Chapter 9

# Chapter 9

Qin Zhaomian stepped forward first.

I had expected her to avoid the fight.

She did not.

Holding a ledger, she knelt before the dais.

“This subject, Qin Zhaomian, proposes the first reduction: abolish courtesy gifts.”

Ladies gasped behind the screens.

Her voice trembled, but she did not stop.

“Lanyi Academy sets tuition at two hundred taels. Yet to secure places, families add courtesy gifts. These gifts do not enter the official accounts. They pass instead through gatekeepers, sponsors, and eunuchs. They are called voluntary, but are in truth an arms race. Upon my enrollment, the Qin family paid an additional three hundred taels to Clerk Yang of the Ministry of Personnel to submit my name.”

The empress’s expression darkened.

Qin Zhaomian bent low.

“This subject is guilty. But if the selection of a crown princess begins with money, the harem will end with money as well.”

I watched her.

At last, she had written herself into the account.

The cost would be high. The Qin family would hate her. Her brother might lose his appointment outside the capital.

But when she finished speaking, her back was straight.

Qi Tang went second, carrying a stack of books as though she planned to use them as weapons.

“This subject, Qi Tang, proposes the second reduction: abolish useless training.”

An official from the Ministry of Rites frowned.

Qi Tang spread open her ledgers.

“Fine sand for walking practice: eighty taels. Waist-slimming medicine: two hundred forty. Beauty soup: sixty taels per month. I have calculated that this silver could feed three hundred frontier soldiers for half a month.”

She looked at the empress.

“If what the court wants in a crown princess is shallow footprints, it should choose a cat. If it wants someone who can run a household, these lessons are useless.”

The hall went deathly still.

The crown prince lowered his head and coughed. I suspected he was hiding a laugh.

Ye Chan went third.

She walked slowly, but did not sway. In her hands was a handkerchief embroidered with twenty-eight names. Beside some were one stitch, beside others two.

“This subject, Ye Chan, proposes the third reduction: abolish food deprivation.”

Court Lady Song’s expression changed.

Ye Chan continued. “In two months, twenty-one students have had their food reduced for poor deportment, improper responses, unsuitable smiles, and similar offenses. Five have fainted. Each family pays its own medical expenses, so none appear in the academy’s accounts. If the price is measured in human lives, no one dares enter the sum.”

Her voice was soft.

It was clearer than many people who shouted.

Matron Qi stood to one side, eyes red.

When my turn came, I carried three sets of accounts.

The first contained Lanyi Academy’s tuition.

The second, its expenditures.

The third, the evaluations that might burden each girl after she returned home.

I bowed.

“This subject, Xu Man, proposes the fourth reduction: return money that should never have been taken.”

The empress looked at me. “You are the Miss Xu who demands a refund?”

“Yes.”

“The selection of a crown princess concerns the foundation of the realm. Is silver all you see?”

“Your Majesty, if the foundation of the realm is built on young women’s dowries, it cannot be very stable.”

Jiang Yanbai closed his eyes.

The crown prince looked up at me.

The empress’s voice turned cold. “Insolence.”

I dropped to my knees.

“This subject is timid, which is why I calculated first. Lanyi Academy’s official tuition is two hundred taels. The families have paid an additional four thousand three hundred taels in courtesy gifts. That silver does not enter the treasury and does not appear in the proper accounts. If it was truly voluntary, why is none returned to students with Grade D, Grade C, or those not selected at all?”

“They paid for instruction,” Court Lady Song said. “Why should there be a refund?”

I turned toward her.

“Instruction deserves payment. But we paid for deportment lessons, not starvation, waist binding, and ruined reputations.”

Her face was livid.

I raised the third ledger.

“These are the accounts of our evaluations. Every Grade D comment follows its owner home. Impulsive. Disobedient. Ill-fated. Unseemly. The words are few, but they lower the bride price and give a husband’s family leverage. If a girl does not want to marry, her family says her reputation is ruined and forces her into an inferior match. If she does want to marry, she must still live beneath those words.”

I paused.

“Your Majesty, the words cost no silver, but they are the most expensive thing here.”

Someone cried softly behind the screens.

Someone else hissed, “Nonsense.”

The empress did not speak at once. At last, she looked at the crown prince.

“Cheng’an, what do you think?”

Xiao Cheng’an rose slowly.

It was as if, after a lifetime of being pushed to the front, he had finally chosen to take one step forward on his own.

“Mother, I believe a crown princess should not be selected this way.”

Her gaze sharpened. “Do you know what you are saying?”

“I do.”

He looked at us.

“I used to think it made no difference whom I chose. They would all be ministers’ daughters, trained in the same rules, entering the same Eastern Palace.”

He paused.

“Today, I learned that it does make a difference.”

Qin Zhaomian lowered her head. Qi Tang refused to look at him. Ye Chan clutched the handkerchief.

The crown prince’s life was not easy either.

But difficulty was not an excuse.

And he did not use it as one.

“Lanyi Academy will suspend operations,” he continued. “All courtesy gifts beyond the official tuition will be investigated and returned. Student evaluations will record only what was studied and will make no judgment of character. The Eastern Palace will not select a bride for three years.”

The empress struck the table. “Absurd.”

The crown prince knelt.

“If Mother insists upon choosing today, I ask to relinquish my position as heir.”

The hall erupted.

Jiang Yanbai knelt as well. “This subject shares the guilt. Changing the examination was my proposal.”

I looked at him.

There he went again, trying to become a coffin lid.

I moved forward and knelt too.

“Your Majesty, the Tutor only wrote the question. We calculated the accounts.”

Qi Tang’s knees hit the floor with a thud. “I calculated too.”

Ye Chan knelt. Qin Zhaomian followed.

Then a fifth girl. A sixth.

All twenty-eight students of Lanyi Academy knelt together.

Matron Qi stood beside us for a moment, then suddenly dropped to her knees.

“Your Majesty, this servant has taught rules for twenty years. Only today have I learned that some of them were wrong.”

The empress looked over the hall.

She neither wept with rage nor lost her composure.

She simply said nothing for a very long time.

At last, she rose and left. Court Lady Song hurried after her, her steps no longer measured.

The crown prince remained kneeling. So did Jiang Yanbai.

I leaned toward him. “Tutor, do you think I’ll get my refund?”

He turned his head. “Xu Man, you truly are astonishingly bold.”

“Don’t flatter me. Tell me about the money.”

He lowered his head. His shoulders moved slightly.

He was laughing.