The new second-place scholar Xie Wei now lived in Wutong Lane, at the far west end of the capital—a lane so narrow even a horse cart could not enter.
Mostly it was where impoverished scholars huddled among peddlers and laborers. Filthy water ran through the streets, and everything was falling apart. The tiled room Xie Wei rented leaked wind and rain; its only virtues were quiet—and cheapness.
At this moment, Xie Wei sat on a stool with a missing leg, still in the ceremonial robes of the second-place scholar, no time yet to change out of them, scrubbing with great care, by the dim light, at the solid-gold token of the Grand Princess's household.
His eyes were rimmed red. His ears still rang with the jeers from the triumphal ride:
“See him? That's the second-place scholar who climbed into the Duke's household's bed.”
“What good are fine essays? Still living off the little heir's charity...”
Slam!
Xie Wei brought the gold token down on the table and shut his eyes in pain.
The suffering I endured should have become the lamp that lights my road. So when did the lamp turn into one grand joke? Su Mian... you truly are my bane.
Just as he sank into that endless spiral of self-blame and anxiety, his rotten, half-fallen wooden door was kicked open from outside with a bang—brutal, without ceremony!
“Well, well. Lord Xie—top of the golden list. Why are you hiding in here drinking the northwest wind?”
A voice of staggering, insufferable rich-young-lord energy rang through the little courtyard.
Xie Wei's eyes flew open. He pushed himself up from the table—and there was Su Mian, fanning that gaudy gilded fan, striding grandly into his hovel, a place even rats avoided, flanked by a pack of burly giants from the Duke's household.
“Su Mian?!” Xie Wei's face changed. He instinctively retreated a step, watching him warily. “What do you want? I rode the triumphal parade today as you wished. If you mean to humiliate me further, there is no need to chase me to this wretched place!”
Outside the courtyard, the neighbors were already poking their heads out, pointing and murmuring.
Su Mian looked at Xie Wei bristling like a hedgehog, ready to go down with him in mutual destruction, and sighed inwardly.
Tsk. This self-torturing personality is hopeless. If this young master doesn't come, you'll spend tonight worrying yourself into coughing blood.
“Humiliate you? This young master hasn't the leisure.” Su Mian gave a cold laugh, drew a crumpled scrap of paper from his robes, and waved it before Xie Wei's face.
It was the IOU Xie Wei had written in his own hand days before, kneeling before the Duke's gates—the ten-copper printing fee.
“Look carefully. The law of Great Qi says it in black and white: debts must be repaid. It's only right and proper.” Su Mian hooked the one clean bamboo chair over with his foot, dropped into it, and crossed his legs—the very picture of a demon king coming to collect.
“This young master is not here for pleasantries. I am here for the debt!” He snapped the fan shut, rapped it against his palm, and raised his voice to the gathered crowd:
“Hear this, all of the capital! Xie Wei owes this young master a vast sum! The other day in the street he gave his word that once he passed the examinations, he would repay it tenfold! And this young master is a man of perfect good faith—so I've come to collect on the very first day of his second-place glory! Xie Wei! Less talk. Pay up!”
Xie Wei went completely blank.
He looked at that insolent face stamped from brow to chin with I'm-here-to-pick-a-fight, and listened to the murmuring crowd outside—“Oh! So it's not a kept arrangement? The second-place scholar owes a debt!” and “The Duke's little young master has come to collect in person. My, my, fierce...”
And the filthy rumor of “family connections” was twisted, by Su Mian's shameless, strong-arm “debt collection,” into a plain civil matter of owing money!
Xie Wei was a clever man. He looked at those bright, faintly smiling peach-blossom eyes in the lamplight, and the towering tide of his humiliation and rage suddenly landed like a punch into cotton—dissolving into something he could not name.
He... is getting me out of this?
Ruining his own name, playing the tyrant—to scrub the stain of “kept man” off me?
“...You.” Xie Wei stared hard at Su Mian, his voice unsteady. “Young Master Su—this tenfold repayment, I... cannot pay it now. Ten times ten coppers is one hundred. On my person, I have thirty.”
“Can't pay?” At that, Su Mian's grin turned even more the street thug's. He rose and strolled closer, patting Xie Wei's brand-new ceremonial robes:
“Can't pay is no matter. This young master has patience to spare. Starting tomorrow, you report to the Hanlin Academy for morning roll call, and every month I will come dock your salary myself! The day you clear this 'vast sum,' you stop being this young master's personal long-term laborer. Do I make myself clear? Lord. Xie. Sir?”
Xie Wei looked at the young man so close to him, caught the pleasant scent of aloeswood on his clothes, and the tips of his ears went red—uncontrollably, three shades redder than they had been during the parade.
He drew a long breath, and at last bowed slightly—to the most ill-reputed wastrel in the capital, the only man who understood how to set him free—and gave him a perfectly proper salute with clasped hands.
“In that case... from the first of each month hence, your humble servant will await the esteemed presence of Creditor Su before the ministry gates.”