Although Qi Ying had told her not to stay up late, Shen Xiling still did. Not only did she stay up, she stayed up all night, reading the Book of Songs from beginning to end again and also flipping through some commentaries. The three maids—Shuipei, Fengshang, and Zijun—took turns trying to persuade her to no avail. In the end, each accompanied her for several hours, staying up with her until dawn.
When the sun came up, they helped Shen Xiling wash and dress. Fengshang looked at the dark circles under her eyes and said in distress, “Oh dear, Miss, look—last night we advised you to sleep for a while but you wouldn’t listen. Now the dark circles under your eyes are so obvious that even powder can’t cover them. What are we to do?”
Shen Xiling yawned and said with a smile, “Sister Fengshang, don’t worry. I’m going to take a test, not to compete in beauty. Why concern ourselves with such things?”
“There’s no need to worry,” chimed in Zijun, who was standing to the side eating edamame. “Even if our young miss doesn’t sleep for three days and her eye circles turn black as charcoal, she’d still look better than anyone else.”
The several maids burst into laughter, and Shen Xiling’s face was once again reddened by their teasing.
The study where Qi Ning and Qi Le originally studied wasn’t very large. Now with three additional classmates, the room was somewhat insufficient. Moreover, these three classmates were all young ladies, so Yao Shi thought it wouldn’t be proper to have the family school be too enclosed. To avoid impropriety, she had hurriedly converted a square pavilion in the mansion’s back garden into a study over the past few days.
This square pavilion was very spacious, with thick curtains hanging on all four sides. If there was wind, the curtains could be lowered to block it, and on clear, pleasant days they could be rolled up, allowing one to take in the entire garden’s scenery—this was Yao Shi’s masterpiece.
Additionally, Yao Shi had personally requested the Left Prime Minister to inscribe characters for this pavilion. The Prime Minister initially didn’t want to bother with this task, but couldn’t withstand his beautiful wife’s persistent pleading, so he carelessly wrote “Chouqin Study” (Rewarding Diligence Study) to get the job done. Yao Shi was very satisfied and hung up the plaque.
On this day, Shen Xiling was the first to arrive at Chouqin Study. After about the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, Qi Ning and Qi Le arrived together. The two young masters looked even worse than she did, and because they hadn’t applied any powder to their faces, they looked particularly frightening. Just looking at the dark circles under their eyes, one could tell they had stayed up no earlier than Shen Xiling the night before, which was quite remarkable.
As soon as Qi Le arrived, he casually picked a seat and sat down, collapsing half-unconscious onto the desk. Qi Ning, being older, understood propriety better and walked over to Shen Xiling to chat and greet her.
Qi Ning was sixteen this year and already quite tall. He didn’t look very much like Qi Ying, only bearing some resemblance around the corners of his brows and eyes, but he could still be considered handsome. He approached Shen Xiling and asked with a smile, “Did Sister Wenwen cram last night? You look a bit haggard.”
Third Young Master Qi usually called her “Miss Fang,” but now he suddenly changed to calling her “Sister Wenwen,” which made Shen Xiling quite embarrassed. She felt she wasn’t very familiar with this young master, but since he was being so enthusiastic, she couldn’t very well put on airs. So she suppressed her discomfort and politely replied, “With my shallow learning, I feared I’d embarrass myself today, so I did stay up late last night—did Third Young Master also stay up?”
“Wenwen, you’re being too formal,” Qi Ning smiled. “We’ll all be living in the same mansion from now on, seeing each other every day. Calling me Third Young Master is too distant—I see you’re about the same age as Yao’er, so why not follow her example and call me Third Brother?”
This enthusiasm was really quite difficult for Shen Xiling to bear. For a moment she didn’t know how to respond, but Qi Ning immediately added, “What’s this? Could it be that only my second brother counts as your brother, while the rest of us don’t?”
Shen Xiling thought to herself that Qi Second Young Master had saved her countless times, yet she still called him Young Master and had never presumed to call him Second Brother. Now being spoken to like this by Qi Ning, she inevitably found herself at a loss for words. Having no choice, she went along with him and said, “…Third Brother.”
Qi Ning had been keeping a straight face, but as soon as he heard Shen Xiling address him this way, he immediately broke into a beaming smile and said, “That’s right! From now on, if you need anything, just tell Third Brother, I…”
Before he could finish speaking, a cold snort came from outside Chouqin Study, and someone said mockingly, “What kind of concern is Third Brother showing? With Second Brother here, why would Miss Fang need to find anyone else?”
With such barbed remarks, there was no need to guess—the newcomer was Zhao Yao.
Shen Xiling and Qi Ning looked up toward the study entrance together and saw Zhao Yao walking in with two maids. She looked at Qi Ning with sarcasm in her eyes, and when her gaze drifted to Shen Xiling, it revealed annoyance.
In the past when Zhao Yao encountered Shen Xiling, her mother Zhao Qishi was often by her side and could occasionally rein in Zhao Yao’s temperamental behavior. Today, since she was here for class, Zhao Qishi naturally couldn’t accompany her. Without restraint, Zhao Yao openly displayed her attitude toward Shen Xiling, which was quite sharp.
Shen Xiling didn’t want to conflict with her, so upon hearing her words, she said nothing and just lowered her head. Qi Ning, however, wasn’t so easily placated. Though he had always known he couldn’t compare with his second brother, being singled out by Zhao Yao like this, especially in front of this fairy-like Sister Wenwen, was particularly humiliating and face-losing. So he also became angry and said, “What do you mean by speaking like this, Yao’er? We’re all going to be classmates from now on—you can’t go around speaking with hidden meanings like this.”
The relationship between Zhao Yao and Qi Ning was rather subtle. Though they had more or less grown up together, Qi Ning was different from Qi Le—he didn’t spend all day revolving around Zhao Yao like the latter did, which made Zhao Yao’s feelings for this third brother less deep. Especially after returning from Linchuan to Jiankang, she had learned many things from her mother that she hadn’t understood before—for instance, though this third brother appeared to be a male descendant of the Qi family, he was merely a concubine’s son who wasn’t diligent in his studies and had no good prospects ahead, so she looked down on him somewhat.
Qi Ning held much the same attitude toward Zhao Yao. Though he also regarded Zhao Yao as a sister he’d watched grow up since childhood, he also felt her character was spoiled and willful. First, Qi Ning couldn’t stand her arrogant appearance of always clinging to second brother while looking down on fourth brother; second, he also felt that their Zhao family were just poor relatives clinging to the Qi family, so he didn’t think much of Zhao Yao either.
When the two faced off now, it was like a needle point meeting a wheat awn—each held considerable contempt for the other in their hearts.
Naturally, Zhao Yao wouldn’t be willing to back down after being challenged by Qi Ning like this. Just as she was about to explode, Qi Le, who had collapsed on the desk half-asleep upon entering, woke up. The commotion from Qi Ning and Zhao Yao’s argument had been quite loud and woke him up. He groggily propped himself up from the desk and rubbed his eyes. Seeing that Zhao Yao had arrived, his eyes lit up—all the sleepy bugs flew away, and he immediately stood up full of energy, rushing to Zhao Yao’s side and saying happily, “Yao’er, you’re here! When did you arrive? Have you had breakfast?”
With Qi Le’s interference, Qi Ning and Zhao Yao naturally couldn’t continue quarreling and had to disperse.
Zhao Yao ignored Qi Le and huffily sat down in the seat in front of Shen Xiling. Qi Ning also turned back to his own place, finally glaring at his younger brother and scolding him, “You fool!”
Having just woken up, Qi Le first saw Sister Yao’er looking fierce and aggressive, then received a senseless scolding from third brother. Feeling both wronged and confused, and seeing that Yao’er had no intention of talking to him, he could only return to his seat resentfully.
Just as the several of them settled down, they saw that class time was approaching.
Master Wang was always punctual—in his past lectures, he would neither arrive too early nor be late by even half a moment. Sure enough, just as class time arrived, Shen Xiling saw Master Wang enter the study, accompanied by Miss Fu Rong from the Fu family, whom they had just met yesterday.
Shen Xiling noticed that Master Wang’s expression was quite pleasant, not stern and strict like yesterday. Miss Fu was holding ancient texts in her hands—she had probably encountered the master on the way and sought his instruction. Shen Xiling had heard of Miss Fu’s reputation for talent yesterday, and seeing Master Wang’s gentle expression now, she knew the rumors were true.
Fu Rong looked at the seating arrangement in the study: there were two rows of desks total, with the two Qi family young masters sitting at one end and Miss Fang and Miss Zhao sitting at the other end. She naturally needed to sit together with the girls. Shen Xiling occupied the last, most corner position, Zhao Yao sat in front of her, and now only the front seat remained, so Fu Rong walked over and sat down.
Seeing this Miss Fu sit in front of her, Zhao Yao snorted coldly in her heart. She extremely disliked Fu Rong, simply because she wanted to compete with her for second brother. However, her mother had repeatedly warned her yesterday, saying that Miss Fu came from a prestigious family and wasn’t a soft persimmon like Fang Jun, telling her to control her temper and absolutely not cause trouble for others. Therefore, Zhao Yao only silently rolled her eyes but didn’t dare to voice any provocation.
Master Wang generally paid little attention to the students’ petty schemes below. He had his servant distribute test papers to each student one by one, then lit incense to begin timing and let them answer their papers individually.
Shen Xiling took her test paper and looked at it. Indeed, it was just as Qi Ying had said—the master only asked them to write about their favorite book to read and discuss their insights. She breathed a sigh of relief. The scenario she had imagined of not being able to write a single word didn’t come true, so her heart settled somewhat, and she picked up her brush to seriously begin answering.
Shen Xiling wrote about the Book of Songs, focusing on “Ge Sheng,” making horizontal comparisons with other poems in the Airs of the States and vertical connections along this thread, selecting several later elegiac works to demonstrate the excellence of “Ge Sheng.” Though it wasn’t particularly brilliant, she had done her best, and when submitting her paper, she felt quite calm.
Master Wang collected the papers and immediately began grading them, making each student extremely nervous.
He first looked at the two young masters’ papers. His face had been calm as still water, but the more he read, the more gloomy he became. By the end, his eyes were practically shooting fire, his eyebrows tightly knitted together. His right hand very composedly picked up the disciplinary ruler and called both Third Young Master Qi and Fourth Young Master Qi forward.
The two young masters steeled themselves and went up. Master Wang, his face dark as water, had them extend their hands, then delivered a beating to their palms. Though Shen Xiling sat quite far from the master’s position, she could hear the whooshing sound of the ruler cutting through air and the even more terrifying sound it made striking flesh, causing her heart to pound wildly.
Third Young Master Qi could still maintain some dignity and endure it, but Fourth Young Master had no such burden and very frankly began crying for his father and mother. Master Wang continued striking with vigorous force, showing no mercy whatsoever, while scolding, “Is this how you two write policy essays? How should policy essays be written? Quote classics and cite extensively! Writing ‘I believe’ in every line—who are you writing this for!”
He continued scolding like this for quite a while until he was tired from hitting before stopping. Though Shen Xiling was far away and couldn’t see the miserable state of the two young masters’ palms, she could imagine what kind of scene it was.
Naturally, witnessing such a fierce scene made Shen Xiling’s heart tremble with anxiety, while Zhao Yao was even more frightened than she was.
Author’s Note:
Tomorrow he’ll come to see her receive her grades.