Chapter 3
Jiang Shi really did go to his father to expose me.
“That Shen Dingwei comes from who knows where, has no morals, and looks like a seductress besides. If we keep her here, she’ll bring disaster sooner or later.”
We had barely reached the room when we heard him disparaging me inside.
Master Jiang seemed to snort softly. “Do you think I would choose Nan’s study companion without investigating her thoroughly? As for you, you’re unruly, rude, and arrogant. Now you’re stooping to torment a defenseless girl. Have you no shame?”
“Father, you can’t see into a person’s heart. Please believe me.”
“Your mother and Nan speak of her with nothing but praise. Am I to disbelieve them and trust you instead?”
“Mother is kindhearted, and Nan is her friend. It’s hardly surprising they’ve been deceived. But I can see clearly. She is certainly not someone content to know her place.”
“What proof have you?”
“That face! She’s prettier than the capital’s foremost courtesan! And the way she carries herself, her clever tongue—”
Master Jiang slammed the table in fury. “Enough! You—you’ve been visiting brothels!”
Jiang Shi dropped to his knees with a thud, though his voice remained stubborn. “I would never dare disobey our family precepts! On the day I returned, the courtesan was taking a boat across the lake. I happened to glimpse her from the other side of the river—”
“Wretch! Get out!”
Jiang Shi was doomed to a full day of misfortune.
Bird droppings greeted him in the morning; at noon, he knelt through his father’s rebuke. I heard he drowned his sorrows in wine that evening and took a nasty fall when he got up in the night.
I almost began to pity him.
After that day, however, he stopped making trouble for me.
The Ninth Prince had transferred him to the palace’s Feathered Forest Guard Office. I heard he held a middling post there, commanding more than five hundred guards.
He was very busy indeed.
In the eleventh month, the capital saw its first light snow.
Light snow, they called it, but the flakes had drifted down continuously since morning. By noon, everything gleamed white as carved ice and jade. Pavilions and waterside terraces stood covered in silver, like a celestial garden brought to earth.
That afternoon, on some sudden impulse, the Ninth Prince came to the Jiang house with two attendants and invited the brothers to share a cup of wine.
In the garden’s bamboo pavilion, they set up fragrant screens, hung warming curtains, spread cotton felt, and lit molded charcoal. Wrapped in furs around the brazier, they warmed their wine, laughing and talking.
Our tutor had caught a chill and did not come that day, so I read in Moon-Gathering Pavilion until late afternoon.
On my way back to my room, I passed the bamboo pavilion and heard a languid, arrogant voice calling from a distance.
“Swindler!”
I stopped, turned, pressed my lips together, and looked straight into the eyes of the man who had insulted me.
“Swindler, dare you make a wager with me?”
The young man by the brazier, his hair fastened with a green pin, held a cup in one hand and challenged me with casual insolence.
“No,” I said coolly.
His eyes widened in disbelief. “You dare deceive the world, but not accept a wager?”
“If you already believe I have no character, what difference does it make whether I wager or not?”
“If you win, I’ll treat you with respect from now on.”
Snow floated like cotton. I had only wished to avoid trouble, but those words stopped me short.
“What is the wager?”
As the Ninth Prince and the eldest son watched with amusement, Jiang Shi rose in his blue-green fox-fur cloak, his spirits high. “Whether you can trick me into leaving this pavilion.”
I approached slowly, curtsied to the prince and Jiang Chen, then shook my head at Jiang Shi with a slight frown.
“That’s unfair. Inside, the brazier is hot and the wine warm. Outside, the wind and snow are freezing. Tricking you out would be harder than climbing to heaven. A noble young master, making things difficult for a frail girl! Now, if the wager were to trick you into the pavilion, that would be child’s play.”
“Hah. What a boast.”
Jiang Shi raised his brows in disbelief. Gathering his furs, he strode grandly out of the pavilion, abandoning its springlike warmth.
The Ninth Prince and Jiang Chen sighed together. “Ah…”
Jiang Shi froze, then stared in horror. “You cheat!”
I brushed the snow off my shoulder and smiled at the Jiang family’s slow-witted second son.
“From now on, please call me Miss Shen.”
“Hahahaha!” The usually mild Jiang Chen doubled over laughing. The Ninth Prince could not suppress his laughter either as he watched Jiang Shi’s face turn dark, then green, then purple.
He drained his cup, every inch a prince.
“I have long heard there was a talented young lady in this house. Having met you, I find your wit truly unmatched. Miss Shen, there is something puzzling me. Might I trouble you for a moment?”
He extended a hand in invitation.
How could I refuse a prince of the reigning house?
I entered the pavilion with the still-indignant Jiang Shi.
Charcoal smoldered inside, filling the air with warm fragrance. Jiang Chen slowly explained the prince’s concern.
In recent years, the emperor had become absorbed in seeking immortals and studying the Way. Half a month earlier, a Daoist from Spirit Terrace Temple had entered the palace, claiming he had attained immortality and could go fifteen days without food.
To test him, the emperor had placed him alone in a room and assigned attendants to watch him daily.
The Daoist had now fasted, supposedly nourishing himself on breath alone, for ten days, yet remained remarkably vigorous.
The delighted emperor insisted that, when the fifteen days ended, he would make the man the Immortal Preceptor Who Protects the Realm.
“I know that wicked Daoist is a fraud,” the Ninth Prince sighed. “But after all these days, I still cannot find the flaw in his trick.”
I lowered my head and frowned. “Perhaps he bribed the attendants to lie?”
“The attendants are trustworthy.”
“Then someone is secretly bringing him food?”
“Impossible. I watch too closely.”
“Could he have hidden food on himself?”
The prince shook his head. “He has nothing but his clothes and a fly whisk. If he has hidden anything, I suspect it must be inside that whisk. But he claims it is a sacred object. Without solid evidence, searching it would be difficult.”
“Trying to show off? Do you suppose His Highness hasn’t thought of all that?” Jiang Shi took every opportunity to sneer.
I rolled my eyes at him. After a moment’s thought, I smiled at the prince.
“In that case, you can only have the attendants inspect the Daoist’s waste. Your Highness, he is flesh and blood like the rest of us. He must have been eating secretly these past ten days. And if he eats, surely he shits?”
Perhaps they had never expected a woman to discuss the baser workings of digestion in public.
The prince and both Jiang brothers exchanged speechless looks.
After a moment, Jiang Chen clapped his hands. “Brilliant.”
Half annoyed and half amused, Jiang Shi said, “A cat has its ways, and a dog has its own. A trickster finds a crooked path.”
The Ninth Prince raised a brow at him. “Is this your idea of treating her with respect? Three extra full cups for you today.”
Outside, the wind and snow grew stronger. Green bamboo stems creaked beneath the weight of snow.
Jiang Shi, at least, knew when to yield.
At the prince’s words, he drained his cup and declared boldly, “I lost the wager, and I’ll honor it.” Then he rose briskly, came before me, and bent into a deep, graceful bow.
“Miss Shen, I spoke out of turn. Please forgive me.”
Before the bamboo and falling snow, the bright-eyed young man spoke to me with a smile.