The three days of the imperial examinations ended, and students from every corner of the country were out and about in Shangjing. The academy had become a place where teachers held special sessions to answer students’ questions, while all other students were given a break and relieved of their usual duties.
But Tujin went anyway.
She searched for a long while through the noise and bustle of the academy without finding Zhang Zaixin, and was growing a little dejected — when she caught the voices of people nearby: “Zhang Zaixin — top three? Truly?”
Tujin’s ears perked up at once.
“Zhang Zaixin? What kind of background does he have? With the Grand Tutor personally guiding him and the chief examiner extending his regards, who else would be top three?” came the sour reply. “Give me that kind of family name and I’ll guarantee you first place.”
“You know, that’s probably right — while the rest of us were grinding away at our studies, he’d probably already had a look at the questions. See how calm and unhurried he was about the whole thing. It’s just not fair.”
She had always been afraid of people like these. Normally she would have heard something like this and walked away.
But some nameless courage rose up in her — Tujin bit the inside of her cheek, and stepped forward.
·
Zhang Zaixin was at home receiving guests.
Chen Baoxiang and Zhang Zhixu knew far too many people, and most of them seemed to have seized upon this occasion as an excuse to come and see the two of them. They crowded into the courtyard in a jostling, noisy mass — drinking, chatting, carrying on from noon all the way through the dead of night.
Zhang Zaixin played the dutiful host with resigned patience, his eyes drifting toward the gate from time to time.
Everyone else seemed to have so many friends. How was it that his friend hadn’t come?
Deep in the night, when the last of the guests had gone and Chen Baoxiang and Zhang Zhixu stepped out to see them off, Zhang Zaixin trailed along behind them, quietly sulking.
A small stone suddenly rolled past him — clattered across the ground and came to rest at his feet.
He glanced sideways. In the shadow of the stone lion beside the gate, a familiar figure gave him a small, tentative smile.
She had been here all along?
Zhang Zaixin could scarcely believe it. He strode over: “What are you doing?”
Tujin hunched her neck down into her shoulders and said quietly: “Waiting. Waiting for you.”
If you wanted to see someone, why not go back and send a message with a servant?
Zhang Zaixin was so exasperated he stamped his foot: “I’ve never seen anyone so foolish.”
A sudden smack landed on the back of his head.
He winced and turned to find his mother crouching down in front of Tujin with her sweetest smile: “It’s so late, and the night air is cool — won’t you come in and sit with us for a while?”
Tujin was very fond of this woman, but given the state she was in, she shook her head.
“Mother, leave her be,” Zhang Zaixin said irritably. “She has a mouth — if she wanted something, she should have said so. Who can tell what she wants if she won’t speak?”
Tujin’s eyes went red. She looked left and right, helpless and at a loss.
“Never mind him.” Chen Baoxiang gave him another sharp kick, then turned back to Tujin with not a trace of apology. “Now, please come inside.”
“She has a home of her own — what would she be coming to ours for?”
“Move it!”
Zhang Zaixin huffed, then said to Tujin: “Come on. Inside.”
Tujin hesitated for a long moment, then slowly stepped in behind him.
Chen Baoxiang thought Tujin looked like a baby chick that hadn’t found its footing yet — it was only when she was behind Zhang Zaixin that her expression ever softened, even slightly.
A fond smile spread across Chen Baoxiang’s face.
When they moved into the light, Chen Baoxiang gave a quiet “oh.”
“What is it?” Zhang Zhixu stepped quickly to her side and began examining her arms, turning them this way and that.
“Not me.” Chen Baoxiang pointed past Zhang Zaixin. “Her. How did she get into such a state?”
Zhang Zaixin looked back, and his brow knitted together at once: “I take my eyes off you for one day and you’ve already been bullied again?”
Tujin shook her head earnestly: “No — I, I went and started a fight.”
“You?” Zhang Zaixin grew even more annoyed. “With those twig arms of yours, you went and started a fight?!”
Tujin shrank her neck back and went quiet again.
Chen Baoxiang pulled out the medicine kit with a cheerful air: “Don’t you worry — we don’t have much of anything in this house, but when it comes to medicine for bumps and bruises, we’ve got the best and plenty of it. I promise you’ll be less swollen by morning.”
Tujin stared at this woman.
She was so gentle — no sharp words, no raised hands. She even blew on the wounds as she applied the medicine, soft and cool, like a breeze on a warm day.
Tujin was the child of the Meng Family’s former first wife. Her mother and the head of the household had grown irreconcilably estranged; when they separated, neither wanted her. Her mother had left without looking back, and Tujin had stayed on at the Meng estate, living on scraps of charity. It was her wet nurse — a kindhearted woman — who had quietly pressed small amounts of money into her hands over the years; without that, there would have been days she couldn’t eat at the academy.
“Father, Mother,” came a drowsy voice from outside. An older sister shuffled in, rubbing her eyes. “I want those buns from the north side of the city.”
Tujin glanced involuntarily at the darkness outside. It was nearly midnight.
And yet Zhang Zhixu picked up his cloak without hesitation. “Come on, I’ll go with you.”
“Do we have to take the carriage?” Chen Yuli was reluctant. “Carriages make my head spin.”
“There is a price to pay for good buns,” Zhang Zhixu said gently. “Would you prefer cold buns brought back for you, or fresh ones, still hot from the steamer?”
Chen Yuli thought it over: “All right then. But I want to take the new carriage Mother bought — it doesn’t rock as badly.”
“Of course.”
Zhang Zhixu exchanged a few words with Chen Baoxiang, then set off with Yuli, father and daughter walking close together into the night — not a trace of distance between them.
Tujin watched their retreating figures, struck speechless.
Could a father truly be that gentle?
“Mother, she’s fine now — you should probably send her home,” Zhang Zaixin muttered. “She still has the prefectural examination.”
Chen Baoxiang shot her son a withering look: “If she were in any shape to go home on her own, she wouldn’t have come to find you in the first place. Have all those books turned your brain to mush?”
“What good am I to her?” Zhang Zaixin said flatly. “I’m not a physician.”
Chen Baoxiang’s teeth itched: “You little……I’ll deal with you later. Tujin, come — follow me to Yuli’s courtyard. She has a guest room there. You’ll stay the night, and I’ll send word to the Meng household.”
Zhang Zaixin stood to one side with his arms folded, deeply aggrieved. His mother treated his sister and Aunt Han Xiao wonderfully, giving due respect to their choices — yet somehow, the moment it came to him, she did the exact opposite of everything he said.
Thoroughly baffled, he went to find Aunt Han Xiao. “Is something wrong with me?” he asked.
Han Xiao was in the middle of revising documents, and looked up with exasperated amusement: “What’s gotten into you?”
“I can’t figure it out.” Zhang Zaixin said. “When you say you don’t like eating coriander, your bowl has been free of coriander for over a decade. But when I say I’m angry and don’t want to talk to anyone, my parents act as though they’ve both gone deaf.”
Han Xiao shook her head and held out one hand, ticking off fingers one by one: “At four years old, your mother asked if you wanted the spicy cold-dressed meat. You said no — then crept into the kitchen at midnight and ate yourself sick, and spent the next stretch vomiting and running a fever.”
“At six, the Yin household sent over a puppy. You said you didn’t like it and absolutely refused to keep it — then were found sleeping curled up with the dog in the middle of the night, and spent the following two months bedridden.”
“At twelve, you declared you wanted nothing to do with anyone and didn’t need a single friend — then sulked alone in a corner because none of your classmates came to your birthday celebration, and made yourself so upset that you fell ill again.”
Han Xiao felt a wave of sympathy for her elder sister Chen Baoxiang: “So tell me — how on earth are they supposed to trust a word you say?”
The memories of those youthful incidents made Zhang Zaixin’s ears burn. He clenched his jaw and pressed on: “I mean it this time. Meng Tujin is far too foolish. I’m done with her.”
“All right, all right, I hear you,” Han Xiao said, waving him off with cheerful indifference. “I hope you last more than three months.”