At the Still Water Poetry Gathering.

Kang Xian’s sudden sharp rebuke brought the whole gathering to instant silence. Yu Zixing, who had studied briefly under Kang Xian, was thoroughly startled to see his normally stern teacher lose his temper so suddenly, and immediately lowered his head, cupping his hands in apology. “M-Master…”

Kang Xian was a leading figure in Confucian scholarship, with considerable standing besides; though he took few students, nearly everyone present knew his reputation well. His gaze swept the whole gathering before settling back on Yu Zixing, and his tone, though clearly meant as instruction to a student, carried real weight. “Do you think such words are yours to say so carelessly?”

The gathering fell briefly silent. Kang Xian set down his brush and looked over again. “Let me ask you this — of the hundreds of poems composed today, if this ci had been some sloppy, worthless scrawl, utterly without merit, what would you have done?”

Hearing this, Yu Zixing already grasped his meaning, his body tensing as he bowed stiffly, his voice dry. “I… I would naturally set it aside and pay it no further mind.”

“Then let me ask further — had you ever met this Ning Liheng before? Do you know the man? Had you ever heard his name, seen his face? As for his character and reputation, had any unfavorable word of him ever reached your ears before tonight?”

“I… I am duly instructed.”

That was enough to settle the matter. Kang Xian smiled. “Since you understand the principle now, sit back down… Now, everyone, tonight’s gathering has produced no shortage of fine work — I was just discussing several pieces with Old Qin, such as Mingyi’s poem here…” He raised his voice and began going through the evening’s finest verses one by one, pointing out each one’s particular merits with genuine care. Being as learned as he was, and choosing now to speak freely, without excessive flattery, he nonetheless found the works genuinely excellent — Yu Zixing’s two pieces, among others, received suitably high praise as well.

This took quite some time, and only at the end did Kang Xian set the sheet bearing the Prelude to Water Melody back down on the table. “Now then… shall we all take another look at this Prelude to Water Melody together?”

At his words, Cao Guan rose from his seat. “Sir Ming’s rebuke strikes right to the heart of the matter, and I am duly instructed. I confess, to my shame, that this ci is truly extraordinary — its literary skill and depth of feeling far surpass my own, and I admit that a moment ago some small competitive urge had crept into my own heart. It took Sir Ming’s guidance to bring me back to my senses. What a fortunate thing, that an occasion as grand as tonight’s should produce a work of such caliber. That said, gentlemen, I have in fact come up with a few more lines of my own just now, and I’d welcome everyone’s judgment on them. Ha, though there’s already a masterpiece before us, I know everyone here possesses real talent — surely none of you would let our Still Water gathering’s reputation suffer for lack of a proper response.”

At this, Kang Xian laughed. “Now that is the spirit of a true gentleman.” The others laughed as well, and the mood in the garden immediately picked back up, livelier than before. Someone called out with a laugh, “Zongchen, you’ve only got a few lines and already you’re being so bold — well, I have a full piece ready myself. Restoring our gathering’s honor should fall to me.”

And so another spirited round of poetic competition began, no one willing to be outdone, the energy in the garden seeming to climb even higher than before. Watching all this, Kang Xian smiled and raised his teacup to drink, and beside him Old Qin smiled as well.

“Ha ha, what’s so amusing, Old Qin?”

“Heh, that wasn’t exactly generous of you, Sir Ming. Young friend Liheng’s only beaten you at a few games of chess, and here you are, putting him right on the spot for it. A true gentleman shouldn’t hold grudges, you know — when you two meet again, he’ll surely have a bone to pick with you.”

Old Qin said this with an amused smile, clearly more interested in watching the show unfold than anything else. In principle, there was no true “first place” in literature, and judging poetry had no fixed standard — beyond a certain level, public opinion carried enormous weight. This Prelude to Water Melody truly was excellent, but there was no way it could genuinely render every other poem tonight utterly “obsolete by comparison.” And yet with just a few words, Kang Xian had effectively planted a pointed suggestion: that upon encountering a piece of work they couldn’t match, the crowd’s first instinct had been to question the author’s character — hardly the conduct of a gentleman.

Word of tonight’s events along the Qinhuai wouldn’t be limited to the poem alone — once Kang Xian’s rebuke of the crowd made the rounds, the consequences were not hard to imagine. Having been called out this way by Old Qin, Kang Xian’s smile never wavered; if anything, he still looked rather pleased with himself.

“Heh. This old man simply values talent and wishes to help him make a name for himself — if anything, he ought to thank me when we meet. Now, Old Qin, that’s rather small-minded of you, wouldn’t you say? As the saying goes, a gentleman’s heart is broad and open, while a petty man is forever anxious — do try to be a bit more open-minded yourself, ha ha.”

Neither of them had ever personally witnessed just how much talent Ning Yi actually possessed, and yet by any measure, this was no small matter. Both were genuinely struck by the ci, and had, in their own way, grasped its implications well enough. As they chatted and laughed over it, another old man wandered over. “This Ning Liheng — could it be…?” He too had once gone down to the riverbank to play chess with Old Qin, having met Ning Yi only that once, and now, knowing his surname, had made the connection. Pan Guangyan came over as well, smiling, and upon hearing this, said with a laugh, “Could this Ning Yi be connected to you, Sir Ming…?”

Kang Xian laughed heartily and lowered his voice. “He’s a young friend shared between myself, Old Qin, and Old Du here. As for the matter of the poetry, I doubt there’s any deception involved. That said, the man keeps a low profile, and our friendship with him, such as it is, is the plain, unadorned kind gentlemen share — nothing more elaborate than that. I’d ask you, Old Crane, to keep this to yourself and not spread it around too much.”

Pan Guangyan nodded in sudden understanding, smiling.

“…Ah, I see.”

…

Had he been able to foresee everything that would unfold across Jiangning that night, Ning Yi might well have thought twice about asking Xiao Chan to learn a song from him, just to satisfy some passing whim for something modern. As it was, with his cold weighing on him and his thoughts rather foggy and sluggish, and having never attended any of these poetry gatherings himself, there was really no way he could have anticipated any of it.

Past midnight now, Ning Yi was still fast asleep, utterly oblivious to everything. The carriage rolled along streets whose festivities had only slightly thinned, still moving slowly, the crowds still thick and cheerful, firelight flickering in through the windows. Su Tan’er looked at Xiao Chan across from her, still holding the sheet bearing the Prelude to Water Melody in her hand. Xiao Chan kept her head lowered, blinking, not daring to speak, her lips pressed tightly shut.

Even she found tonight’s events rather bewildering, still not quite able to wrap her head around what had happened. She had no way of judging just how much weight the ci in her hand truly carried — her appreciation for poetry wasn’t refined enough for that — and though she’d been struck and impressed reading it the first time, unable to believe it had really come from Xiao Chan’s hands, everything that followed had proven that she’d still underestimated the piece.

Watching Xue Jin’s shocked, stunned expression afterward had genuinely been a satisfying thing to witness, and the way Puyang Yu and the invited scholars had come over afterward to speak with her had given her a distinct sense of being taken seriously — as a merchant’s daughter, she understood exactly how much that kind of regard was worth.

The world liked to say merchants only chased profit, and their standing had always sat near the bottom of society — money could smooth over plenty of problems and raise one’s status somewhat, but the discrimination never fully went away. Every year, in times of disaster great or small, merchants gave money and effort and often still received no credit for it. Her grandfather had spent lavishly to get the family into the academy, hoping the Su household might produce a generation of true scholars — even if it meant buying their way in, at least gaining entry into the ranks of the literati. She’d seen this urgent longing in him since she was a child.

The Pu family was much the same — and had, in fact, achieved some real success, pouring enormous effort each year into the Pu Garden poetry gathering, now with something to show for it, one foot more or less planted in the ranks of the literati, though the other foot still had some distance left to go — mention the Pu Garden gathering to people, and the first thing that came to mind might still be the whiff of new money. From how much weight everyone had placed on this unexpected ci tonight, one could get some sense of just how good it truly was — and yet, that some people had actually claimed it rivaled the work of men like Cao Guan and Li Pin? How could that possibly be true?

Her own skill wasn’t nearly refined enough to judge for herself; she simply loved and admired poetry the way one admires an idol from a distance. Before marrying, she’d attended a few other poetry gatherings, and had seen truly top scholars compose verse on the spot, brimming with confidence — she’d only ever found the sheer quality of it captivating, nothing more. Men like Cao Guan and Li Pin represented the very pinnacle of Jiangning’s young scholars; her grandfather had hoped the family might someday produce a talented son of its own, but had never dared dream of anyone on their level. And yet this ci in her hand — brought out by Xiao Chan, supposedly composed by her own husband, a man everyone agreed had no real talent whatsoever, the same man who’d once written that baffling little verse about “three lotus roots floating on the jade pool” — as good as it clearly was, surely it couldn’t really be his? Unless… there was something more to this that she didn’t know.

Part of her, caught up in her admiration for men of letters and figures like Cao Guan and Li Pin, felt genuinely uneasy — but the other part of her, the merchant’s daughter, remained perfectly level-headed, able to handle the unexpected with composure and act as though nothing were amiss. It wasn’t until they’d disembarked from the boat that she finally allowed herself, amid her confusion, to properly dig into what had happened. She looked at Xiao Chan for a moment — the girl seeming to have shrunk a size smaller than usual — and finally smiled. “Truly the young master’s own writing?” Of Xiao Chan herself, she could never have harbored any doubt.

“Mm.”

“Then… would you tell me everything that happened between you and the young master tonight?”

“Alright.”

Xiao Chan nodded and began recounting everything that had happened since they’d left — first the story he’d told, the details of Journey to the West condensed into a few sentences, simply described as “a tale about a demon monkey,” then the singing and dancing, the magic tricks.

“Look, look, this is how it’s done — first you hide the bead in your hand like this…” Xiao Chan repeated the trick as she described it, having already failed once trying to show off in front of her two sisters on the boat, and failing again now, thoroughly dejected — but a moment later, she moved on to the part about the singing and the poem.

“…Another way of singing?” Su Tan’er asked, brow furrowed.

“Mm, it’s really lovely.” Chan’er nodded, then added quietly, “The young master told me not to go singing it around outside — he said if Chan’er started singing the tune the wrong way, people would say she didn’t know her manners…”

In truth, what others might say probably wasn’t quite that — Xiao Chan understood that much herself — but there was naturally nothing to hide in front of her mistress. Before long, at Su Tan’er’s request, the little maid cleared her throat and began singing the Prelude to Water Melody, line by line, in this “new” style. The music rang out softly within the carriage, drifting and lingering.

When the melody finally faded, Juan’er and Xing’er were still sitting there in a dazed, blissful state. “That was so lovely…” Su Tan’er, however, leaned back against the carriage wall in silence for a long while before finally speaking. “Chan’er, you’ve spent the most time with the young master out of all of us — what do you think… what kind of person is he, really?”

Xiao Chan thought it over for a long moment. “The young master, he… Chan’er thinks the young master isn’t like some stuffy bookworm at all. He’s… he’s funny, he likes to joke around sometimes, but he also gives off this feeling of being really steady, like nothing ever really bothers him… but when he talks, he doesn’t sound like those old scholars either, no fussy classical phrases or anything, and… um, that’s about it, really. He’s just not quite like what people used to say about him…”

Su Tan’er listened, then gave a small nod.

They turned the corner up ahead, and the Su residence would soon come into view…