Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Returning to Youth A cold wind blew in through the wide-open door, extinguishing a candle inside the room. Shen Shuyue sat motionless on the edge of the bed, as if she hadn't understood Xiao Shao's words. After a long moment, she blankly uttered, "...What?" Xiao Shao stammered out an explanation, "T-The waiter said that bandits are causing trouble on Jingchen Mountain today, and a murder case happened. Many officials from the county yamen went up. On their way back, the bailiffs responsible for transporting the corpse got caught in a heavy rain, and their wagon wheel got stuck in the mud. They stopped by the tea stall at the town entrance to fix the cart and rest, and asked the waiter to lend a hand. The waiter saw... saw that it was Young Master Pei..." Shen Shuyue listened to every single word. When she finished listening, she laughed instead, "How is that possible? Tomorrow morning he's coming to our house to propose marriage. Why on earth would he go up the mountain? In the pitch black of night, the waiter must have mistaken him for someone else!" "I said the same thing!" Xiao Shao nodded heavily, then pointed outside hesitatingly, "But the waiter said those two bailiffs are still at the tea stall right now. If my lady wants to go..." Xiao Shao couldn't bring herself to say the original words "identify the body," but Shen Shuyue understood. The room was dead silent, while the rain outside grew even heavier. The rain beat against the window lattice, pattering like drums and making people's hearts pound violently. Shen Shuyue still didn't move at all, but her gaze began to flicker. After sitting in a daze for a moment, she jumped off the bed and ran outside. Xiao Shao was stunned, then hurriedly picked up the shoes from the footstool and chased after her, "My lady, your shoes!" Granny Hu also hurried over. Seeing this situation, she quickly instructed Xiao Shao, "Quickly grab my lady's cloak and prepare the carriage!" The carriage sped through the torrential rain. Bean-sized raindrops pelted the roof, and the pair of lanterns hanging from the eaves swayed wildly in the wind, bumping violently. Inside the carriage, the person's dark hair was draped over her back, her lips drained of color. Every so often, she lifted the curtain to look outside. After watching along the road, she finally caught sight of the tea stall in the distance. In the curtain of rain, two burly men wearing coir raincoats got up from the tea stall and walked toward a flatbed cart parked by the roadside, looking as if they were about to leave. Shen Shuyue's heart, hanging in her throat, tightened, and she urged the driver to go faster. Over at the tea stall, the sharp-eyed waiter spotted the hurriedly approaching carriage and quickly called out to the bailiffs, "Wait a moment, officers! The eldest young lady of the Feiyuan Garden has arrived!" The bailiffs turned back, squinted to make out the insignia of the Feiyuan Garden on the carriage lanterns, and remarked in astonishment, "I thought you were talking nonsense. In this kind of weather, a young lady of wealth really came in the rain to identify a body?" As they spoke, the carriage came to a stop right in front of them. When Shen Shuyue lifted the carriage curtain, she happened to hear the word "identify." After her rain-spattered eyelashes trembled, she looked toward the flatbed cart by the road covered with a straw mat. Under the straw mat, a stretcher covered with a white cloth could be vaguely seen—made simply and crudely from two bamboo poles and three or five woven rattan strips. Xiao Shao pulled Shen Shuyue's cloak tighter around her and helped her down from the carriage. Granny Hu stepped forward quickly and slipped a few pieces of loose silver to the leading bailiff: "Thank you two officers for waiting so long. Please allow my young lady to take a look." The waiter had rushed back to the tea stall earlier to explain the situation to the bailiffs. The bailiff pocketed the silver, lifted the straw mat, and stepped aside: "Just one look, make it quick." Shen Shuyue, however, stood frozen in place and didn't move. From the moment she stepped out of the carriage, her eyes had been fixed straight on that stretcher without moving away. It wasn't until Xiao Shao gently called out "My lady" under the umbrella that she snapped out of it and took the lantern from Xiao Shao's hand. After hurrying all the way here, now that she had truly arrived, her legs felt too heavy to lift. Dragging her steps, Shen Shuyue walked toward the cart holding the lantern step by step, staring fixedly at the white cloth before her. A moment later, she hesitated, reached out her hand, pinched a corner of the white cloth, and slowly pulled it back. A pale, emaciated face came into view. Shen Shuyue's gaze froze, the hand holding the lantern hung suspended in mid-air, and all the color drained from her face in an instant. Impossible. How could it be... The face in her memory remained fixed on the clear winter of the thirteenth year of Xuanmo. Before the academy gates, the youth of striking presence and ethereal grace wore a blue-and-white scholarly gown, his hair ribbons dancing in the wind. After bowing with cupped hands in farewell to his teachers, he turned and stepped onto the road heading north to take the imperial examinations. Yet at this moment. Though the lamplight flickered brightly, it could not illuminate a single trace of vitality on this face, as if his very bones and blood had frozen through. Between those refined and handsome brows remained only an endless, unmelting chill. Gazing at this countenance she had once meticulously traced with fine-brush strokes a thousand times over, Shen Shuyue's vision gradually turned dark. Her whole body lost all strength as she collapsed backward and lost consciousness. Following this faint, Shen Shuyue felt as though she had slept a very deep and very long sleep. When she regained consciousness once more, she was woken up by the cold. A chilly wind blew from somewhere, causing her to shudder. Her neck felt sore, her legs numb, and her throat terribly dry. Frowning uncomfortably, Shen Shuyue laboriously straightened her prostrate body. The sudden brightness made her instinctively raise her hand to block her face, opening her drowsy eyes only after adjusting to the light. The next moment, a plain, unfamiliar wooden-latticed window leaked through the gaps in her fingers. Shen Shuyue was suddenly stunned, slowly lowering the hand shielding her eyes. Pale golden sunlight streamed in slivers through the window cracks, illuminating the floating dust motes in the air and revealing the scene before her. This was a simple, crude little room. Its furnishings consisted of nothing more than a desk, an offering table, and a portrait of Confucius hanging above the offering table. The interior layout was confined and enclosed, exuding a sense of confinement. Yet to call it unfamiliar wasn't entirely accurate. For after a brief moment of bewilderment, she remembered: wasn't this the Hall of Reflection at Guanchuan Academy from years ago? Why was she here?! Hesitantly, Shen Shuyue lowered her head, looking at herself—dressed in a blue-and-white scholarly gown, kneeling on a straw mat—and at the bamboo paper on the desk in front of her, covered in passages from the Analects. Was she... still asleep in a dream? "Truly, 'rotten wood cannot be carved'!" An elderly male voice suddenly sounded from behind her. Startled, Shen Shuyue turned her head back to see an old man dressed in a dark gray robe, with a head of white hair and a frosty beard, standing majestically at the threshold. It was impossible to tell how long he had been observing her. "You were punished to copy texts here to calm your mind and reflect on your own faults, but look at you—you actually fell asleep right in front of Master Confucius!" Seething with anger, the old man strode forward. "Give me your hand!" Subconsciously, Shen Shuyue looked down at her own hand. Before she could even react, a cold ruler cracked down with a sharp slap. With a cry of pain, she curled up tightly onto the straw mat. ...Wait a minute, pain? Can one feel pain in a dream? Stunned, Shen Shuyue unfolded her glowing red palm, but before she could process the sensation, the ruler came crashing down fiercely upon her head again. Instantly pulling back her hand to dodge, she scrambled up and staggered backward. The old man burst out in fury, "When you were granted the punishment of copying books, you showed no appreciation, but now that you're getting the ruler, you know it hurts? Hand out your hand!" Her heart beating frantically, Shen Shuyue didn't know whether she was terrified by the teacher before her or panicked because she couldn't make sense of her current situation. Everything felt far too real to be a dream, but how on earth could this be happening? She remembered that before losing consciousness, she had clearly seen at the town entrance tea stall... Pei Guangji's... Could Pei Guangji's death have simply been a nightmare she had dreamed? Even if that were so, how could she have arrived overnight in Linkang, hundreds of li away from Liuxia? Moreover, her hands seemed a bit unusual as well... Shen Shuyue lowered her head and looked at her hands once more. Although her skin and flesh ached from the beating, her finger bones and wrist bones possessed a long-lost sense of ease and comfort. She tried curling and stretching her five fingers, and discovered that the soreness and weakness she usually felt when straining to grip objects—along with the stiffness and lack of coordination that plagued her whenever she did fine, delicate work—seemed to have completely vanished. Her hands, crippled for seven years and long considered beyond the help of any medicine, could they have recovered as good as new overnight? And looking at the teacher before her, why was he also back to how he looked in those years? Shen Shuyue stood dazed for a long while before asking softly, "Teacher, what year... is it right now?" The old man was so exasperated he laughed, "Did you sleep so soundly that you've even forgotten what year and day it is?" Shen Shuyue nodded earnestly. Looking as though he had exhausted all his anger, the old man barked furiously, "Today is the fifteenth day of the tenth month in the twelfth year of Xuanmo! It is the day of the New and Full Moon assembly. Not only did you disregard academy rules and show disrespect to the sages, but you are also a full two incense-sticks' worth of time late. Do you remember now?!" The twelfth year of Xuanmo—that was eight years ago, the year she first arrived at Guanchuan Academy and met Pei Guangji. It was also the year before Pei Guangji traveled north to the capital for the imperial examinations, leaving Jiangnan behind. If she was truly at Guanchuan Academy in the twelfth year of Xuanmo at this moment, then what about Pei Guangji? Shen Shuyue fell silent for a moment, then turned and bolted out at a run, leaving the teacher's startled scolding completely behind her. Following the directions in her memory, she skirted around pavilions and waterside terraces, wove through bamboo paths and stone bridges, and ran breathlessly to the long corridor outside the lecture hall. It was currently during the break. The four lattice doors at the front of the lecture hall and the eight well-patterned lattice windows on either side were all wide open, flooding the room with clear, bright daylight. Inside, neat rows of long writing desks were set out. Groups of young men clad in blue-and-white scholarly gowns clustered together, holding books and chatting cheerfully and humorously, or leaning casually against the window frames and exchanging banters amidst the bustling crowd, only a single person sat alone at a desk. With restrained sleeves and a brush in hand, his pale-white wrist hovered over the plain white paper as he slowly wrote, exuding a tranquil air completely detached from the mortal world. That face with clear brows, deep eyes, and exquisite bone structure. It was Pei Guangji. It truly was Pei Guangji. In a daze, Shen Shuyue stood outside the window, staring at the person she had been separated from for so many years. Her gaze drifted from his cold, serene eyes to his straight, refined nose, and a surging wave of passionate warmth welled up throughout her body. To study together in the prime of youth, to possess such an advantageous proximity yet fail to cherish it—only to let the years slip away through procrastination, suffer long separation, and finally meet a tragic end just as they were reunited. What "helplessness that destinies lead us to different paths"? Weren't destinies forged by people themselves? If he had opened his heart to her and communicated his feelings early on, how could there have been such winding hardships and tribulations later? Their hearts had been deeply attuned to one another; why did they have to put up such a stubborn front back then?! Before her thoughts could even process it, Shen Shuyue's legs marched into the lecture hall of their own accord. Walking with an indignant huff all the way up to Pei Guangji, she blurted out, "Pei Guangji, you liked me—why didn't you say so sooner?!" The noisy lecture hall instantly dropped into absolute silence. After a moment of startled shock, the crowd turned their heads in unison, staring at Pei Guangji whose brush tip had frozen mid-air. In the pin-drop silence that filled the entire hall, someone's book fell to the floor with a sharp thud. Pei Guangji slowly raised his head, his thin, well-defined lips moving slightly. In those tranquil, lonely eyes, a rare crack of rippling emotion finally appeared. Belatedly, Shen Shuyue realized that her questioning tone had indeed been a bit impulsive, carrying a bit too much lingering resentment. Yet the strange atmosphere in the lecture hall right now seemed to stem from more than just her heavy resentment. Shen Shuyue glanced at the speechless Pei Guangji, then looked around at the dumbfounded crowd, and suddenly remembered something that wasn't right. She blinked and cast her gaze toward the uninked water-dropper sitting on Pei Guangji's desk. The clear surface of the water reflected a face that still retained a bit of youthful immaturity, along with the deliberately disguised brows and eyes upon it. Looking at her reflection with her hair tied in a green ribbon and no hairpins or ornaments to speak of, Shen Shuyue finally understood where everyone's ghost-like expressions had come from. If where she was right now truly was Guanchuan Academy in the twelfth year of Xuanmo... Then in everyone else's eyes, she was supposed to be... a young man.