As expected, the morning after the moon-sweeping banquet, everyone who had attended it submitted leave requests. Everyone except Xijiu Ge and Li Hanguang. At dawn, the students who had no such luck shuffled into Qingxin Hall with hollow faces, still half-asleep. They stopped in the doorway. At the front of the hall sat the Goddess of Purity. At the back sat the Demon World Proton. Both had their heads down, turning pages in silence, in precisely the same unhurried way. The student nearest the door swallowed his half-formed yawn and said nothing. Word had spread fast. Something had gone wrong at Beichahai the night before. The young lords and ladies attending the banquet had been caught inside an illusion, many of them quietly wounded before anyone understood what was happening. Since the hour of the ox, the carriages of the Five Emperors had been rolling in and out of Yongtian Palace without pause. A disturbance that large was supposed to empty a place out, leave it rattled and dis...
Zhou Man did not yet know what had happened outside her door. She tucked the copper coin and thumb ring away and turned to look at Zhao Nishang, who had just stepped inside. The room was still slightly disordered from her earlier fight with Jin Buhuan. Zhao Nishang noticed, said nothing, drew a quiet breath, and came forward to bow. "The servants of Qiluo Hall mentioned Senior Sister came by this morning. I was away at the time. I apologize for missing you." "It doesn't matter," Zhou Man said. "I wasn't there for you then." She stood, crossed to the writing desk, and picked up the pages she had spent the morning on. Then she glanced back and saw that Zhao Nishang was holding a small porcelain jar, expression cautious, as though working up the nerve to speak. "Is that for me?" Zhao Nishang exhaled. "I had some free time these past two days. I went up the mountain and picked a little snow-bud tea, just finished roasting it. I th...