Great Qi's spring examinations had always been the battle through which scholars across the realm hoped to leap the dragon gate.
Outside the Ministry of Rites, candidates from every region formed several long queues to submit their documents and verify their identities. Every face was taut. Each man clutched the credentials he valued above almost anything else, scarcely daring to breathe.
In that dense crowd, where even the air seemed saturated with cutthroat competition, Xie Wei had already waited four full hours.
His lean back remained perfectly straight, but chronic sleep deprivation had left a faint bluish cast to his face. With fingers stiff from the cold, he smoothed the creases in his papers over and over. This ticket to the examination had cost him countless nights of heart's blood and dozens of worn-out weasel-hair brushes.
In this game, a commoner like me must win all the way to the end—or fall beyond redemption.
He repeated the words silently. There was no one behind him. One step back, and he would tumble into a bottomless abyss.
At last, the candidate ahead finished having his identity checked. Just as Xie Wei prepared to step forward with his documents, the Ministry's closed vermilion side door banged open from within.
A splendid solid-bronze litter, cushioned with sable pelts, emerged, carried steadily by four tall, formidable guards from the ducal household.
Su Mian lounged on it, yawning without a shred of dignity. He had changed into an even showier ivory robe scattered with floral patterns and cradled a sleek, snow-white Persian cat.
The Vice Minister of Rites—the very father of the wastrel whose horse had been struck on the rump earlier—personally bowed and led the way beside the litter like an eager lapdog, smiling until his face creased.
“Careful, Young Master Su. Her Highness the Grand Princess and Her Majesty the Empress Dowager left special instructions. The examination grounds are drafty and the cells cramped, so you have been excused from queuing with these uncouth candidates. I have prepared a separate, elegant room inside, heated with the finest silver-thread scented charcoal, with an assorted tray of delicacies...”
A restrained commotion immediately rippled through the previously meek, silent candidates.
“Heavens... Isn't that the ducal heir?”
“Why would he need to queue? They say the Grand Princess has even ‘taken care of’ the chief examiner. He was born to collect his degree.”
“Being good at investing is nothing compared to being good at getting born. Ten years studying in the cold, and in the end we're still beaten by someone who chose the right womb...”
As the bitter murmurs reached him, Xie Wei clenched his hands inside his sleeves, his nails nearly digging into his flesh. His eyes, bloodshot with exhaustion, fixed coldly on Su Mian, whose entire face proclaimed, Leave me alone. I want to sleep.
Absurd. An utter disgrace to the court.
Disturbed by the noise, Su Mian rubbed an ear and lazily lifted his eyes—straight into Xie Wei's merciless gaze, which looked ready to devour him alive.
“Stop.” He patted the litter.
The guards halted immediately. Holding his cat, Su Mian looked down at Xie Wei, who stood at the very front of the queue, every muscle as taut as a bar of iron.
“Well, Brother Xie. We meet again.” Su Mian shifted the cat in his arms and regarded him with an ambiguous smile. “What a coincidence. My father threatened me with a club to make me ‘get ahead,’ while you've brought your own life to stake on ‘getting ahead.’ Does that put us in the same boat?”
Xie Wei drew a deep breath, suppressing the anger and desolation surging in his chest. He turned away coldly, unwilling to spare him even a word.
Eager to please Su Mian, the Vice Minister stepped forward at once and pointed at Xie Wei's nose. “What impoverished wretch is this? How dare you show such disrespect to the ducal heir! Someone bring me his credentials. I shall examine them thoroughly for any fraudulent impersonation!”
Several ministry clerks sprang into action and moved to snatch the papers from Xie Wei's hands.
His face drained of color. In this ancient bureaucracy, where the lesser demons were harder to deal with than the King of Hell, once these snobs seized his documents, he would not be registering today even if he were an immortal descended from heaven.
“Wait.”
Su Mian's lazy voice sounded again. He stood up on the litter, elegantly brushed the cat hair from his robes, and took from his bosom a gleaming solid-gold token of supreme privilege. Its front bore the words “Grand Princess's Household”; its reverse read “To behold this token is to behold her person.”
The entire capital hoped he would use that token to hammer on the chief examiner's door, bring home first place, and make something of himself.
Instead, before the Vice Minister and hundreds of candidates, Su Mian casually tossed it, along with his own examination permit, into Xie Wei's book box as though throwing away rubbish. That golden token could have spared countless scholars thirty years of struggle.
“Young Master Su, what are you doing?!” The Vice Minister gaped.
Xie Wei, too, froze completely, his cold, proud eyes filled with astonishment and suspicion.
Su Mian yawned again, sat back on the litter, and addressed the Vice Minister with perfect self-assurance.
“I've just consulted my fortune. Of the five elements, the one I'm lacking is sleep. Examinations aren't for me. This opportunity to ‘get ahead’ is terribly heavy, so I'm trying a new form of waste sorting. I'm giving it straight to Lord Xie here.”
Then he turned to Xie Wei, a glint of mischief in his eyes at the success of his prank.
“Brother Xie, you recite the court's laws more fluently than anyone. An uninformed observer might think you, Lord Xie, had the final say in Great Qi. Since you're so keen to become a ‘lord,’ here's a ready-made ladder. I'm going home to catch up on sleep. Farewell!”
With that, he waved his gilded fan. “Home. Nobody is to interfere with my afternoon nap!”
Escorted by the ducal guards, the litter swept brazenly back the way it had come, leaving a crowd of bug-eyed candidates, a livid Vice Minister of Rites, and...
Xie Wei, the future second-place scholar, still standing where he was, staring at the heavy golden token in his book box. He shook with anger, his ears flushed red from the sheer sarcasm packed into that title: “Lord Xie.”