Teacher Xu had never met Lin Chongtan before. He was stunned for a moment and looked at me as if asking who he was. I lowered my voice and said, “This is Lin Chongtan.”
I didn’t need to say anything else. Teacher Xu already knew exactly who he was. “So, you are Lin Chongtan. I heard your name even before I arrived at the Imperial College.”
After his initial coldness, Lin Chongtan returned to his usual polite self. He spoke warmly to Teacher Xu. In just a few words, he found out why the teacher had come to see me.
Teacher Xu loved to collect seals. He knew I had a very good seal and couldn’t even wait until tomorrow to see it. But once he saw Lin Chongtan, he forgot about the seal for a moment.
Teacher Xu had admired Lin Chongtan’s musical piece, Ode to King Wen, for a long time. He really wanted to hear Lin Chongtan play the zither.
However, Lin Chongtan refused. “I’m sorry, I haven’t been feeling well these past two days. I’m afraid I cannot play.”
After being turned down, Teacher Xu gave an awkward smile. “I see.” He then looked at me and said, “Chun Di, where is your seal?”
While they were talking, I had been ignored. Now, Teacher Xu finally remembered he came to see the seal.
I had planned to show him a different seal, but when I went to get it, my hand reached for the one Lin Chongtan had given me.
When I placed the seal on the table, I didn’t dare to look at Lin Chongtan.
Teacher Xu’s eyes lit up when he saw the seal. He picked it up and looked at it closely against the light. He praised it, saying, “Hetian jade itself is very rare. This kind of clear Hetian jade is even harder to find. There are very few like it in the world. The last one I saw was just a broken piece with scratches. This one has no flaws at all.”
He kept praising it and looked at me with excitement. “Chun Di, can I borrow this seal for a few days? I promise I won’t damage it.”
Hearing this, I couldn’t help but look at Lin Chongtan, who was sitting on the other side of the table.
Lin Chongtan didn’t seem to care. His expression didn’t change at all. He sat there calmly, listening to us talk. Seeing that I didn’t answer, Teacher Xu looked awkward again. “Is it not convenient?”
“No,” I moved my eyes away and acted like it was nothing. “Since you like it, Teacher Xu, you can borrow it for a few days.”
After borrowing the seal, Teacher Xu noticed the painting on my wall, Night Tour on the Qiqiao Festival. He stood in front of it for a long time. When he saw the poem on the painting, he looked at me with praise. “I didn’t know you were so good at painting. I have read your poem many times. I think soon everyone in the capital will know that besides Lin Chongtan, there is another very talented person in the Lin family—Chun Di Lin.”
The painting wasn’t mine, the poem wasn’t written by me, and even the seal Teacher Xu loved was a gift from Lin Chongtan.
In the past, I would have felt very ashamed. But today, hearing his praise, I only looked down and gave a fake smile.
After Teacher Xu left happily, only Lin Chongtan and I were left in the room. Liangji had gone to buy silver charcoal. The weather was getting cold, and I felt the cold more than most people, so I always started a fire early.
I sat at the table, looking down and holding a cup of hot tea. I wondered when Liangji would come back. I also tried to remember the last line of a text I learned today, but I couldn’t.
While I was thinking, someone sat on the stool next to me. My first reaction was to put down the cup and leave, but he quickly grabbed my hand.
“Xiao Di, I just came back from Luoyi. I brought you some things,” Lin Chongtan said.
He was talking about the big box in the middle of the room. I had noticed it when I came in, but I didn’t ask about it.
Inside the box were trendy clothes, incense, and toys from Luoyi. Compared to the bright red fox fur coat, a small ceramic doll caught my attention more.
Lin Chongtan noticed what I was looking at. He took the doll out and put it in front of me.
“Do you like it? I saw it on the street and thought you might like it, so I bought it.”
Since our last fight, we hadn’t seen each other for over a month. I knew what these gifts meant—he was trying to make peace.
Because Lin Chongtan hadn’t shown up for a month, even Liangji was worried. He was afraid Lin Chongtan would stop being close to me.
Liangji was right to worry. If Lin Chongtan stayed away from me, what would I do?
I had no friends at the Imperial College, and the teachers didn’t care about me. Without Lin Chongtan helping me study, I would come in last on the exams. If my family found out, my father wouldn’t let me return home. Even if my mother let me back, she would probably tell me to stay inside the house forever.
I couldn’t lose Lin Chongtan.
Those people weren’t wrong; I was using my body to stay close to a powerful person. They just didn’t know that the person in my bed was the same Lin Chongtan that everyone respected and admired.
After a long silence, I took the ceramic doll from his hand and said quietly, “Are you going to eat dinner here tonight?”
After eating with me, Lin Chongtan left in a hurry. He had a banquet to attend. Even though he was back at the college, he was still very busy. After I showed that poem to Teacher Xu, it slowly began to spread. Instead of praise, I received doubt.
Someone publicly asked if I really wrote that poem.
I was very nervous, but I had to act calm. “I wrote it.”
The person wanted to say more, but Wenle Nie interrupted him. Since the last incident, Wenle Nie always looked at me with a dark expression. I wasn’t sure if it was just my imagination.
“He said he wrote it. Have you heard this poem before? Have you seen it? Unless you wrote it, why are you doubting him?”
Wenle Nie insulted the person so much that they went silent, especially since their family wasn’t as powerful as his. Although I escaped trouble this time, I felt very uneasy.
With my skills, I couldn’t have written that poem. It was normal for them to doubt me.
No, I can’t let them doubt me. I have to make them believe I wrote it. I don’t want… to be so far behind Lin Chongtan. Even if it’s a lie, I want this fame.
I went to find Lin Chongtan on my own.
Lin Chongtan came back even later than usual. He had been drinking. When he saw me, he looked surprised for a moment and then gave a faint smile. “Xiao Di.”
He was truly drunk. He even dragged me into the bath with him. Seeing this, Qingqiu and Baichi quickly left. I couldn’t do anything with a drunk man. I was pulled into the tub, and my clothes got completely soaked.
Lin Chongtan rested his face on my shoulder and closed his eyes. He looked exhausted, but I couldn’t push him away at all.
“Are you actually drunk or just pretending?” I complained.
He didn’t answer. He just rubbed his face against my shoulder. This childish behavior stunned me. I remembered that everyone called him a genius, but he was actually the same age as me.
They said he was a child prodigy at age three, knew a thousand words at five, and could write great essays by seven.
Did he ever get to play when he was little? Did he climb trees or dig for worms like other kids? Did he ever cry?
Probably not. Someone like him probably acted like an adult since he was a child. Thinking about this, I suddenly laughed.
Lin Chongtan opened his eyes because of my laughter. He watched me quietly without moving. His gaze made my face feel hot. I looked away quickly and remembered why I came.
I wanted him to write something else for me.
“Chongtan,” I turned my head back. He was still staring at me. “I want you to help me write.” The words were hard to say, and I froze.
Lin Chongtan blinked slowly. I didn’t know if he understood me. He took my hand and wrote a poem on my palm.
“My dreaming soul is used to being free; I walk through the willow flowers over the bridge again,” I whispered the last line he wrote. My eyes felt wet.
After this poem spread, fewer people doubted me. Soon, the poem reached the music houses and brothels, where women began to sing it.
When I heard about this, Lin Chongtan came to see me again.
Unlike the time he was drunk, he looked very upset. Even Liangji could tell; he made an excuse and ran away in fear. I was also a bit scared. I tried to stay calm and asked, “What’s wrong?”
Lin Chongtan closed his eyes. “Why did you let that poem spread?”
“I… didn’t you write it for me?”
“I wrote it for you, but that doesn’t mean you can…” He didn’t finish the sentence and looked away.
I didn’t understand why he was so angry. Didn’t he agree that night? And the first poem was even better than this one. If he was going to be mad, he should have been mad about that one.
I knew I was in the wrong. Being questioned like this made me feel bad. “If you don’t like it, I will go tell everyone that you wrote them.”
Before I could walk out the door, he grabbed me.
“Never mind.” His mood seemed to return to normal, and his voice became soft.
I looked at him, thinking about the difference between last time and this time. After a moment, I grabbed his sleeve instead. “Do… do you want to do it?”