The night was thick, candlelight flickering.

With a thud, the dozing A’Le’s head hit the table, startling herself awake and making her jump up.

Chu Zhao laughed: “If you’re sleepy, go to bed.”

A’Le rubbed her forehead and watched Chu Zhao holding her brush, writing seriously, with a sheet of someone else’s calligraphy placed beside her.

A’Le recognized this as the writing of the young master who had defeated Miss today.

Thinking of this young master, A’Le’s expression turned angry. This young master had been extremely rude. Even after they had already declared him the winner, he wouldn’t let it go. Standing before the desk, he wrote sheet after sheet in many different styles, throwing them at Miss.

“Can this writing defeat you?”

“Can this writing defeat you?”

He asked over and over, and Miss could only answer “Yes” over and over.

She had been furious at the time, wanting to beat this arrogant scholar, but Miss remained calm and composed, allowing him to humiliate her. After this arrogant scholar swept his sleeves and left, amid the laughter of the surrounding spectators, Miss even bent down to pick up all these papers.

A’Le had planned to burn this writing—unlike the writing of others which they collected and organized. Now all the manuscripts from competitions at Chu Garden, Miss had them collected and given to the bookshop people.

She hadn’t expected Miss to refuse to let her burn them, instead looking at them while writing, having written all night long.

“His calligraphy is very good. I studied it a bit before, and was about to master it, but Xiao—”

Chu Zhao stopped here. A’Le was listening intently and asked in confusion: “Xiao what?”

Xiao Xun had taken a new consort, a beauty who played the qin exceptionally well. Xiao Xun listened to the qin every day, playing together with that beauty—Xiao Xun’s qin playing was also extremely good.

So she had abandoned calligraphy and hurried to learn the qin—

“Nothing.” Chu Zhao smiled at A’Le. “I was too young, had no patience, was lazy, couldn’t distinguish importance from triviality, had no sense of proportion, and had no discerning eye—I didn’t study it. Now that I have this opportunity to see it again, I’ll pick it up and study it properly.”

Though she felt the phrase “no discerning eye” sounded somewhat strange, A’Le hurriedly nodded: “Miss is doing right. This is what’s called—when three people walk together, one of them must be my teacher.”

Chu Zhao clapped her hands: “A’Le is impressive now, even knowing what Master Confucius said.”

A’Le chuckled: “Hearing it every day, of course I can’t listen in vain.”

She looked at the girl in the lamplight. The girl had obviously grown thinner, even thinner than when traveling through the wilderness.

During the day, Miss would hold three competition sessions, each time fighting strenuously against ten people. Though it wasn’t horseback riding, archery, or warfare, by the end of each session, A’Le could see Miss’s hand trembling as she held the brush, her eyes full of red threads, becoming like a paper cutout that would blow away with one breath.

This drain on mental energy and spirit could exhaust a person to death.

But after eating a table full of dishes and soaking in scalding water, Miss would become energized again, studying at night, competing during the day, then studying again at night. This cycle repeated day after day, and Miss grew thinner and thinner.

But Miss hadn’t become withered, weak, and broken. Instead she grew more and more radiant.

A’Le took a deep breath and said: “With Miss working so hard, A’Le cannot fall behind either.”

Chu Zhao reached out and stroked A’Le’s cheek: “I’ll write one more piece and then stop. Besides studying, I must also take good care of my body. Let’s sleep early. Remember to wake me in the morning to practice archery.”

A’Le nodded: “Miss can rest assured.” Then she said, “When the time comes, Miss can compete with these people in archery, shooting them arrow by arrow, every arrow hitting its mark, grazing their faces, asking them—are you afraid? Are you afraid?”

Chu Zhao laughed heartily.

“Miss Zhao, Miss Zhao.” A maid came in happily, holding a sheet of paper.

This maid wasn’t from Chu Zhao’s household—she was one of Chu Ke’s attendants.

Chu Ke, as a scholar, prided himself on elegance, so the maids around him also had to read and write. However, they didn’t normally use these skills. When Chu Ke went out to socialize with friends, he didn’t bring them along. When he returned home, he didn’t watch the maids write or read either. He only needed these maids to understand and comprehend when he himself was reading, writing, and composing poetry, then praise and admire him.

But this time their skills actually came in handy.

Chu Zhao had A’Le capture them to stand guard at the competition venue, recording and transcribing, responsible for compiling the booklets.

Chu Zhao looked at the maid and asked with a smile: “Why haven’t you slept yet? If you haven’t finished today’s work, get up a bit earlier in the morning to do it. Don’t stay up late.”

The maid felt somewhat emotional. After Miss Zhao came to the household, Young Master Ke didn’t like this cousin and forbade them from getting close to her, lest they be contaminated with crude and shallow airs.

Later, Miss Zhao first beat up Miss Liang, then stole money from the household and ran away. After returning, within a few days she had beaten Young Master Ke until his face was black and blue and he couldn’t be seen in public. She truly was both fierce and crude.

After Miss Zhao was blocked at the gate with people demanding competitions, both Young Master Ke and Miss Tang fled. These maids had nowhere to hide and were captured by Miss Chu Zhao—

But Miss Chu Zhao hadn’t bullied or beaten them. Instead she gave them work to do.

At first they were nervous and flustered and couldn’t do it well. Miss Zhao didn’t beat or scold them, telling them to take their time.

Now her first words were asking them why they weren’t resting.

Actually, Young Master Ke was also a very gentle youth, calling them “elder sister” this and “elder sister” that. He often gave them interesting and delicious things from the streets, and had heard too many pleasant words.

But she didn’t know why—this one sentence from Miss Zhao made her heart melt.

“Just about to sleep. Everything that needs to be sent to the printers tomorrow is organized.” The maid said softly, then her face lit up with excitement. “Miss, look at these past few days.”

She placed the paper in her hand on the table. A’Le craned her neck to look and saw circles and crosses on it, knowing this recorded wins and losses.

“Miss, these past three days, each day you’ve won one more match than the day before.” The maid said happily.

Chu Zhao laughed heartily: “Excellent.”

Winning just one more match each day was so good? Worth making this maid so happy? A’Le felt that the capital’s maids were actually more like country folk. She snorted: “In the future, Miss will win several more matches each day, winning more and more.”

Previously, when the maid heard A’Le speak like this, she would have found it very crude. How could one so directly brag and praise one’s master? It was truly of the lowest class. But at this moment, she didn’t find it inappropriate at all.

She had never before imagined she would be happy for a girl winning just one more match each day than the previous day.

The Grand Master was a renowned Minister and scholar. Miss Tang was famous throughout the city for her intelligence. She wasn’t some unworldly country maid.

Her gaze fell on the desk, where books were stacked high, along with papers, sheet after sheet of chess records, and brushes worn to stubs.

This increase of one victory per day was won by this girl at the cost of her very life.

Effort yielding results—this was most thrilling.

“Miss.” She looked at Chu Zhao with gentle yet resolute eyes. “You will win more and more.”

Chu Zhao smiled, her expression calm: “As long as I dare to compete, I won’t keep losing forever.”

In that lifetime, she had studied to please a man, then abandoned it because of that man. Now it was reviving again, growing vigorously once more. This time it was no longer to please a man, but to win reputation for herself.

When people mentioned her, they wouldn’t say, “Chu Ling’s wastrel daughter.”

Nor would they therefore say, “A wastrel father produces a wastrel daughter.”