Diudiu offered the coin pouch with both hands. “Room and board are covered—there’s nothing to spend money on. And I can earn money on my own.”

Zhou Huaili truly did not want to take it back. But in those eleven-year-old eyes he saw two words written plain.

Self-respect.

“Very well. I’ll take it back then.”

Zhou Huaili accepted the pouch, and reached out to pat Li Diudiu on the shoulder—but Li Diudiu had already stepped forward. “Master Zhou, I’m guessing it was you who gave the Ascending-the-Sparrow Pavilion inscription to the headmaster, wasn’t it?”

Zhou Huaili felt another jolt in his chest. This child…

“Thank you, Master Zhou. And I’m sorry, Master Zhou.”

Li Diudiu stopped and turned to bow toward Zhou Huaili.

“Why are you apologizing?” Zhou Huaili asked.

Li Diudiu smiled with a look of remorse and said: “Because at first I thought you weren’t a good… person.”

Zhou Huaili noticed that Li Diudiu had paused slightly at the word “good”—as though he’d swapped out the word “thing” and replaced it with “person.”

“Child, there aren’t that many good people or bad people in this world. Most are just ordinary people.”

“Does that mean ordinary people have no good or bad in them?”

“None.”

Zhou Huaili fell into thought, then shook his head with a distant look. “Ordinary people are those who live somewhere between good and bad—sometimes tipping one way, sometimes the other.”

After a brief silence, Li Diudiu looked up with a smile. “Master Zhou is a good person.”

“I thought you were going to say ‘a good thing,'” Zhou Huaili replied.

He reached out and patted Li Diudiu’s shoulder after all. “I’ll leave you here. I need to get home. I’ve already asked on your behalf—your bedding and books will be waiting in your room. Don’t be late for morning classes tomorrow.”

“Understood.”

Li Diudiu bowed once more. “Safe travels, Instructor.”

Zhou Huaili had walked several paces when he turned back, smiled, and said: “When I first gave away that inscription I felt a pang of regret. Do you know why people feel regret after giving something away?”

Li Diudiu thought about it but didn’t dare answer—surely feeling a pang after giving something to someone else was perfectly normal?

Seeing the puzzlement on the child’s face, Zhou Huaili smiled and said: “At first I felt regret because I believed you weren’t worth comparing to a piece of calligraphy from Master Songming. Trading one of his original works to get you into the academy didn’t seem worth it at all. Now I no longer feel regret. Li Chi—the value you will one day hold must surpass that inscription at the very minimum. Do you understand?”

Li Diudiu thought it over carefully, then bowed. “I understand.”

Zhou Huaili turned to leave. Then Li Diudiu suddenly thought of something and couldn’t help but ask: “Master Zhou, what do you think is used to measure a person’s worth? Silver?”

For such a small child to ask such a question—even Zhou Huaili was startled for a moment. The question was genuinely vast. It wasn’t that he couldn’t answer it; it was that the answer would be absolutely unsuitable for a child to hear, because it wasn’t beautiful.

Children need fairy tales to show them the beautiful and the true—right from wrong, good from evil, black from white. Fairy tales have no room for grey.

“How to put it,” Zhou Huaili said, turning to look at Li Diudiu seriously. “The worth you’re speaking of is relative. Right now your worth to me far exceeds that inscription. If you truly want to talk about worth, silver is the most straightforward measure. Over the course of a life you’ll meet very many people—and here’s a simple, rough example of how great their value is to you: how much money could you lend them?”

“Suppose you have three taels of silver right now. A friend asks to borrow one tael, and you hesitate and don’t want to lend it—then that person’s worth in your heart is less than one tael. Someone asks to borrow one tael and you ask if that’s enough, then hand over two—that is someone very important to you. Someone asks to borrow one tael and you give them all three—that’s a lifelong friend.”

Zhou Huaili paused and continued, looking at Li Diudiu: “Someone asks to borrow money, and you don’t have a single coin to your name, yet you rack your brain trying to help them—that’s a brother, a true family. Li Diudiu, this isn’t an answer suited for someone your age—but I believe you can understand it, because you have a good shifu, and you should already know his worth.”

He crouched down in front of Li Diudiu and smiled. “Don’t concern yourself with all the people you don’t care about. In life you’ll meet many people who aren’t worth a single coin—but you’ll also meet someone beyond all price. You already have one such person. That makes you richer than most.”

Li Diudiu nodded. “It used to be one. Now it’s one and a half.”

Zhou Huaili laughed, and asked curiously: “Am I the half?”

Li Diudiu nodded again. “Yes. After all… we’re not that close yet.”

Zhou Huaili laughed heartily. He reached out and ruffled Li Diudiu’s hair. Suddenly he understood why Changmei Daoren loved ruffling this little fellow’s hair so much—it really was deeply satisfying to ruffle. It made his heart feel warm.

“Thank you.”

Zhou Huaili patted Li Diudiu’s shoulder one more time and turned to leave. A few steps out, he came back, reached out and ruffled that head of hair again—then again—and it felt wonderful, truly wonderful.

Li Diudiu stood there watching Zhou Huaili leave the academy. He shook out his hair and thought to himself: is it because my hair is particularly nice? Shifu likes ruffling it, and now Master Zhou likes ruffling it too…

The already-distant Zhou Huaili turned around, made a hair-ruffling gesture in the air, and called out to Li Diudiu: “This means I’m fond of you.”

Li Diudiu nodded, so that’s what it means.

So he raised his own hand and ruffled his own hair. I’m fond of me too.

He didn’t ask anyone for directions to his room. He held his academy uniform under his arm, wooden tag in hand, and searched the row upon row of buildings for the matching number—finding his room in a very short time.

At the moment he pushed open the door, he had the vague feeling that someone behind him was watching. He spun around sharply, but there was no one there.

In the distance, Gao Xining ducked behind a large tree. She didn’t know why, but her heart was hammering—she felt like a thief who’d been caught in the act.

She was genuinely very curious about this boy called Li Chi. He was a bit shorter than her, so poor he couldn’t afford his academy uniform and books, yet he still had the nerve to seek enrollment at the Four-Page Academy. And above all, she had overheard his conversation with Zhou Huaili, which only made her more curious.

When Instructor Yan Qingzhi said those things to Li Diudiu, Gao Xining had nearly lost her composure and charged out to argue with Yan Qingzhi. But just as she was about to rush forward, someone grabbed her—and she then realized her grandfather had been watching from the shadows all along.

Li Diudiu saw no one following him. He pushed open the door and entered. The room was simply furnished: one table, one chair, one bed; a bookshelf, a washstand rack, a flower stand; a wooden basin, a small wooden bucket, a large wooden bucket. Nothing else.

Yet Li Diudiu had never lived in such a fine room. The moment he stepped inside he couldn’t help but breathe in deeply. He smelled the fragrance of the wooden table, the fragrance of the books, the fragrance of fresh clean bedding.

He desperately wanted to throw himself onto that bed—which looked so incredibly comfortable—but he worried his dirty clothes would soil the bedding. So he set down the academy uniform, picked up the wooden basin, and went to fetch water.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a proper bath. He carried bucket after bucket until the large tub was half full, closed the door, and then eagerly jumped in. Water splashed everywhere.

The water was cold—but it felt wonderful.

Shifu hadn’t had a bath in a very long time either. But Shifu had said he was going to the Wuwei Temple in Jizhou City, a very large and well-known place—and its abbot was an old friend of Shifu’s. Surely Shifu must be bathing right now too.

Wuwei Temple.

Changmei Daoren bowed at the entrance before the Daoist who had come to open the door: “My Daoist name is Changmei. I once shared an old acquaintance with your abbot, and I have come to seek refuge here. I humbly ask whether I may be admitted to request an audience.”

The middle-aged Daoist looked Changmei up and down. That tattered, ragged robe made him frown.

“Where did this wild Daoist wander in from? You want to register your name here?”

Changmei Daoren said hastily: “Yes, yes—please be so kind as to pass word along, fellow brother.”

The middle-aged Daoist held out his hand. “Hand it over.”

“Hand over what?” Changmei asked.

The middle-aged Daoist’s eyes went wide immediately. “Money! How do you expect to register your name at Wuwei Temple without money? You think you can walk through the door without money?”

Changmei said: “I… have no money. I only wish to request an audience with the abbot.”

“Get lost!”

The middle-aged Daoist turned and slammed the door. “Get far away from here.”

—