Zhang Zaixin could tell at a single glance what had been happening to her.

The Shangjing Academy did indeed welcome both male and female students — but that was no guarantee against bullying. Some people simply felt, in their bones, that a place like this belonged to them, and they never showed the slightest mercy to anyone they deemed weak or easy to target.

He frowned: “Why don’t you report it?”

Tujin heard his voice and finally lowered her arms: “I… I don’t dare.”

“Your family’s circumstances are difficult? You have no one to rely on?”

“No……” she said quietly. “My family… also holds an official position.”

“Then what are you afraid of?”

Tujin twisted the hem of her clothes with restless fingers, unable to get a word out for a long while. In the end, her voice barely above a whisper, she said: “Thank you.”

So soft and timid — no wonder people took advantage of her.

Zhang Zaixin had no intention of getting involved. Everyone had their own fate; he was here to study, not to rescue anyone.

But then he thought of what he’d said to her yesterday — and scratched the side of his head, and took two steps back. “Walk out with me when school lets out.”

Tujin’s eyes lit up instantly.

The Shangjing Academy was vast; just walking from the lecture hall to the main gate took half an incense stick’s worth of time, and people were often waylaid along the way — her new writing brushes, her new inkstone, or simply her money demanded of her. She’d had it all taken.

Zhang Zaixin was the bravest person she had ever seen. He dared to fight back — and he drove away anyone who bothered him so thoroughly that they never came back.

She very much wanted to walk out with him.

And so from that day forward, Chen Baoxiang began seeing Tujin regularly.

She always emerged trailing behind Zhang Zaixin, her small face timid and uncertain — but she would come forward politely to greet his mother, and sometimes press a little flower into her hands, saying thank you for your kindness.

“Heavens, Zaixin, have you actually made a friend?” Chen Baoxiang was nearly moved to tears.

But Zhang Zaixin said, without so much as a flicker of expression: “She’s a walking companion. That has nothing to do with friends.”

“A… walking companion?”

“Yes. She gets bullied if she doesn’t walk with me.”

“Isn’t that the classic tale of a hero saving a beauty?” Chen Baoxiang said excitedly. “I just saw it at the theatre yesterday evening!”

Zhang Zaixin scrunched up his face and turned to his father: “When you speak to Mother, does she actually take any of it in?”

Zhang Zhixu’s eyes were warm with amusement: “Every word. She takes it all to heart.”

Zhang Zaixin: “……”

What a pair of remarkably foolish adults.

He tucked his books under his arm and went back to his room, privately thinking that the official positions of Great Sheng must be truly easy to hold — for people like his parents to wield such sweeping power.

Spring gave way to autumn; the county-level examination, the prefectural examination, and the provincial examination all came and went. And Zhang Zaixin grew from a twelve-year-old boy with a sharp tongue into an eighteen-year-old young man with a sharp tongue.

He still walked out of the academy when school let out. Behind him, there was still a timid-looking girl.

Only now that they were older, his mother no longer came to collect him — and he would head for home at his own pace, mounting his horse and setting off.

Tujin was terrified of horses, but to keep walking with him she had bought herself a small, short-legged pony and gamely tried to keep up behind him.

A passing classmate called out with a laugh: “You two are so inseparable — you might as well just go and get married.”

Zhang Zaixin’s face went cold. He snapped the reins and rode off.

Tujin’s little pony, of course, was no match for his speed. She was left to face those classmates alone, stumbling over her words: “Please don’t say things like that — we, we haven’t——”

“Blushing already? You follow him around every day — isn’t that exactly what you’re thinking?”

Tujin was shy by nature and never knew how to hold her own in a crowd. She flushed scarlet but couldn’t find a single word to fight back with.

And then the young man who had already ridden off came back.

He shouldered his way through the classmates without ceremony, and said coolly: “What are you standing around for? Hurry up and follow.”

Having Zhang Zaixin around was so wonderful, Tujin thought. Wherever he was, she would never be bullied.

At first she had found his words harsh and his manner difficult — and she had planned, once she repaid what she owed him, to put as much distance between them as possible. She never imagined he would actually be willing to protect her: through every season, so long as they were both at the academy, he would be there at her side.

But soon Zhang Zaixin would be sitting for the imperial examinations, while she still had the prefectural examination ahead of her.

The two of them were about to part ways.

·

It was the second lunar month again. The flowers of Shangjing bloomed in full abundance, and Chen Baoxiang stood with her hands clasped behind her back, gazing up at the Dragon Gate before her — its surface carved with scales and coiling dragons.

“Carp leaping over the Dragon Gate — transformed in an instant, their fates remade by heaven!” A roar of voices surged from behind her like the crash of a wave.

She turned. A crowd of young men and women in blue-and-white scholar’s robes were charging toward the gate, wild with exhilaration.

The throng split around her like water parting at a stone, then closed again behind her and swept onward.

Squinting into the crowd, she could make out faces she recognized: Qian Laifu, who had sat for this examination more times than anyone could count and still refused to give up; Han Xiao, who had since become a female official and was here today as an invigilator; and countless others — young, vibrant, brimming with new life.

The reformed examination system had brought opportunity to scholars across the realm, stripping away the last remnants of aristocratic influence and drawing true talent into the light of Great Sheng’s service.

What a wonderful thing.

This was Zhang Zaixin’s first time sitting the examination, and his family had of course come to see him off.

Chen Baoxiang handed him a thick cotton quilt: “It gets cold in there. This is what your mother personally bought with her own money.”

Zhang Zhixu presented him with a finely crafted hand warmer.

Zhang Zaixin glanced at it sideways: “Also personally bought by Father?”

“No — your elder sister made it,” Zhang Zhixu said. “She thought the journey too far and couldn’t be bothered to come, so she asked me to pass it along.”

Zhang Zaixin: “……” He wasn’t sure whether to marvel at his sister’s craftsmanship, or take offence at her utter lack of devotion to him.

He waved them off and was just stepping through the gate when a voice suddenly rang out: “Wait — wait!”

He turned his head. Tujin was running toward him from a distance, arms wrapped around an enormous bundle.

“I’m a little late — there was a delay on the way.” Still catching her breath, she set the bundle down and began pulling things out of it.

“These are knee warmers, these are foot wraps, this is a fur drape for your lap, and this is a rest for your wrists.” She explained each one as she pulled it out, and finally lifted out a fox-fur cloak.

Zhang Zaixin turned his gaze away, a touch awkward: “It’s spring — never mind how cold it is in there.”

“Ah?” Tujin hesitated. “You don’t need it?”

“You’ll need it, you’ll need all of it,” Chen Baoxiang said, spinning around to take Tujin’s hands in hers — and using the same motion to give her own son a neat kick from behind. Then she turned back, beaming. “He’ll put every single thing you brought to good use. You’ve gone to so much trouble — after the examinations are over, I’ll definitely make sure Zaixin repays you properly.”

Tujin shook her head, flustered: “There’s — there’s no need. I wish Master Zhang the highest honors on the examination.”

Zhang Zaixin glanced at the time, said nothing more, shouldered the pile of things, and walked through the Dragon Gate.