Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Matchmaking To explain how this came to be, it all started with her ambitious father. The Shen family had made its fortune through commerce beginning with her great-grandfather. By the time it was passed down to her father, three generations of accumulated wealth had made them one of the wealthiest families in Yijiang. Yet her father grew increasingly fearful of the constant adage that "wealth does not last past three generations." Anxious that the Shen family lacked official backing and would ultimately fall victim to the misfortune of standing out too prominently, he not only distributed wealth for public welfare but also harbored a burning desire for someone in the family to become a scholar, allowing the family to transition from merchants to officials and elevate their social standing. The person pinned with these high hopes was her twin younger brother. In the eleventh year of Xuanmo—when she and her brother were fifteen years old—her father poured out thousands of pieces of gold to donate a thousand mu of farmland to the renowned Guanchuan Academy in Jiangnan, trading it in accordance with the regulations for an extra enrollment quota. As it turned out, her brother, who detested studying and cared only for clicking away on an abacus, ran away from home. While the family anxiously searched for him, they sent word to the academy under a false pretext that he had injured his legs, thereby stalling his enrollment. Yet more than half a year passed, and there was still no news of her brother whatsoever. Although Guanchuan Academy was a private institution, it was still subject to official government oversight and followed official rules: students who took an unexcused leave of absence for three months would have their student status revoked. At the end of summer in the twelfth year of Xuanmo, before the family could wait for her brother to return, they instead welcomed an academy manager who had come to press for his enrollment. Seeing that the ruse could no longer be kept up—not only would those thousand mu of fertile land go down the drain, but her brother would also be placed on the blacklist, losing any chance at the imperial examinations—her father, though heartbroken, felt utterly helpless and intended to resign himself to fate. Who would have guessed that on the day of the manager's sudden visit, she happened to be out handling family business dressed as a man. When she returned to the manor, she ran straight into the manager. The manager "recognized" her at a glance. Seeing that her legs had seemingly recovered completely, he demanded right then and there to take her off to enroll. Compared to ordinary fraternal twins, she and her brother truly looked remarkably similar. Normally they shared about a sixty-percent resemblance, and with a bit of disguise and costume, another twenty percent was added. Relying on the portrait to identify him, the manager fell right into the mistaken identity. Yet just as she was about to open her mouth to explain, her father's eyes lit up, and he called out her brother's name right in front of her. When a person sees that they have reached a dead end, naturally they won't keep crashing into the wall. But if at that moment a hole suddenly breaks open in the wall, one can't help wanting to crawl through. Her father said this was an opportunity given by the heavens for the Shen family to escape a desperate situation. She should temporarily take her brother's place to enroll, and once her brother was found, the two siblings could swap back. Had her father known at the time that her brother wouldn't return until the end of the thirteenth year of Xuanmo—and that when he finally came back, the once-delicate-looking brother had grown extraordinarily tall, his skin tanned dark as charcoal, and his facial features sharpened beyond recognition, bearing no resemblance whatsoever to his twin older sister—perhaps he wouldn't have indulged in such a whimsical notion. Back then, however, her father simply assumed the two siblings would quickly return to their proper places. And so, pushed onto the duck-jumping-off-the-perch, she traveled from Yijiang to Linkang and entered Guanchuan Academy under her brother's identity. ... The surrounding murmurs of astonishment pulled Shen Shuyue back from her memories. She only just remembered that during her time at the academy, aside from lightly altering her facial features with makeup, binding her chest, and putting lifts in her shoes, she had also usually made a point of lowering her voice. But just now, she had forgotten. Fortunately, having spent half a day in the chilly Hall of Reflection, her throat happened to be dry and hoarse, so her voice hadn't given her away just yet. It was just that things she had blurted out... Shen Shuyue felt as though those gazes behind her were about to pierce right through her. Neither did Pei Guangji before her let her off; he simply stood there motionless, watching her without offering any graceful way out. Steeling herself, she cleared her throat and lowered her voice: "I... I spoke out of turn in my excitement. Actually, I meant to say..." Pei Guangji finally moved his eyelids, lowered his gaze to gently set down his stiffened brush, and then raised eyes that had already returned to their usual calm tranquility, looking at her once more as if waiting for a reasonable explanation. "I meant to say that you..." Shen Shuyue floundered with "you" for a long time, when suddenly an idea struck her. With a bold and heroic air, she gave Pei Guangji's desk a sharp slap: "If you liked my sister, why didn't you say so sooner?! I could have helped bridge the gap and tie the red thread for you!" "..." The surrounding gasps instantly transformed into the sounds of onlookers watching a great show. The entire lecture hall boiled over with a chorus of "Whoa!"s from the east and "Hah!"s from the west. Who didn't know that upon the release of the provincial examination rankings on the first of last month, Pei Guangji had placed as the Jieyuan (top scorer) of Linzhou, meaning he already had one foot inside the imperial palace? Right now, he was by far the most sought-after prospective son-in-law in all of Linkang City. For the past month and a half, matchmakers rushing to propose marriage at the Pei residence had been scrambling so fiercely they were practically breaking down the doors. Just recently, everyone in the academy was still secretly placing bets, wagering on which young Pei Guangji would ultimately become engaged to. "Yizhi, do you actually already have someone in your heart?" "It's actually someone from the Shen family of Yijiang? She wasn't even among the ones being wagered on!" "Really? If my younger sister hears about this, she's going to be heartbroken!" "Isn't Yijiang in Yizhou? Yizhi, when did you meet a young lady from the Shen family?" Pei Guangji shifted his gaze away from the fair-skinned, red-lipped young gentleman standing right before him, turning toward the crowd that had gathered around him. "Shen Ziyue! Who gave you permission to leave the Hall of Reflection?" An angry male voice interrupted whatever Pei Guangji was about to say. Shen Shuyue was stunned for a moment before she realized they were calling her. Her younger brother's given name was Shen Sizhou, and the courtesy name "Ziyue" had been given to her—no, to her younger brother—by the academy's headmaster after she arrived in Linkang. Turning back, she indeed saw the teacher she had given the slip to in the Hall of Reflection charging fiercely toward her. Yet in this situation, while the teacher looked like he had come to kill her, he was practically saving her life. Seeing that her fabrication was about to burst wide open, Shen Shuyue guiltily glanced at Pei Guangji, who was surrounded by a tight ring of people, and greased the bottoms of her boots to slip away: "Teacher, I'll head right back to the Hall of Reflection!" The lattice partitions closed heavily with a thud, and a lock clicked into place from the outside. Shen Shuyue stood alone by the sealed high window of the Hall of Reflection, standing on tiptoe to gaze out in the direction of the lecture hall. She had tossed firecrackers right into the middle of a crowd and bolted, leaving her clueless as to how Pei Guangji was handling his classmates at that very moment. She really should have questioned him in private... Still, she couldn't be entirely blamed for this. From suddenly learning that Pei Guangji was coming to propose marriage, to being shocked by the news of his death, and then inexplicably traveling back eight years in time to Guanchuan Academy, this single day had been full of twists and turns, immense grief alternating with intense joy. Her mind was an absolute mess, so failing to think things through thoroughly for a moment was somewhat forgivable. Besides, that quick bit of clever improvisation just now had patched things up pretty well, right? Thinking this, Shen Shuyue forgave her own recklessness and sat down on the rush mat. The Hall of Reflection was dead silent, and her heart finally began to calm down a little. Once she quieted down, it all felt truly unbelievable. Reflecting carefully, Pei Guangji's death was by no means a nightmare; it was something that had genuinely and truly happened. Yet everything right now was just as genuine and tangible. So had her fainting spell truly transported her from the fifteenth day of the tenth month in the first year of Qingzheng all the way back to the fifteenth day of the tenth month in the twelfth year of Xuanmo? Could such a divine miracle truly exist in this world? Whether it existed or not, it was here now. Perhaps even the heavens couldn't bear to see her and Pei Guangji being toyed with so cruelly by fate, and thus wished to compensate her with a span of time free of regrets. Even though Pei Guangji had rejected her back then and broken her heart... Before her eyes, the image of that chilling, rainy night suddenly resurfaced—Pei Guangji's face, pale as paper and steeped in the aura of death. Shen Shuyue couldn't help but shudder. Since the heavens had bestowed such a miracle, it must be to remind her to cherish the present. Now that she had been given a fresh start, she might as well not waste time holding grudges against past events. She would seize this opportunity to reach a happy conclusion with her beloved early on, and also prevent the fate of Pei Guangji dying young. Above all else, she had to protect her hands. Thinking of this, Shen Shuyue lowered her gaze to look at her own hands, rolled up her sleeves, picked up the wolf-hair brush on the desk, swirled it in ink, and tried writing on the bamboo paper. The long-awaited sensation of the brush touching paper made her tremble slightly with excitement. Fortunately, after a few clumsy strokes, her muscle memory quickly took over, and she carefully wrote an elegant "Yong" character stroke by stroke on the paper. The character "Yong" encompasses the eight fundamental brushstrokes of regular script in Chinese calligraphy and is the very first character practiced by beginners—writing it on this brand-new day felt wonderfully fitting. It was just a pity that such beautiful handwriting couldn't be shown to others. Her younger brother's atrocious hand produced characters that were remarkably ugly; back then, to ensure a smooth swap when her brother returned, she had been forced to mimic his terrible chicken-scratch handwriting at the academy. Oh well, chicken-scratch it was! Being able to hold a brush and write again was already a tremendous blessing in life! Full of fighting spirit, Shen Shuyue spread out a new sheet of paper, took up her brush, and began copying the texts at flying speed, thinking of finishing early so she could go find Pei Guangji. When the sun set and the task was successfully completed, she set down her brush and stretched her fingers, discovering not a single trace of fatigue. Instead, her bones and muscles felt wonderfully relaxed and refreshed. Right at that moment, a commotion drifted over from the distant lecture hall—school must have dismissed for the day. The teacher should also be coming to let her out. Shen Shuyue quickly tidied up her desk and sat down on the rush mat to wait. Yet she waited and waited, but no one came. With winter approaching, the days were growing shorter. The golden-red sunset quickly faded, and as she watched the night slowly close in, Shen Shuyue began to panic. Could she really have been forgotten here? Something like this seemed to have happened before... Shen Shuyue got up, walked over to the door, and tentatively called out, "Is anyone there?" Then she patted the doorframe and raised her voice to shout again, "Is there anyone outside?!" The entire academy seemed to have fallen into absolute stillness, and the only response to her was the wisps of the evening wind. Anxious, Shen Shuyue began pacing back and forth inside the room. After pacing twice, a thought suddenly struck her, and her gaze landed on the wooden-latticed window suspended high above. Two quarters of an hour later, Shen Shuyue used both hands and feet to climb out of the high window and jumped down outside. Coming from a merchant background, she had always been overlooked and unfavored in the academy, which was crowded with children of officials. She remembered that the last time she was forgotten in the Hall of Reflection, she had climbed out in this exact same way. The windows of the Hall of Reflection weren't truly sealed shut; with a bit of skill, they weren't hard to open. It was just that her technique was indeed a bit rusty. Not only did she fiddle with it for a long time, but she also failed to land properly and tumbled right into the bushes. When she climbed back up, her originally pristine scholar's gown was speckled with mud. Seeing that dusk had fully settled and wondering whether Pei Guangji was still at the academy, Shen Shuyue hurriedly brushed off her robe and strode briskly toward the lecture hall. By the time she arrived, completely out of breath, she found the doors and windows of the lecture hall shut tight, the candles extinguished, and the interior completely empty. Knowing she was still locked inside the Hall of Reflection, they had actually just left her behind like that. It was one thing for the teacher and her classmates to forget her, but even he had forgotten! What happened to their hearts being deeply attuned to one another? Shen Shuyue stamped her foot, knocking off a withered leaf caught in her hair, feeling even more indignant. After sulking in place for a short while, she lowered her head and walked toward the academy's mountain gate, venting her frustration by kicking a small stone all the way along. Each kick grew harder than the last, until with one final, forceful shove, the stone bounced far away. Shen Shuyue instinctively raised her head at the sight, and with that single glance, she suddenly saw someone standing outside the double-leafed black-lacquered gates ahead. On the bluestone steps before the mountain gate, a figure stood with one hand behind his back and the other lightly cupped in front. Slender and upright like a bamboo, he stood quietly beneath the eaves lantern. The hair ribbons in his locks fluttered gently in the breeze, yet his figure cut a lonely, desolate silhouette. Shen Shuyue's footsteps paused, and a look of pleasant surprise instantly appeared in her eyes: "Pei..." She had been too agitated in the lecture hall just now and had called Pei Guangji by his full name without thinking. But doing so in the academy was ultimately a bit rude, so she changed her address to his courtesy name: "Pei Yizhi?" Hearing the sound, Pei Guangji turned around and looked over at her. Shen Shuyue's eyes brightened as she trotted up to Pei Guangji and asked with a smile and a hint of curiosity, "Were you waiting for me?" The person before her lowered his thin, narrow eyelids, looked at her, and said nothing. Yet Shen Shuyue had already found her answer in his tacit silence. Smiling, she asked, "What were you waiting for me for?" Unexpectedly, Pei Guangji suddenly took a step back, gave her a formal bow with cupped hands, and said with a solemn and serious expression, "I do not know where Young Master Shen heard these things or what misunderstandings you may have. Pei is unaware that Young Master Shen has an elder sister, let alone harbors any romantic feelings for her. Regarding today's jest in the lecture hall, I ask that Young Master Shen never mention it again in the future." The smile froze on Shen Shuyue's face. He had stood here in the cold wind waiting for her for ages, just to clarify this with her? Seeing how serious and earnest he looked, acting as if he wanted nothing to do with any trouble, he truly seemed unaware that Shen Sizhou had an elder sister, nor did he know that she was a woman in disguise... So, Pei Guangji didn't even like her at this point in time? With complex emotions, Shen Shuyue looked at the youth before her, secretly regretting that she had arrived too early. She had thought that, even without considering the fortune-teller's prophecy, just based on the fact that Pei Guangji would later travel thousands of miles to propose marriage, it was impossible for him to have suddenly fallen in love with her years after they parted. He must have had feelings for her long ago back at the academy. Yet reflecting carefully now, it turned out that the time she revealed her true identity as a woman to Pei Guangji was actually much later. It was the night before Pei Guangji departed for the capital to take the imperial examinations, when his fellow students hosted a farewell banquet for him. Amidst the flowing wine and chatter, thinking that this parting might mean they would never see each other again, she grew sorrowful and drank a few cups too many. Walking back with Pei Guangji after the banquet, the alcohol went to her head. Tugging on his sleeve, she acted wildly drunk, claiming she had a big secret to share and blurting out that she was actually a young woman. She insisted that he take a look at her dressed in women's clothing before he left, right then and there taking apart her hair bun, wiping away her male makeup, and rushing into a clothing store to drape herself in a fairy-like gown and spin around in circles... Thinking of this, Shen Shuyue shuddered with awkwardness. She suddenly felt that arriving early wasn't so bad after all—such a mortifying piece of history could be completely avoided in this new lifetime! This time, she would wait with dignity and grace for Pei Guangji to fall in love with her on his own. A split second later, Shen Shuyue had made up her mind. Remembering the other person's statement just moments ago that he "did not know that Young Master Shen had an elder sister," she smoothly and seriously picked up the thread: "Well, now you know." Pei Guangji paused slightly, as if trying to recall whether he hadn't made himself clear enough just now: "What?" "I mean," Shen Shuyue gracefully tossed the hair ribbon draped over her shoulder backward, "now you know that I have an elder sister who is as beautiful as an immortal, exceptionally talented, peerlessly graceful, and still unmarried." Pei Guangji blinked lightly, his raven-black eyelashes casting a soft, faint shadow beneath his eyes. The trace of doubt in his gaze seemed to ask: So what? "So..." Shen Shuyue placed her hands behind her back, smiled, and leaned forward, "Would you like to meet her?" The chilly late-autumn wind seemed to grow quiet for a single moment. A moment later, looking somewhat at a loss for words, the youth pressed his thin lips together and coldly spat out two characters: "I wouldn't."