(1)

“Young Lady! Young Lady!”

The servants jogged to catch up with their striding mistress, wiping sweat from their brows as they pleaded, “It’s nearly dark, you should return home! The Old Madam returns to the mansion tomorrow, and you haven’t written a single character of your assigned work yet!”

The Young Lady was still under house arrest for reflection. If she couldn’t submit her assignments tomorrow, her punishment would be increased, and they, as her servants, would be punished alongside their mistress.

“What’s the hurry? There’s still plenty of time!”

The streets were crowded with people. Tang Buli wore a sleek, narrow-sleeved military uniform, at one moment fingering sachets and jade ornaments at a stall, the next plucking a candied haw from a vendor’s rack, restlessly saying, “If I really can’t finish copying it all, don’t I have all of you?”

A servant hurriedly counted out two copper coins for the vendor and lamented, “That won’t work! Our chicken scratch could never fool the Old Madam!”

Before he could finish speaking, a half-worn package flew out from nearby, landing directly at Tang Buli’s feet.

“Who’s the blind fool?”

Tang Buli was indignant. Looking in the direction the package came from, she saw a handsome, thinly-dressed scholar being forced out of a bookshop.

“Since our paths differ, there’s no need for further words.”

The bookshop owner rolled two walnuts in his palm, sneering, “My shop doesn’t welcome you. Leave quickly.”

The scholar, appearing to be about twenty years of age, stood with a straight back and meticulously straightened his washed-out blue scholar’s robe, saying, “You may refuse to lend books, but reason must be heard. Forging the calligraphy of the Writing Saint is fraud. According to current dynasty law, this crime is punishable by confiscation of property and three years of hard labor. I refuse to aid a tyrant in wrongdoing. I’ve done nothing wrong.”

The scholar’s words were clear and powerful, naturally emanating an air of righteousness.

The gathering crowd gradually drew closer, pointing and murmuring at the bookshop.

This scholar often came to the bookshop to borrow and copy books. He could imitate the calligraphy styles of a hundred masters. The bookshop owner, seeing that he was a rare talent in the capital, had developed a crooked scheme, promising silver in exchange for him forging ancient calligraphy to sell as counterfeit pieces.

Who would have thought this scholar would be so ungrateful, not only refusing but even daring to publicly expose him?

The owner squeezed the walnuts in his hand and gave his assistant a meaningful look. The assistant understood, grabbing a rare sutra-bound copy of “Six Chapters Explicated” and quietly circling through the crowd.

The bookshop owner’s expression softened slightly as he turned the tables, saying, “You came to my shop to steal. Considering your talent, I let you off, only for you to repay kindness with enmity and even dare to make false accusations!”

“I didn’t steal anything.”

“No? Then what is this!”

The assistant pulled a sutra-bound book from the scattered package, pointing at the bright red “Wanjuan Bookshop” seal on it. “Caught red-handed, and still you deny it!”

The scholar frowned. The book was planted by them, but he had no evidence to prove his innocence.

The bookshop assistant, certain of this advantage, grew even more aggressive, pulling out all the copied volumes from the scholar’s package and throwing them about.

In an instant, papers flew everywhere. Years of painstaking essays and compositions scattered and fell to the ground, only to be trampled into the dust.

The onlookers gasped but only cared about the spectacle, not the truth.

Tang Buli bit into her candied haw, watching the scholar crouching down to pick up his papers one by one, and felt a strange sympathy.

She had a strong sense of justice and immediately said, “Hey! You put that book there yourself. Playing the thief crying ‘stop thief’ quite skillfully!”

The assistant’s expression changed: “This young lady shouldn’t make false accusations. Did you see—”

“This Young Lady saw it with her own eyes!”

As she spoke, she deliberately revealed the Tang family token at her waist.

The capital was small enough that a falling leaf could hit several nobles. The assistant immediately recognized Tang Buli as no ordinary person and, guilty, shrank back into the crowd.

Tang Buli weighed the candied haw in her hand and threw it with all her might at the assistant, hitting him squarely on the back of the head.

The assistant stumbled from the impact and scurried back behind the bookshop owner.

The bookshop owner dared not offend a noble, so with a few obsequious smiles, he retreated into the shop. The farce ended, and the watching crowd dispersed in all directions.

Tang Buli dusted off her hands, her gaze sweeping over the scholar’s worn, slightly short sleeves. “You can imitate others’ calligraphy?”

The scholar remained silent, methodically collecting the papers from the ground.

A sheet of paper landed on Tang Buli’s lotus-silk boots. He hesitated, constrained by etiquette from reaching directly for it.

Tang Buli bent down, picked up the paper for him, and raised an eyebrow: “Hey, let’s make a deal. You do something for me, and I’ll support your scholarly pursuits…”

The scholar raised his eyes, his gaze cool and distant.

“Though I am poor, my ambition remains intact.”

The scholar said, “I thank the young lady for your intervention. But if you use your kindness to compel dishonorable acts, I must decline.”

This young scholar, though young in years, spoke and acted like an old-fashioned pedant.

Tang Buli found it amusing and shook the paper in her hand, looking at the graceful, proper characters on it: “Don’t worry, I just need you to copy some books for me. I won’t ask you to do anything against criminal law or morality.”

Tang Buli brought the scholar back to the Tang mansion and prepared a clean room for him in the servants’ quarters on the back street.

“What’s your name?”

Tang Buli crossed her arms, assuming the air of the Young Lady of the Tang family.

“Zhou Yunqing.”

The scholar said, “Yun as in ‘to contain,’ Qing as in ‘guest official.'”

“That’s a good name.”

Tang Buli waved her hand, and immediately servants carried in books and papers nearly a foot thick, dropping them with a thud on the broken table in the room, raising a cloud of dust.

These were assignments she had accumulated over a month of copying and punishment, not a single character written.

“These need to be copied by noon tomorrow…”

Such a thick stack—even with three heads and six arms, he couldn’t finish in one night. Tang Buli’s conscience surfaced, and she hesitantly changed her words, “Well, just copy as much as you can. This is my handwriting…”

On a sheet of paper with two lines of “Internal Instructions” copied, she had absent-mindedly drawn a conspicuous long-tailed turtle.

“…”

Tang Buli calmly tore off the turtle, crumpled it into a ball, and threw it into the wastebasket. “The Young Lady’s artwork need not be imitated, just copy the handwriting.”

With that, she placed the paper on the table and generously pressed two silver ingots on top.

The next day.

The first thing the Old Madam did upon returning from worship was to summon her granddaughter to check her assignments.

Tang Buli reluctantly shuffled toward the main hall, wondering how to make excuses while also worrying: Zhou Yunqing had made no sound all night—had he taken the money and run?

As she wandered in her daze, a servant came running from the side gate, carrying a thick stack of papers: “It’s here! It’s here! Young Lady, it’s all done!”

“All done?”

Tang Buli was astonished. Zhou Yunqing had finished a month’s worth of assignments in just eight hours!

She hastily flipped through the stack and found not a single page missing. Moreover, the handwriting and stroke style were identical to her own, as if printed.

Even her grandmother couldn’t tell the difference.

Tang Buli felt she had found a treasure.

(2)

Tang Buli had a dream.

In the dream, her grandmother was gone, and she was alone and destitute. Under her aunt’s arrangement, she married a son from a prestigious family.

Before the marriage, her aunt and the matchmaker praised the young man as unparalleled and extraordinary in the world. After marriage, she discovered he was merely gold-plated trash, a wine-soaked, pleasure-seeking good-for-nothing.

One day, drunk, her husband insulted the Regent Prince and was dragged to the Court of Judicature for punishment, his fate unknown.

High-society marriages were entangled with too many interest conflicts. Her husband’s death would be a small matter, but implicating the entire family would be disastrous. In the dream, Tang Buli had nowhere to turn and could only swallow her pride to beg the newly appointed Junior Minister of the Court of Judicature for information.

The official seated had a familiar, cold face, wearing an impeccably neat deep crimson official robe without a single wrinkle.

She had her hair up in a married woman’s style, like a stone with its edges worn smooth by fate, having lost the sharpness and pride of her maiden days.

Two years had passed, and now it was her turn to be wretched.

Tang Buli felt ashamed, biting her lip as she knelt, putting aside her pride to beg Zhou Yunqing to be lenient and give a lighter sentence. She didn’t want to be dragged down by her stupid husband, didn’t want to be enslaved in the teaching courtyard…

“Your husband’s capital crime is already settled, it cannot be changed.”

The anxiety and pressure in the dream were so clear. She felt that cold gaze constantly on her shoulders, weighing her down so she couldn’t lift her head.

The scene suddenly shifted, with blurred fragments flashing by like a lantern show.

When the dream became clear again, Tang Buli lay tense in a dim canopy bed, her determined eyes reflecting that handsome face flushed with red.

“Do you know the punishment for adultery under the current dynasty’s law?”

His voice had a hoarse quality, his eyes struggling, his mouth reciting cold legal statutes while his body responded with fiery passion.

Tang Buli woke with a start, her cheeks burning hot enough to cook a flatbread.

She covered her cheeks, unable to believe what she had dreamed.

She was married, her husband had committed a crime, and was about to lose everything and be exiled. She went to beg the Junior Minister of the Court of Judicature who was hearing the case, and that minister turned out to be a poor scholar from her household, and she had done something shameless with him…

Tang Buli felt possessed.

“Pah! Shameless!”

She didn’t know who she was cursing. After lying on her back for a while, her thoughts began to wander again.

That bookworm Zhou Yunqing was an emotionless, passionless ice sculpture. How could he possibly…

Once the seed of curiosity is planted in the heart, it quickly sprouts.

(3)

Zhou Yunqing still wore that faded blue scholar’s robe, but it was washed and pressed very clean. Far from looking destitute and wretched, he had the lofty air of a recluse scholar with bamboo staff and straw sandals.

He stood with his back to Tang Buli against the wall, where a large sheet of paper was pasted. He was wielding his brush, writing a magnificent rhapsody.

Over a thousand flowing characters filled the entire wall, like dragons and snakes flying and dancing, as magnificent as startling clouds.

Zhou Yunqing was a quiet, cold, uninteresting man, but when he was immersed in the world of ink and scholarship, his slender, upright form seemed to contain endless power, radiating dazzling light.

He finished the final stroke and stood before the wall of rhapsody, examining it like an immortal overlooking mountains amid rolling clouds.

That was his world.

He stood there for a long time. Ink dripped from his brush tip, splashing open like a plum blossom on the floor tiles.

Tang Buli watched, entranced. The books in her arms fell with a rustle, breaking the silence in the room.

Zhou Yunqing placed his brush on the table and bowed to her with cupped hands.

The radiance faded, and he returned to his plain, low-key demeanor.

“Here, today’s assignment. Write a reflection on it by tomorrow.”

Tang Buli picked up the “Word Meanings” her grandmother had assigned, pushed it toward Zhou Yunqing, and placed a silver ingot alongside it.

She was quite generous, but Zhou Yunqing didn’t even glance at the silver. He simply returned to his table, dipped his brush in ink, and began writing.

Tang Buli didn’t leave. She tilted her head and watched for a while, only to realize he was writing a reflection on “Word Meanings,” flowing smoothly without even pausing to think.

Tang Buli was greatly impressed and asked, “Don’t you need to look at the book?”

“I’ve read it already.”

Zhou Yunqing said briefly, “It’s in my heart.”

He couldn’t afford many books, so when borrowing books, he would try to memorize them. He already had thousands of texts committed to memory.

“You’re very impressive.”

Tang Buli was naturally straightforward and never sparing with her praise. “I have a close female friend who also has a photographic memory. If there’s a chance, you two could compete.”

Zhou Yunqing concentrated on writing and didn’t respond.

He had no interest in anything outside of books, except when discussing criminal law—only then would he become eloquent and talkative.

Tang Buli couldn’t help but wonder if this man who knew nothing of pleasure could be the Court Minister who had broken with propriety in her dream.

She propped her chin on her hand and stared at him for a long time, then couldn’t resist asking: “Do you have a wife or concubine?”

Zhou Yunqing didn’t even look up: “No.”

“Do you have a fiancée or a romantic companion?”

“No.”

No matter what Tang Buli asked, his answer was always “No.”

Tang Buli strangely recalled that dream. He didn’t seem like a lustful person at all, so how could he…

She stopped the dangerous image in her mind, cleared her throat, and said: “Then let me ask you, if a woman’s husband’s family committed a crime, implicating her. She goes to beg the presiding judge for leniency, and then…”

She coughed again, then under Zhou Yunqing’s puzzled gaze, stammered: “Then somehow, they end up sleeping together… hmm, what would this situation be considered?”

Upon hearing about a legal case, Zhou Yunqing became interested.

“Is the woman willing?”

“She should be… possibly… willing, I suppose.”

“Then it’s adultery.”

Zhou Yunqing said seriously, “According to current dynasty law, both parties receive twenty strokes of the cane and three years of hard labor. If sexual favors are used as a bribe and the presiding judge alters the case, the punishment is increased—he would be dismissed and exiled a thousand miles.”

“…”

Tang Buli persisted, “What if you were the presiding judge?”

“Impossible.”

This time Zhou Yunqing answered extremely quickly and firmly, “If I were the presiding judge, I would administer justice impartially and throw that woman attempting to bribe me out the door.”

Tang Buli felt inexplicably frustrated and angry.

But after fuming for a while, she didn’t know how to argue. That dream was entirely fictitious and couldn’t be taken seriously.

She raised an eyebrow and said: “I don’t believe you. You’re never moved by female beauty.”

“Never,” Zhou Yunqing said.

The more he contradicted her dream, the more Tang Buli suspected he was pretending to be above it all.

The Young Lady of Qingping County was habitually mischievous and not of a docile nature. Whenever she was curious about something, she would get to the bottom of it no matter what.

“What about this?”

Tang Buli leaned over the desk and moved closer, blowing a breath at him.

The young woman in date-red military clothes wore a golden whip and bells at her waist. Pampered and privileged, she was as proud as the summer sun.

Zhou Yunqing’s eyelashes trembled, but his brush didn’t stop.

“What about this?” Tang Buli pressed her hand over his.

The scholar’s fingers were long and slender, with thin calluses from writing, but that didn’t detract from their beauty.

Zhou Yunqing couldn’t continue writing and looked up at her.

His eyes caught the light—a very light amber color. Up close, they had a breathtakingly clear quality.

“What about this?”

At that moment, as if possessed, Tang Buli did as in her dream, quickly pecking his cheek.

Rather than a peck, it was more like she clumsily bumped into him, her nose painfully hitting his cheek.

The brush dragged a long tail across the paper.

The wind blew in from the half-open door, rustling the papers on the wall. The scent of ink floated in the air.

Zhou Yunqing froze, his face still as water, but his abdomen suddenly tightened.

Tang Buli realized what she had done. The playfulness in her mind faded, leaving only infinite embarrassment.

Their eyes met, and the air solidified.

She abruptly stood up, stepped back, vigorously wiped her lips, and fled in disarray.